Remembering Action Bangladesh

In 1971, in my late teens I had one of the defining experiences of my life. I was allowed to go by myself to London to stay with my cousin Barry, my first big adventure I suppose. In the middle of the two weeks at the beginning of August I attended my first ever protest march and rally. Action Bangladesh had organised a protest in support of the struggle to gain independence for Bangladesh (East Pakistan), I suppose there may have been some Bengalis working that day, but it looked to me as if the whole Bangladeshi population of Britain had converged on Trafalgar Square. We marched through the streets chanting, “Joi Bangla” and “Long live, long live, Sheikh Mujib, Sheikh Mujib”, we sang a song which went – if I remember correctly – “Bade penge dow, bade penge dow bango” and translated as, “break down the barriers and let the spirit free” (of course, it was forty years ago so I may not be accurate). In Trafalgar Square we listened to speakers calling for the bloodshed in East Pakistan to cease and for it to be given independence as Bangladesh and heard the first public playing of George Harrison’s “Bangladesh”. I had never been so excited and the next day I went –  as I remember –  to Streatham and volunteered.


The first day I was there we counted the money from the collections made along the route of the march and at the rally – several hundred pounds in coins – our hands were black. We then took the money to the bank in buckets, they were not entirely happy and suggested we might in future use money bags with which they then supplied us. I think it was the first time in my life that I felt part of something truly worthwhile, and although I was just a schoolboy I don’t remember ever feeling I was not wanted. I was a little overawed by Paul Connett and Marietta Procope who were running the organisation, they not only knew so much but they understood stuff! I was a callow schoolboy and they seemed so sophisticated but they put up with me with a good will although I am sure I had little to offer in skills and experience. I had conversations with other volunteers and, I believe, absorbed some of their passion for justice.


The person above all who made an impression upon me was Marietta Procope. She was personally committed to the cause and – as I understand it – had originally given Action Bangladesh a room from which to organise. By the time I arrived the organisation had taken over not only her life, but her house, all she had left to herself was her bed! I remember her as very slim and a prodigious consumer of cigarettes and coffee. I don’t know whether I had a crush on her, I might have done, but I do know she inspired me. That week at Action Bangladesh convinced me that ordinary people can make a difference, that there is always hope and that people are fundamentally good. I went back to school, the war ended and East Pakistan became Bangladesh. I never saw Marietta or anyone from Action Bangladesh again, but in the forty years that followed I have been involved in the Labour Party then the Communist Party, I have been a trades union official, I have campaigned against nuclear weapons, against Apartheid, against racism, I have demonstrated, canvassed, petitioned, leafleted, I have written letters and lobbied, and I continue to do so.


I was very upset when I learned of Marietta’s death after she returned from Bangladesh, having visited shortly after the war. I can’t pretend to understand how others think, but I have known the pits of depression and considered killing myself and I regret that anyone should suffer. I like to think of her death as one last protest against mans inhumanity to man. I was pleased to see that she is among the 124 foreigners being honoured by Bangladesh for their contribution to the War of Liberation; for my part I would like to think that the campaigning and political activity I have undertaken is a small, but not inappropriate, tribute to the memory of the woman who inspired me to action - Marietta Procope

Anonymous, the Shakespeare Thing!

I went to see the film “Anonymous” which I thoroughly enjoyed. As I was preparing to leave the cinema I overheard two men speculating on whether Derek Jacobi or the other stars actually believed that someone else other than William Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare’s works. I love it when a film provokes discussion, it doesn’t happen often. The debate over the authorship of Shakespeares plays is not a new one and over the years academics have postulated several alternative authors, this film presents an entertaining drama which should be treated as such.

Whoever wrote them the plays of Shakespeare represent the high point of English literature, written at a time when, had they not been written then, there was a wealth of writers – Marlowe, Johnson, Donne – whose names would have sprung readily to mind, but who tend to be overshadowed by Shakespeare’s incomparable brilliance. It must have been an amazing time to be alive.

I don’t much care who wrote Shakespeare’s plays, as I said to the men discussing the film. “It is not important who wrote them, what is important is that they were written!”

We Shall Remember Them.

I was watching a documentary about Pathe News which included war footage from British ships in the Mediterranean. My Father served on minesweepers, mostly in the Med, and as I watched the British ships being bombed by the Luftwaffe I realised that I knew virtually nothing about my Father’s war. He told me he hated dive-bombers, all I knew of his arctic convoy experience was, “When they issued us with woolen underwear I knew we weren’t going to the Med.” and I knew he failed to get into the Fleet Air Arm because he turned up to his flying test still tipsy from the night before. As I watched the old newsreel footage I realised that he just did not talk about the war, I don’t know why, but I suppose like many others he found it an experience of which he preferred not to be reminded.

I am of that generation born just after the war whose culture and society has largely moulded by the wars of the first half of the century and – coming from an East India trading family – the Empire they defended. Perhaps there is a glory in war, but it also leaves its scars not only in those who survived but in the society they bequeathed to their children. I was brought up in Yorkshire where whole towns lost a generation of young men in the Great War, they joined the army together, fought together and died together and their loved ones mourned together and grew old without them. In my youth I knew people who had fought in the Great War, one – my neighbour downstairs – was killed at Paschendale, not killed entirely, but his health was taken from him. Three days after a gas attack he was driving supplies to the front in a field tractor when it began to rain, the rain released the gas trapped in the soil and so he lived as an invalid for the next half century, his lungs burnt by the mustard gas. The scars of war are slow to heal.

We sometimes forget that there are no single casualties in war but every soldier killed or maimed or psychologically scarred shares his or her scars with a family, parents, spouse, children, all of whose lives are changed forever. I sometimes feel that politicians find war too convenient as an instrument of policy, and I have nothing but contempt for politicians like Tony Blair and George Bush senior who are happy to send other people’s children to their deaths while keeping their own sons safe at home (or possibly in the National Guard). I am saddened every time the news reports further casualties in Iraq or Afghanistan, I regret the death toll on both sides particularly collateral damage. “Collateral Damage” translates roughly as dead women and children killed by military carelessness. I am appalled that in this day and age we still so readily turn to violence to meet our foreign policy goals.

Armistice Day will soon be upon us. Although I am a pacifist I have bought a poppy, I may have contempt for the politicians who order wars, and I regret that so many young men and women have felt it necessary to take up arms and go to war. Why have I bought a poppy? Because however much I regret their going to war, I am proud that they went. I’m just ashamed that we have not yet managed to find a way to ensure they never have to go again.

A Generation of Narcissists

I have just read a Tanith Carey article “Why do people become so vile online?” in the Daily Mail of Thursday 11th August 2011. Generally it is a very good article, that is to say I largely agree with her arguement, apart from one arrogant and contemptuous comment.

“The downside of the free speech offered by blogs, Twitter and social networking is that it has created a generation of narcissists obsessed with their own opinions.”

The fact is we have always had these “narcissists” ever since newspapers began to publish the letters of their readers. There are two sorts of journalists those who report the news and those who comment on events, those who comment on events are just as much “narcissists obsessed with their own opinions” as a blogger or Twitter user; that someone is paid to express an opinion does not make them any more qualified, or less self absorbed than the unpaid letter writer or blogger. Frequently the online specialist commentator is better qualified to write than the columnist who covers a range of subjects.  Who is to say that a member of the general public has an opinion that is of less value than that of one paid to express an opinion? The papers are full of people like Littlejohn expressing opinions on a thousand and one things of which they have no experience or knowledge. Parliament is full of members who appear to believe that a public school and university education is a substitute for experience, and that a law degree somehow qualifies them to have opinions on such diverse subjects as military expenditure and fish farming. The downside of the free speech offered by blogs, Twitter and social networking to the professional pontificator ,is not that it has created a generation of narcissists, but that it has allowed ordinary people to share their narcissism.

Topiary - A Cruel and Unnatural Punishment

I suppose one should be pleased that Jake Davis aka Topiary – the hacker alleged to be a spokesman for LulzSec – has been released on bail, but I have reservations. Davis has not as yet been found guilty of any crime, but his bail conditions are tantamount to “cruel and unusual punishment”. For many people being denied access to the Internet is not a punishment, but to deny them human interaction would be considered inhuman. Some people’s normal human interaction is over the Internet because face to face interaction is unpleasant and confusing, to condemn them to only interacting face to face is the equivalent of placing a normal person in solitary confinement. Without access to the Internet one is deprived of the means to express one’s feelings and opinions to others, a denial of the Internet is like expecting a normal person to converse while wearing a gag, blindfold and earplugs. The Internet is a realm in which many autistic people can move freely and to exclude them from it is as restrictive of their freedom as incarceration in a jail cell would be to a “normal” person. I find a day without going on line difficult, the Internet has given me a freedom I never had as a child, but at least I have in the past managed without it, I am in my fifties, to deny Davis – who is only eighteen and has not grown up without the Internet –  Internet access is cruel!

I think our reaction to LulzSec and Anonymous is totally disproportionate. A politician who fraudulently claims expenses may go to jail for a few months, most did not. Journalists and editors who hack into voice messages and bribe policemen may go to jail for a few months, most get away with it. Bankers and financiers can indulge in rampant brinkmanship with other people’s money, very few are punished and many are rewarded. The activities of Lulzsec and Anonymous have not been for material gain, but they cause such ire in the establishment because they embarrass those in power who do not accept that ordinary people have a right to question their behaviour. It might be argued that if government departments, institutions and large companies like Sony behaved responsibly there would be no LulzSec or Anonymous, if they were not so desperate to conceal the truth, there would be no Wikileaks. Rather than pursuing those who are revealing incompetence and abuse, we should be calling for those they have embarrassed to correct their errors, and allow the police to focus their efforts on real criminals who are abusing the internet for dishonest gain.

Ryan Cleary - Threat to World Peace

Once again the powers that be are overacting to the activities of a loner with a PC. I am not going to question whether Ryan Cleary has done all that the authorities say he has, but I am going to question whether their response to his actions is appropriate.

We live in the age of the Internet and of cybercrime. We have seen deliberate cyber-terrorism from China. Every day there are new phishing alerts. What I cannot understand is why when every schoolchild is aware of the threat posed by those who want to steal private information via the Internet, Governments don’t bother to try and protect themselves and us. The Gary McKinnon case revealed that those responsible for the security of the United States couldn’t be arsed to protect files with passwords. The problem is that rather than owning up to their own criminal incompetence government agencies prefer instead to dump on those who have exposed them.

It is the nature of geeks that they want to explore and test things whether hardware or software. As long as we have geeks with Internet access they will try to get into anything just out of curiosity and to test their own abilities. As long as we have organisations that offend the values of these folk they will attack them. What is worse is that there are others – criminals and governments – whose attacks are more malicious and aimed at undermining security, freedom or performing theft. Cybercrime is wrong, it is crime, but what is more reprehensible is the failure of those who should be protecting our freedoms to put in place the protection their systems and websites need. As well as a crime of unlawful access, failure to protect sensitive material should also be a crime.

Hosepipe Bans

I was very disappointed to read in certain Gardening News that English water companies have promised there will be no hosepipe bans this year. One of the few pleasures alleviating the almost daily rainfall of a Glasgow summer is the thought of English gardeners – particularly those who write into gardening magazines to complain about too much dry weather – struggling with their watering cans.

The gardening advice in magazines seems to ignore us too, I’m still waiting for a dry spell to apply moss-killer to my lawn and then to rake it. Apply weedkiller  on a dry day, which dry day would that be? I’m hoping covering my weeds with a layer of newspaper may convince them they are not welcome! I know some would tell me to hoe on a dry day and leave the weeds exposed to the sun, well you know what I think of that advice!

This year I’m trying to grow my tomatoes outside. I didn’t intend to, but because the wind blew my temporary greenhouse across my garden I weighted it down with slabs and the wind just tore it apart and dumped the debris on top of my toms! Apart from distance there is nothing between me and the North Atlantic and the winds are horrendous, in my garden temporary is measured in weeks.

While I’m grumbling about English gardeners I think Alan Titchmarsh deserves a dishonourable mention. When pushing his new – admittedly enjoyable show – he suggested there was only one gardening program on television and that there was room for a second. He completely ignored The Beechgrove Garden, where Jim McColl will talk about his greenhouse tomatoes with the rain pouring down the glass behind him and garden visits are frequently made wearing raincoats, that’s what I call a realistic gardening program!

Poisoning Pigeons in The Park - what a good idea!

I am a vegetarian, a pacifist, I have never approved of killing, but now I have become a gardener and things have changed. Whereas, I once would not have harmed an ant, I now appreciate why people turn to insecticide and slug pellets. There is something demoralizing in finding plants one has grown from seed eaten by pests. There was a time when I was annoyed when a squirrel stole the food I put out for the birds but now I am sorely tempted to put out poisoned bird-food.

I was looking forward to a good display from my summer bulbs, they had sent up healthy shoots and I was really looking forward to lots of flowers, but today I arrived home to find the shoots torn away and the bulbs dug up. Had the shoots or the bulbs been eaten, I could have forgiven it, but this was just vandalism. I replaced the bulbs and looking up I saw the culprit, sitting on my roof, looking down at me and laughing, a pigeon. A self satisfied, evil, pigeon and he was gloating.

Tom Lehrer sang of “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park”, but if I get my hands on the pigeon who got my bulbs, so help me, I'll tear him limb from wing!

Silly Cu ts

It is all a little bit silly, Sandi Toksvig makes a joke, 'The Tories put the "n" in cuts' and people behave as though British Society as we know it is on the verge of collapse. Our society may be on the brink of collapse, but I don’t think Sandi Toksvig is to blame. The most laughable idea is that she might corrupt children, children do not listen to the News Quiz on Radio 4, they’re far to busy killing people with extreme prejudice on their X boxes!

It is a little sad that we let Chaucer use the dreaded “C” word – although spelt queynt – and not Sandi Toksvig, of course Chaucer is “literature” and old so that’s ok! Cunt is a perfectly good Old English word and were it not for the Reformation and the puritans to whom it gave rise we might still be using it without batting an eyelid. The demonisation of the sexual organs and most of the basic bodily functions made the common words used to describe them unacceptable, but also allowed them to be used as insults. Were we a little less precious about our bodies and were we to use words in their proper context, there would have been no joke for Sandi Toksvig to make. As it is because she used, “cunt” in an inappropriate context she is perpetuating the centuries of abuse to which this poor misunderstood word has been subjected. A final thought, perhaps we should ban Chaucer, that might get kids to put down their consoles and pick up a book.

Respect for heroes

I think for many people little wars like those happening Iraq and Afghanistan don’t really occur as wars, they think of major conflicts like the two World Wars and discount the little wars. The fact is no matter how big or small a war may be it requires of the participating soldier the same qualities.

To be quite frank I am a pacifist, I don’t approve of war, I don’t approve of violence. However there are many young men and women who don’t share my opinion, and who are putting their lives on the line in what they believe is the service of their country, these people are heroes. I think it is appalling when people who are prepared to, or have made the supreme sacrifice for their country are treated with abuse as we have seen in some demonstrations against the war. Even though we may disagree with them, even though we may oppose the war, the soldiers who go to fight are worthy of respect for their courage and their willingness to serve.

Amongst the heroes we must include the partners, children and families of those who serve. Those who bear tragic loss with dignity and those who turn their loss to righteous anger.

I believe that those who set booby trap bombs, IEDs and operate them by remote control are cowards and worthy of contempt, even more so those who use the mentally impaired as walking bombs. On the other hand there are those we would call “terrorists” who are also worthy of respect for their courage, those prepared to engage in fire-fights and those willing to blow themselves up for a cause, although such action when civilians are the target is utterly reprehensible.

Men of courage deserve to be respected for their courage, however much we may oppose what they stand for. The politicians who choose war as an instrument of politics, on the other hand are utterly worthy of contempt and the sooner we rid ourselves of them the sooner the heroes can enjoy a long and happy life with their families.