I've just finished reading a book about the European revolutions of 1989, when Communist regimes crumbled one after one in Eastern and central Europe. I lived through that period, albeit in a Western democracy, and the account revived memories. As a History graduate, it struck me very strongly that nothing like this had happened anywhere since the European revolutions of 1848, which were spread by railways above all else (and those of 1989 by TV and radio, while the "Arab Spring" was hugely influenced by the internet. The 1848 revolutionaries' successes were mostly very short-lived. While many of the new governments ran into trouble and people became disillusioned, none of the countries involved have returned to anything like the old system and in all of them except Romania democracy seems reasonably secure.
People faced hounding from their jobs (OK, not to unemployment, but a professor could end up as a cleaner), were imprisoned, beaten up and killed for their beliefs and their refusal to give up. Families were deliberately and insidiously wrecked.
So those of us who never had to risk death or disgrace to speak our mind or vote in a free election shouldn't take these things lightly or say they are of no value.
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Wednesday, 24 October 2012
Friday, 12 October 2012
Dissidence
This'll be a short post. WARNING: THIS POST HAS PARTY POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS. I have posted about what I understand it to mean to be a Liberal and explained that I'm an active member of the British Liberal Democrats, but most of the time I prefer to post about political and moral issues in the broad sense (or satirically) rather than talking party politics or indeed Christianity or Quakerism.
But.
If you look at the history of dissidence and nonconformism, you'll find it often suggested that these strange and awkward people, by deliberately taking a route different to that taken by most of their countrymen and women, are unpatriotic. Of course, if they oppose what they say is an unjust war (or war in general) that leads to more accusations of disloyalty to country.
If while participating actively in a political party, you raise criticisms, that can also be seen as disloyal. Blairite Labour had a particularly insidious concept of being "on-message" or "off-message", implying that there was one necessary message and if you dissented from it in any way, you weren't suggesting a slightly different path, but dropping off the right path.
Of late the Liberal Democrats in Britain have faced a lot of criticism for sustaining and joining in a Conservative-led coalition making cuts to reduce the deficit at a time of recession. I don't want to get into arguments about what they or the government have done right or wrong except to say that in 2010 after the election there was really little choice. Labour plus Liberal Democrat added up to less than a majority and the markets were ready to panic at a weak government.
But I am critical of some aspects of the leadership. Nowe here's my central point. I see some activists who do a lot for the party raising criticisms - and others reply with comments like, "Stop wingeing and get out on the doorstep." Now this seems to me a bit like saying, "Stop polishing your shoes and learn Spanish." While it may be difficult to learn Spanish at the precise moment when you are polishing your shoes, there is actually no conflict between being devoted to polishing your shoes and successfuly learning Spanish. Similarly, Liberal Democrats who are critical of the direction of the party are in no way prevented from getting out on the doorstep - and in fact many who are critical are amongst the hardest workers with continuing local successes under their belts.
So they may be wrong in their criticisms, but to criticise is not to stand aside.
But.
If you look at the history of dissidence and nonconformism, you'll find it often suggested that these strange and awkward people, by deliberately taking a route different to that taken by most of their countrymen and women, are unpatriotic. Of course, if they oppose what they say is an unjust war (or war in general) that leads to more accusations of disloyalty to country.
If while participating actively in a political party, you raise criticisms, that can also be seen as disloyal. Blairite Labour had a particularly insidious concept of being "on-message" or "off-message", implying that there was one necessary message and if you dissented from it in any way, you weren't suggesting a slightly different path, but dropping off the right path.
Of late the Liberal Democrats in Britain have faced a lot of criticism for sustaining and joining in a Conservative-led coalition making cuts to reduce the deficit at a time of recession. I don't want to get into arguments about what they or the government have done right or wrong except to say that in 2010 after the election there was really little choice. Labour plus Liberal Democrat added up to less than a majority and the markets were ready to panic at a weak government.
But I am critical of some aspects of the leadership. Nowe here's my central point. I see some activists who do a lot for the party raising criticisms - and others reply with comments like, "Stop wingeing and get out on the doorstep." Now this seems to me a bit like saying, "Stop polishing your shoes and learn Spanish." While it may be difficult to learn Spanish at the precise moment when you are polishing your shoes, there is actually no conflict between being devoted to polishing your shoes and successfuly learning Spanish. Similarly, Liberal Democrats who are critical of the direction of the party are in no way prevented from getting out on the doorstep - and in fact many who are critical are amongst the hardest workers with continuing local successes under their belts.
So they may be wrong in their criticisms, but to criticise is not to stand aside.
Wednesday, 29 August 2012
Respect
This is not about young people, especially gang members, showing or not showing ("dissing")"respec'" to other similar people. That's an interesting development of language, but that kind of respect is about enhancing someone's self-image.
It's not about traditional respect for elders (children for adults, young adults for older adults), or for clergy, upper-class landowners or whatever - even teachers. My belief at fifteen is pretty much my belief fifty years later, that while some systems, to function effectively, need a fair amount of people acting as if they respect people of "standing" - so, for example, in an effective school, hospital or military unit, if the decision-makers were regularly treated with open disrespect, the work of the unit would be damaged - real respect either has to be earned (so I respect Stephen Hawking, Kelly Holmes or Rowan Williams) or it's due to all humans,perhaps all life-forms.
It's about memorials. Today I was waiting for some other people in a village (Dedham) by the war memorial, so I read what was written on the memorial. I thought at first it was a rare exception, with as many names recorded for the Second World War as the First (this has only happened in my experience when the place was by the sea and had a strong naval connection, since British military losses in the First World War were far higher than in the Second, but naval casualties were higher in the Second). But I'd failed to see that there were two panels of names for 1914-18 and one for 1939-45. In three cases, I think, surnames occurred twice in the 1914-18 list. This might just indicate that this surname was traditionally common in that village, but it might well indicate the loss of two brothers. In one case a surname not nationally at all common appeared in both lists: perhaps a child lost his father in one war and himself died in the next. The 1939-45 list included two civilians, evidently a woman and her young child. That must have been a bomb. Dedham is not the sort of place to have been a deliberate target, but maybe the bomb was off-target for the mail railway line a few miles off, or the plane was unloading its bombs having turned back from its intended target for some reason such as damage, mechanical problems or fog. In Britain as in other countries, such losses were numerous in cities, ports and so on, but rare well into the countryside.
I thought a bit about what I had learnt and the stories of these people, stories I would never learn.
Some children jumped up on the higher steps of the memorial and played noisily. Their parents called them once and after a while they left. When I returned to the place later, more children were playing on the memorial.
Now - I had mixed feelings about this. I feel such a memorial ought to be treated seriously - whatever you think of war in general or these wars in particular - and we should show respect for those who died. But might not they have been happy that children were happy there?
It's not about traditional respect for elders (children for adults, young adults for older adults), or for clergy, upper-class landowners or whatever - even teachers. My belief at fifteen is pretty much my belief fifty years later, that while some systems, to function effectively, need a fair amount of people acting as if they respect people of "standing" - so, for example, in an effective school, hospital or military unit, if the decision-makers were regularly treated with open disrespect, the work of the unit would be damaged - real respect either has to be earned (so I respect Stephen Hawking, Kelly Holmes or Rowan Williams) or it's due to all humans,perhaps all life-forms.
It's about memorials. Today I was waiting for some other people in a village (Dedham) by the war memorial, so I read what was written on the memorial. I thought at first it was a rare exception, with as many names recorded for the Second World War as the First (this has only happened in my experience when the place was by the sea and had a strong naval connection, since British military losses in the First World War were far higher than in the Second, but naval casualties were higher in the Second). But I'd failed to see that there were two panels of names for 1914-18 and one for 1939-45. In three cases, I think, surnames occurred twice in the 1914-18 list. This might just indicate that this surname was traditionally common in that village, but it might well indicate the loss of two brothers. In one case a surname not nationally at all common appeared in both lists: perhaps a child lost his father in one war and himself died in the next. The 1939-45 list included two civilians, evidently a woman and her young child. That must have been a bomb. Dedham is not the sort of place to have been a deliberate target, but maybe the bomb was off-target for the mail railway line a few miles off, or the plane was unloading its bombs having turned back from its intended target for some reason such as damage, mechanical problems or fog. In Britain as in other countries, such losses were numerous in cities, ports and so on, but rare well into the countryside.
I thought a bit about what I had learnt and the stories of these people, stories I would never learn.
Some children jumped up on the higher steps of the memorial and played noisily. Their parents called them once and after a while they left. When I returned to the place later, more children were playing on the memorial.
Now - I had mixed feelings about this. I feel such a memorial ought to be treated seriously - whatever you think of war in general or these wars in particular - and we should show respect for those who died. But might not they have been happy that children were happy there?
Friday, 13 July 2012
Favourite places: Naseby
The battle of Naseby was one of the most important battles in British history. It took place on 14 June 1645 in the last but one year of the First Civil War between King Charles I and Parliament. When I studied the origins, course and aftermath of the Civil War as a History undergraduate (my special subject in my last year was "Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution"), I had little interest in the military side, but since then I've found battlefields both mournful and fascinating places. Unlike, say, Culloden (a stand of pines is right in the middle of the battlefield, so you can't stand on one side and imagine how it looked to see enemy forces drawn up on the other side: besides, not far behind the Jacobite position now are brick houses of the Inverness suburbs), or unlike the other most decisive Civil War battlefield at Marston Moor (road through the middle, rubbish dump by the monument when I visited), Naseby is relatively well preserved, though a motorway spur was driven through an outlying area.
The site is in Northamptonshire but very close to Leicestershire to the north, in rolling, mainly open country of fields, small woods and villages. The monument and small interpretative display are just in front of the centre of the Parliamentary position: from there you can easily see the ridge where the Royalist army started and Sulby hedges, which played a key part in the battle, to the Parliamentary left. In 1645 the roads in the area were rough tracks and some ground now farmed was marshy.
The war had been going on for three years with little sign of an end. Parliament's advantage from the major victory at Marston Moor outside York the year before had been squandered in a disastrous Westcountry campaign in which many of the veteran Parliamentary infantry had been killed, many after surrender and disarming by Cornish locals. Parliament had organised a "New Model Army" to clear out half-hearted officers, but the infantry were very green (some got their first weapons training on the march a day or two before the battle)and many were unenthusiastic, unlike the highly-motivated, well-trained cavalry. The Royalist army had plenty of experienced infantry; their cavalry ("cavaliers")were confident but ill-disciplined.
The King's main army had captured Leicester, a city of strong Parliamentary and Puritan sympathies, and had slaughtered a number of civilians. The Parliamentary General Sir Thomas Fairfax had been besieging Oxford, but was ordered away to engage the King, which he did. The King was hoping for cavalry reinfoircements but they never arrived; in contrast, East Anglian cavalry under Oliver Cromwell reinforced Fairfax the night before the battle. As a result, while the numbers of infantry on the two sides were similar (with probably a slight Royalist advantage), Fairfax had a big advantage in cavalry and also some dragoons (light cavalry who operated like modern motorised infantry, travelling fast but fighting on foot). On the Royalist side the King was in ultimate command but under him, control was with Prince Rupert.
The Parliamentary left and Royalist right rested on Sulby hedges. Fairfax sent dragoons behind the hedges so they could deliver flanking fire. Some accounts say the Royalists tried to occupy this point too and were driven off. The King's army charged and won early success against the green New Model infantry and some of the cavalry, but Prince Rupert's cavalry pursued fleeing Parliamentarians away from the main battlefield while Cromwell, having defeated the outnumbered Royalist cavalry facing him on the Parliamentary right, turned to join the infantry battle, as so did the dragoons (on horseback, which was not at all in the rulebook). The Royalist cavalry scattered and the infantry then had no chance, though many fought on. The King's cause never recovered.
I've visited the site perhaps four times and it has a strange power for me. It is not hard to imagine myself there on 14 June 1645.
Other things to attract visitors? A short way to the north over the Leicestershire border is picturesque Market Harborough. There's a good network of footpaths and it's pleasant if unspectacular walking country. There's plenty of good pubs, many of them in the characteristic, mellow local yellow sandstone.
The site is in Northamptonshire but very close to Leicestershire to the north, in rolling, mainly open country of fields, small woods and villages. The monument and small interpretative display are just in front of the centre of the Parliamentary position: from there you can easily see the ridge where the Royalist army started and Sulby hedges, which played a key part in the battle, to the Parliamentary left. In 1645 the roads in the area were rough tracks and some ground now farmed was marshy.
The war had been going on for three years with little sign of an end. Parliament's advantage from the major victory at Marston Moor outside York the year before had been squandered in a disastrous Westcountry campaign in which many of the veteran Parliamentary infantry had been killed, many after surrender and disarming by Cornish locals. Parliament had organised a "New Model Army" to clear out half-hearted officers, but the infantry were very green (some got their first weapons training on the march a day or two before the battle)and many were unenthusiastic, unlike the highly-motivated, well-trained cavalry. The Royalist army had plenty of experienced infantry; their cavalry ("cavaliers")were confident but ill-disciplined.
The King's main army had captured Leicester, a city of strong Parliamentary and Puritan sympathies, and had slaughtered a number of civilians. The Parliamentary General Sir Thomas Fairfax had been besieging Oxford, but was ordered away to engage the King, which he did. The King was hoping for cavalry reinfoircements but they never arrived; in contrast, East Anglian cavalry under Oliver Cromwell reinforced Fairfax the night before the battle. As a result, while the numbers of infantry on the two sides were similar (with probably a slight Royalist advantage), Fairfax had a big advantage in cavalry and also some dragoons (light cavalry who operated like modern motorised infantry, travelling fast but fighting on foot). On the Royalist side the King was in ultimate command but under him, control was with Prince Rupert.
The Parliamentary left and Royalist right rested on Sulby hedges. Fairfax sent dragoons behind the hedges so they could deliver flanking fire. Some accounts say the Royalists tried to occupy this point too and were driven off. The King's army charged and won early success against the green New Model infantry and some of the cavalry, but Prince Rupert's cavalry pursued fleeing Parliamentarians away from the main battlefield while Cromwell, having defeated the outnumbered Royalist cavalry facing him on the Parliamentary right, turned to join the infantry battle, as so did the dragoons (on horseback, which was not at all in the rulebook). The Royalist cavalry scattered and the infantry then had no chance, though many fought on. The King's cause never recovered.
I've visited the site perhaps four times and it has a strange power for me. It is not hard to imagine myself there on 14 June 1645.
Other things to attract visitors? A short way to the north over the Leicestershire border is picturesque Market Harborough. There's a good network of footpaths and it's pleasant if unspectacular walking country. There's plenty of good pubs, many of them in the characteristic, mellow local yellow sandstone.
Wednesday, 2 May 2012
You can stop Progress: how we got here
The idea of Progress is quite new. Most people through history have operated on the working assumption that things would stay pretty much the same. Even while great civilisations and empires were developing, people harked back to an imaginary "golden age" which may have owed more to a fantasy of returning to the womb than to any memories of past societies. It was also common for people to think in terms of cyclical change: culture, like plants or daylight, grew, reached maturity, declined, died and rose again.
Even in the Middle Ages of Western and central Europe, though, when change was quite slow, social systems solid and slow-changing and economic activity not obviously heading up or down, some people, mostly intellectuals, along with myths of a golden age,saw knowledge growing: we were dwarves standing on the shoulders of the ancient philosophers, but the dwarf could see a little further than the philosopher.
It's worth pointing out that believing in a golden past is not necessarily conservative or deadening of effort to improve. If you believe things were once much better and it's possible to return towards that state, you have confidence to challenge the status quo and you may achieve great change, though probably not quite what you expected. Martin Luther and the Levellers among the Parliamentary militants in the English Civil War both believed they were giving people a chance to throw off oppression and distortion and return to a better earlier state.
Rapid economic growth, initially in Italy and the Netherlands, unleashed the Renaissance and an expectation of progress in all sorts of fields. It took about another two hundred years for progress to become a common and settled expectation, till the early 18th century, but by then economic development, scientific discoveries and rapid development of new skills in the arts such as music made this belief compelling - in Europe (excluding the south-east under the Turkish empire) and the European colonies in America. It was not long before this created new expectations in politics, that political systems could be devised that would be better than those before, though there was still a strong tendency to hark back to idealised past models, whether a state of primitive tribal equality (Rousseau) or the Roman Republic (theoreticians of the American republics). The brutality and devastating war unleashed by the French Revolution revived a tense conservatism, but the idea of progress across the board did not go away - nor could it as the early 19th century saw railways and massive industrial development.
Few people questioned that this was progress, though many saw disadvantages and worked to overcome them. Europeans saw Australia, unspoilt as we might now say, and thought of huge opportunities to turn forest and scrub to cities and farms. A rural scene or a sleepy town turning to a mass of factories or mines and a jammed-together mass of housing for the workers was progress. We might now look back and see devastation of habitats teeming with wildlife, the ruin of both inventive civilisations and simple, sustainable lifestyles in the Americas or Africa or a subtler loss of a sense of wonder, a coarsening of spirituality perhaps, but few did so at the time. The human disbenefits of "progress" were seen as solvable - and most of them were, with better sanitation, a spread of basic schooling and so on. While the vision was mainly secular, religious people too (mainly Christians) saw economic development, colonisation and the advance of science as the realisation of God's work and plan. Darwin did not seriously disturb this: indeed, many Christians rapidly accepted the idea of evolution.
The concept of biological evolution, though, did encourage people to think of evolutionary improvement in human society, false though the analogy was. In Germany in particular, before the Nazis but especially among the Nazis, it was common to see "survival of the fittest" applying to struggle between races, states and nations and to think that out of the struggle better things would emerge. Some colonialists had somewhat similar ideas. Those who fought against Fascism or colonialism still mostly believed in human progress of some kind.
When I was growing up, it was still common to hear (particularly in the U.S.A.), "You can't stop progress". In other words, change was basically in a good direction, but if you didn't like it, tough.
So was that fair and true, and where has it taken us? That's for next time!
BY THE WAY - APOLOGIES TO READERS, BUT WHY THE $$$$$ DOES BLOGSPOT, TO WHICH I WOULD LIKE TO DO INDESCRIBABLE THINGS, KEEP REMOVING MY PARAGRAPHING???????????!!!!!!!?
Monday, 16 April 2012
What is a Liberal? 1: A Bit of History and Geography
I am a Liberal. I find that the term is used by people who have no stake in it to mean things I don't recognise - and sometimes by people who do have a stake in it. It also means different things in different places - so I thought I'd define what it meant to me.
It isn't altogether strange that the word means such different things in different countries: after all, the military dictatorship of Myanmar (Burma) calls itself Socialist, as does the main French centre-left party, which has its faults but is certainly democratic and civilian; and the same word was used by Communist dictatorships and by British Labour Party leaders who tied Britain closely to NATO, the USA and a hostile stand-off with the Communist regimes after the Second World War. "Conservative" might mean similar things around the world, but that's because it's perhaps more a condition than a programme or a philosophy; and European Conservatism has little of the moral majority flavour of U.S. Conservatism.
In the U.S., Liberal means something like "left-wing" or "social democratic" in Europe. In much of continental Europe Liberalism is seen as a creed of individual liberty and free enterprise, naturally aligned against high taxation, a strong state and a powerful church, and kinder to business interests than the Conservatives, Nationalists or Christian Democrats. South American Liberals are traditionally anti-clerical.
The roots of the word are, I believe, in early 19th century Spain, applied to reformers who opposed absolute royal power and challenged the Catholic Church on some issues. It has Latin origins and meant either "free" or "generous". Britain had a Liberal Party from the 1860s, but that party had much older roots, being a merger of Radicals (left democrats often accused of being rabble-rousers and crypto-revolutionaries) with a larger group of Whigs, a party tracing its roots back to opposition to the King in the 1670s and even to the Parliamentary cause in the English Civil War and that of the Covenanters in Scotland. So there are some emerging themes - opposition to unlimited power, plus defence of individual and collective rights against a powerful centre.
The Liberal Party in Britain generally stood for the removal of privileges and barriers, for example the restriction of access to universities by religion, and led the gradual process of extending the vote to more and more groups during the 19th century. A commitment to free trade was seen as part of this opposition to unfair and divisive barriers and privileges. In the late 19th century the party increasingly perceived that liberty as well as compassion required an assault on extremes of poverty, and the Liberal Government of 1905-14 laid the foundations of a system of social insurance. Although the Whigs had once been a rather warlike party, Liberals were always more suspicious of military adventure and empire than their main opponents.
The rapid replacement of the Liberal Party by Labour as the main anti-Conservative party in the 1920s meant a deep decline but also to a painful process of redefinition and rededication in roughly the period 1928-1962.
So what came out of that? It matters to me because I joined the party as a student at the end of 1966.
I was joining a party that was uneasy with the facile categories of left and right, but on most issues stood on the left. It was not hostile to the state, but opposed what it saw as unnecessary growth of state power such as nationalisation of some industries. It defended individual liberty in moral matters and preached a revival of local initiative and collective self-help, instead of the centralisation and command planning popular with Labour at that time. It was internationalist, and without arguing against commitment to NATO and suchlike, sought a way out of military stockpiling and the Cold War. It was interested in giving real power to employees in companies. While less suspicious of business interests than Labour, it was not a "businessmen's party" as some continental Liberal parties had become.
Perhaps what attracted me most was the commitment to facilitating local, free, collective action wherever possible instead of either passive acceptance of central state power or big business power.
Next time I'll try to define what I mean when I say I'm a Liberal and what that means for British Liberalism now.
It isn't altogether strange that the word means such different things in different countries: after all, the military dictatorship of Myanmar (Burma) calls itself Socialist, as does the main French centre-left party, which has its faults but is certainly democratic and civilian; and the same word was used by Communist dictatorships and by British Labour Party leaders who tied Britain closely to NATO, the USA and a hostile stand-off with the Communist regimes after the Second World War. "Conservative" might mean similar things around the world, but that's because it's perhaps more a condition than a programme or a philosophy; and European Conservatism has little of the moral majority flavour of U.S. Conservatism.
In the U.S., Liberal means something like "left-wing" or "social democratic" in Europe. In much of continental Europe Liberalism is seen as a creed of individual liberty and free enterprise, naturally aligned against high taxation, a strong state and a powerful church, and kinder to business interests than the Conservatives, Nationalists or Christian Democrats. South American Liberals are traditionally anti-clerical.
The roots of the word are, I believe, in early 19th century Spain, applied to reformers who opposed absolute royal power and challenged the Catholic Church on some issues. It has Latin origins and meant either "free" or "generous". Britain had a Liberal Party from the 1860s, but that party had much older roots, being a merger of Radicals (left democrats often accused of being rabble-rousers and crypto-revolutionaries) with a larger group of Whigs, a party tracing its roots back to opposition to the King in the 1670s and even to the Parliamentary cause in the English Civil War and that of the Covenanters in Scotland. So there are some emerging themes - opposition to unlimited power, plus defence of individual and collective rights against a powerful centre.
The Liberal Party in Britain generally stood for the removal of privileges and barriers, for example the restriction of access to universities by religion, and led the gradual process of extending the vote to more and more groups during the 19th century. A commitment to free trade was seen as part of this opposition to unfair and divisive barriers and privileges. In the late 19th century the party increasingly perceived that liberty as well as compassion required an assault on extremes of poverty, and the Liberal Government of 1905-14 laid the foundations of a system of social insurance. Although the Whigs had once been a rather warlike party, Liberals were always more suspicious of military adventure and empire than their main opponents.
The rapid replacement of the Liberal Party by Labour as the main anti-Conservative party in the 1920s meant a deep decline but also to a painful process of redefinition and rededication in roughly the period 1928-1962.
So what came out of that? It matters to me because I joined the party as a student at the end of 1966.
I was joining a party that was uneasy with the facile categories of left and right, but on most issues stood on the left. It was not hostile to the state, but opposed what it saw as unnecessary growth of state power such as nationalisation of some industries. It defended individual liberty in moral matters and preached a revival of local initiative and collective self-help, instead of the centralisation and command planning popular with Labour at that time. It was internationalist, and without arguing against commitment to NATO and suchlike, sought a way out of military stockpiling and the Cold War. It was interested in giving real power to employees in companies. While less suspicious of business interests than Labour, it was not a "businessmen's party" as some continental Liberal parties had become.
Perhaps what attracted me most was the commitment to facilitating local, free, collective action wherever possible instead of either passive acceptance of central state power or big business power.
Next time I'll try to define what I mean when I say I'm a Liberal and what that means for British Liberalism now.
Friday, 13 January 2012
The causes of wars
It's possible to get really deep on this subject. I'm going to get really superficial. However, anyone who comments is welcome to make it deeper and I'll join you.
If you're in any way religious, you'll be familiar with people saying religion is bad because it causes wars. Well, yes, it does cause some wars. Anything about which people feel passionately is likely to cause some conflicts. It also stops or prevents some wars.
As a History graduate who's maintained my interest in the subject, I've come across huge numbers of wars going from ancient Egypt and Babylon to modern America, Russia and China. If I try to categorise the main causes of those wars (and of course there will be some disputable cases), it appears to me the main cause of wars is land - disputes over ownership of or greed for land. If I set out a table of the causes from the commonest down, it goes like this:
1: Land
2: Other resources (gold, oil, control of a vital trade route etc)
3: Political advantage (for example, a tottering regime may start a war in the hope that victory may rescue its political fortunes back home, and in a society where victorious generals often achieve political power at home, such as ancient Rome, ambitious generals may start wars. This could also be applied to situations where a neighbouring country is harbouring rebels or dissidents who are a threat to the regime and to the situation not uncommon up to the 18th century where there is a disputed succession to the throne of country A: perhaps Smith gets the upper hand but neighbouring country B supports Jones, that leads to war and then maybe country C supports Smith)
4: National pride and status (we like to hear our armies have been victorious; the land we're conquering may be useless, but it makes the empire look bigger on maps - would also cover wars caused by insults)
5: Revenge
6: Religion and other issues of belief
7: Giving the army something to do, since bored generals and bored common soldiers can both be dangerous in states without a strong tradition of the military staying out of politics.
I considered a category of "flexing muscles", where a strong country is showing off its power to others, but it seemed to me the motive then is probably 2, 3 or 4, depending on what the weaker countries are supposed to do when they've seen that power demonstrated.
I've excluded civil wars from that, and belief (but not necessarily religious belief) would be a stronger factor in many of those. However, many civil wars are arguably class wars (not in a Marxist sense necessarily), which comes down to a dispute over resources, whether wealth or power.
Of course those pursuing wars (whether aggressors or victims or 6/6 cases) generally invoke religion in their support. Even the officially atheist Soviet Union encouraged a revival of Orthodox religion in the Second World War bcause it was seen as strengthening people's will to resist and it put the war in the context of other Russian struggles against invaders of different beliefs. That does not make religion the cause of the war, and since the 20th century many of the voices raised against wars have come from religious groups.
If you're in any way religious, you'll be familiar with people saying religion is bad because it causes wars. Well, yes, it does cause some wars. Anything about which people feel passionately is likely to cause some conflicts. It also stops or prevents some wars.
As a History graduate who's maintained my interest in the subject, I've come across huge numbers of wars going from ancient Egypt and Babylon to modern America, Russia and China. If I try to categorise the main causes of those wars (and of course there will be some disputable cases), it appears to me the main cause of wars is land - disputes over ownership of or greed for land. If I set out a table of the causes from the commonest down, it goes like this:
1: Land
2: Other resources (gold, oil, control of a vital trade route etc)
3: Political advantage (for example, a tottering regime may start a war in the hope that victory may rescue its political fortunes back home, and in a society where victorious generals often achieve political power at home, such as ancient Rome, ambitious generals may start wars. This could also be applied to situations where a neighbouring country is harbouring rebels or dissidents who are a threat to the regime and to the situation not uncommon up to the 18th century where there is a disputed succession to the throne of country A: perhaps Smith gets the upper hand but neighbouring country B supports Jones, that leads to war and then maybe country C supports Smith)
4: National pride and status (we like to hear our armies have been victorious; the land we're conquering may be useless, but it makes the empire look bigger on maps - would also cover wars caused by insults)
5: Revenge
6: Religion and other issues of belief
7: Giving the army something to do, since bored generals and bored common soldiers can both be dangerous in states without a strong tradition of the military staying out of politics.
I considered a category of "flexing muscles", where a strong country is showing off its power to others, but it seemed to me the motive then is probably 2, 3 or 4, depending on what the weaker countries are supposed to do when they've seen that power demonstrated.
I've excluded civil wars from that, and belief (but not necessarily religious belief) would be a stronger factor in many of those. However, many civil wars are arguably class wars (not in a Marxist sense necessarily), which comes down to a dispute over resources, whether wealth or power.
Of course those pursuing wars (whether aggressors or victims or 6/6 cases) generally invoke religion in their support. Even the officially atheist Soviet Union encouraged a revival of Orthodox religion in the Second World War bcause it was seen as strengthening people's will to resist and it put the war in the context of other Russian struggles against invaders of different beliefs. That does not make religion the cause of the war, and since the 20th century many of the voices raised against wars have come from religious groups.
Sunday, 13 November 2011
The Norfolk Coast
Another place to celebrate - the North Norfolk coast. I'm just back from three days there: it's almost a manageable day trip from Harwich. I go there mainly because it's an outstanding area for birdwatching, especially in autumn (not just for the Brits - there were Lithuanians visiting a reserve when I was there), but it appeals to me in other ways too.
The coast is open and bleak. If you stand on this coast and look north, there is no land between you and the Arctic. At a place like Deepdale Marsh, looking out to Scolt Head, the expanse of saltmarsh is so great you might imagine you were seeing halfway to the Arctic. In September to November it's full of the urgency of migrating birds, huge flocks of winter thrushes, starlings, skylarks; skeins of hinking and chattering geese; lone harriers and peregrines.
The villages, though, are full of quirky variety, no two old buildings the same or even very similar, brick and flint mixed in walls. Nowadays a lot of the small shops cater to visitors (delicatessens, mini art galleries, binocular and telescope shops), but they have variety too; and the pubs are superb, real ale havens and each with its own personality.
The coast is marked by many Second World War fortifications. When Britain expected invasion from Germany, both the British and the German high commands identified two likely locations for invasion, one Norfolk to north Suffolk and the other Sussex. The British fortified both strongly but thought Norfolk the most likely because of the open country behind the coast. After the war they discovered that the German plans had been made for Sussex because it offered a shorter sea crossing. The fortlets I knew as a kid as "pill-boxes" are now preserved as archaeological resources.
To change the subject briefly: in the Morrison's supermarket yesterday - 12 November - the staff were wearing "Happy Christmas" sweatshirts! Have I missed something?
The coast is open and bleak. If you stand on this coast and look north, there is no land between you and the Arctic. At a place like Deepdale Marsh, looking out to Scolt Head, the expanse of saltmarsh is so great you might imagine you were seeing halfway to the Arctic. In September to November it's full of the urgency of migrating birds, huge flocks of winter thrushes, starlings, skylarks; skeins of hinking and chattering geese; lone harriers and peregrines.
The villages, though, are full of quirky variety, no two old buildings the same or even very similar, brick and flint mixed in walls. Nowadays a lot of the small shops cater to visitors (delicatessens, mini art galleries, binocular and telescope shops), but they have variety too; and the pubs are superb, real ale havens and each with its own personality.
The coast is marked by many Second World War fortifications. When Britain expected invasion from Germany, both the British and the German high commands identified two likely locations for invasion, one Norfolk to north Suffolk and the other Sussex. The British fortified both strongly but thought Norfolk the most likely because of the open country behind the coast. After the war they discovered that the German plans had been made for Sussex because it offered a shorter sea crossing. The fortlets I knew as a kid as "pill-boxes" are now preserved as archaeological resources.
To change the subject briefly: in the Morrison's supermarket yesterday - 12 November - the staff were wearing "Happy Christmas" sweatshirts! Have I missed something?
Sunday, 11 September 2011
Plugging Places: the Bawdsey/Ramsholt peninsula, Suffolk, England
I'm going to pick a favourite place or area from time to time and say why I like it. This time - an out-of-the-way corner of coastal Suffolk. The A12 runs like a spine along East Suffolk, from Ipswich towards Norwich and Great Yarmouth, with fairly easy trips off it to Aldeburgh (art), Minsmere (birds) and Lowestoft (traditional seaside stuff) - and the railway follows a similar course -but although the Bawdsey/Ramsholt area is near to Ipswich and even Harwich as the crow flies, we aren't crows and the Deben estuary gets in the way. To arrive from nearly anywhere you need to go round Woodbridge and take quite a long trip seawards.
So the area isn't crowded. The beaches are shingle. But it has the character of an island, quirky, special, running to its own rhythms. The open East coast scenery is beautiful if (and) sometimes bleak. It's a great area for birds (easpecially autumn migrants) and other wildlife such as butterflies, and it has some excellent pubs of which the Sorrel Horse is probably the best, though at the Swan you have good acomodation and Indian meals, and at the Ramsholt Arms an estuary-side location and good beer variety, if not really a proper pub atmosphere weekends. There's history too: Bawdsey was the number one location for the development of radar, without which the history of the Second World War would have been very different. Martello towers from the Napoleaonic Wars and "pillboxes" from the Second World War point out that this has been a possible invasion area since Celtic times.
The villages contain some interesting buildings (Bawdsey especially) but aren't picture postcard pretty. Back towards Woodbridge is more good birding (and UFO-chasing) territory with Hollesley Common and Rendlesham Forest: the latter has signs to a UFO trail, though I doubt if any UFO pilot would understand them, and if (s)he did, might ignore them. Towards Woodbridge also is much older history than 1939, the early Saxon royal burial site and museum at Sutton Hoo (Hoo may well refer to Long-eared Owls, so back to birds again).
It's all worth a day trip, but even more worth staying a couple of nights.
So the area isn't crowded. The beaches are shingle. But it has the character of an island, quirky, special, running to its own rhythms. The open East coast scenery is beautiful if (and) sometimes bleak. It's a great area for birds (easpecially autumn migrants) and other wildlife such as butterflies, and it has some excellent pubs of which the Sorrel Horse is probably the best, though at the Swan you have good acomodation and Indian meals, and at the Ramsholt Arms an estuary-side location and good beer variety, if not really a proper pub atmosphere weekends. There's history too: Bawdsey was the number one location for the development of radar, without which the history of the Second World War would have been very different. Martello towers from the Napoleaonic Wars and "pillboxes" from the Second World War point out that this has been a possible invasion area since Celtic times.
The villages contain some interesting buildings (Bawdsey especially) but aren't picture postcard pretty. Back towards Woodbridge is more good birding (and UFO-chasing) territory with Hollesley Common and Rendlesham Forest: the latter has signs to a UFO trail, though I doubt if any UFO pilot would understand them, and if (s)he did, might ignore them. Towards Woodbridge also is much older history than 1939, the early Saxon royal burial site and museum at Sutton Hoo (Hoo may well refer to Long-eared Owls, so back to birds again).
It's all worth a day trip, but even more worth staying a couple of nights.
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
Blame
Sometimes controversies are conversations of the deaf. That may be because the two positions are not really contradictory, but the two sides keep on repeating their positions as if one does deny the other. Take the different reactions to England's (and Wales', just) recent riots and looting. Anyone who tried to link the events to poverty, to vast income diferentials or to unrelieved consumerism has got jumped on by people accusing them of being soft on crime and excusing violent or selfish acts.
But when historians try to find explanations for the rise to power of the Nazis in Germany, perhaps trying to explain why some people became enthusiastic Nazis, they're not accused of excusing Nazism: it's generally regarded as a sensible thing to do, in order to try to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Looting is wrong and kicking an old man to death is downright evil, but it surely makes sense to ask ourselves why this could happen, why it happened in some places and not others, and how to make it less likely in future.
Similar illogical arguments can happen over sexual assault and indeed any assault. A rapist or a violent robber is totally wrong and totally responsible for his actions. If the victim was drunk and refused the offer of a place in a taxi with friends, it's entirely sensible to point out to others that this greatly increased the chances of an attack (I'm not talking here about stupid comments about jeans etc). To point this out is not to reduce the culpability of the attacker at all. What we seem to be doing here is importing the insurance industry idea of percentages of responsibility (the accident was 60% your fault and 40% his) into an area where it doesn't belong. What I do is 100% my responsibility.
But when historians try to find explanations for the rise to power of the Nazis in Germany, perhaps trying to explain why some people became enthusiastic Nazis, they're not accused of excusing Nazism: it's generally regarded as a sensible thing to do, in order to try to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Looting is wrong and kicking an old man to death is downright evil, but it surely makes sense to ask ourselves why this could happen, why it happened in some places and not others, and how to make it less likely in future.
Similar illogical arguments can happen over sexual assault and indeed any assault. A rapist or a violent robber is totally wrong and totally responsible for his actions. If the victim was drunk and refused the offer of a place in a taxi with friends, it's entirely sensible to point out to others that this greatly increased the chances of an attack (I'm not talking here about stupid comments about jeans etc). To point this out is not to reduce the culpability of the attacker at all. What we seem to be doing here is importing the insurance industry idea of percentages of responsibility (the accident was 60% your fault and 40% his) into an area where it doesn't belong. What I do is 100% my responsibility.
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