Academic Anonymous

The public sector strike in Britain and Northern Ireland (30 November) involved around 2 million workers from a wide  range of services, trades unions and professional associations, making it one of the biggest of its kind in over 30 years. It was an act of protest and solidarity in defence of decent pensions, especially for younger workers just starting out in their careers who will be hit hardest if the government gets its way and pushes through its pension “reforms”. It turned out to be a decent, good-humoured strike during which there was no trouble and no arrests by police. But it is clear that government spin has had the effect of sowing confusion amid the wider public and distracting from the issues at the heart of the dispute.

In the run up to the day of action, the government line was that it would be a hugely disruptive, therefore irresponsible strike whipped up by militant trades union leaders with only personal agendas at heart. The scare tactics were legion and based on rumour and outright lies.  The sick would not get emergency treatment; patients would have vital surgery cancelled after waiting for months; children would lose a day at school, thus disrupting their education and forcing their parents to stay off work; the elderly would be housebound because public transport would grind to a halt; hard-working students, burdened by hefty student loans, would have their lectures cancelled; border controls would be compromised, leading to long delays for international travellers, especially at airports where some might have to sit on the plane on the runway for hours, unable even to get to the terminal buildings; hundreds of illegal immigrants would be able to slip through unchecked; and the operation to neuter Jeremy Clarkson would have to be cancelled!

STRIKE VICTIM: JEREMY CLARKSON PROTESTS AS OPERATION CANCELLED

Then came the glorious day and the spin changed. The government started to dispute the turn-out figures. Not two million, said Cameron and his cronies; probably more like 500,000. “A damp squib”, said he. By mid-afternoon, as the rallies drew to a close,  a strange text came in to BBC Radio 5 Live saying that a shopping centre somewhere was jammed with teachers using the strike as a good opportunity to skive off and shop! The texter didn’t say how he or she knew they were striking teachers but reporters were duly dispatched to their nearest shopping centre to see if this was a nationwide phenomenon and, sure enough, the story changed suddenly from Biggest Public Sector Strike in Decades to Biggest Shopping Day of the Year.

After the downgrading and the distractions came the smear tactics. Michael Gove (one-time journalist and union man himself) came on Radio 5 Live for an interview with presenter Peter Allen to explain the glaring contradictions between the reality of the strike as reported by the station all day long and his government’s spin about it. Instead of answering the question, he maintained the spin by diverting attention to the dubious credentials of the union general secretaries: communist and Trotskyite militants whipping up (for their own devious, self-interested ends of course!) ordinary, decent civil servants, teachers and lollipop ladies into a frenzy of class hatred.  An irritated Peter Allen finally gave up asking the question at hand and ended the interview.

So either it’s a hugely disruptive strike that will damage the UK’s already battered economy or it’s a damp squib? Either it’s a damp squib or a strike whipped up by revolutionaries to bring down the state? What would explain this apparent confusion or contradiction in the government’s line? I don’t think there was any confusion there at all. Rather, I suspect it was a deliberate strategy to confuse the wider public about the true nature of the strike and its aims, further driving a divisive wedge between public and private sector workers. And looking at some of the stupid, disingenuous, ill-informed and truly hateful reactions on the media discussion threads out there, it seems to have had a measure of success. Even if we dismiss such people as ignorant crackpots, we only have to talk to friends and relatives who work in the private sector to see how deeply ingrained government propaganda really is even among the most reasonable people. As a striking school manager, Tom Footes, told Newsnight (BBC2, 30 November):

There’s an awful lot of negative banter on Facebook. A lot of people in the private sector don’t see any need for what we’re doing because of the situation they’re finding themselves in. And you’re trying to justify your position with theirs…it’s proving very difficult.

The Day of Action, then, was not just in defence of decent and fair public sector pensions; it was in defence of the public sector per se and the Tory strategy to shrink it, if not destroy it completely, under the fig leaf of fiscal responsibility. In his Autumn Statement, delivered on the eve of the Day of Action (29 November),  The Chancellor of Exchequer George Osborne announced that he was getting rid of 750,000 public sector jobs (yes, that’s three quarters of a million!); cutting pay even further with a four-year freeze; and scrapping the national pay structure. And all with the blessing of the Liberal Democrats.

The strike was also an act of defiance against government  lies and propaganda designed to divide and conquer workers in both public and private sectors.

I was proud to be part of it.

UPDATE (5 DECEMBER): Meanwhile, over at Media Studies is Shit, Rab has an opposite take on the government’s approach. In the interests of democracy and free speech, check it out. He argues that the government is confused and stupid in the messages it has put out about pensions, the public sector strike and the leaders of the public sector unions who, by contrast, have a clear and reasonable message the majority of the British public believe and support.  I agree that the unions have  made a clear and reasonable case but it’s wishful thinking to interpret mixed messages at the heart of government as confusion or stupidity. There is a clear strategy at work to undermine public sector workers and their unions and divert anger among poorly paid private sector workers, who have little or no protection by union or employment law, towards those working in the public sector.  Why? Because they are softening the underbelly of public opinion for radical changes ahead: the scrapping of employment laws, which will further castrate what little power the unions have left since Maggie Thatcher wielded the knife in the 1980s, mass compulsory redundancies among public sector workers and, ultimately, the shrinking of the public sector through privatisation. And with an impotent coalition partner that faces total wipe out at the next general election and a pathetic Labour Opposition, whose leader hadn’t the guts to support the one-day strike on 30 November, there’s no political leadership out there that’s going to stop them. But with prudence, patience and their  clear, understandable message, public sector workers and their Unions can.

Zonnebeke, by Sir William Orpen, 1878-1931

The public hysteria this past few days about the wearing of the poppy rather defeats the act of commemoration it is meant to symbolize. It defeats it because it reduces it to an act of conformity rather than sincere, individual choice; to a display of “Britishness” rather than remembrance. What if someone British chooses not to wear the poppy as a matter of conscience? Does that make them less British? Less patriotic? Less respectful to the memory of those who’ve died in the service of the British armed forces? I wouldn’t dare to judge but sadly many do.

Any BBC reporter or presenter appearing before camera in the weeks (!!) leading up to Remembrance Sunday is required to wear a poppy even though they would rather not; even in Northern Ireland, where most nationalists choose not to wear the poppy because, historically, it’s been used as an assertion of British and unionist identity. And this is a public service broadcaster in a democracy! Imagine a news story from Iran about journalists and other public workers forced to pay public homage or respect to Iran’s war dead or lose their jobs. It would be regarded in Britain as an affront to freedom of speech, a demonstration of state oppression and another good reason to bomb Iranians into regime change.

Or imagine if Iranian football players insisted on wearing a public symbol of commemoration regardless of FIFA regulations. Would that not be seen in Britain as a demonstration of Islamic fanaticism? As crude propaganda? I rather suspect it would. On that note, I wonder about those footballers and football pundits who have spat blood all week about the right of England players to wear the poppy on their jerseys in the game against Spain on Saturday (12 November). If asked, how much would they know about the origins of the poppy as a symbol? How much would they know about the horrors of trench warfare during the First World War in which millions of young men died in the interests not of freedom but of imperialism? How much would they know about the hundreds and thousands of non-British soldiers who have fought and died for the glory of the British armed forces only to be forgotten? The reason I ask is because in the hours of airtime taken up with the issue this week, I’ve heard very little mention of any of that history.

In principle, I think public commemoration of the war dead is a decent thing to do as long as it’s done as a reflection on the futility and horror of war, not as a propagandistic display of patriotism or the glorification of war. I have no problem with people wearing the poppy as long as it’s an act of conscience rather than conformity, as a sincere and sober act of commemoration rather than a fashion statement. I’ve seen some instances on TV where individuals seem to try and outdo each other with the size and style of poppy, departing from the original, simple and humble version most people buy on the street or in the shop.

But what disturbs me most is the way in which the wearing of the poppy has become so politicized – an assertion of Britishness rather than public commemoration in which anyone can participate regardless of identity  - and the hysterical outrage that seems to greet anyone who dares to challenge that and to either insist on its original purpose or choose not to wear it because they can’t identify with its patriotic associations. That’s not democracy. That’s fascism. In the words of the First World War poet, Wilfred Owen, it’s “The old lie. Dulce et decorum est. Pro patria mori” ; it is sweet and right to die for your country.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under I green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, –
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

(Dulce et decorum est, by Wilfred Owen, 1893-1918). 

Pockets of our society are not just broken but are frankly sick.

He’s right you know! We’ve got pockets of GREED:

Pockets of POVERTY:

Pockets of FUEL PRICE FIXING:

Pockets of CORPORATE TAX EVASION:

GGGNN

Pockets of RACISM:

Pockets of CRIMINALIZATION:

Mural by Banksy

Pockets of CORRUPTION:

Shameless: the remake

And pockets of STATE VIOLENCE:

John Charles de Menezes. Shot dead by police, July 2007. Innocent.

Ian Tomlinson. Killed by the strong arm of the law, April 2009. Innocent.

In fact, David, it’s all so sick it leaves me speechless…