We have to change all this.
We have to start changing it now.
It’s no use pretending the world can carry on,
it’s no use pretending we can carry on this way,
and if we try then everything will crash down
and nothing will wait for us but barbarism,
and nothing will wait for us.
This may be the time on which history hinges,
this may be the time when all falls apart
and when it can all come together.
Look at it this way, yes,
look at it this way.
There are times when so many strands are woven together,
there are times we can look into the eyes of the future,
and we may stand at that point today,
and we stand on that edge wishing to fly,
but still too many are afraid.
Still the past is a pitiless mother who won’t release us.
There is no time to look back at those who gawp at us,
there is no time for those who turn their backs on us.
It’s no use pretending the world can carry on,
it’s no use pretending the world can carry on this way.
We have to change all this.
It doesn’t always matter
that we come at this
from different directions,
as long as we are moving
against the same
objective. The point
is to work together.
If we all push at once,
we can topple this thing.
Those we need now are warrior artists,
poets with the hearts of urban guerrillas,
who know how to create and fight in equal measure;
who understand Che’s dictum that
revolution is an act of love;
who can also use Musashi’s teaching
that the pen/brush must be held
in balance with the sword.
For we are going into battle,
and this is no time
to sit proudly in your kitchen
cultivating your moustache.
The moment in history has come
when poetry must be a weapon of love,
a bomb planted in the heart of the enemy.
On this equality themed episode we have Debra Torrance speaking about the iniquity of lack of action on tax avoiders and the punitive measures on the sick and disabled, Julie Bindel talking about surrogacy, Amber Daniels discussing gender inequality and a confession from Victoria Pearson.
Tommy Ball tells us his Reasons to be Fearful, Chuck Hamilton speaks about Bellamy and his descendants, Sandra Webster updates us on the fight for her local children’s ward, Eric Joyce discusses transgender equality, Allan Grogan asks ifor we are sleepwalking to the abyss, and Thomas Swann talks about anarchist organisation, social media and cybernetics.
This piece originally appeared on Neil’S personal blog
Looking Backward, by Edward Bellamy, is a strange read and it is so for a number of reasons, not least being the fact that it was published in 1888 and is about the socialist utopia the writer envisages for the 20th century. In it he predicts credit cards, radio, television and covered pedestrian malls.
Julian West, a middle class insomniac, employs the services of a hypnotist to put him to sleep at night. When he awakes, he finds he has slept over 100 years. It is the year 2000.
As well as being a critique of the social, economic and political situation of his own times, it is a romance and a science fiction fantasy.
Bellamy’s 20th century is a time when everyone shares in a common wealth. There are no wars, no private profit, no starvation, and retiral on full pension at 45 – so you can, just with that fact, see that his prediction was wide of the mark!
It’s a very 19th century idea of utopia. Everyone speaks in the way the educated middle classes spoke in the 19th century, the dialects of the working class having been eradicated by equality and education.
There is an equality of sorts between men and women – though his 19th century mind could only imagine an “imperium in imperio” organisation of the “weaker sex”. Women do work and are paid equally but their working hours are less and “careful provision is made for rest when needed,” because women are “inferior in strength to men and further disqualified industrially in special ways.”
Though these things are telling of the middle class Boston Bellamy is from, his ideas on state capitalist organisation and equality were revolutionary enough to make the book the third biggest seller of its day after Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.
One of the most interesting parts of the book for me comes towards the end when he revisits the 19th century. He takes a walk around Boston, commenting on advertising, the banking system and poverty. He then goes to his fiancée’s house where he sits at a luxurious dinner table. Someone in the company asks him where he has been:
“‘I have been in Golgotha,’ at last I answered. ‘I have seen Humanity hanging on a cross! Do none of you know what sights the sun and stars look down on in this city, that you can think and talk of anything else? Do you not know that close to your doors a great multitude of men and women, flesh of your flesh, live lives that are one agony from birth to death?
“Listen! Their dwellings are so near that if you hush your laughter you will hear their grievous voices, the piteous crying of the little ones that suckle poverty, the hoarse curses of men sodden in misery turned half-way back to brutes, the chaffering of an army of women selling themselves for bread. With what have you stopped your ears that you do not hear these doleful sounds? For me, I can hear nothing else.”
He looks around the table and sees the guests are shocked and he tells them he was not accusing them personally of the weaknesses of the 19th century system. The guests, rather than seeing his point, become “angry and scornful… ‘Madman!’ ‘Pestilent fellow!’ ‘Fanatic!’ ‘Enemy of society!’ were some of their cries…” He is then thrown out.
I don’t know about you, but I have been to parties like that.
After this revisiting of his former time he feels shame, “For I had been a man of that former time. What had I done to help on the deliverance whereat I now presumed to rejoice? I who had lived in those cruel, insensate days, what had I done to bring them to an end?”
This is an interesting read – giving an insight to the ideas that were being bandied about at the time and the belief that capitalism was in a state of imminent destruction. Bellamy was writing around the time when Marx’s ideas were becoming known to the world.
Looking backwards, perhaps, if all of those people with similar goals had come together and forced change, a time-traveller arriving today would not see the increase of death, destruction and broken lives that has actually happened.
Perhaps, if all of the people with the same goal come together in our time, a time-traveller in 100 years will find a utopia where “long ago oppressor and oppressed, prophet and scorner, had been dust. For generations rich and poor had been forgotten words.”
2016 has been some year so far. A year in which Scotland once again failed to qualify for an international football tournament and 2 months into the new qualifiers already look out of the next one. A year which every celebrity is wondering if they will be next for the Grim Reaper.
In politics the shocks just keep on coming, with pollsters wondering if they are remotely relevant at all. Following a 2015 election win for the Tories they overtook the Labour Party to become the official opposition in the Scottish Parliament at the Holyrood elections this year. Following that was the earthquake referendum result which saw Britain sign up for an EU exit resulting in a PM departure, A new PM unelected by party or public and a strengthening of mandate for a Labour leader trying to bring the party back to its founding roots. Now finally a new President of the United States, not the one that was expected or for most within America and around the world..wanted. The TV star and multiple business failure Donald Trump.
Pollsters are shocked, the public are stunned. Just what is going on with the western world at the moment? Why is fear and hatred winning out over logic, reasoning and compassion? What kind of society and world are we heading into? Well perhaps we are already there.
For years the Third Reich in Germany, Hitler and the Nazi’s have been a curious fascination to many, prompting thousands of books and documentaries of their rise and fall out of power. It has always seemed so surreal. How could a country allow itself to be engulfed by an such a monstrous ideology led by crazed and evil men who wished to destroy a race of people and the very notion a of civilised world. For many German citizens at that time they don’t really recall how it happened they just seemed to sleepwalk into it. As bizarre as it seems we here in the UK are sleepwalking towards this more and more.
After the First World War, Germany was in a state of disarray, an attempted takeover by the communists which was ill planned and without mass support was soon extinguished after a split between the Bolsheviks and the SPD who stated;
“ Socialism cannot be erected on bayonets and machine guns. If it is to last, it must be realised with democratic means. Therefore of course it is a necessary prerequisite that the economic and social conditions for socializing society are ripe.”
Needless to say it was soon destroyed by the ruthless Freikorps. What followed was a weak democracy which accepted in full the demands of the Treaty of Versailles in spite of the impact it had on the German people’s self pride and their finances. Through mass loans from the US the German economy was able to rebound until the Wall Street Crash in 1929 when the US required all debts to be re-paid sending the German economy into a tailspin leading to huge volumes of quantative easing leading to a huge deflation of the mark.This led to the rise of extremes,with the public utterly disillusioned with a government and a system it no longer trusted seeking alternatives… any alternatives. Sound familiar? Hitler who had been seen as a comedic figure and as such gained more traction in the press than most of the minority parties. Hitler used this notoriety to send the message of hatred and fear that eventually led to the rise of the Nazi Party and the Third Reich.
To see a re-run of this in modern day look out for the satirical film on Netflix ‘Look who’s back.’ Hitler was entertainment value for the democratic elite (See Nige Farage).
There were many Germans who were hurt, angry and frustrated following the First World War. For some they found their home in the National Socialist movement. Like wise after the crash in ‘29 and the weak and insipid responses by the Weimar Government. Germans looked to extremes and Hitler’s message of blame was seen by many as a solution. Why take responsibility or accept shortcomings when the blame can fall on the Versailles traitors, Jews and others who are not ‘us’.
Yet in spite of this the Nazi Party never received a majority vote in multiple party free elections. How then did they come to power? Edmund Burke’s famous line is most apt. While those who wished to change the system to harsh bigoted and fascist extremes did so. Those on the left were a disorganised rabble obeying orders from Moscow no matter the damage. While most Germans just stood back and got on with life. Those who survived the experience looked back on this time as simply not recognising the symptoms and the growth of fascism before it was too late. Are we likewise? How far to extremes will we go before we awake from this slumber.
Since the ascent of New Labour there have been many warnings as to the rise of the far right with parties such as the BNP and EDL rightly investigated and outed for the organisations they really are. Since that time however we have had a Conservative Government aided by a right wing media in attaching blame for the financial crisis, not at the banks or big business which led us to ruin and refuse to pay tax. Rather at an easy target without the financial muscle to fight back. The poor, the disabled and migrants coming into the UK to find work. Despite tax evasion costing some £14bn last year to an estimated benefit fraud between £1.6 bn -£3.3bn.
Make no mistake the ascension of ideologies of Donald Trump and Nigel Farage have long been in the making. One need only to look at Benefit Britain on Channel 5 or…. well basically any article in the Daily Mail for the last 10 years. The rise of Nigel Farage, even when an unelected leader of a small political party into becoming a regular on media should set alarm bells ringing. Remember in Germany who was also given free press as he was seen as a fool.
Perhaps the biggest mistake we made when seeking out the rise of the right in the UK was that we looked to the BNP to backstreet pubs and shady politics when the real dangers were dressed in expensive suits under the guise of a quiet Home Secretary keen to observe your internet searches and a bumbling Mayor of London. The notion that we are sleepwalking into the abyss should have been awoken with the Nazi-esq front page of the Daily Mail calling UK judges enemies of the state for daring to rule in favour of the democratic rule of parliament.
How did we get here? Yes the governments more extreme ideologies are beginning to show more with May than Cameron’s ‘Compassionate Conservatism,’ Yes we have a right wing media with a clear agenda to suppress any notion of progressive politics but we too as the left must hold our hands up as culpable too. For far too long and far too often we have fought each other rather than the real enemies of working class people. Too often have we embraced ism’s to attack our own declared the state of the world is purely down to bigotry, sexism and racism. That Donald Trumps success was working class men trying to hold onto power! That the leave victory is down to ignorance, racism and bigotry.
This is a sham. Yes, racism and intolerance has begun to breed in this country and other parts of the western world. But it is not the cause rather the effect of factors that for too long we have neglected to address. This lazy blame culture removes the need for real assessment of the lefts failure to articulate solutions to the social and economic conditions that are prevalent and have allowed the right and far right to successfully peddle these distortions based on fear and hatred.
How long will it be before the left decide it is better to understand than to grandstand? To find solutions than to find someone to blame? More worryingly how much more will it take for the people of this country and others to wake up and begin to reject this move towards a fascist state?
With the election of Trump the coronation of May and potential far right gains in France and Germany next year, How much longer will good men and women do nothing and allow the triumph of evil over hope and progress?
Jackal Trades bring you Hip Hop, Electronica, Acapella and interpretive dance. With Scottish subtitles.
Their album, Need the Character, has been described as “lyrically and poetically inventive” and “in no fear of holding a black mirror up to our post-truth society”
Fuad Alakbarov is an Azerbaijani-Scottish political activist and human rights defender. He is known mainly for human rights advocacy for refugees, anti-racism and anti-poverty campaigns.
Alakbarov is a columnist for the Mind Waves, a NHS-funded project which raises public awareness about mental health issues. He also covers refugee crisis, geopolitics and conflict worldwide for openDemocracy and Bella Caledonia. Alakbarov is an active participant of Stop the War Coalition and Unite Against Fascism. He is also a member of “Show the Racism Red Card”, “Refuweegee” and “Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees”. He is a well known for supporting recognition of the Khojaly Genocide.
Portrait drawn by Raiph from a photo by Grace Sanchez
Philip Kane is an award-winning writer, storyteller and artist whose books include The Wildwood King(Capall Bann, 1997) and The Hicklebaum Papers (Mezzanine Press, 2010), as well as his most recent poetry collection, Unauthorised Person (Cultured Llama, 2012). A new collection of poems, The Decipherment of Nature, is scheduled for publication early in 2017. His performances, readings and workshops have been widely praised.
Active on the thriving North Kent arts scene for over thirty years, he has been dubbed “Medway’s Mephistopheles” by Poetry Scotland. During that time he has been a community arts worker for Arts in Medway, and Artistic Director of Storytellers Live – a storytelling club for adults – as well as of the River Roots festival and of the Rochester Literature Festival. A founding member of the London Surrealist Group, he has built up an international reputation, publishing and exhibiting in a number of countries including Spain and the USA. Philip was featured in the December 2012 issue of WOW Magazine
Philip has an ongoing presence on the internet on his blog
bikerneil.home.blog 