Andy Newman
As a young man I used to work on a ferry in the stark industrial landscape of Bristol docks. Today the harbour is mainly dominated by housing and leisure, but in the late 1970s Bristol had only recently ceased to be a major port: and industrial decline was symbolised by the empty wharves, abandoned cranes and cavernous, bleak, disused warehouses.
But it also screamed with the cries of ghosts. Over two thousand slave ships sailed from Bristol, transporting half a million black Africans: shackled, tortured, branded, murdered, raped, and reduced to the status of cattle. In all, nearly three million slaves were transported by British ships. Few slaves set foot on English soil, but some did. Under the vaults and caves of that most beautiful of English churches, St Mary Redcliffe, enslaved children, women and men were chained in the dark.
How could we English, who pride ourselves on our fair play, our belief in justice, and our refusal to kneel at the feet of tyrants have committed these crimes? How did we come to build an Empire of pain?
It is interesting how often loss of innocence is a theme in English culture.
The power of Blake’s Jerusalem is that by asking whether there was once a time when England was blessed, he acknowledges that it no longer is. We lost the England of Chaucer and Shakespeare, the England of woods and glades. We put those better days of an early nation behind us to take up Empire.
Of course we English share a beautiful and expressive language, and many of the personality traits and the values we believe in are specific to our culture. We share a landscape that’s mellow and temperate, but also often industrial and urban. Yet England has always been contested.
In mythology, Robin Hood and his Merry Men not only stole from the rich to give to the poor, but also proved that the yeoman with his longbow could fell the armoured chivalry of their oppressors.
The peasant revolt in 1381 asked a simple question, “When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then a gentleman?” The English revolution spawned the Levellers and the Diggers, and a demand for economic equality in our common treasury.
Our England is the England of General Ludd and Captain Swing and of the Chartists. It is the England of the 1926 general strike, of the battle of Cable Street, the fight to free the Pentonville Five, the Anti-Nazi League and the great miners’ strike.
As a largely industrial and urban country, the Labour movement with our belief in social and economic equality, and our belief in extending democracy has made a huge and indelible impact on England’s culture and history.
Of course we share much of this history with our friends and cousins in Wales and Scotland. But England’s loss of innocence was bound up with the birth of the Union. The bloodstains of the British Empire are soaked equally into the souls of the English, Welsh and Scots because “Britain” was always a marriage based on shared guilt.
We should be aware that England has a proud and long history of fighting for equality and freedom that runs alongside our sordid history of Empire. We are a happily multicultural nation that should take a modest place in the world, and aspire to make a fairer, more equitable country, a better England for ourselves and for our children. We need to build Jerusalem here, not only on our green and pleasant land, but in our cities and housing estates as well.
Andy Newman is a socialist activist from Swindon, he contributes to the blog Socialist Unity
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“As a largely industrial and urban country, the Labour movement with our belief in social and economic equality, and our belief in extending democracy has made a huge and indelible impact on England’s culture and history”, it certainly has but not for the good of England, lets look at this statement in today’s context, “our belief in social and economic equality”, well under the Barnett Formula (which Labour have no intention of recinding) the people of England who pay so much in thier taxes are funding a better Scotland to the extent that we subsidise in Scotland, free healthcare for the elderly, life saving cancer drugs that are denied to the people of England and virtually free further education to which English students have to pay a premium, I do not see much social and economic equality here, then we have ” and our belief in extending democracy”, funny that when it comes to extending democracy England has been discarded, not for England a Parliament, not for England a first Minister and executive oh! no England can not have that, it would break the Union you see, yet in the name of Democracy our service men are sent to Iraq at great cost and lives, makes you wonder of Labour’s definition of democracy does’nt it?
Barry (The Elder)
13 Sep 07 at 12:43 am
Barry, the term Labour movement is discrete from Labour government — the former does not govern the latter, especially not today with Brown embracing Thatcher…
Charlie Marks
13 Sep 07 at 3:41 pm
Charlie, is it not the Labour movement that back the Labour Party? Although you say “discrete”, I have yet to hear from the Labour movement in the 10 years or so since devoltion, one speech from the Labour movement for England to have political and democratic parity with Scotland, I have yet to read from any leader of any trades union put pen to paper about this disparity. When the English Constutitional Convention held it’s inaugarel meeting in the house of commons, all leading unions were invited to attend, not one chose to. So my reply is to both the Labour movement and the Labour Govt, but now Mr Brown is giving Nurses, Police, Prison Staff and the civil service employees in England a two part pay increase whereas in Scotland they have it one go, the times is ripe to speak out, I wait with baited breath
Barry (The Elder)
14 Sep 07 at 5:05 pm
Barry, you are correct. In a way. Most trade unions give money to the Labour Party. That does not mean that members of the Labour movement back the party as it exists. A similar situation might be said to exist in the Conservative party — the base oppose the leadership.
The time is right for trade union leaders to speak out on the national question in England. The reason it has not happened in the past and probably won’t happen any time soon is because most unions are tied to Labour and to Britain.
If you look at the comments made on the Socialist Unity blog whenever Andy posts on England, you can see that the issue is hard for socialists to grasp, owing to the conflation of England and Britain, the confusion of civic nationalism with ethnic nationalism, etc.
Charlie Marks
14 Sep 07 at 8:56 pm
Charlie, I agree, the confusion and conflation between England and Britain cuts across the board in all classes and creeds of people, this is where the message of us English nationalists is hardest to get across, to most people devolution is just part of something happening but it really is not affecting them directly, perhaps a recession is long overdue to focus the mind on the economic disparity devolution has brought, perhaps when a union leader has a relative who dies (god forbid) of cancer due to the fact a life saving cancer drug is not available in England but in Scotland the penny will finally drop
Barry (The Elder)
15 Sep 07 at 12:39 am
Barry.
There is indeed a discrepency that that traditional concerns of the labour movement (which is wider than just the labour party) has ignored the current constitutional imbalance.
Socialists and trade unionists in England have been slow to appreciate the importance of the question of an English parliament, and perhaps Independence.
Charlie is correct that we are in the early days of a debate about it, and there is a lot of confusion.
There will be a lot of battles ahead! But the labour movement, or at least part of it, does need to be won over. And this is why it is importnat for example that the case for an English parliamant is not too asscoiated with some of the policies of the EDP on immigration.
Some of the choices we make are important, If “Jerusalem” is promoted as or anthem then that would be popular with (at least some) left wingers, if “Land of Hope and Glory” was promoted then it would be unhelpful becasue it woould never be accepted by the left.
andy newman
17 Sep 07 at 5:03 pm
As for labour movement peeps who’ve been on the ball with regard to an English parliament, how’s about Tony Benn?
Fifteen years ago, he introduced a bill to the British parliament which would have enabled the creation of a parliament for England.
And would you care for Billy Bragg? No, I wouldn’t either, but occasionally he’s good with words. He’s been banging on about Englishness for some time now, but alas he’s wobbly on the issue of an English parliament…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D0vlGuk48Y
Charlie Marks
17 Sep 07 at 8:27 pm
Andy, thanks for your comments, with regards to the English National Anthem, Land of Hope and Glory is in essence a British anthem whereas Blake’s Jerusalem is about England, therefore to me wins hands down.
Charlie, Billy Bragg is a person who talks a lot about England and her problems but then cossets himself away from it all in Devon, as for Mr Benn I agree but one bill many years ago, it seems to me at least, we have been forgotten.
If the Labour movement has ignored the decrepancies under devolution then it is about time they woke up, is it happy that in England civil servants are getting a pay award of 2.5% in two parts yet in Scotland they are getting upto 3.5% immeadiately?
Barry (The Elder)
18 Sep 07 at 12:30 am
I don’t think Jerusalem has any competition. What else could be the English national anthem?
There is a growing realisation that the lack of a national government for England means that, for example, the NHS is facing cuts and creeping privatisation — and this cannot be stalled, like in Scotland and Wales, at the ballot box.
This year we have two new elements hasten to the process of devolution: Brown’s wage freeze and the election of parties that support self-government (and, more than that, independence) to all of the devolved governments.
The existence of former means that a greater degree of self-government is necessary and the latter makes it possible… but not in England, alas.
Charlie Marks
18 Sep 07 at 6:59 pm
Some of us remember the demoralized, paralyzed mess England was back in the Seventies–thanks to socialism. Good-bye to all that!
The Sanity Inspector
22 Sep 07 at 8:58 am
Erm, Sanity Inspector. England has never been a socialist country. What on earth are you on about?
Charlie Marks
23 Sep 07 at 3:57 pm
BtE says: “I have yet to hear from the Labour movement in the 10 years or so since devoltion, one speech from the Labour movement for England to have political and democratic parity with Scotland, I have yet to read from any leader of any trades union put pen to paper about this disparity.”
Small potatoes.
In the 60 or so years since African and Asian peoples were granted the native-right to run their homelands in their own interests I have yet to hear a call from either the labour movement or supposed conservatives for the British peoples to enjoy the same advantage.
The Asians and Africans booted Britain out out of “their” countries, then promptly arrived here in their millions and told us our country wasn’t “ours” - supported of course by the same globalist establishment that once sent us over there.
The empire didn’t end Mr. Newman - it just shifted some of its human cattle. Transnational slavery hasn’t ended either - it’s now called cheap foreign labour.
objective ollie
26 Jan 08 at 4:11 pm
Our England is the England of General Ludd and Captain Swing and of the Chartists. It is the England of the 1926 general strike, of the battle of Cable Street, the fight to free the Pentonville Five, the Anti-Nazi League and the great miners’ strike.
And yet General Ludd, Captain Swing and the Chartists (not to mention those who were displaced by enclosure and sent all over the world as indentured labour ) must for some reason share the guilt of slavery and empire just because some confused middle-class twit in the 21st century is asking himself ‘how could we English, who pride ourselves on our fair play, our belief in justice, and our refusal to kneel at the feet of tyrants have committed these crimes? How did we come to build an Empire of pain?
The answer is because you obviously feel you did commit such crimes or have gained from them. But don’t drag the rest of us into your complicity.
Red Fred
22 Jan 10 at 3:11 pm
It would have been nice to mention the Barbary slave trade or the complicity of African slavers in the Black slave trade. Maybe a word or two about the Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese and Americans. Perhaps Wilberforce should get an airing. You are right in a way but please be balanced.
Alan Bailey
31 Jan 10 at 5:29 pm