Revolutionary Friedrich Engels at 200

 

Friedrich Engels, Philosopher, Political economist, activist and Revolutionary Socialist, was born in Barmen, Rhenish Prussia, 200 years ago today on the 28th November 1820. He was the oldest of the six children of Friedrich and Elisabeth Franziska Mauritia Engels. The senior Engels, a successful industrialist, was a Christian Pietist and religious fanatic. After attending elementary school at Barmen, young Friedrich entered the gymnasium in nearby Elberfeld at the age of 14, but he left it 3 years later. Although he became one of the most learned men of his time, he had no further formal schooling.

Under pressure from his tyrannical father, Friedrich was sent to the city of Bremen to be inducted into the family business by learning about the industry as a clerk to a firm of linen exporters.To assuage the deadly boredom, Engels wrote articles in newspapers that were critiques of the conditions of workers and the social costs of industrialisation. He had naturally not yet formulated any critique of capitalism per se, His ire was directed at the stultifying effects of Calvinism and the social costs of the Protestant work ethic with the misery it imposed on factory workers.
In 1841, bored with being deskbound in Bremen, Engels returned home to a life that he found equally tedious. To escape he, later that year, volunteered for one year’s service with the Royal Prussian Guards Artillery, based in the capital Berlin.

In Berlin, he came into contact with the radical  Young Hegelian movement who were inspired by the revolutionary essence of the  German idealist philosopher George Hegel, and attracted by his dialectical method which espoused constant development and change through contradiction. Engel's embraced these ideas.

Engels said of the Young Hegelians that some, including himself, ‘contended for the insufficiency of political change and declared their opinion to be that a social revolution based upon common property, was the only state of mankind agreeing with their abstract principles.’

After some free-lance journalism, part of it under the pseudonym of F. Oswald, in November 1842 Engels moved to Manchester, England, to help manage his father's cotton-factory in Manchester. Several months prior to Engels’ arrival, the Chartist movement reached its peak. With 70,000 members, it was the first mass political movement of the working class anywhere in the world. The Chartists collected 3.3 million signatures on a petition presented to the House of Commons calling for universal suffrage for all men over the age of 21 and a series of social reforms. The rejection of the petition by the House of Commons triggered a series of strikes that were brutally suppressed. Engels supported the cause and became friends with the left-wing Chartist leader Julian Harney and wrote for his newspaper, the Northern Star. He also had contact with the followers of Robert Owen’s utopian socialism.

Manchester in the 1840s was a crucible of the industrial revolution and Engels found himself working and living in a community dominated by the cotton manufacturers.
Here he came face to face with unbridled capitalist exploitation and the degradation of the working class.
He wrote later: ‘A few days in my old man’s factory have sufficed to bring me face to face with its beastliness, which I had rather overlooked.’
Although forced to work alongside the bourgeoisie, he made a point of not socialising with them. He wrote: ‘I forsook the company and the dinner parties, the port wine and champagne of the middle classes, and devoted my leisure hours almost exclusively to the intercourse with plain working men.’
Aged just 24, Engels, guided by Mary Burns a radical young working class Irishwoman who became his lifelong companion, witnessed capitalist industrialisation more extensive, repressive and exploitative than any he had seen in Germany.
In his first major book, ‘The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844’, Engels reports in excruciating detail the miseries of child labour, starvation wages and appalling working conditions, resulting in crippling injuries or deformities even among the youngest workers.
He called living conditions in English industrial towns ‘the highest and most unconcealed pinnacle of social misery existing in our day’.
Accompanied by Mary, he witnessed and heard from their own mouths the conditions endured by workers and their families.
Engels wrote: ‘It is utterly indifferent to the English bourgeois whether his working-men starve or not, if only he makes money. All the conditions of life are measured by money, and what brings no money is nonsense, unpractical, idealistic bosh.’
Engels observed the rapid rise of illegal trade unionism.
He wrote: ‘The incredible frequency of these strikes proves best of all to what extent the social war has broken out all over England.
‘No week passes, scarcely a day, indeed, when there is not a strike in some direction.’
Many liberals had bemoaned the wretched inhuman conditions of the working class but they saw it as a helpless class that deserved the ‘help’ of their liberal superiors.
But ‘Condition of the Working Class in England’ was much more than just an exposé of the inhumanity of capitalism.
Engels was the first to understand that this oppressed mass was not just an exploited working class but the only class that could liberate mankind from capitalism – capitalism for Engels had created in the working class its own ‘gravedigger’.
The book created an immediate sensation in German radical circles (it was at first only published in Germany). Karl Marx was particularly enthusiastic about it.

In 1844 Engels began contributing to a radical journal called Franco-German Annals that was being edited by Karl Marx in Paris. In the same year1844, Engels contributed an article, ‘Outline of a Critique of Political Economy’. In this, Engels laid the foundational principles for the critique of bourgeois political economy. Engels demonstrated that all important phenomena in the bourgeois economic system arise inevitably from the rules of private  ownership of the means of production and a society without poverty could only be a society without this private ownership. This immensely fascinated Marx. He came to the conclusion that through a critique of bourgeois political economy, another thinker had come, independently, to the same conclusion that he had come to with his critique of Hegelian philosophy. The pioneering work by Engels, ‘The Condition of the Working Class in England’, also greatly influenced Marx’s line of thinking on the beginnings of the industrial revolution that was taking place in England. During ten days of exchanges in August 1844, Marx’s admiration for Engels grew enormously. He admired Engels’ courage, dedication, single-mindedness and noted that both were in agreement on all theoretical questions of the day. Later that year Engels met Marx and the two men became close friends. A lifelong intellectual rapport and camararderie  was established between them. Finding they were of the same opinion about nearly everything, Marx and Engels decided to collaborate on their writing. It was a good partnership. Whereas Marx was at his best when dealing with difficult abstract concepts, Engels had the ability to write for a mass audience.

While working on their first article together, The Holy Family, the Prussian authorities put pressure on the French government to expel Karl Marx from the country. On 25th January 1845, Marx received an order deporting him from France. Marx and Engels decided to move to Belgium, a country that permitted greater freedom of expression than any other European state. Friedrich Engels helped to financially support Marx and his family. Engels gave Marx the royalties of his book, The Condition of the Working Class in England and arranged for other sympathizers to make donations. This enabled Marx to study and develop his economic and political theories.

In July 1845 Engels took Karl Marx to England. They spent most of the time consulting books in Manchester Library. Engels and Marx returned to Brussels and in January 1846 they set up a Communist Correspondence Committee. Engels returned to England in December 1847 where he attended a meeting of the Communist League's Central Committee in London. At the meeting it was decided that the aims of the organisation was "the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the domination of the proletariat, the abolition of the old bourgeois society based on class antagonisms, and the establishment of a new society without classes and without private property".

Engels and Marx began writing a pamphlet together. Based on a first draft produced by Engels called the Principles of Communism, Marx finished the 12,000 word pamphlet in six weeks. Unlike most of Marx's work, it was an accessible account of communist ideology. Written for a mass audience, The Communist Manifesto summarised the forthcoming revolution and the nature of the communist society that would be established by the proletariat. The Communist Manifesto was published in February, t opens with the words: ‘A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of Communism’ and then it declares proudly: ‘Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of modern industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product.’
It goes on: ‘What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own gravediggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.’
The Manifesto concludes: ‘Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite!’
Three days later, a revolutionary uprising in France overthrew the monarchy. The revolution spread to Germany in March and rapidly expanded across Europe. The feudal rulers of the German states were forced to abdicate in droves or accept parliaments and constitutions. In May, the National Assembly began meeting in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt, where it was to draft a constitution for a united Germany.

Marx and Engels did not hesitate for a moment to participate in the revolution. Drawing on the tradition of the Rheinische Zeitung, which was banned in 1843, Marx and Engels founded the Neue Rheinische Zeitung (NRZ) in Cologne.The men hoped to use the newspaper to encourage the revolutionary atmosphere that they had witnessed in Paris. Three hundred and one editions of the paper appeared between June 1, 1848 and May 19, 1849, and the publication reached a circulation of 6,000, a considerable number at the time. The newspaper saw itself as the left wing of the democratic camp and its task as pushing forward the bourgeois revolution, which, as the Communist Manifesto had declared, “will be but the prelude of an immediately following proletarian revolution.”

Engels helped form an organisation called the Rhineland Democrats. On 25th September, 1848, several of the leaders of the group were arrested. Engels managed to escape but was forced to leave the country. Karl Marx continued to publish the New Rhenish Gazette until he was expelled in May, 1849. Engels and Marx then moved to London.

In November 1850, unable to make a living as a writer in London and anxious to help support the penniless Marx, Engels returned to his father’s business in Manchester. All the time, the two men kept an almost  daily correspondence, exchanging ideas and opinions and collaborating in developing the theory of scientific socialism. Friedrich Engels sent postal orders or £1 or £5 notes, cut in half and sent in separate envelopes. In this way the Marx family was able to survive.
At the same time, they took a leading role in the struggle of workers in Britain and across the world.
In 1864, Marx and Engels founded the International Working Men’s Association which, in accordance with their idea of uniting workers of all countries, was to have a tremendous significance in the development of the international working class movement.

In September 1870 Engels moved to London, settling near the home of Marx, whom he saw daily. A generous friend and gay host, the fun-loving Engels spent the remaining 25 years of his life in London, enjoying good food, good wine, and good company. He also worked hard, doing the things he loved: writing, maintaining contact and a voluminous correspondence with radicals everywhere. 

After Marx’s death, Engels continued alone as the counsellor and leader of the European socialist movement, which had become a mass force. His advice was eagerly sought after, and he drew on his vast knowledge and experience in his old age.

Like Marx, Engels knew many foreign languages, he could converse freely in English, French, Italian, and could read Spanish and almost all Slavic and Scandanavian languages. He and Marx conducted a massive correspondence on a host of questions. Incredibly, this covers 13 volumes of the Collected Works, amounting to 3,957 letters. These reveal the fascinating close bond between them and their joint work.

Marx died before he could put the final touches to his vast work on political economy. Using the drafts left by Marx, Engels put his own research aside and took on the colossal task of completing Marx’s work, editing and publishing volumes two and three of Capital. Only he could decipher Marx’s unintelligible handwriting.

Engels continued to write prefaces to the ‘Communist Manifesto’ and other newer editions of their works on the basis of contemporary developments enriching the international working class struggles and urging its forward movement. As Lenin said, “Engels taught the working class to know itself and be conscious of itself and he substituted science for dreams.” 

On Aug. 14, 1889, the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution, the Second International was founded in Paris at Engels’ initiative. Around 300 parties and organisations from 20 countries were represented. Engels was in particularly close contact with the leaders of the German Social Democracy, who regularly sought his advice. He attended the Third Congress of the International in Zurich. In the closing session, he addressed the delegates first in English, then in French, then in German.

 Engels died of cancer in London on Aug. 5, 1895 a revolutionary communist to the very core. His ashes were cast into the sea off Beachy Head in Eastbourne.

 Engels’ masterful command of language, his ability to present complex material in an understandable way, his encyclopedic knowledge, and his humour, which shone through even in connection with the most serious topics, make the reading of his works a pleasure to this day.Without him, Marx's work would gave been impossible and would not have been preserved. Marxism was originally an Engels-Marx-ism Whoever speaks of socialism today must not forget Engels for the vital contribution that he made to developing the ideas of Marxism, for which we owe him an enormous debt of gratitude.

I will acknowledge we should not forget those that twisted communism into tyranny's that Marx and Engel's  could not have anticipated. In none of his writings did Engel's  condone, mass murder, torture or show trials.

Today I remember a man who dedicated his life to the revolutionary struggle  of the proletariat to free itself from the chains of capitalism and usher in a new era of history. On the bicentenary of his birth, without doubt his  towering revolutionary spirit lives on in the Marxist tendency, which defends his legacy, and the struggle for world socialism. 200 years after Engel's birth Britain is still, sadly a country that murders it's poor, if we really want to remember him we should continue to fight against poverty and  austerity that creates it.

Anarchy in the UK - Sex Pistols : 44 Years Later

On 27th November in 1976. The Sex Pistols released their incendiary ' Anarchy In The UK' single, with iconic cover art by Jamie Reid. shocking society and inspiring rebellious young people. Under the influence of their manager, Malcolm McLaren, who was himself influenced by Situationst  thinking and reasoning, https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/jan-d-matthews-an-introduction-to-the-situationists at the  that time, the band consisted of John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) on vocals, guitarist Steve Jones, drummer Paul Cook and bassist Glen Matlock, who was replaced by Sid Vicious in early 1977.

Although the Damned's `New Rose' is hailed as the first punk single to be released, it could be argued that  the Pistols song was the one  that best epitomised this emerging subculture.The lyrics portray a particularly sensational, violent concept of anarchy that reflected the pervasive sense of embittered anger, confusion, restlessness, economic frustration and social alienation which was being felt by a generation of disenfranchised youth amidst the declining economic situation and bland music scene of the mid-1970s.

From the sneering `I am an antichrist, I am an anarchist', to the final lingering `destroy', the track was, as  Jon Savage noted, `a call to arms, delivered in language that was as explosive as the implications of the group's name'. " The track is immediately confrontational, and begins with a contemptuous, laughing John Lydon - lead vocalist - delivering a drawn-out declamation of the words `right, now'. The tone is almost one of mocking the audience, celebrating the emergence of punk against the stale musical environment of the time, as well as the increasing economic and social breakdown that was gripping Britain. 

As the track continues, themes such as the Antichrist, the destroying of passersby, the IRA and Council Estates are juxtaposed, almost laboured so as to produce clashing half rhymes. Whilst UK, UDA and IRA are fused together, the line `I use the NME, I use anarchy' highlights the ambiguity of syllabic pronunciation: the question as to Lydon actually meaning `enemy' - rather than a reference to the established popular music press and the New Music Express - could be asked. Moreover, the track pulls upon a notion that will become more evident in the latter single `God Save the Queen': the idea that those listening lack a sense of future. It could be argued that the Pistols do indeed sum up the unemployment figures of July 1975, of the seemingly apocalyptic atmosphere of the time. `Anarchy in the UK' seems to sum up this sense of helplessness, this supposed lack of future in 1970s Britain. Yet this track also moves towards establishing the idea of a punk rock aesthetic. 

Less than two months later the Pistols record label EMI would  drop them after appearing as late replacements for EMI labelmates  Queen on Today, a live London regional TV show. When presenter Bill Grundy, contemptuously encouraged them to swear, they duly obliged, damaging his career while catapulting themselves to notoriety, and sparking a moral panic. A&M  would then sign the band, only to drop them after only six days. Turning up drunk , then trashing A&M' offices probably helped to further  fuel their anti-establishment image. 

It was compounded, in the summer of 1977, by ' God Save The Queen;  the group's  dissection of Britain's fading imperial process, release to coincide with the ' mad parade'  of the Queen's Silver Jubilee, with the Sex Pistols being seen to embody a thriving awakening politically charged youth culture.

The subsequent national newspaper headlines and ensuing moral panic led venues, under pressure from councils, to cancel gigs by the Sex Pistols, fearing violence, vandalism and who knows what else, It would see a rise in extreme hairdos, an increased rejection of social and consensus acceptability, that was condemned by the press at the times. But to be vilified for your stance at the time was a badge of honour, not a condemnation. 

And, although, the Pistol's were by no means the world's first punk band, they were the band which took punk mainstream. After them, the floodgates opened and the pop charts would be dominated by bands full of angry young men ( and the occasional angry young woman)  'Anarchy In The UK'  wasn't even a big hit at the time of it's release.but In the years since, the importance of it  to popular music has been fully recognised. Rolling Stone magazine had it as number 56 in their Greatest Songs of All Time listing. It is also one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs That Shaped Rock And Roll list.

Although the Pistols  played together for fewer than three years, their cultural and musical influence remains. 

Alongside bands like The Clash, ( who I much prefer incidentally) the Ramones, the Stranglers, the Buzzcocks, X Ray Spex and the anarcho punk movement that would emerge, epitomised by bands like the seminal Crass, who formed in November 1977  the Mob, Zounds and the Subhumans, the Pistols helped create and shape punk rock, an aesthetic and political revolution that has since swept the world. 

During 1977,the burgeoning punk scene began  featuring punk and reggae bands playing together throughout the country. This close association appeared to be cemented in April 1978 when RAR jointly organised a national concert in London, with the newly-formed Anti-Nazi League The  Pistols, who had broken up by 1978, did not play at the RAR concerts (and bassist Sid Vicious drew criticism early in the group’s run for wearing a swastika as a fashion statement), but Rotten said that he supported the movement. “I despise them,”  he said of the hate spreaders of the time, the likes of Enoch Powell nnd the National Front " No one should have the right to tell anyone they can't live here because of the color of their skin or their religion … How could anyone vote for something so ridiculously inhumane?  This  is quite a contrast to Lydon’s comments recently about his fondness for the likes of Donald Trump and Nigel Farage , leading one to wonder if he was ever sincere in his commitment to anti-racism. Perhaps he was always more interested in positioning himself as a contrarian.

The Carnival Against the Nazis featured punk groups such as the Clash and X-Ray Spex. For many, the highlight of the day was the sight of the Clash singing “White Riot” along with Jimmy Pursey of the punk band Sham 69. A symbol of a close, harmonious relationship between music and politics in the late 1970s—a homogeneous punk movement  that was prepared to make a stand against racism out of political conviction and to collaborate actively with anti-racist activists. This I guess should be further reflected upon in a future blog post.…

Punk's far from dead, neither is the true spirit of anarchy, more than a fashion statement to be commodified and sold, and hijacked by the mainstream,  it's early instigators being accused of selling out, it's influence on arts and culture is undeniable. Remember anger is an energy, that will never die. 

Whilst many take the meaning of ' Anarchy In The UK'  to be a real call to arms, and the epitome of what anarchism is, other believe the song “is a sarcastic parody of anarchism as a code of ethics and philosophy from the most sarcastic and front man in history”

Nonetheless, the song is still interpreted today as the epitome of rebellion and not giving a damn. The lyrics speak for themselves. Lets continue to question everything, turn conformity on it's head. In our politically and culturally conflicted times , 'Anarchy in the UK' still resonates, strikes a chord, and  despite Rotten's recent descent  into vacuousness we can at least still enjoy his song. We can still play our part in acts of cultural subversion, changing the world through art and ideas, that are no less  needed than in the present times we live.

Right now ha, ha, ha, ha, ha
I am an anti-Christ
I am an anarchist
Don't know what I want
But I know how to get it
I want to destroy the passerby

'Cause I want to be anarchy
No dogs body

Anarchy for the U.K.
It's coming sometime and maybe
I give a wrong time, stop a traffic line
Your future dream has sure been seen through

'Cause I want to be anarchy
In the city

How many ways to get what you want
I use the best, I use the rest
I use the N.M.E.
I use anarchy

'Cause I want to be anarchy
Its the only way to be

Is this the MPLA
Or is this the UDA
Or is this the IRA
I thought it was the U.K.
Or just another country
Another council tenancy

I want to be anarchy
And I want to be anarchy
(Oh what a name)
And I want to be an anarchist
(I get pissed, destroy!)

Sex Pistols - Anarchy in  the UK

International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women

Violence against women is a human rights violation and a consequence of discrimination against women, in law and also in practice, as well as of persisting inequalities between men and women. This violence impacts on, and impedes, progress in many areas, including poverty eradication, combating HIV/AIDS, and peace and security. However, violence against women and girls is not inevitable. Prevention is possible and essential.

Women’s activists have marked 25 November as a day against violence since 1981. This date came from the brutal assassination in 1960, of the three Mirabal sisters, political activists in the Dominican Republic, on orders of Dominican ruler Rafael Trujillo (1930-1961).

On 20 December 1993 the General Assembly, by resolution 48/104, adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women.

In this context, in 1999 the United Nations General Assembly designated 25 November as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and invited governments, international organizations and NGOs to organize on that day activities designed to raise public awareness of the problem.

The International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women also launches the 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence, which runs through to 10 December, Human Rights Day.A time to galvanise action to end violence against women and girls around the world.

According to the United Nations, violence against women means “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life”.

 The term “gender-based violence” is often used interchangeably with “violence against women,” reflecting the fact that a disproportionate number of gender-based crimes are committed against women. It is a global pandemic, deeply rooted in gender inequality, and is fundamentally a human rights violation. Gender-based violence has no social or economic boundaries. It is present in all countries, rich and poor, and affects all socio-economic groups.

Globally, 1 woman out of 3 has experienced some form of physical, psychological or sexual violence. In some countries, this dramatic figure increases, involving 7 women out of 10. Violence against women is one of the most spread human rights violations, and affects women of any age, ethnic group, culture, and social class. An estimated 133 million girls and women have experienced some form of female genital mutilation, whilst more than 700 million women alive today were married as children, 250 million of whom were married before the age of 15.603 million women live in countries where domestic violence is not yet considered a crime.Women  and girls make up 80% of the estimated 800,000 people trafficked across national borders annually, with 79% of  them trafficked for sexual exploitation.

It's also worth noting that political imprisonment is  also a key aspect of the institutional violence against Palestinian women enacted by Israeli occupation and colonization and enabled by U.S., Canadian and European support for Israel’s ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity targeting the Palestinian people. There are currently 40 Palestinian women prisoners, including student activists like Ruba Assi, Mays Abu Ghosh, Layan Kayed and Elia Abu Hijleh; parliamentarians and advocates like Khalida Jarrar; journalists like Bushra Tawil; and dozens of others.

Fiinally bcause of the COVID- 19 pandemic, stuck in a hostile environment, women this year battled patriarchy and toxicity due to the outbreak. Not only this, for years, women have been at the centre of abuse and gender-based violence. From battling societal norms to quashing stereotypes, women all over the world have been fighting for equality, peace and harmony. International Day for Elimination of Violence against Women is a day that emphasises the importance of creating an uplifting environment for women across the world. Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls and  raising  awareness is particularly important at this time due to the devastating impact of Coronavirus lockdown measures on survivors of gender-based violence. It’s essential that those impacted  know that their is help is available and they are not alone. Violence against women and girls is one of the most widespread violations of human rights. 25 November and the ensuing 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence which follow are a chance to mobilize and call attention to the urgent need to end violence against women and girls. 

 

Some more resources to help teach about this issue:

 

Amnesty International: Women’s Rights resources 

Plan: Sazia’s Story 

TrueTube: Assembly script and film clips 

Women’s Aid: Expect Respect education toolkit (PDF) (quality assured by the PSHE Association)

The United Nations Association – UK (UNA-UK) has a page with background information and teaching activities for this Day.

Beunaventarra Durruti laid to rest (14/7/1889 - 20/11/1936)

 

With forty years of  fighting, of exile, of jailings, of living underground, of strikes, and of insurrection, Beunaventura Durutti, the  legendary Spanish revolutionary and Anarchist lived many lives. Uncompromising, intransigent revolutionary, he travelled a long road from rebellious young worker to the man who refused all bureacratic positions, honours, awards, and who at death was mourned by millions of women and men. Durutti believed and lived his belief that revolution and freedom were inseperable. 

He was born the son of a railway worker on July 14^th 1896 in Leon, a city in central Spain. Aged 14 he leaves school to become a trainee mechanic in the railway yard. Like his father, he joins the socialist UGT union. He takes an active part in the strike of August 1917 when the government overturned an agreement between the union and the employers. This soon became a general strike throughout the area. The government brought in the army and within three days the strikers had been crushed. The troops behaved with extreme brutality, killing 70 and wounding 500 workers. 2,000 strikers were jailed. 

Durruti managed to escape to France, where he came into contact with exiled anarchists, whose influence led to him joining the anarchist CNT union upon his return in January 1919. He joins the fight against dictatorial employers in the Asturian mines and is arrested for the first time in March 1919; he escapes and over the next decade and a half he throws himself into activity for the CNT and for the anarchist movement. 

These years see him involved in several strikes and being forced into exile. Unwittingly the Spanish government ‘exported’ rebellion, as Durruti and his close friend Francisco Ascaso happily joined the struggle for freedom wherever they ended up, in both Europe and Latin America. 

The Spanish monarchy fell in 1931 and Durruti moved to Barcelona; accompanied by his French companion Emilienne, pregnant with their daughter Colette. He joined the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI), a specifically anarchist organization, and together with other militants they form the ‘Nosotros’ group. These were members within the CNT of a radical tendency that harboured no illusions with respect to the recently proclaimed Republic, maintaining that the moment was ripe for continued progress towards a social revolution. 

With the electoral victory by the liberal/reformist Popular Front in February 1936, Left and Right were on a collision course, initiated very rapidly by Franco’s military rebellion on July 19^th 1936. The CNT and the FAI confronted the army with courage, organization and mass mobilizations. 

They triumphed in much of Spain despite the fascist superiority in weapons and resources. The anarchist contribution was decisive in resisting the fascists throughout the country and in Catalonia defeated the rebels singlehandedly, Durruti being one of the boldest fighters in this battle.

 Jose Buenaventura Durruti, always fought for the poor and downtrodden, and against the State, whether of the social democratic, fascist or marxist varieties When Spanish fascists attempted to overthrow  the  Republican government on July 19th 1936, Durruti and other comrades helped put down the uprising in Barclenoa. He became a member of  the Anti fascist Militia Committee and led the "Durruti" Column an almost  mythical  group of CNT militants to the  Zaragoza front. The Durruti column was able to liberate  much of Aragon. He  was an inspiration to many as a partisan of the Spanish people with an internationalist vision, who for him personally revolutionary thought and action went hand in hand. 

In 1936, after the liberation of Aragon from Franco's forces, Durruti was interviewed by Pierre van Paasen of the Toronto Star. In this interview he gives his views on Fascism, government and social revolution despite the fact that his remarks have only been reported in English - and were never actually written down by him in his native Spanish, well worth reading and can be found here https://libcom.org/history/buenaventura-durruti-interview-pierre-van-paasen 

 On 14th November Durutti arrived in Madrid at the height of the  civil war from Aragon,by air with 5,000 men( numbers vary according to different accounts). The column had to go by train as all the railway tracks had been bombed. He went  to the frontline on the 16th.

Tragically Durruti on the 19th November  1936, he was shot dead  by a sniper, receiving a bullet to his chest, as he rallied his militia  to continue their resistance after days of fighting without respite. he died the following day, at the age of 40.  His death was a tragedy for all free thinkers, in the fight against fascist tyranny. His death was also a turning point in the Spanish Revolution and one of the events that lead to the defeat of the revolution. 

When his body was returned to Barcelona  over 500,000  people took to the streets on this day November 22 1936  to follow his funeral procession, the  biggest funeral in Spanish history, a tribute to the place he played in peoples hearts, his coffin draped with the familiar diagonal red and black flag. A hero to the Spanish working class ,and today  Durruti remains a lasting icon of anarchism, both in Spain and around the world, a man who.was determined to leave this world a better place than when he entered it. With the rise again of the far right, no better  time than to remember this inspirational man who died fighting against fascism in the Spanish Civil War.

Rare footage of Beunaventura Durutti's funeral.

This book is his definite biography :

https://libcom.org/library/durruti-spanish-revolution

 Further reading:-

Daniel Guerin - No Gods, no masters; 2006

Durruti - The people Armed - Abel Paz

   "  We  have always  loved in slums and holes in the wall. We will  know how to accommodate ourselves for  time. For you must not forget we can also build. It is we who built the palaces and cities here in Spain and America and everywhere. We the workers, can build others to take their place. And better ones. We are not in the  least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth. There is  not the slightest  doubt about that. The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world, here in our hearts. That world is growing every minute."-  Beunaventarra Durruti

Spain, Aragon , 1936

sleep furiously

 

I have been rediscovering an award winning documentary from 2007  called Sleep Furiously a quietly  melancholic film set in a small hill- farming community in Trefeurig, mid Wales, Ceredigion, 10 miles from Aberystwyth.

A place where director Gideon Koppel's parents, both refugees  who escaped Nazi Germany in the 1930's  found a home. It's a landscape that's changing rapidly as small scale agriculture, which characterised the area, is disappearing  and the last generation who inhabited a pre-mechanised world is dying out.

The title of the film is a reference to social critic and activist Noam Chomsky’s sentence “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”.This phrase was given as an example of a grammatically correct, but meaningless, linguistic construction. Chomsky’s intention was that people would recognise that the language we use cannot be glibly  reduced to tidy formulas. Ironically, it has been proven that the phrase he chose to illustrate his point can actually make perfect sense given the right context.

Koppel manages to bring meaning and poetry to the line. With a score composed by revered electronic musician  Richard D James aka the Aphex Twin. Koppell has written that music was a vital component from the outset. It should be noted that Richard James  admired the film but wasn't too enamored about the way his music was edited.  The abrupt cuts to Avril 14th, a track that is used as a repeated refrain throughout, are made because Koppel didn't want the music to be used as conventional soundtrack but needed it to denote “an accentuation of the emotional dynamics of drama”. He justifies the crude editing of the music by saying that  “throughout the film we are asking the audience to listen to the silence”. The lilting strains of Aphex Twins music works wonders on the soundtrack, as does the abrupt consistently surprising diting, which efforlessly transports the viewer from place to place, life to life.

The filmmaker spent nearly nine months back in his homestead where he was bought up observing the rituals and traditions of the inhabitants with his Super 16mm camera, although this is far from being a conventional documentary study: there’s no voice-over, there are very few ‘characters’, and the connections between the vignettes of everyday existence are rarely spelt out, the film simply asks audiences to observe and draw their own conclusions from the images of ordinary lives and the natural landscape.   .

The two most significant human figures turn out to be Koppel’s widowed mother Pip, and the kindly mobile librarian John Jones. A tiny, physically resilient individual, the animal loving Pip seems completely unaffected by the presence of the camera, whilst the monthly visit of John’s bright yellow van is a reminder of how important books can be in establishing a sense of community. Koppel frequently drops in on unnamed people who are absorbed by their work, whether it’s teaching, baking, sheep shearing, milking, repairing vehicles, ploughing, haymaking, or cabinet-making, ways of life that are slowly being crushed by the wheels of progress. And he juxtaposes these images of human toil with shots of the magnificent surrounding countryside, captured in different seasons, lights and weather conditions, showing the sheer beauty of my country.

Following the progress of a mobile library gives a framework to the film, this van is literally a vehicle of stories that takes us on a profound and poetic journey into a world of endings and beginnings, a world of stuffed owls, sheep and fire.If the film can be said to have a message or purpose it is to remind us how the notion of  ‘community’ should be viewed as something that affects people’s daily lives rather than as a political concept. One issue that unites the community of Trefeurig is the threat to the future of the village’s primary school and we see a meeting where the locals criticise the council’s short-sighted decision to close the school.

Change is inevitable but does not always bring improvements, something neatly encapsulated in a witty poem about replacing a wooden signpost with a metal one. The new one is sturdier yet proves unreliable whenever there’s a strong wind. Wood may rot but a least the indicators remain in the correct position.

The spectre of modernity is always present and means that you can’t watch this film without the sad reflection that the inevitable march of progress will sweep away the old traditions and values depicted.

Sleep Furiously preserves for posterity moments and memories that will fade in time. The lines that appear on-screen near the end of the film remind us of the limitations of language when it comes to articulating what this means in human terms : “It is only when I sense the end of things that I find the courage to speak. The courage, but not the words.”

Much influenced by his conversations with the writer Peter Handke , Koppel speaks, affectionately and lyrically, through his images, allowing us to see a disappearing word anew. The film never rests on teeness or sarcasm and as a result produces something altogether deeper, moodier, more compassionate and joyful. I would strongly recommend buying the DVD of this beautiful, moving patchwork quilt of a film that  has been so lovingly stitched .The DVD also includes a one hour pilot film called ‘A Sketchbook for The Library Van’ where, in a series of straight to camera monologues, the people talk about their lives. As in the main feature, the ordinary becomes extraordinary. A rich  artistic exploration of the dwindling flame of rural life, a profound moving  journey into a world of endings and beginnings. A film that has been described as " lyrical film making at its best". Avoid amazon it can be found in more ethical places.

By taking things deeper than face value and looking for alternative interpretations we can understand the world better around us. Not everyone views the world from the same lens, and something that may have no meaning to us, such as the sentence "colorless  green ideas sleep furiously." could have significance to someone who is able to look through a different lens. It is for me, what makes this wold we inhabit ever so richer. While winter reigns and the earth reposes allow colourless green ideas to sleep furiously.

sleep furiously film trailer

Happy birthday Aneurin Bevan (15 November 1897 – 6 July 1960)

Aneurin Bevan , was born on this day at 32 Charles Street, Tredegar in 1897. It was one of a long row of four- roomed miners' cottages. He was the sixth of ten children born to Phoebe and David Bevan a coal miner of whom  only eight survived infancy and only six to adulthood.

More commonly known as Nye, he was a Welsh Labour party politician who served as Minister of Health from 1945 to 1951. He began  his own working life down the mines working with his father. as a collier's helper at the age of 13.

 Although a strong boy he found the work exhausting: "Down below are the sudden perils - runaway trains hurtling down the lines; frightened ponies kicking and mauling in the dark, explosions, fire, drowning. And if he escapes? There is a tiredness which leads to stupor, which forms a dull persistent background to your consciousness. This is the tiredness of the miner, particularly of the boy of fourteen or fifteen who falls asleep over his meals and wakes up hours later to find that his evening has gone and there is nothing before him but bed and another day's wrestling with inert matter."

Bevan developed a love of reading. He joined the Tredegar Workmen's Institute Library where he read the works of H.G Wells, Jack London, James Connolly https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2017/05/james-connolly-working-class-hero.html  and Eugene V. Debs https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2020/10/eugene-v-debs-5-11-1855-2010-26-working.html. He was also a keen attender at Plebs League  classes given fortnightly at Blackwood by Sydney Jones.

Bevan also joined the Tredegar branch of the South Wales Miners; Federation soon became a union activist and by the time he was nineteen he was chairman of his Miners' Lodge. Bevan became a well-known local orator and was seen by his employers, the Tredegar Iron and Coal Company, as a revolutionary. The manager of the colliery found an excuse to get him sacked. However, with the support of the Miners' Federation, the case was judged as one of victimization and the company was forced to re-employ him.

Bevan was also deeply influenced by the teachings of Noah Ablett, the leader of South Wales syndicalism. Ablett was an evangelist of aggressive Marxism who  produced a pamphlet,The Miners' Next Step (1912). Ablett called for a new type of unionism: "A united industrial organisation, which, recognising the war of interest between workers and employers, is constructed on fighting lines, allowing for a rapid and simultaneous stoppage of wheels throughout the mining industry."  Bevan also began attending the Tredegar branch of the Independent Labour Party (ILP). Like most members of the ILP, Bevan was an opponent of Britain's involvement in the First World War. In 1917 he was called up under the government's Conscription Act.  He refused to join the British Army and claimed he would choose his own enemy and his own battlefield and would not let the Government do it for him. He was eventually rejected on health grounds as he suffered from nystagmus. Over the next two years Bevan was active in anti-war campaigns across Wales.

After his mining trade union  sponsored him to study politics, history and economics in London, in 1919 Bevan  discovered Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, solidifying his left-wing political outlook. He would soon become politically active and became a lifelong champion of social justice, the rights of working people and democratic socialism. Reciting long passages by William Morris gradually began to conquer a stammer that he had  had since he was a child.

Bevan remained in the college  until 1921, Not one of the most diligent students he found it difficult to follow an organised routine, including getting up for breakfast. Yet after overcoming his stammer, he went on to become one of the greatest orators of the 20th century, defending the rights of working people and the cause of socialism.

When Bevan returned home in 1921 the Tredegar Iron and Coal Company refused to re-employ him. For the next three years he was without work. During this time Bevan worked as an unpaid adviser to people living in Tredegar. Bevan considered emigrating to Australia but in 1924 he found work at Bedwellty Colliery. But after ten months the owners decided to close the colliery down and Bevan had to endure another year of unemployment. In February 1925, Bevan's father died of pneumoconiosis in his arms.

In 1926 he was appointed a union official just as the General Strike came into force.The strike brought Bevan to the fore as a leader of the South Wales miners, and he orchestrated the distribution of strike pay in Tredegar during the six months lock-out the miners endured after the industrial action. He gave his full support to  A.J Cook general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers.https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2020/11/ajcook-militant-miner-and-trade-union.html

He became a councillor on Monmouth County Council in 1928, then a member of parliament for Ebbw Vale in 1929. His maiden speech was an attack on Winston Churchill, who he saw as the main enemy of the miners.
Bevan married a fellow left-wing Labour MP, Jennie Lee, in 1934 and together they campaigned to support the Socialists in the Spanish Civil War against France as well as setting up the Committee for the Relief of the Victims of German Fascism. In 1936 a group of prominent left-wingers including Bevan set up a weekly Socialist newspaper, The Tribune, followed by trips around Spain during the Civil War. He famously declared ' Fascism is not itself a new order of society. It is the future  refusing to be  born."

His activism and agitation led to his brief expulsion from Labour in 1939, but he agreed to toe the party line and was readmitted.Despite opposing Churchill in mining matters, Bevan argued that he should replace Neville Chamberlain as prime minister. But once Winston Churchill was in power, Bevan criticised the wartime reductions in civil liberties.

In 1945, the general election saw Labour returned comprehensively to government. Bevan  saw this post-war victory as a chance to implement radical social reform, and on 5 July 1948, while he was minister for health the National Health Service was created,  his most famous accomplishment that saw the provision of  medical care being introduced,  free at the point of need to everyone, regardless of wealth. .In 1945 Nye said ":We have been the dreamers, we have been the sufferers, and now we are the builders,"

The initial idea came from the Socialist Medical Association, the president of which, Dr Somerville  Hastings,successfully proposed a resolution during the Labour Party Conference suggesting it should commit itself to establish a State Health Service. While is was a first feature of the Labour platform at the time, the proposal captured cross-party support in 1942. Then the Beveridge report of 1943 set the seeds and blueprints  for the creation  of the NHS  and the welfare state. Henry Willink, Conservative MP and Health Minister in 1944 circulated the A National Health Service white paper in Parliament. Aneurin Bevan ultimately took on the campaign to establish the NHS in 1945 and proposed the final concept in 1947. 

Bevan's 1949 Housing Act removd the restrictions of public housing to the ' working classes' so that council housing was available to all. For a short time, council  housing was a genuine alternative to private renting or ownership, and was built in large quantities. More council houses were built in Wales between 1945 and 1951 than have been built since 1975. 

Bevan’s contribution to the quality of council housing is less well recognised.  He insisted on good design, increased space standards and the provision of an upstairs and downstairs w.c. – all revolutionary at a time when two-thirds of houses in the Rhondda valleys did not have an indoor toilet.  It is no accident that post-war council housing remains some of the most well-built and popular even 60 years on.

Nye's autobiography, In Place of Fear  came out in 1952. He would lead the left wing of the Labour Party from the back benches until he ran for the leadership of the party in 1955. He was defeated by Gaitskill, but was made shadow colonial then shadow foreign secretary.
In 1959 he was elected deputy leader of the Labour Party, but  he was a very ill man and died of cancer on 6th of July 1960  having made his reputation as father of the NHS.

Since 1960 he has been all but canonised, raised above criticism as the soul and conscience of the old Labour Party, and a source of emotional inspiration and legitimising quotations, while successive Labour leaders from Harold Wilson to Neil Kinnock have fallen over themselves to assert their claim to his mantle. 

Yes he courted  controversy during his political life with his acerbic comments about his political opponents and his views  on nuclear disarmament and devolution, which he opposed, and I wonder what  he would thing of the gathering momentum  for independence here in Wales. Oh and in his private life was known for his enjoyment of the good life. Despite some faults Nye Bevan hated the  Tories with a passion, and helped make the biggest improvements to the quality of life for the average British person on living memory, so I respect him for this. There can be no greater achievement than  better health and better housing for ordinary people. Bevanite remains a meaningful term, still today invoking a Labour  vision of a better and more equal society. Such a shame that it's current leader Keir Starmer seems to have forgotten and abandoned these principles. Who did he think Nye was talking about  when he said " The right wing of the Labour Party would rather see it fall into perpetual decline than abide by its democratic decisions ?" 

On the Tories famously said the following ,in a speech he made on July 4, 1948, " So far as I am concerned they are lower  than vermin." he went on. "They condemned millions of people to semi-starvation, I warn you young men and women, do not listen to what they are saying, do not listen to the seduction of Lord Woolton.They have not changed, or if they have are slightly worse.,"

Nye didn't come to that conclusion because he was a mean spirited Welshman, he'd grown up in a world shaped by the Tories from cradle to grave. To him a tale of  neglect and abandonment and he knew exactly who was to blame.

I am reminded  that my quality of life owe more to a dead man than a whole Tory Government ever could. Everyone who has ever benefitted from NHS treatment should be grateful to this true working class hero and continue to heed his warning about "the art of Tory politics." Over seventy years on the NHS remains one of the most treasured services in the country.  

Because of Nye we can be proud that people in Britain do not live in fear of medical bills they cannot afford. We can congratulate those many thousands of health professionals who have given brilliant service to the sick and pushed so wide the boundaries of medical care. We can celebrate longer life and healthier living. So thank you Nye Bevan, happy birthday, to this man of deep  passion and principle.Now is the time to carry his great legacy forward. We should continue to defend the NHS with all our might..As Nye said " It will last as long as there are folk  with the faith to fight for it"

Nye Bevan speaks about the National Health Service 

Durability

It''s been a bloody tough year 

But like comets we can soar,

With the smile of love

On our many diverse faces,

As winter's cloak arrives

Try to forget about frustration.

As condolence trends worldwide

People say goodbye over and over,

There are still moments to grasp

To give the past a kick into touch,

Surging ever forward, beyond suffering

Collectively walking on from devastation.

Abandon thoughts of senseless guilt

Carry on moving, through life's heady paths,

Keep on conning, unwitting the devil

Eyes ablaze, following future unwritten,

Beyond the rising stench of fascism

The many obstacles of negativism.

There are still many safe spaces

Where voices can release fastidious dream;

As the gleaming sun sets in the mornings

Beyond the vortex, energy does not die, 

Across the fields, and the valleys and the oceans

With tenaciousness, reassess affinity with aspiration.

Ogoni 9 activists remembered 25 years on

 

 

25 years ago today, Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists Saturday Dobee, Nordu Eawo, Daniel Gbooko, Paul Levera, Felix Nuate, Baribor Bera, Barinem Kiobel, and John Kpuine. were executed by hanging by the military government of Sani Abacha in Nigeria. Their deaths sparked an international outcry that lingers to this day.

 Shell had been waging a lethal ecological war in Ogoni land since 1958 when it first discovered oil reserves in the area. The oil exploitation has been concentrated in the coastal plains terraces to the north of the Niger delta, which is home to the Ogoni people. 

More than 900 million barrels of oil of estimated value 30 billion US dollars have been mined from the area since the discovery of the oil reserves. 96 oil wells connected five oilfields which were mostly operated by Shell and where gas has been flared twenty-four hours a day for more than thirty-five years. Between 1976 and 1991, over two million barrels of oil polluted Ogoniland in 2,976 separate oil spills. 

In 1990 the Ogoni began to powerfully resist the destructive intervention of the oil industry and the Nigerian dictatorship in their home, where despite of the stupendous oil and gas wealth of their land, they were confronted with environmental degradation, political marginalization, economic strangulations particularly marked by an unemployment rate of over 70 percent, slavery, and possible extinction. What became known to as the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), with Ken Saro Wiwa as its leader, they issued the Ogoni Bill of Rights (OBR) in which they demanded ; the right to self-determination as a distinct people in the Nigerian Federation;

adequate representation as of right in all Nigerian national institutions;

 the right to use a fair proportion of the economic resources of their land for their development and  the right to control their environment.

 This was followed by the largest peaceful protest against a single corporation in to this date, in which 300,000 Ogoni people marched against Shell’s ecological war in January 1993. 

The protest was followed by an extremely violent crack down on the movement by the Nigerian government and Shell whereby over 1,000 Ogoni people were murdered and 30,000 people displaced.

Ken Saro Wiwa was born in 1941 as the eldest son in an Ogoni family. After leaving university he pursued an academic career and became the most outspoken environmental activist in the Niger Delta decrying the devastation of the land, air and water at the hands of rich corporations and complicit governmental authorities.

He was a writer, artist, journalist, and television producer and became the President of the Association of Nigerian Authors  for three years until 1991, when he decided to devote himself entirely to the nonviolent struggles of his fellow Ogoni people.

He chose to fight using nonviolent resistance techniques such as poetry, prose and peaceful protest. Saro-Wiwa was able to mobilize the people of the Niger Delta to push for adequate representation and the preservation of their homeland, which was continuing to be destroyed by oil exploitation.

In 1994, Saro-Wiwa was given the Right Livelihood Award, often called the “alternative Nobel Prize”, along with three other environmental activists. The following year he was given the Goldman Environmental Foundation of California prize.  It didn’t take long before the Nigerian government felt their economic interest in oil exploitation was being threatened by the growing movement of Saro-Wiwa and his followers.

In May 1994, a meeting took place which broke out in violent confrontation, and four of the elders were killed. Even though Saro-Wiwa had been barred from attending the meeting, he and 8 other Ogoni leaders were held responsible and arrested. A trial took place, though independent and international witnesses claim the various circumstances surrounding the proceedings strayed from the laws outlined in the Nigerian Constitution and international human rights law. Accused of murder and without legal counsel nor right to appeal, Saro-Wiwa and the other 8 Ogoni leaders, were hanged on November 10th, 1995.

25 years have passed since then but despite continueous protests, no justice has been served to the Ogoni people and neocolonial violence persists! While oil production has ceased, pipelines operated by Shell still traverse the land, creeks and waterways. Leakages – caused by corroded pipelines as well as bandits – mean that the area is still plagued by oil spills to this date. The Nigerian Government officially launched a clean-up programme in Ogoniland  however, communities are still waiting for emergency measures to be taken and clean-up to begin. 

While Shell admitted that its oil operations have polluted large areas of the Niger Delta it resists charges of complicity in human rights abuses. However, confidential memos, faxes, witness statements and other documents released in 2009, clearly showed the company regularly paid the military to stop the peaceful protest movement MOSOP against the pollution, even helping to plan raids on villages suspected of opposing the company.

To this day, despite facts that tie Shell to their murders and to the continuing abuse of the Ogoni people, Shell still denies culpability and continues to drill for oil in Nigeria.Moreover, Shell continues to undermine democracy and feed into corruption in the country by engaging in rigged trade deals that served business’ interests rather than the welfare of the people. "Shell must not get away with this," said Osai Ojigho, director of Amnesty International Nigeria."We will continue to fight until every last trace of oil is removed from Ogoniland."

Ken Saro-Wiwa once said: "I am more dangerous dead" — a quote that remains true 25 years after his death. 

The following converging factors give this anniversary particular resonance. The upsurge of activism in Nigeria last month has been met with fatal repression but has also brought fresh aspirations in this 60th anniversary year of independence. The COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement continue to expose economic inequality and racial injustice as well as the uneven accountability of governments; at the same time, both challenge not only commitments to corporate responsibility, but also the fundamentals of corporate purpose..This day will ever be remembered now and always as a day, the innocent blood of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his fellow activists were shed.

"Dance your anger and your joys,
Dance the military guns to silence,
Dance oppression and injustice to death,
Dance my people,
For we have seen tomorrow
And there is an Ogoni star in the sky."

— Ken Saro Wiwa - Hung for opposing Shell

Coronavirus: Insights from Albert Camus' 'The Plague'

 

 

 Much has been written about my hero French- Algerian existentialist philosopher Albert Camus ,   https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2012/05/albert-camus-71113-4160-smoking.html admirer of revolutionary syndicalism, anarchists, conscientious objectors, and all manner of rebels. Standing against totalitarianism in the form of Stalinism and fascism, and was never afraid to speak his truth.
Born in extreme poverty, on the 7th of November 1913 in French occupied Algeria, to an illiterate mother who was partially deaf, who lost his father in the horror that was  World War 1, and despite tremendous disadvantages by the age of 44 he was collecting the Nobel Prize for literature.

His acclaimed novel, La Peste, translated as The Plague in English, published in 1947  is currently flying off the bookshelves  amidst  the current coronavirus pandemic, a novel that  evokes so  vividly and on such an epic scale the story we are currently living every day. 

The book  often seen  as an allegory for the French resistance movement, a tale of valiant though impossible struggle. against the dark forces of fascism, but beyond this connection , Camus tale written in sparse, haunting prose –goes beyond this and  takes us through a catastrophic outbreak of a contagious disease in the lightly fictionalised town of Oran on the Algerian coast, as seen through the eyes of the novel’s hero,  Doctor Rieux.

While Bernard Rieux is The Plague’s central protagonist, and later revealed to be its narrator too, Camus’ beliefs are most explicitly delivered through the character of Jean Tarrou. A former communist revolutionary from France who is whiling away his disillusionment in Oran when the quarantine is announced, Tarrou aids Rieux by organizing volunteer sanitation workers to fight the disease’s spread. The novel advances through the two characters’ perspectives, via Rieux’s recollections and Tarrou’s diary entries, sections of which read as if they are a continuation of Camus’ philosophical work on absurdism—the desire to find meaning in a meaningless world: 

" How contrive not to waste one’s time? Answer: By being fully aware of it all the while. Ways in which this can be done: By spending one’s days on an uneasy chair in a dentist’s waiting-room; by remaining on one’s balcony all a Sunday afternoon; by listening to lectures in a language one doesn’t know; by traveling by the longest and least-convenient train routes, and of course standing all the way; by lining up at the box-office of theaters and then not buying a seat; and so forth."

Tarrou also directly addresses the plague as a metaphor for something much larger and longer-standing than the epidemic. One evening, sitting on a terrace overlooking the city to the sea, Tarrou tells Rieux:

"I had plague already, long before I came to this town and encountered it here. Which is tantamount to saying I’m like everybody else. Only there are some people who don’t know it, or feel at ease in that condition." 

Tarrou goes on to clarify that he isn’t referring to the bubonic plague, but to the condoing of murder—which amounts to the same thing: death. He saw this “plague” in his father, who was a prosecutor arguing for executing criminals, just as he saw it in some of his communist comrades with an authoritarian bend, who claimed to be fighting for a better world, but also committed cold-blooded murder. From this disillusionment comes Tarrou’s only certainty:

:"All I maintain is that on this earth there are pestilences and there are victims, and it’s up to us, so far as possible, not to join forces with the pestilences.” And so Tarrou chose to throw his lot in with the people of Oran, a strange city where he knew no one, helping them fight off a disease that ultimately claims his life."

As the novel opens, an air of eerie normality reigns. ‘Oran is an ordinary town,’ writes Camus, ‘nothing more than a French Prefecture on the coast of Algeria.’ The inhabitants lead busy money-centered and denatured lives; they barely notice that they are alive.But with the first series of deaths displaying the same curious symptoms, town officials squabble about whether or not the deaths qualify as an “epidemic” and how seriously they should take it. They nervously note how poorly prepared they are with the necessary equipment to treat large numbers of stricken people. Officials advise locals to “practice extreme cleanliness” while privately worrying about how many hospital beds are available. The number of deaths rise,  Oran officials decide it is time to close the town. Businesses are shuttered. Daily deaths are counted. Protective masks are sought. Fake antidotes are advertised. Panic and fear is spread “This here damned disease,” one character says, “even them who haven’t got it can’t think of anything else.” Most of all is the waiting.

In order to write the book, Camus immersed himself in the history of plagues. He read books on the Black Death that killed 50 million people in Europe in the 14th century; the Italian plague of 1629 that killed 280,000 people across the plains of Lombardy and the Veneto, the great plague of London of 1665 as well as plagues that ravaged cities on China’s eastern seaboard during the 18th and 19th centuries. In March 1942, Camus told the writer André Malraux that he wanted to understand what plague meant for humanity: ‘Said like that it might sound strange,’ he added, ‘but this subject seems so natural to me.’

Camus wrotes: ‘Pestilence is so common, there have been as many plagues in the world as there have been wars, yet plagues and wars always find people equally unprepared. When war breaks out people say: ‘It won’t last, it’s too stupid.’ And war is certainly utterly senseless, but that doesn’t prevent it from starting again and bloody again, like a pestilence that sadly has no ending . an absurdity that to this day some deny, in a continued irrational way. 

Camus argued that there is in most of us a moral plaque  as equally debilitating  as the physical variety, The plague is our moral indifference to the unnecessary suffering of others,including the suffering  of others, including the suffering that we may not directly endorse, but which occurs under our implied consent to the current social contract, Describing very well a society  where the policies of our leaders leaves people dying in the Mediterranean sea, as they failed in their search for a better life. the plague is our moral indifference.

Camus saw no dichotomy between the emptiness that lies at the center of immorality  of politics and in the tragedy of morality, but in end offered solace as both we and the people of Oran  collectively mourn the many deaths  and keep a wary eye to the future. What he still offers is a meaningful path forwards out of the paths of darkness, emphasising his faith in humanity and our willingness to face these burdens together. 

The theme of love is also omnipresent and Camus explores it most profoundly through the character of Rambert. A young Parisian journalist trapped in Oran, Rambert initially attempts to escape from the plague-ridden town. Invoking deep love for his wife back in Paris, Rambert tries to justify his decision to Rieux and Tarrou. Rambert insists that his desire to escape isn’t borne out of a lack of courage; previously he’d risked his life fighting in the Spanish Civil War. But what the war taught him is that courage and conviction cannot be abstract idea. Dying for an idea, he claims, is heroism, and it is heroism in which he no longer believes. For Rambert, life is about “living and dying for what one loves,” and his concrete love for his wife, he insists is what really matters.

The doctor Rieux counters that “man” — whether in fighting war or fighting disease — isn’t merely an abstract idea and that his own actions aren’t about heroism, but common decency and doing one’s job. But in any case, Rieux reassures Rambert that his decision to leave is “absolutely right and proper”. Rambert insists he’s putting love first and that it’s easier for Rieux and Tarrou to stay and fight the plague because they have nothing to lose. Assuming that both of them are alone, Rambert claims it’s easier “to be on the side of angels”. But when his efforts to flee are delayed and he’s forced to witness the suffering brought on by the pestilence, Rambert is forced to re-think his position. His views are further challenged when Rambert discovers that Rieux is married and that his wife is in quarantine with plague. Upon learning of Rieux’s wife, Rambert gives up his efforts to escape and courageously volunteers to help the fight. In short, Rieux becomes empathetic. And empathy is really a form of love for humanity. So in the end it’s not a question of putting love first, ahead of some other cause, but about embracing a broader and deeper form of love that encompasses yet transcends Rieux’s love for his wife.

The theme of justice also runs throughout the novel. The plague is indiscriminate. Rambert seems to be rewarded for his courage and is eventually reunited with his wife. Yet at the same time, an innocent child dies. Tarrou, despite great courage, also succumbs to the plague, as does Rieux’s wife. Grand, a man who wastes his life revising the first line of his novel, miraculously recovers. These examples highlight the absurdity of existence and the fact that we cannot rely on the benevolence of some external force to ensure just outcomes. For justice to be served, we must take matters into our own hands. Thanks to the brave actions of a small group of people, the plague is eventually defeated. And at the end of the novel Cottard, an opportunist that had profited from shady dealings during the outbreak, feels the wrath of justice at the hands of a mob of frustrated townspeople.

" On this earth there are pestilences and there are victims " Tarrou surmised , " and it's up to us so far as possble, not to join forces with the pestilences" And like Rieux we must realise the importance of courage, which represents the difference between being swallowed  up by the plaque or prevailing over it. Keep safe, don't give up hope, much love.Thank you Albert Camus

 

 Coronavirus: Insights from Albert Camus' 'The Plague'

 

 

 

Remember, remember, the fifth of November Gunpowder treason and plot

 

 

It's that time of year again - when  Britons commemorate the failure of the November 1605 Gunpowder Plot by a gang of Roman Catholic activists led by Warwickshire-born Robert Catesby.

In the 1600's Catholics had to practice their religion in secret. There were even fines for people who didn't attend the Protestant church on Sunday or on holy days.When Protestant King James I acceded to the throne, English Catholics had hoped that the persecution they had felt for over 45 years under Queen Elizabeth I would finally end, and they would be granted the freedom to practice their religion. When this didn't transpire, a group of conspirators resolved to assassinate the King and his ministers by blowing up the Palace of Westminster during the state opening of Parliament.

 Guido Fawkes was born Guy Fawkes on the 13th April 1570 in York. It is recorded that Fawkes lost his father at the age of eight; his mother then remarried a Catholic man, with Fawkes later converting to Catholicism in a country increasingly abhorrent of his new faith. For about 10 years, Fawkes fought abroad for the Catholic cause in Europe in the Eighty Years’War and it is here that Fawkes adopted the Italian name Guido for the remainder of his life
Fawkes returned to England with fellow English Catholic Thomas Wintour, who introduced him to Robert Catesby. There were 13 conspirators all together, Guy Fawkes, Thomas Bates, Robert and Thomas Wintour, Thomas Percy, Christopher and John Wright, Francis Tresham, Everard Digby, Ambrose Rookwood, Robert Keyes, Hugh Owen, John Grant with Robert Catesby being the true ringleader.

Guy (Guido) Fawkes) from York, and his fellow conspirators, having rented out a house close to the Houses of Parliament, managed to smuggle 36 barrels of gunpowder into a cellar of the House of Lords - enough to completely destroy the building.

However, the scheme began to unravel when an anonymous letter was sent to William Parker, the 4th Baron Monteagle, warning him to avoid the House of Lords. The letter (which could well have been sent by Lord Monteagle's brother-in-law Francis Tresham), was made public and this led to a search of Westminster Palace in the early hours of November 5.

Explosive expert Fawkes, who had been left in the cellars to set off the fuse, was caught when a group of guards discovered him at the last moment.This is also why he became the most well known out of all the plotters.

Lord Monteagle for his treachery was rewarded with £500 plus £200 worth of lands for his service in protecting the crown.

Defiant when captured, Fawkes remained resolute and unrepentant for his actions. He endured three days of torture in the Towers of London, from the 6th to the 9th, until he fully revealed the names of his co-conspirators and their plan – by this time around half of his colleagues managed to evade capture. Fawkes, along with the other conspirators, were sentenced to be hung on the 31st January 1606 and quartered thereafter for high treason.This was the traditional death for traitors in 17th- century England.  

As he awaited his punishment on the gallows, Fawkes leapt off the platform to avoid having his testicles cut off, his stomach opened and his guts spilled out before his eyes.

Mercifully for him, he died from a broken neck but his body was subsequently quartered, and his remains were sent to "the four corners of the kingdom" as a warning to others.

The other men received the full measure of their sentences as a warning to other potential rebels.
Fawkes at the time said his only regret was that the plot was foiled. When he was asked why he was found with so much gunpowder he said “to blow you Scotch beggars back to your native mountains.”
 Despite attempting to kill the new king of England, James I apparently praised Fawkes for being dedicated to his cause and for having a ' Roman resolution.'

His capture has since been illustrated in countless schoolbooks, novels, popular works of history, and movies: a tall, bearded figure in boots, dark cloak, and dark, wide-brimmed hat. It is his figure that is still burned in effigy on bonfires around England every year on November 5.  A  much  maligned individual , but due to a deep undertow of popular discontentment has since become a symbol of resistance. Possibly down to Alan Moore and his brilliant comic creation in V for Vendettas, the main character ‘V’ wears the ‘Guy Fawkes mask’ to hide his identity and instead promotes the idea of anarchy and freedom. The film concludes with him –successfully- blowing up Parliament. Across the world protestors started  wearing the stylised masks of Fawkes, some wore his mask as a symbol of their contempt for authority and government, reclaiming Guido as a symbol of hope and resistance.serving both a symbolic purpose as the spirit of rebellion, and a practical one in helping to hide the faces and identities of protesters from police. In this context, Guy Fawkes is a hero who fought, and won, against overwhelming odds..

Following the failed plot, Parliament declared November 5th a national day of thanksgiving, and the first celebration of it took place in 1606. .Largely secular , the annual celebrations became a focus of anti-Catholic feeling. The original effigy burnt was that of the Pope.

King James I also sought to control non-conforming English Catholics in England. In May 1606, Parliament passed 'The Popish Recusants Act' which required any citizen to take an oath of allegiance denying the Pope's authority over the king.

Observance of the 5th November Act, passed within months of the plot, made church attendance compulsory on that day and by the late 17th Century, the day had gained a reputation for riotousness and disorder and anti-Catholicism. William of Orange's birthday (November 4th) was also conveniently close.

The actions of Guy Fawkes are immortalised in the nursery rhyme 'Remember, remember'. Although several different versions exist, the first five lines remain to same in all.

Remember, remember, the fifth of November Gunpowder treason and plot

We see no reason

Why Gunpowder treason Should ever be forgot ….

Guy Fawkes, guy, t'was his intent

To blow up king and parliament.

Three score barrels were laid below

To prove old England's overthrow. 

By god's mercy he was catch'd

With a darkened lantern and burning match.

So, holler boys, holler boys,

Let the bells ring. 

Holler boys, holler boys,

God save the king.

And what shall we do with him?

Burn him! 

The Houses of Parliament are still searched by the Yeomen of the Guard before the state opening. The idea is to ensure no modern-day Guy Fawkes is hiding in the cellars with a bomb, although it is more ceremonial than serious. And they do it with lanterns. 

Guy Fawkes Day is celebrated in the UK, and in a number of countries that were formerly part of the British Empire, with fireworks, bonfires and parades. Straw dummies representing Fawkes are tossed on the bonfire, nowadays as old traditions make way for new, more contemporary political figures are increasingly used.

The word ‘bonfire’incidentally  is said to derive from 'bone-fire', from a time when the corpses of witches, heretics and other nonconformists were burned on a pyre instead of being buried in consecrated ground.

Their is a well known phrase ‘One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’ The  act can be perceived as mindless violence or just necessity, depending on the attitude of those perceiving it. The changing perceptions of Guy Fawkes proves this. I am in no way condoning the way that some people choose to resort to extreme violence in order to make their point, but I do think we should be aware of the complex and subjective nature of the term ‘terrorist’, and should use it accordingly.
In the end Fawkes and his friends paid the ultimate price, and  although unhappy with the state of Catholicism in Europe, Fawkes would have happily seen a return of an autocratic Catholic monarch to Britain. Hero or Villain; it really depends on your interpretation of their legacy and your level of dissatisfaction with the world we live in today, to many a freedom fighter who in his time  stood up for the people of England, and against the oppression of the government, who still resonates deeply with the world we live in today. In the meantime carry on resisting, and if you must play with fire, please be careful out there, and don't get caught. 

A.J.Cook - Militant Miner and Trade Union Leader ( 22/11/1884 - 2/11/31)

                                                                                                             

Arthur James Cook better known as A.J.Cook, was General Secretary of the Miners Federation of Great Britain - the forerunner of the NUM -  from 1924 until 1931, a period that included the General Strike of 1926.

Born  at Wookey, Somerset, 22 November 1884, son of Thomas Cook, a serving soldier. After leaving elementary school he worked as a farm labourer. At 17 he was preaching with the Baptists; at 19 he went to work to the Lewis Merthyr Colliery, Trehafod, and developed radical socialist views which led to his severing his relations with his religious denomination. 

Cook moved to Porth in South Wales, and later to Merthyr Tydfil, to find work in the mines.

Cook joined  the Independent Labour Party (ILP) in 1905. He played a prominent part in the Unofficial Reform Committee which led the struggles in the Cambrian combine in 1911https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2015/11/remembering-1910-cambrian-combine.html and 1912 against the coal owners  and the right wing leaders of the South Wales Miners Federation. This grouping around Ablett, Hay and Mainwaring producing  the famous syndicalist  pamphlet  “The Miners’ Next Step” in 1912. Cook was involved in the initial discussions around the document.The pamphlet- written  by rank-and-file miners in South Wales - exposed  the treacherous role in which some of the union leaders had played in their dealings with the coal-owners. It argued that the left needed to organise from below to gain control of the leadership of the union.Over the next ten years that is exactly what Cook did.

Even at this stage  he was described as being a brilliant and dynamic speaker. By 1919 he was miners’ agent (a paid union official) in the Rhondda.

It was on the initiative of the Unofficial Reform Committee that in 1911 Cook was sent to the Central Labour College which had been established by the Plebs League as a challenge to anti-Marxist indoctrination courses taught at Ruskin College. As well as being a working miner and union activist, Cook gave regular CLC classes in Marxism on his return to the Rhondda.  The militant activists in South Wales – Cook included – were heavily influenced by syndicalism. As against the weak-kneed reformism of the early Labour Party which had become a mere appendage of Lloyd George’s Liberals in the House of Commons and against the conservative trade union leaders seeking only to strike deals with the bosses on behalf of the skilled workers, the Syndicalists had a bolder class perspective. Their view was of continuous militant union struggle which would step by step drive the bosses to the wall. Whilst Cook himself became a union leader and a member of different political parties, he never outgrew this non-political militant unionism. While working as a collier, he was elected chairman of the Lewis Merthyr colliery lodge of the South Wales Miners' Federation and a member of the executive committee of the union; he was also elected a member of the Rhondda Urban District Council.

 His militancy  however led to his conviction and imprisonment for three months in April 1918 under the Defence of the Realm Act; he was also sentenced to two months' imprisonment in 1921 for inciting to unlawful assembly. 

In many ways it was the organisation and early success of the Miners’ Minority Movement (MMM) that inspired the NMM. The growth of a militant current among miners can be seen against the background of The Miners’ Next Step, the First World War and the Russian Revolution.

When Frank Hodges, the secretary of the Miners’ Federation, became lord of the admirality in the first Labour government of 1924, the Minority Movement was able to force him to resign his union office.The South Wales Miners’ Federation nominated AJ Cook to replace him, and he beat a Yorkshire miner for the post by 217,664 votes to 202,297. Cook was then 39 years old.

On learning of his election, TUC general secretary Fred Bramley exploded that Cook was a “raving Communist”. We can understand Bramley’s reaction by reference to a speech that Cook made to Holborn Labour Party in June 1924. He declared, “I believe in strikes. They are the only weapon.”

Although a member of the ILP  Cook worked closely with the Communist Party after its formation in 1920 and the National Minority Movement from 1924 to 1929. Arthur Horner, a leading South Wales Communist and mining militant described Cook's tenure as General Secretary as “a time for new ideas — an agitator, a man with a sense of adventure”. Cook remained a member of the ILP throughout this period, with the exception of a brief period after the foundation of the Communist Party (CP). He left the CP in a dispute over tactics in the miners’ lockout of 1921.

He played a leading part in the great general strike of 1926 and the prolonged miners' strike which followed. During the miners’ struggle of 1926 no figure came to represent the anger and determination of the miners more than A.J. Cook. He was adored by the militants in every coalfield as a tireless and selfless fighter for the cause of the miners. His slogan 'Not a penny off the pay, not a second on the day' became the cry of the miners throughout the country. He was hated by the right wing trade unions leaders. He was pilloried in the bosses’ press.

The fact that Cook could read and write saw him help his fellow miners to fill in the complicated forms necessary to claim their compensation and other entitlements. He worked tirelessly and his front room was converted into a miners' consultation office. He was hated and despised by the stuck-up parliamentarians who saw the miners’ struggle as futile and doomed,but despite this he sacrificed his all for the miners’ cause and derived no personal gain from the tenure of office

He endured great physical pain during his last years from an injury received whilst a miner and aggravated by an attack on him during the 1926 strike. His leg had to be amputated, complications set in, and he died at the Manor House Hospital, London, on this day 2 November 1931 at only 46 years of age. 

Thank you to my friend and comrade Mel Hepworth former striking Yorkshire miner, 1984- 1985 for bringing A.J, Cook to my attention and for providing me with much of the information contained within this post. And here are two links, the first  of which  you can read an account of this great man's life in his own words. followed by an appraisal of his life by the late Paul Foot.

http://www.whatnextjournal.org.uk/Pages/History/Cook.html

https://www.marxists.org/archive/foot-paul/1986/01/ajcook.htm