It is said that ‘Those who do not remember the past, are condemned to repeat it’, as Harry Smith powerfully warned the 2014 Labour Party Conference, in Manchester. He was then 91, self educated, and a consummate orator, and anyone who loves the NHS should view his speech that galvanised the conference, resulting in two standing ovations.
His words made me reflect upon my historical ignorance, and prompted me to dwell upon land injustice, and its corollary, housing injustice, finally to read ‘The Village Labourer’, about the Enclosure Acts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I was incredulous to read how the ordinary citizens were denied access to the commons, upon which they had grazed their animals, grew their crops, gathered fuel, and built their humble cottages during previous centuries, rendering them virtually destitute.
The legal and Parliamentary chicanery that allowed the landed gentry to disinherit the poor was a total, moral outrage, and ultimately resulted in Peterloo, and the subsequent electoral reform bills that gave the vote to most working poor. That is the ‘past’ that Harry Smith referred to, and it is now being repeated by the same governmental contempt for the ordinary citizen, the same mindset dictating policies that not only make house ownership impossible for millions, whilst refusing to build social rented housing at scale, but now, again, employs legal and Parliamentary chicanery to allow the fossil fuel industries to destroy our children’s environmental inheritance
Extinction Rebellion does remember the historical past, as I instinctively did when I inserted an ‘S’ in BALLOT. Without that ‘S’ I would not be writing this article. Without disruptive demonstrations the media reaction to Extinction Rebellion would be virtually non-existent, as it was during 21 to 24 April. I suspect that we will now see both radical, and peaceful demonstrations, the former to involve the media, and the latter to swell numbers until a critical mass is achieved. I support Extinction Rebellion because my life was nearly cut short in the war by a bomb, and I do not intend to stand by whilst my children’s generation is denied a run for its money. I also attend church, which does not make me a saint, or a prude, but it does compel me to protect God’s creation. I do not think God expects me to allow the Earth to be destroyed simply to hasten the Second Coming, and to those who scorn such a belief I would pose one question “Do you really think that Man can resolve earthly injustice and conflict?”
Injustice that even the mother of all parliaments is found to be venally guilty. I recall a letter writer saying that if readers were not angry about the number of MPs and Lords with medical company investments, then nothing else could evoke their anger. The NHS is but one lobbying scandal, many politicians are landlords, or in bed with the gambling, tobacco, and drinks industries, ‘hedging ‘ their bets in every direction and indifferent to the social good. Jacob Rees-Mogg, with the DNA of his 18th century ancestors, has voted ten times against lower carbon emissions, and scorns climate science. I am not a scientist, but my ‘O’ level maths enables me to understand graphs, and their message is compelling. Such selfish, vested interest in oil has a long history. Lawrence of Arabia refused a knighthood because the government betrayed the Arab tribes and denied them autonomy after WW1. Having initially promised it for fighting the Turks, the UK government then sought control of the oil reserves. Lawrence’s integrity is almost unheard of in our current political class.
But equally compelling is the number of people of all walks of life arrested or in prison, making great sacrifice for our children’s future, and the lives of many around the world who are dying because of extreme floods, heat and fire, drought and crop failure. I went to London in solidarity.