Musings on the politics of youth work, community work and society at large – dedicated to the memory of Steve Waterhouse and Malcolm Ball, great youth workers, comrades and human beings
One of the joys, amidst the stifling years of the ‘pandemic’, has been discovering stimulating voices, which I’d never have come across in the ordinary course of events. Prominent among these is that of the gay, pagan Marxist, Rhyd Wildermuth, who writes at From the Forests of Arduinna. I’d recommend the blog’s catholic content and dissenting discourse to anyone with an open mind. By chance, Rhyd has just posted a piece from 2019, The Chthonic King of Christmas, which begins with an anecdote about the Dublin tradition of getting ‘piss-drunk’ on Christmas Eve – news to me. at least! It’s the opening to a fascinating reflection on gods before Gods and in particular Saturn. The following is an excerpt, which might whet your appetite.
Saturn has a spectral quality in magical discourse, a haunting truth one cannot ever outrun, so it’s no wonder that Saturnalia itself long haunted European Christianity as just such a spectre. The Church’s war against its continued celebrations was long fought and never fully won. As Rome did for gods, the Christians eventually let in the parts of Saturn’s celebrations that they could not fully eradicate. A truce, as it were: the candles could continue, and also the gift-giving, and in some places even the most curious and dangerous of Saturnalia’s rites.
“The Christmas Lord of Misrule,” by Gustave Dore
There’s something I should now make very clear about Saturn, a thing I’ve saved until now. But rather than tell you directly, I’ll let a 2nd-century Roman historian do it:
“The first inhabitants of Italy were the Aborigines, whose king Saturnus is said to have been a man of such extraordinary justice that no one was a slave in his reign, or had any private property, but all things were common to all and undivided as one estate for the use of everyone. In memory of this way of life, it has been ordered that at Saturnalia slaves should everywhere sit down with their masters, the rank of all being made equal.”
The historian Justinius, then, ascribed Saturn to an indigenous people who lived in conditions we could quite easily call autonomous communism. No private property, no rank, no division of class, and no restricted access to the land and its wealth. Other Roman writers claimed Saturn the ruler of the “Golden Age,” a time before recorded history during which the land always provided food for people, labour was unnecessary, and humans were closer to the gods. Depicted sometimes with a scythe in hand, Saturn was the bringer of abundance from the land, sometimes named the father of agriculture (though more likely that of horticulture, rather than mass-scale farming). And most of all, he was the god of a time before slaves and masters, a propertied class and the landless, king of a time before kings themselves.
As such we can guess why Saturnalia’s most fascinating tradition was the most dangerous to the later Christians.
‘Saturnalia’ by Ernesto Bioni
It was not only customary during the Roman rites of Saturnalia for slaves to be treated as equals, but also often enough for lords and masters to become temporarily their servants. During Saturnalia, slaves ate at the tables of their masters (and were often served by them), and were given the right to wear clothing only the free-born and patricians could wear, thus annihilating the public distinction between the two classes.
We see this part of Saturnalia continued throughout Christianized Europe in a raucous aspect of Christmas that involved the selection of a “Lord of Misrule” or a “child bishop.” During these rituals, a peasant was named king—or in France and Germany a child named bishop—and given powers to overturn the normal order of things. These “world turned upside down” celebrations involved profane marriages between donkeys and priests, crossdressing, mischievous social disorder, carnivalistic riots, and the pillaging of the food stores of nobles and lords.
Closer to the present, these celebrations continued into Britain and Ireland for much longer than the Church or ruling classes were ever comfortable with. A particular ritual was greatly distressing to the powerful: carolling. As with modern carolling, groups of people would wander the streets singing songs. But the similarities end there: rather than singing hackneyed versions of “Oh Silent Night” in gaudy sweaters, carolers would chant bawdy, profane, and rather raucous songs at the doors of nobles who in return were expected to give the rioters at their gates cakes and brandy. Failure to do so meant the carolers had the “right” to break into the manses and take what they wanted.
This part of Saturnalia continued even into the 19th century in the United States, so much so that laws were passed in New England against carolling and being publicly drunk on Christmas Eve, laws which the Church in Europe had never fully succeeded in enforcing. By this time, however, the new order of capitalism had taken enough hold that the Calvinist-Bourgeois values of commerce, the nuclear family, and the sanctity of individual wealth were able to supplant survivals of Saturnalian revelry in most places.
One thing that’s always interested me about this transition is a particular story we all know too well, but whose meaning we tend to forget, that of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” As we moderns have lost the original meaning of carolling, the story seems merely a morality play, an admonition that greed will leave you lonely. But remembering that carolling was a continuation of the rites of Saturnalia, Dickens’ point becomes clearer. Scrooge was an industrialist, part of the new bourgeois order of capitalists who, as Marx noted, had freed themselves from the aristocratic code of noblesse oblige. Re-distributing wealth to the riotous poor during Christmas was an unwritten part of that code in England and elsewhere, but Scrooge and the rest of the new capitalist class refused to recognize their duty.
Rhyd ends the piece, Happy Yule. Merry Christmas. Good Solstice to you. And most of all, Io Saturnalia!
To which I can only add the words of the great Irish comedian Dave Allen, ‘May your God go with you’
Ironically, only a few days ago I unearthed a faded photocopy of Sivanandan’s brilliant 1985 article, ‘RAT and the degradation of the black struggle’. Struggling to understand the demise of the Left today, I had gone back to reacquaint myself with its searing critique of post-modernism. In the mid-1980s I regarded it as an eye-opening seminal text. In 2022 my memory was not to be disappointed.
Lo and behold, this morning I got a message from Phil Scraton, informing me that a website had been created, containing all of Siva’s remarkable output.
A.Sivanandan was one of the most important and influential black thinkers in the UK, changing many of the orthodoxies on ‘race’, heading the Institute of Race Relations for almost forty years, founding the journal Race & Class, and writing the award-winning novel, When Memory Dies, on his native Sri Lanka
As I opened up the website I was almost overwhelmed by the riches therein. For now, because grappling with contemporary identity politics is high on my agenda, two excerpts from the KEY SAYINGS page jumped out at me. More broadly I can only encourage you to explore, muse and act upon its contents.
Who you are is what you do
The politics of identity which led individuals to use an innate aspect (their gender, colour etc) as ipso facto a right from which to judge others, could itself become a way of setting up a hierarchy of oppressions. He opposed all forms of identity politics which did not reach out to try to transform society, for, not just the self, but for all. The transformation of the individual would take place in the process of a larger collective struggle but a politics based in the self would not open out in that way. Identity would not be confirmed in isolation. ‘Who you are is what you do’.
The personal is not political, the political is personal
In his take on the personal v. the political, Sivanandan was starting from the position that racialism, i.e. attitude or prejudice, was not what was meant by racism, which was structural, institutional and /or systemic. Whereas many people concentrated on discussing attitude, language and symbols as manifestations of racism, he felt that it was the effect, the impact of racism on people’s lives and life chances which should be the focus in a fight against racism. Attitudes and prejudices were a reflection of the way that the state had put its imprimatur on racism (especially through immigration controls, policing and the operation of the judiciary) and not vice versa. (And in the Information Society, which he located from the 1980s onwards, the role of the media and social media had become crucial in determining the narrative on race.) Techniques like awareness training which spoke to a supposed white racial unconscious bias could instil feelings of guilt rather than further a larger political struggle for justice.
End but not ending …
Siva was in poor health for some years, though still contributing remotely to the IRR and the journal. He died at his home in Hertfordshire on 3 January 2018. A celebratory memorial event was held on 23 June 2018 at Conway Hall to discuss how to take his principles on into the future. To find out more about how he impacted on a range of people – from the grassroots to the ivory tower, and across continents – look at the tributes page http://www.irr.org.uk/news/a-sivanandan-1923-2018/ and also the longer essays produced in a special issue of Race & Class to mark his 75th birthday, ‘A world to win’, (41/1and2) July 1999.
For the sake of some sort of continuity I’m publishing here my final post from the In Defence of Youth Work website. It contains themes emanating from the authoritarian imposition of the COVID measures, which I will continue to take up in one way or another on this blog.
Below you will find the lead contribution I made to the final IDYW Steering Group meeting held on Friday, October 8th in Manchester. As it was the train of my thought was often, necessarily and fruitfully interrupted by the musings and memories of those present. These interventions made for a challenging yet always supportive critical, collective conversation. Unfortunately I can’t do justice to that process. Hence you are getting no more than my opening and closing remarks. The substance of my offering was an effort to trace major events and significant themes in the life of IDYW since 2009. These are to be found, now archived on this site.
A group discussion at our fifth national conference in Birmingham
Thinking About the Past, Present and Future of IDYW.
Opening Remarks
I’m anxious about this bit of an opening presentation, which might well seem ridiculous. I long ago gave up paid work, selling my soul to the State with all its attendant tensions. Why the disquiet!? The principal reason for my apprehension is that I’ve scoured back through all the IDYW website posts since March 2009. I stopped counting at 1500 plus. What riches, what a turmoil of contradictions, hope and despair and what a plurality of offerings. I was bemused. How could I possibly do justice to this fascinating potpourri? My confusion was not eased in finding myself listening to the videos of the first National Conference in February 2010 – Janet Batsleer welcoming us to an ‘unauthorised space’, Kev Jones introducing my rant, Tania de St Croix warning about surveillance and Bernard Davies making the youth work case. Thoughts and sentiments that would not be out of place today. In thinking about the inaugural Conference I remembered also meeting Sue Atkins on the Didsbury campus in the dark the night before. We had something to sort out. I remember not what. It might well have been 20 years since we’d last crossed paths. A tear in our eyes it was as if we’d never been apart.
So forgive me if my recollection of IDYW’s history is riddled with absences. If there isn’t a book there is certainly an MA, even, a PhD to be found in the IDYW archives. Although on second thoughts a PhD collecting dust on a shelf would hardly move us forward.
So why did IDYW emerge in late 2008 on the back of the Open Letter I penned. It ventured:
Thirty years ago Youth Work aspired to a special relationship with young people. It wanted to meet young women and men on their terms. It claimed to be ‘on their side’. Three decades later Youth Work is close to abandoning this distinctive commitment. Today it accepts the State’s terms. It sides with the State’s agenda. Perhaps we exaggerate, but a profound change has taken place.
The shift has not happened overnight. Back in the 1980’s the Thatcherite effort via the Manpower Services Commission to shift the focus of Youth Work from social education to social and life skills was resisted. In the early 90’s the attempt to impose a national curriculum on the diverse elements of the Youth Service ground to a halt. However, with the accession of New Labour, the drive to impose an instrumental framework on Youth Work gathered increased momentum. With Blair and Brown at the helm youth workers and managers have been coerced and cajoled into embracing the very antithesis of the Youth Work process: predictable and prescribed outcomes. Possessing no vision of a world beyond the present New Labour has been obsessed with the micro-management of problematic, often demonised youth. Yearning for a generation stamped with the State’s seal of approval the government has transformed Youth Work into an agency of behavioural modification. It wishes to confine to the scrapbook of history the idea that Youth Work is volatile and voluntary, creative and collective – an association and conversation without guarantees.
Of course, the idea of the Letter did not spring out of the blue. It was not at all my individual creation. The inspiration for challenging the neo-liberal consensus goes back for me to the late 1960s. I want to argue that IDYW was but a particular expression of a post-war liberal/social democratic belief that education ought to be child/young person-centred, process-led, holistic and questioning in its desire. IDYW was born too out of a frustration that this humanistic perspective had struggled to dent a behavioural tradition focused on social control and conformity. In my own experience back in the late 1970s, Roy Ratcliffe and I were disciplined for supporting the autonomous voice of an embryo Youth Council. We wrote about this setback and the lack of support from fellow professionals in a piece to be found within the Inner London Education Authority’s ‘Schooling & Culture’, entitled ‘Stuttering Steps in Political Education’. As the Youth Service Training Officer in Wigan, I fought a bitter battle with Youth Service officers and workers to rewrite a part-time youth worker training course that sought to introduce Carl Rogers to Karl Marx, to question liberal taken-for-granteds by way of socialist and feminist understandings. Over in the newly created Community and Youth Workers Union, the Women’s Caucus emerging from the social movements turned the organisation upside down, Stimulated by the sisters Roy and I (in perhaps the best thing I’ve ever done) drafted a member-led and democratic constitution which directly challenged in practice both hierarchy and bureaucracy. Yet despite the radicalisation of full-time training courses, behaviourism was reasserting itself by the late 1980s as the servant of neo-liberal ideology. Indeed some former advocates of a radical grass-roots agenda were to the fore in advocating the managerial imposition of its tenets.
To say the least, this analysis is sweeping. I’ve always tended to be that way inclined. Yet, as an example of the shift, when I went in 1990 as the Wigan Chief Youth Officer to a Confederation of Heads of Youth Services national conference with perhaps 100 managers in attendance I sat in a corner over a drink with at most half a dozen fellow travellers. The majority embraced prescribed outcomes and the accumulation of data as the only way to save the Youth Service and Youth Work.
As it is I fled the scene at the end of the 1990s because of Marilyn, my wife’s serious illness. However, I was not quite finished. With Malcolm Ball, Steve Waterhouse (tragically both no longer with us) Deb Ball, Tim Price and Steve Monaghan we formed the minuscule Critically Chatting Collective, continuing to question what was going on through a website and tiny gatherings. For example, I remember back in 2005 Bernard Davies addressing a central London meeting of no more than six people – hardly an indication of mass support for our meanderings. Be that as it may, this continuation of a critical perspective was essential to my subsequent scribbling of the Open Letter which was rejected by the National Youth Agency’s organ, ‘Young People Now’ as being too heavy for its readership. I declined the offer to rewrite.
Thus we circulated the Letter at the 2009 Youth & Policy History Conference in Durham, knowing that Y & P itself stood for an open and serious appraisal of the State’s relationship with young people. I have failed to track down the place where the signatories are housed, well over 700 as I remember. In short, the Open Letter opposed the behavioural and instrumental, the imposition of rules, norms and outcomes upon practice. As I argued, “we described a clash between the process of ‘becoming a person, individually, socially and politically aware’, which held good for ourselves and young people and neoliberalism’s desire to manufacture self-centred conformism and unquestioning obedience to the status quo amongst both ourselves and young people”.
All of which preamble leads to a specific engagement with the history of IDYW itself. As I have more than hinted there is a book to be written. I will have to content myself with a limited number of memories.
At this point in my contribution to the meeting, I began to explore all that we had done across the life of IDYW. In this context to do so here would come across as a list with little in the way of explanation and exploration. Hence, for now, I can only ask the reader to interrogate for themselves the IDYW archive. For my part I am committed monthly, if not more frequently, to post afresh gems from the archive and hope you might keep your eye on their appearance. Amongst the themes I touched upon were:
The Annual Conferences The Regional Seminars The range of questioning articles and books produced by IDYW activists Our unstinting support for wider initiatives, exemplified by our involvement in Choose Youth and ‘Is the Tide Turning’ Our input into the European Youth Work debate
Concluding Remarks
Given I’m somewhat retired from the fray I don’t want to overstay my return to a discussion about IDYW’s future or indeed claim that my finger is on the pulse. My piece on ‘Resistance in a Climate of Anxiety’ conveys still much of my perspective.
Firstly, IDYW was born out of a spirit of resistance to and dissension from the mainstream behavioural narrative besetting our relations with young people.
Secondly, therefore, my question is whether IDYW remains a critical voice, given that the formalisation of the informal within Youth Work has continued apace? Or has it been slowly sanitised, swallowed up safely into the mainstream as symbolised by a Facebook page dominated by exchanges and requests far removed from the philosophy and politics of the Open Letter?
Finally, in my opinion, neither Youth Work nor IDYW itself can sidestep facing the implications for both young people and society as a whole of the consciously created COVID pandemic. As best I can see the profession meekly and unquestioningly complied with a flagrantly undemocratic, disgracefully unethical, utterly one-sided governmental response to a virus which, if placed in context, has been far from the 21st-century Great Plague predicted by that methodological absurdity, theScience, its cynical experts and obedient stenographers. We witnessed the overnight abandonment of a holistic, measured, informed Public Health Policy and the character assassination of those brave souls, who pointed this out.
In particular, youth workers and education professionals as a whole ought to examine on what unevidenced grounds they cooperated with the closing down and stifling of children and young people’s provision and ask themselves to what extent they were complicit in the transmission of the fearmongering propaganda disseminated by the behavioural psychologists and their ‘nudge, nudge’ advertising arm? For what it’s worth, even if this emergency dies down and the covid zealots retreat, I don’t think it’s possible to proceed as if not much has gone on, to accept their New Normal.
The logo of our friends at the now defunct National Coalition for Independent Action
Above all, a supposed democratic and emancipatory youth work is now put to the test in terms of its own integrity. Is it possible to abandon the pursuit of truth and critical reflection with hardly a whimper, then as the dust settles, claim to be its principled advocates? I ask this with some pessimism as more than ever in the light of the pandemic I believe that the struggle to defend and extend the power of the people against the technocratic authoritarianism of the ruling class and its supporters on both the Left and Right is now the overwhelming political struggle of our time. Indeed it is a struggle, which transcends simplistic political categories. It is a struggle, within and without youth work, which demands a renewed critical dialogue across a veritable diversity of voices. IDYW in its time sought to do so but fell short. Crucially we never developed a vibrant, living network of local and regional IDYW support groups. It falls upon a younger generation in particular to revive the spirit of its intent.
Some readers of this blog will know that I penned the Open Letter, which initiated the Defence of Youth Work campaign in early 2009. For a decade I coordinated the campaign and maintained its website. It took up a big chunk of my life but I was privileged that it did so. By a twist of fate, I had the time and space to do so. I stepped down from my leading role in 2019 but no one was able to fill the gap. No one had the time and space. I cannot escape from the fact that my withdrawal in part sapped the energy and slowed the momentum of the campaign. As it was the restrictions on social existence imposed in the name of COVID brought things almost to a standstill. Thus on Friday, October 7 the Steering Group agreed to bring IDYW’s life to a close. Below is the Steering Group’s statement, first published on the IDYW website. More thoughts to follow.
The original IDYW logo
IN DEFENCE OF YOUTH WORK CLOSES ITS BOOKS IN SADNESS BUT WITH MUCH PRIDE
At our very first national conference in 2009, Janet Batsleer welcomed us to an ‘unauthorised space’. Her eloquent words ring down through the years.
In Defence of Youth Work as a campaign and critical forum is no more. At an Open Steering Group meeting held in Manchester on Friday, October 7th, amidst smiles, frowns and tears, it was agreed that IDYW had run its course, having lost its impetus and energy. In exploring why this was so and where we were up to, it became plain we had much of which to be proud. The evidence for this assertion is to be found on this website with its 1500+ posts recording our collective activity since our appearance in early 2009. We are committed to preserving the website as a historical archive and as a testament to the impact of our small ‘unauthorised’ and independent group, ‘punching above its weight’, upon the national and indeed international youth work scene.
One of Jethro Bryce’s striking illustrations from our book, ”This is Youth Work’
Whilst IDYW will cease to be an organised presence in the youth work arena, it is vital to recognise that its existence was always of its time. It was no more and no less than a particular expression over the last thirteen years of a centuries-old struggle for a truly democratic and ‘popular’ education. Without questioning, democratically inclined citizens, young and old, there can be no democracy. In this context, the humanist philosophy and practice of a secular and religious disposition that inspired IDYW’s resistance to the behavioural and instrumental neoliberal agenda remain a universal treasury of hope. The ideas live on. In the face of an increasingly technocratic and authoritarian capitalism, we hope that our endeavour will be taken up afresh and reimagined by a new wave of workers and activists. We hope too that the archive of our efforts will provide a moment or two of inspiration.
Gathering our collective thoughts
For now, we will take a deep breath, tinged with sadness, bursting with pride. In the coming months, from time to time, we will highlight anew memories worth remembering. Tony Taylor at tonymtaylor@gmail.com has agreed to be a Keeper of the Records, to use an old-fashioned title, and will welcome approaches from students, academics, researchers and practitioners seeking to explore our ‘books’.
Hopefully concentrating on a speaker’s provocative insights!
A Pragmatic Postscript
Over the years our Facebook page has taken on a life of its own. At this moment it boasts 6,800 members. It has become the go-to place for sharing information and ideas about youth work in general. In many ways, the page has lost touch with its original purpose of encouraging debate focused on IDYW’s cornerstones. Nevertheless, it is clearly an important resource and a marketplace for youth workers and projects. Respecting this our moderators will continue to keep watch on its contents and are considering ways of perhaps filtering the daily waterfall of varied material.
THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES LA LUTTA CONTINUA Ο Αγώνας Συνεχίζεται
I was born into the working class world of Rugby League – the Lancashire side of the Pennines. During my teenage years, I lived in a classic two-up, two-down terraced house, only a drop kick away from Hilton Park, the rickety home of Leigh RLFC. My dad, like many a miner, tried his hand, playing a couple of games as hooker for the ‘A’ team. And, in 1957, I played for Newton West Park against the Twelve Apostles in the Leigh Primary Schools final on the hallowed ground of the town’s professional team. The muddy pitch was so big it was a wonder either team got near the opposition’s try line. It ended 3 points all in a dour draw. I ended up with a bloody nose, which was sorted by my father, running on with the ‘magic sponge’ and the instruction, ‘ger on wi’it’.
Hilton Park. Leigh
Like many a young lad, I dreamed of playing for Leigh. My hero was the rampaging Mick Martyn. However I was neither tough nor quick enough to emulate his exploits. Never mind that I went to grammar school, where class pretension meant rugby union was the name of a game, where writhing about on the ground was a necessity. kicking obligatory and passing almost unheard of. I became a race walker, where the only necessary contact was with the ground rather than with hurtling bodies – in retrospect far safer.
In 1989 I found myself living in a ‘posher’ house close to the middle of Wigan, this time only a spiralling pass from Central Park, the atmospheric home of Wigan RLFC, Leigh’s fiercest rivals. My love for the game was reignited. To the dismay, I’m sure of loyal ‘Leythers’, with my wife being a ‘Wigginer’, I rationalised following both the Leigh and Wigan teams, the latter in its pomp. Ellery Hanley, Shaun Edwards and Andy Farrell were amongst our heroes. It was an exhilarating period of dramatic matches, of incredible skills and courage, interspersed on our part with many a pint of Pendle Witch or Timothy Taylor’s Landlord consumed in characterful pubs across the North-West of England. During a couple of summers, I even found myself playing touch rugby for my local, the Tudor House, the oldest, slowest, but perhaps fittest in the team. On a couple of occasions my daughter’s soon-to-be husband, Bob Astley contributed to our efforts, startling us with his blistering pace.
Central Park, Wigan
Bob’s fast-twitch fibres were to be of more than passing importance. Having emigrated to Crete. Marilyn and I were not present at Logan’s birth so we can’t confirm the rumour that he was born with a rugby ball between his thighs. We can though vouch for the fact that from an early age he went to bed with ball in hand. Indeed when we visited we found the living room had been transformed into a rugby pitch with two couches set at a right angle, comprising the grandstands. From thence on the ruffled carpet was host to passes, short and long, delicate grubber kicks and crunching tackles with Sonny, Logan’s younger brother in the heat of affairs. It’s a wonder the room remains roughly in one piece. Recently Tubby, the family dog has found himself buffetted in the thick of things and, apprenticeship served, is able now to bark with authority, ‘Grr ’em onside’.
A magical try from Logan in his younger days!
Outside of the Astley’s private training ground, Logan has made his way successfully through the competitive age groups of the local amateur rugby scene, often in the colours of the Wigan St Patrick’s club, earning consistent praise for his talents. Possessed of an exhilarating turn of speed, inherited from his dad and perchance a willingness to do the hard miles reminiscent of my athletic dedication he has stood out from the pack. He’s been on the books of Wigan Warriors [ don’t get me started on the daft, unnecessary brand name!] for the past few years and has made his first team debut. Where it goes from here is not anyone’s guess. He is gifted and committed, telling his mum, ‘how lucky he is to be paid for doing something he loves’ but the sport is cruel. Many an exciting prospect falls by the wayside, sometimes through career-threatening injury, sometimes by losing the plot. In his favour is a laid-back and unpretentious disposition. He’s certainly not too big for his own boots. For now, a proud grandad I’ll wallow in the moment described below and leave tomorrow for another day.
Astley leads the way as Warriors take title WIGAN WARRIORS 40 WAKEFIELD TRINITY 12
DAVID KUZIO
Robin Park, Sunday, September 18, 2022
BEN O’KEEFE grabbed a hat-trick of tries and kicked four goals as Wigan claimed the second-string crown with a comfortable victory.
The winger completed his treble in the first half as the hosts led 18-6 at the break after bossing the bulk of the action.
The Warriors raced into a 14-0 lead with O’Keefe scoring twice on either side of a Kieran Tyrer try (O’Keefe improved that effort).
But Robbie Butterworth got Wakefield on the board with a try out of nothing, to which he added the two, as the visitors started to grow into the contest.
However, O’Keefe’s score on the hooter settled the home side, who were slowly allowing Trinity to get into the game.
A 51st-minute score from Josh Phillips, also converted by O’Keefe, gave Wakefield fresh hope as the deficit was cut to six points.
But a brace of tries from Sam Halsall and scores by Alex Sutton and Logan Astley, plus three O’Keefe goals, saw Wigan home.
It was not a great start from them as Umlya Hanley put the ball out on the full from the kick-off, and they then conceded a drop-out as Wakefield looked to gain an early advantage.
But Tyrer turned the tide as he found touch from the drop-out and it was Wigan now on the front foot.
They made that count as Astley took the ball left and found Halsall in space to send O’Keefe in at the corner.
Wigan extended their lead in the 15th minute when Tyrer collected a short ball, threw a dummy and went in under the posts unopposed.
Jack Bibby and Tyrer went close before Astley and Halsall combined once again to send O’Keefe in for his second try – and a 14-0 lead.
Great defence from Robbie Mann and Rob Butler prevented Wigan from scoring their fourth try.
The Yorkshire side took heart from that, went up the other end, and scored their first.
A towering kick was collected by Hanley, but he was met with a monster hit and spilled possession, leaving Butterworth to pick up and touch down. Wigan were reduced to twelve men with James McDonnell sent to the sin bin for a professional foul, and Wakefield started to cause problems.
Jay Haywood-Scriven came close to grabbing a second, but he was held just short.
Wigan managed to soak up a lot of pressure and O’Keefe crossed for his hat-trick just before the interval following another neat pass from Astley.
Wakefield enjoyed a lot of possession at the start of the second half as they camped on Wigan’s line, and they got their reward with Phillips forcing his way over from close range.
Wigan were now struggling to create chances as Wakefield were taking the game to them, but a poor pass was intercepted by Halsall, who raced 80 metres to help put Wigan twelve points in front with 23 minutes to go.
Halsall then put the game out of Wakefield’s reach with another long range effort. Junior Nsemba – who was brilliant all afternoon – combined with Astley and O’Keefe, with the latter turning it inside for the scorer to race away.
Wigan’s seventh try came from Sutton as he was on the end on another passing move started by Astley, who then capped a marvellous performance with a try of his own.
GAMESTAR: Ben O’Keefe, Sam Halsall and Junior Nsemba were brilliant, but scrum-half Logan Astley was the one pulling the strings.
GAMEBREAKER: Sam Halsall’s 57th-minute interception try pushed Wigan ahead by twelve points and they were never in danger of losing the game after that.
I grew up with a proud and handsome father, a miner, who was a staunch patriot and monarchist. Indeed in the front garden of our council house in Leigh, my dad, Alf had erected a flag pole in our well-tended garden, from which he flew a union jack on every appropriate public occasion. I think at times I was a bit embarrassed but not overly so. And I can still visualise the chaotic excitement in our street when Elizabeth was crowned Queen on June 2nd, 1953 – the day before my sixth birthday. I can’t remember much in the way of an organised party. I can remember there was only one ‘telly’ located in a corner house at the top of our avenue, the garden of which was overrun with sweaty bodies, large and small. Was it sweltering? Being a toddler I never got even a glimpse of the BBC’s black and white evidently reverential coverage.
From thence on, through to my early teens. Queen Elizabeth was a taken-for-granted part of daily life – in our house, where coronation memorabilia stood on the mantelpiece; at primary and then grammar school in morning assembly; at church in our prayers; and socially through my father’s leading participation in a number of post-war naval associations, where a toast to the Crown was obligatory.
I’m not sure when my acceptance of this intrusion into my existence began to wane. I wonder if I was getting pissed off with having to wait till after the Queen’s speech before settling down to Xmas dinner. Her measured, patronising voice, symbolising class superiority was proving evermore thin. More than ever I reckon my rejection of her insidious presence was intimately intertwined with my refusal of God’s proferred helping hand.
At some point, when I was about thirteen, the whole edifice of my unthinking obedience to imposed authority began to crumble. Abandoning Christianity and its comforting sense of purpose, its vision of eternal life took some doing. Kicking into touch the absurdity of worshipping a family, who’d landed in the right place, at the right time on the back of theft and murder was pretty easy. In our sixth form Debating Society, I argued passionately for the abolition of the Monarchy…..and in the process perhaps God himself! In retrospect, this was more though than mere youthful rebelliousness. Indeed my burgeoning republican atheism was the hint that I might later become a radical political activist. It meant that I sat grimly, teeth gritted, through the opening National Anthem played ritually at the Halle Orchestra’s concerts, conscious of the burning contempt of Manchester’s petit-bourgeoisie. I took comfort in that most conductors, along with the orchestra, went through the motions. It means even now that I can’t remember [or don’t care to remember] if the anthem was played on the two occasions I represented Great Britain and Northern Ireland against West Germany in the 20 kilometres walk. Did I stand to attention? I’ve no idea. At the time I rationalised that my pride in this achievement had little to do with love of country, much more to do with finding myself part of a team of athletes I respected enormously. Self-delusion, you might well say.
Across the ensuing decades, I spent time in the Marxist-Leninist church with its Holy Texts, prophets, priests and disciples. I learnt a lot but never came to terms with its unrelenting righteousness and deep-seated authoritarianism. Gradually I moved, for the sake of a label, to the Libertarian Left, where anarchism was the dominant voice. The tale of this tortuous journey is for another day. For now, the important thing is that my republican atheism remained constant throughout. Faced with the passing away of the monarch and the passing on of unwarranted and unaccountable privilege to her son I felt angry and frustrated. I asked myself naively, ‘how could such a farce of convenience continue?’ The mass media and a chunk of the population retorted, ‘it continues because we say so’. In a futile gesture, I posted the following on Facebook.
FACEBOOK
As the sycophancy spews forth from all corners and comers, I call to mind from 1911 the words of James Connolly, the great Irish republican and socialist.
What is monarchy? From whence does it derive its sanction? What has been its gift to humanity? Monarchy is a survival of the tyranny imposed by the hand of greed and treachery upon the human race in the darkest and most ignorant days of our history. It derives its only sanction from the sword of the marauder, and the helplessness of the producer and its gifts to humanity are unknown, save as they can be measured in the pernicious examples of triumphant and shameless iniquities.
Every class in society save royalty, and especially British royalty, has through some of its members contributed something to the elevation of the race. But neither in science, nor in art, nor in literature, nor in exploration, nor in mechanical invention, nor in humanising of laws, nor in any sphere of human activity has a representative of British royalty helped forward the moral, intellectual or material improvement of mankind. But that royal family has opposed every forward move, fought every reform, persecuted every patriot, and intrigued against every good cause. Slandering every friend of the people, it has befriended every oppressor. Eulogised today by misguided clerics, it has been notorious in history for the revolting nature of its crimes. Murder, treachery, adultery, incest, theft, perjury — every crime known to man has been committed by someone or other of the race of monarchs from whom King George [and his offspring – my addition] are proud to trace his [their] descent.
I gain no satisfaction from her death. It is what it is. Another parasite will succeed her. Thousands of people, who have contributed much more to society shuffle off this mortal coil every day, loved and respected by those, who knew them but not adulated by those, who did not.
She deserves no special attention but it is forthcoming in waves. In death, she provides a cloying, nauseous moment of distraction from a reality suffused with uncertainty for the many, within which her celebrity children are no more than pawns in the powerful’s propaganda game.
A number of people have criticised my Facebook post on the grounds that it is disrespectful to the grief-stricken and, even if correct, ill-timed. In one reply I commented:
I respect your opinion but there never is a right time to open up a serious debate about the continued existence of archaic privilege? Those, who are distressed and grieving are not short of support, having the full weight of the media behind them. Indeed to confirm the irrelevance of my tiny voice I’m told that the whole of the UK is in mourning, that the nation is grief-stricken.What to make of my insensitive aberration from the country’s collective compassion?
If the monarch is the narrative glue holding society and empire together, Charles could represent the moment when that project starts to come unstuck.
Which is why the black suits, hushed tones and air of reverence are needed so desperately right now. The establishment are in frantic holding mode as they prepare to begin the difficult task of reinventing Charles and Camilla in the public imagination. Charles must now do the heavy lifting for the establishment that the Queen managed for so long, even as she grew increasingly frail physically.
The outlines of that plan have been visible for a while. Charles will be rechristened the King of the Green New Deal. He will symbolise Britain’s global leadership against the climate crisis.
If the Queen’s job was to rebrand empire as Commonwealth, transmuting the Mau Mau massacre into gold medals for Kenyan long-distance runners, Charles’ job will be to rebrand as a Green Renewal the death march led by transnational corporations.
Which is why now is no time for silence or obedience. Now is precisely the moment – as the mask slips, as the establishment needs time to refortify its claim to deference – to go on the attack.
But nothing is sacred. Not the Queen, and not her family, who have in recent years been roiled by accusations, firmly denied, of Prince Andrew’s involvement with an underage victim of sexual trafficking, and of estate investments in questionable funds. And not the country for which she provided not a bridge but an alibi for far too long. That was the job the Queen came to fulfil in her later years: that of a woman who showed up when our public health infrastructure was crumbling, and plugged the gap for an absent government. There is a thin line between boosting morale, and absolving acts of man by treating them as acts of God.
I feel some of you flinch, dear readers. I understand. Some might think it is too soon to speak of imperfection. But with the Queen’s passing, we are about to enter a new chapter where the only hope we have for a more confident, coherent country is to speak of our imperfections more. The Queen is gone, and with her should go our imagined nation. It is time for her to rest. And more than time for the country to wake up.
To return to the beginning, what would my gentle father think of this hereditary handover, cut down as he was in his prime back in 1969? I doubt very much whether he would have had time for the Buckingham Palace soap opera, the embarrassing melodramatics. I doubt though he would have cast aside his loyalty. He would have been chuffed to see me in a GB vest. For this much would have been forgiven. Having moved to a terraced house with no garden there would have been no flagpole to proclaim his allegiance. Inevitably we would have rowed occasionally. He might well have despaired at my politics. I’m not certain. I do feel though he might well have agreed that things can’t just carry on regardless. He might well have agreed, “isn’t it time to take a measured breath rather than mourn mindlessly?”
On the 5th of September 1911, a UK-wide strike wave of schoolchildren was sparked when pupils in Llanelli, Wales walked out in sympathy with a boy who was disciplined by a deputy headmaster. From this one school, walkouts spread across the country to at least 62 towns and cities, with pupils demanding an end to corporal punishment and shorter hours. The schoolchildren’s strikes followed a summer of workers’ industrial disputes.
Schoolchildren on strike, Shoreditch 1911
In the present climate of growing unrest with the consequences of the authoritarian assault on children’s, young people’s, parents’ and workers’ rights, indeed upon society as a whole is inspiration to be found in this history.
School children in Hull on strike in 1911 “for shorter hours and no stick”
There is a wonderful pamphlet about the walkouts, written by Dave Marston, a docker and Ruskin student in 1973.
The children’s strikes of 1911, as Dave Marson shows in this pamphlet, were part of the huge upheaval of labour in the long, hot summer of 1911. The industrial unrest has often been written about: the school strikes are Dave Marson’s own discovery. He came upon them by accident when researching the history of his own people, the Hull dockers. He has followed the strike movement all over the country and has set them in both a school and a community context. The school situation which he describes has by no means disappeared: nor have the difficulties of organising resistance. The writer is a working docker, who was a student at Ruskin in 1970-2.
He begins his marvellous piece.
I came upon the children’s strikes of 1911 by accident. I was researching into the Hull Dock Strike of 1911, and reading through the Hull newspapers of that year when I noticed a small paragraph relating to a strike of Hull school children which took place in September 1911. It seemed no more than a curiosity, an illustration of the extent of the industrial unrest taking place at that time. What struck me first was the story about a policeman having to mount his bicycle and charging at the youthful strikers who had formed a picket line outside their school. The mere sight of a blue uniform was enough to frighten me and my school friends.
What set me looking further into things was one line in the report which said that the Hull boys were following the example of children in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Then looking through another Hull newspaper I discovered a front page splash – with photographs and a story about the strike. The newspaper listed all the different classes of workers who had been out on strike in Hull during that hot summer – cement workers – factory girls – seamen and dockers, and connected the children’s strike to them. It was a photograph that really affected me – it was a picture of the children picketting the gates of Courtney Street Primary School, the same school I had been to myself. I identified myself with those strikers – some of them might have been the parents of the children I went to school with.
When I looked at the Times I found that children’s strikes were taking place not only in Yorkshire but all over the country. At first I couldn’t believe it – how could it have taken place so quickly and all over the country – I’d always believed that strikes were something which had to be organised. I felt that these children were trying to say something. I did not realise how many places were affected until I started reading through the local newspapers at Colindale. These showed that there were many more than the Times had reported.
Dave ends after cataloguing an amazing variety of children’s responses across the country.
Away from their classrooms the jubilant children began to express themselves in various ways. To some it would be a ‘street theatre’ and to others the sheer feeling of freedom would exhilarate them enough to address the crowds of boys in the manner of the factory-gate or street-corner agitator. To the newspaper columnists they were ‘Dunces’; ‘The Truant Class’; ‘Children from the Poorer Areas’. This attitude shows how the respectable classes regarded them. Throughout the country children began to show originality and independence.
The strikes were not all violent. In Hartlepool the boys walked along the sands and picnicked, taking advantage of the splendid late Summer weather. In other places they went swimming or simply sat around discussing general topics; they played at being soldiers and paraded; some sang patriotic songs.
In Northampton strikers went blackberrying. But more important they entertained themselves with their own music making up the words to songs. These children, despite their stifling schooling showed their minds had not been overwhelmed by the gray monotonies of the class-room. They still retained imagination with ideas like the colours in a paint-box.
Back in the middle of July, I was ready to attend an event in Lewisham celebrating my dear friend and comrade Malcolm Ball’s life. Flights and hotel were booked. However, the happening was thwarted by a supposedly unprecedented heatwave or by the ruling class’s desire to impose upon us an eternal state of anxiety, come what may. Whatever, the reconvened date was yesterday and sadly I couldn’t make it.
Thanks to Tania for the photo of the occasion
The celebration staged in the Council rooms was streamed live and included moving testaments to Malcolm’s remarkable impact upon life in what he always called ‘God’s own country’. namely Lewisham. Unfortunately, I can’t embed the video in the body of this post and it seems unavailable now on YouTube.
To give you a flavour of the thoughts shared, here is the speech that Steven West would have made if he’d had the chance.
I wanted to make a small speech about Malcolm, on behalf of myself and of a very dear family friend, Susan Atkins, a lifelong youth worker herself, who wanted to express her gratitude and share in the celebration of Malcolm’s achievements.
Their connection started when Malcolm attended a youth club she set up in Deptford. Later they met through various union organisations and worked together in In Defence of Youth Work. Susan compared youth work to building an organic garden, where plants are allowed to grow at different rates and to be different shapes, sizes and colours. She said Malcolm allowed young people to find their space and to grow into themselves.
I like so many here was one of those young people. Malcolm taught me more than anything that I could have a voice too, that what I had to say mattered, and that I never had to do anything, say anything or accept anything just because someone told me so. In short that I could go my own way and that I was good enough…as just me.
Susan says,” Malcolm didn’t do tokenism, he did authenticity”.
Malcolm taught me a lot without telling me directly, by letting me make mistakes but with support and with someone there when it all went wrong.
Standing here today I can see how many lives he touched, he gave his time and was never once unavailable. He gave us all opportunities to better our lives and worked to empower us all.
That’s how I will remember Malcolm, in actions not just words.
In addition, I include the transcript of my contribution to proceedings, which was recited by another dear friend and comrade, Tim Price.
REMEMBERING MALCOLM
Our paths crossed almost forty years ago. I was giving a talk on ‘Working with Young Men – the dilemmas, the contradictions – at the Leicester College where Malcolm was a student, Afterwards, he approached me eager to discuss, not so much the content, more his delight that I ended by saying, ‘these thoughts are the best I’ve got for now’. We hit it off from that moment. We shared a sense that our opinions could never be settled for good. We should pursue them with conviction but always retain a measure of doubt, be open to challenge. Malcolm’s way of capturing this ambivalence was to preface his remarks with the turn of phrase, ‘it seems to me’. When a group was struggling with differences, with disagreements, he would ask us to go away and let the issues ‘marinate’ in our minds before returning.
Our friendship deepened during the 1984/85 Great Strike, side by side on the picket line, and from then on, one way or another, we were in collectives, believing that authentic change can only happen through coming together in solidarity and struggle – the Socialist Caucus, the Critically Chatting Collective and In Defence of Youth Work, to name a few.
At the heart of our way of seeing things is a commitment to democracy, a much abused and misused notion, For us the seeds of democracy are sown in our personal relationships with one another, in what we might call ‘intimate democracy’. It is based on a commitment to listen, easy to say but not so easy to do, and on a willingness to ‘give and take’ as we converse with one another. This is why we coined the phrase, ‘critically chatting’ to describe what we saw as essential to the democratic process be it in the family, the community, the youth centre, the council or wherever. I believe all the young people involved in the Mayor’s Project will know what I mean. Malx, as I used to call him for many years until he changed to Mal [I never knew why] didn’t instruct; he didn’t write scripts; he trusted young people; he wanted them to be who they wanted to be. Hating the idea that he was subject to the control of others, he tried his damnedest not to be a tool of control himself.
I loved him deeply as a friend and comrade. Towards the end, Malcolm unbelievably came to visit Marilyn and me on Crete. He wanted to tell us in person about his situation. We walked, we drank, we laughed and we wept. And, as ever, we put the world to rights. As we bade farewell, Malcolm urged me to be optimistic. He urged me to keep writing. I was wondering whether it was worth it. I have tried to heed his words. Doing so has meant that he is never far from my thoughts. As I ponder what to type he often whispers in my ear, in that soft Deptford accent, ‘Tony, it seems to me’.
Malcolm, Tim and I first met up in 1984, whilst supporting the Leicestershire Coalfield’s ‘Dirty Thirty’ during the Miners’Strike. For quite some years we worked together in the Socialist Caucus of the Community and Youth Workers Union [CYWU] and later the National Association of Local Government Officers {NALGO]. During this time our militant minuscule group adopted the Leon Rosselson tribute to the Diggers as our signature tune. By chance, we”ve found an attempted rendition I made a few years ago in a local taverna – the opening words, ‘In 1649’ are missing.
The struggle continues, my dear Malcolm but what to make of it? It would be good to chat. Critically, of course. You are sorely missed.
What seems yonks ago, I excused my failure to engage with the harm being reeked via the COVID narrative by way of a self-centred concern about what people might think of my doubts. I got over the feeling or did I? In the last few months, I’ve found myself in danger of being in the same place re the Ukraine. All the more so as commenting on what were initially fast-moving events felt pompous and pretentious. Now we are 120 days in. There’s something about offering your thoughts on what’s going on in the world that suggests you are some sort of self-styled expert or a tiresome anorak, who has too much time on their hands; or someone, who is detached from everyday existence yet claims to understand it better; or indeed someone, who is deep up their own rectum.
No doubt I do spend too much time prostrate before the computer, suffering the relentless assault on my thoughts waged by the powerful before searching assiduously for alternative interpretations. In both cases, I try as best I can to be both critical of the competing sources and content, self-critical in terms of my own history, assumptions and prejudices. I try not to be a useful idiot in anyone’s pocket.
Outside of this political obsession, strange, though, it may seem, I do have other interests and concerns, many of them very ordinary. I was going to say normal but the word has latterly taken on a different emphasis. It is said to require capital letters, the New Normal, towards which we are being propelled – a world of increased surveillance and control for ‘our own good’. To think in terms of a return to lower-case normal is perceived as backward, whilst believing that perhaps there might be a liberating future Abnormal, within which the world is turned upside down, is scoffed at as mere utopianism.
And ordinary normal is. of course, contradictory. It is an expression of accommodation and resistance to the capitalist imperative, to relations of power. It can be both, at one and the same time, lifeless or lively. It is what on the ground makes the world go round. Thus in the last few weeks, to my astonishment I’ve celebrated with some caution my birthday in our beautiful garden, wallowing in the unique sound created by Maria Manousaki and the Hot Club de Grece – wonderful musicians confined to barracks for most of the last two years. Folk evidently enjoyed themselves. At the same time, I’ve observed believers in masks and social distancing, given the green light by the authority to whom they have been obedient, returning to some semblance of sense, casting off the muzzles, hugging one another, yearning to be human. I’ve accompanied Glyka, our ageing dog, morn and eve, on her leisurely and olfactory rambling, never a smell to be ignored. What tales she could tell. And, true to my long-standing athletic obsession, I’ve continued, aching joints aside, to walk, cycle and occasionally run along the olive-lined lanes beyond our house with only the bleating sheep and gymnastic goats for company. And, I continue to sing, of a fashion.
Our John, my son, is well-known for his frustrated turn of phrase, ‘it’s doing my head in’ when faced with the welter of contradictions life throws up. I share his exasperation. One minute we are told we are fighting a war against a life-threatening and cunning virus. Yet, in the time it takes to be jabbed, the advocates of COVID’s deadliness beat a tactical retreat. In the next moment, it’s said we are fighting a war against a demonic and cunning dictator. For now, a tragic stalemate hangs over the Ukraine. Almost seamlessly one tortured narrative of intertwined fear and anxiety, intertwined compassion and intolerance replicates the other. Rainbow NHS logos are replaced on Facebook by the colours of the Ukrainian flag. How many of those signalling their virtue defended the NHS against privatisation or indeed had until yestermonth not a clue about Ukraine’s whereabouts, never mind its turbulent history and politics. To question the unanimity of the orchestrated consensus around COVID or Ukraine, being relayed 24/7 everywhere from the supermarket to the sports stadium, is to expose oneself as an anti-vaxx conspirator or a Putin pawn. Or as the favoured fatuous and contemptuous dismissal of doubt goes, ‘don’t you care, people are dying?’ In some mysterious way, those signing up to the dominant orthodox narrative are touched with a sensitivity to the human condition denied to those of a marginal heterodox disposition. Only the former really care. Only they shed tears of authentic concern. As for analysis or indeed its conspicuous absence, I am told with a patronising sigh, empty of any meaning, that the world is crazy, more specifically to clinch the argument that it’s all down to Putin being a deranged narcissist. To be sure he’s mightily fond of himself and yet……
A simple Manichean scenario is proposed. Good is battling with Evil so what to do but side with the Good? Case closed, debate rendered superfluous. Forgive the repetition, to chat critically is regarded as deviant.
Yet, to an inquiring mind, aren’t there reasonable questions.?
Is it possible to grasp the contemporary situation in the Ukraine without an informed feel for a country’s turbulent history, which, as best I can see, is far from that of a freedom-loving democracy?
Was the dramatic 2014 change of government in the Ukraine an emancipatory ‘velvet’ revolutionary happening or an orchestrated anti-Russian coup supported by the CIA with the involvement of influential Far Right/Nazi forces?
Isn’t it stretching things to see the USA/NATO configuration as defensive and benign? Back in 2019 the Rand Corporation, widely regarded as the most influential think tank in North America, partially funded by the USA government itself, published a report entitled, Overextending and Unbalancing Russia, which argues a range of options necessary to keeping Russia in its place when it comes to the World Order. Is it ridiculous somehow to suggest that the USA/NATO military alliance appears to have been edging ever closer to encircling Russia with all its possible consequences?
Of course, my questions reveal a deep-rooted suspicion of the motives of American imperialism that dates back to Chile and Vietnam. Given the USA’s track record of blatant, oft barbaric interventions into the affairs of countries far from its shores, to mention only Libya and Iraq and its history of pursuing regime change whatever the cost, I do feel nauseous faced with the stench of hypocrisy emanating from the White House, the Houses of Parliament, the National Assembly, the Bundestag or its namesakes. None of this excuses Moscow’s aggression but it refutes the right of any party involved to be claiming the moral high ground.
Now, if anyone of import, perhaps one of either an ‘influencer’ or a fact-checker had the slightest interest in my observations I might well be outed as a purveyor of misinformation and/or disinformation. As I understand it, if I’m misinforming you it’s down to me getting hold of the wrong end of the stick. It’s a matter of ignorance or stupidity. If I’m disinforming you I am deliberately leading you astray up the proverbial garden path. It’s calculated deceit.
At this very moment, the European Union has published guidelines. entitled 2022 Strengthened Code of Practice on Disinformation.
“Disinformation related to the coronavirus crisis and Russia’s war in Ukraine clearly show that we need stronger tools to fight online disinformation. [Věra Jourová, Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency]
It was very tempting to presume the code of practice was bureaucratic bollocks and be done with it. To my credit, eternal or otherwise, I downloaded and started to read. Forgive me, but I didn’t get to the end, the 48th page of painstaking instructions to relevant and compliant signatories. Not least indeed because it was in fact bureaucratic and disingenuous bollocks. Conspicuous by its absence was any definition of what constitutes disinformation. That is, apart from this really helpful explanation – ‘Disinformation, which for the rest of the Code is considered to include misinformation, disinformation information influence operations and foreign interference in the information space.’ However, do not fear, tucked away in a cascade of footnotes is to be found the following. ‘the notion of “Disinformation” does not include misleading advertising, reporting errors, satire and parody, or clearly identified partisan news and commentary, and is without prejudice to binding legal obligations, self-regulatory advertising codes, and standards regarding misleading advertising.” Fair enough I might be short of a few slices to fill a sandwich but, at first glance, I’m none the wiser. Isn’t all of this a contradictory mess? Of course, I’m being naive, this is the name of the game – creating confusion rather than clarity, being opaque as opposed to being transparent.
Other officious initiatives are also muddying the waters. In the UK we find something called ‘the counter-disinformation unit,’ set up by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport. The task of this unit is to identify ‘misinformation’ and then liaise with social media companies to make sure this content is removed. It appears all it takes for the unit to brand something as ‘misinformation’ and press the tech companies to censor, is that its staff find the content therein to be ‘inappropriate.’ I’ll resist lapsing into obscenity. This is banal and ludicrous – inappropriate in what sense? Over in the USA, the Biden administration put in place what it called a ‘Disinformation Board’, housed inside the Department of Homeland Security. Glenn Greenwald, dissident lawyer and commentator asked, under what circumstances is a domestic law enforcement agency allowed to decide what is true or false? Politico’s Jack Schafer wrote:
Who among us thinks the government should add to its work list the job of determining what is true and what is disinformation? And who thinks the government is capable of telling the truth? Our government produces lies and disinformation at an industrial scale and always has. It overclassifies vital information to block its own citizens from becoming any the wiser. It pays thousands of press aides to play hide the salami with facts….
In the event, the draconian initiative, following a vociferous backlash, is now ‘on pause’.
Over in New Zealand Te Pūnaha Matatini (TPM), a research group that receives Centre of Research Excellence government funding came up with the notion of ‘dangerous speech’, rhetoric that is a threat to us all. In essence, this catch-all concoction sought to silence any criticism of Jacinda Arden’s Zero-Covid policies. To return to the EU the bottom line of its Code of Practice is the necessity to cut off funding to what it deems to be ‘malicious actors’. Its goal is to demonetise dissident opinion. In terms of doing any disinforming not a single word of criticism is aimed at the mainstream or ‘legacy’ media. Not a single dilemma is raised about the financial and ideological control imposed on the mainstream by a handful of billionaire capitalists.
Ta to beconnected.esafety.gov.au
When push comes to shove ‘disinformation’ is whatever state or corporate power decides is at odds with their version of the truth. All else is ‘fake news’ – a meaningless construct if ever there was one.
The hardly hidden objective is to buttress government pronouncements and their sustenance by the mainstream media while systematically curtailing freedom of expression and critical analysis wherever it rears its awkward and annoying head. Obviously too it desires to prevent grass-roots financial support for dissent.
As to how we monitor what is right or wrong, a self-evidently simple task, the EU has the answer. It is the supposedly independent International Fact-Checking Network set up by the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. Amongst its impartial funders are the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Google, along with Omidyar Network. With this army of fact-checking journalists, Jack and Jills of one trade, masters and mistresses of none collaborating with Facebook, Google and company in defence of the truth, we can rest easy in our beds.
Enough is enough for now. I am weary from trying to keep up with the many sides of what’s going on. In the end, I am left thinking that I need return to what is meant by propaganda. How this concept relates to the discourse of ‘informations’? Not so long ago Propaganda Studies was a recognised field of intellectual and political exploration. It sought to scrutinise the contesting opinions on offer in the public sphere.Today this method of inquiry is rendered redundant by the rise of an army of ‘disinformation graduates and scholars’ whose raison d’etre is to define the boundaries of debate in accord with what is acceptable to the ruling class and its minions. I will endeavour to pursue.
I’m near to a meandering attempt to write about the increasing suppression of views opposing the voices of the powerful. As I prevaricate Priti Patel approves the extradition of Julian Assange. Indeed it is a dark day for freedom of thought, expression and interpretation. As for British democracy, it is revealed yet again as no more than at best a liberal oligarchy with no genuine accountability to its citizens.’
This is a dark day for Press freedom and for British democracy. Anyone in this country who cares about freedom of expression should be deeply ashamed that the Home Secretary has approved the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States, the country that plotted his assassination. Julian did nothing wrong. He has committed no crime and is not a criminal. He is a journalist and a publisher, and he is being punished for doing his job.
It was in Priti Patel’s power to do the right thing. Instead, she will forever be remembered as an accomplice of the United States in its agenda to turn investigative journalism into a criminal enterprise.
Foreign laws now determine the limits of press freedom in this country and the journalism that won the industry’s most prestigious prizes has been deemed an extraditable offence and worthy of a life sentence.
The path to Julian’s freedom is long and tortuous. Today is not the end of the fight. It is only the beginning of a new legal battle. We will appeal through the legal system; the next appeal will be before the High Court. We will fight louder and shout harder on the streets, we will organise and we will make Julian’s story known to all.
Make no mistake, this has always been a political case. Julian published evidence that the country trying to extradite him committed war crimes and covered them up; tortured and rendered; bribed foreign officials; and corrupted judicial inquiries into US wrongdoing. Their revenge is to try to disappear him into the darkest recesses of their prison system for the rest of his life to deter others from holding governments to account.
We will not let that happen. Julian’s freedom is coupled to all our freedoms. We will fight to return Julian to his family and to regain freedom of expression for us all.
Thanks to Tim Dawson
Yanis Varoufakis
Politician, DiEM25, Greece
“The game is up. Years of lies exposed. It was never about Sweden, Putin, Trump or Hillary. Assange was persecuted for exposing war crimes. Will those duped so far now stand with us in opposing his disappearance after a fake trial where his lawyers will not even know the charges?”
Alice Walker
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist
“Years from now people will say: Oh, if only I had known what we were losing when they abused this decent and courageous man! I would have done something! But now, what can I do, since these days I don’t dare express what I know and think! Regret is too often the fruit of silence.”
Mairead Maguire
Nobel Peace Prize winner
“Julian Assange and his colleagues in Wikileaks have shown on numerous occasions that they are one of the last outlets of true democracy and their work for our freedom and speech”
Dunja Mijatović
Commissioner for Human Rights, Council of Europe
“Allowing Mr Assange’s extradition… would have a chilling effect on media freedom, and could ultimately hamper the press in performing its task as purveyor of information and public watchdog in democratic societies.”
CHATTING CRITICALLY 