the truth about british foreign policy

yesterday nspm had the pleasure of hosting mark curtis, the radical historian and author, for a talk on 'government propaganda and the reality of uk foreign policy'. in an attempt to repeat the success of last year's talk by milan rai we had booked a high profile speaker for the start of term, to raise our profile and attract support. it certainly seemed to have worked judging by the size and diversity of the audience. i estimate about 100 people had gathered to hear mark speak, wit plenty of new faces amongst the stalwart activists. i've seen mark speak before at the esf, and from reading his books and articles had a good idea of what to expect. it was good to find that mark was softly-spoken and seemed to be a genuinely nice guy in person, as well as in his writings.

mark's talk seemed to be largely drawn from the material that he's worked on over the course of his last few books (unpeople, web of deceit), condensed into half an hour. starting with recent foreign office strategy (e.g. delivering security in a changing world) and the imperial ambitions of the "ministry of offence", mark then recounted the history of british foreign policy from the 50s onwards. after admonishing blair's support of bloodshed and torture by the russians in chechnya, colombian paramilitaries and the idf in palestine, he gave the figure (his own estimate) of britain's complicity in the deaths of 10m people since the 50s. mark talked about british suppression of the mau mau in kenya, concentration camps in malaya, support for indonesian slaughter of communists, support for iraqi bombing of the kurds, military advice to the americans in vietnam, support for idi amin, and british obstacles to intervention in rwanda. british foreign policy, he said, was driven by 2 major goals: maintenance of its "great power" status, and economic control.

the most interesting part of the talk for me, as it's something he doesn't go into in much detail in his books, was the final part where mark sketched out his ideas of what we should do. change would have to come from outside the existing system which perpetuates these vile atrocities with only cosmetic changes over the years. mark saw a glimmer of hope in the global justice system emerging and gaining victories over companies privatising water from bolivia to south africa. self-education is particularly important, he said, to defend ourselves against the ocean of propaganda. mark saw the democratisation of society as the most important goal in acheiving our aims, with the removal of hierarchical decision-making and the remodelling of our political lives on the principle of participatory democracy.

these ideas were obviously a little too radical for some, including a guy who walked out at the start of questions, waiting til the last minute before shouting "10m iraqis voted last week mate", and a terribly posh sounding persistent questioner who wasn't too sure that the "uneducated masses" were going to do a better job than whatever benign patriarchal dictator he seemed to be imagining. many were enthusiastic though, drawing parallels between mark's vision of society and anarchist thought. it was good to see challenged many of the dangerous myths prevalent in mainstream thought, and to hear discussed media propaganda, the tyranny of centralised power and global movements resisting the takeover of people's lives. mark was optimistic, suggesting that in the many talks he had been giving to people of all backgrounds across the country, he was seeing an increasingly dissatisfied populace ready to wrest power from the hands of politicians. i certainly felt that many people in that room felt that way, and together we can act to make those changes.