A Little More History

I remember purchasing a copy of the Pelican edition of H.G.Wells' "Short History Of The World" in my mid-teens when I was making my way to a football match at Sunderland's former ground at Roker Park. It was a fine day and as I arrived at the ground early, I sat on the terraces at the Roker End to start reading. I was soon absorbed by its short early chapters with titles such as "The World In Space","The World In Time" and "The Beginning of Life."

I was so taken by the book that when I later arrived in Iraq in 1955 as a National Serviceman without my small library, I purchased a second copy. It is stamped "Coronet Book Shop, Rashid Street, Baghdad", although I suspect that I purchased it in Basra where I was stationed.

Now over half a century later, the excitement I felt when reading Wells' history has now been re-experienced thanks to my reading the book shown above. It is Ernst Gombrich's "A Little History Of The World" which has recently been published in English in a paperback edition (Yale University Press, 2008, £6.99p).

Whilst Gombrich wrote this book for children, adults will find it a delight. Especially, if they have an inquisitive child or grandchild to read it to - gradually, short chapter by short chapter.

The first edition was published in 1936 (the year I was born) in Vienna and it is, therefore, targeted at a mid-European audience. But this itself helps to broaden English reader's horizons - be they old or young.

In Britain, parents and grandparents will always be able to take an excited child to the British Museum, especially to follow up the fine sections on Antiquity.

I would have liked to have seen a chapter on Sub-Saharan Africa and the nature and impact of the Slave Trade, which included the base it provided for much of the initial industrialisation in Britain. And I am also concerned that young girls might be unable to identify with Gombrich's historical sweep as women are sidelined in his history. Why this is so could fruitfully have been faced and more could have been made of the role of women such as Cleopatra, Joan of Arc and Elizabeth I.

But Gombrich's book is to be absorbed and enjoyed, rather than criticised. The final edition includes a chapter based on his own experiences from the end of the First World War when he was 9, up to the fall of the Berlin Wall. This rounds his work off for us. It also has an extra relevance for me in that I was myself approaching 9 at the end the Second World War.

It will also encourage me to return to H.G.Wells. For his own short history is drawn from his larger work entitled "The Outline Of History" which I went on to buy second hand at 8 Shillings and 6 Pence in the days of old money, but which I have only used for reference purposes to date.

But above all it will lead me on to Gombrich. For after he produced the original edition of his little history (which has 40 chapters!), he went on to become the leading art historian of his generation. So I at last need to get hold of a copy of his international bestseller "The Story Of Art" - it has sold 6 million copies to date!

A Reluctant Review

I am reluctant to review Mohsin Hamid's book "The Reluctant Fundamentalist". It is a short novel of under 45,000 words which many will devour at a single sitting. I wish to encourage others to read it, but it would be inappropriate for me to undermine that experience by analysing and therebye describing in detail what it is about or how the subject matter is handled. Yet it would be great to discuss this work with others who had already read it.

In my review of "The Islamist" by Ed Husain, I argued that people like myself who had been brought up to discuss ideas within the Western Political Tradition now needed quickly to get up to speed on a whole range of ideas and understandings within Islam. Mohsin Hamid shows what can happen to an intelligent and able young man with an Islamic background when he comes to absorb both the attractions and complexities of life in the West. It seems to me to provide understandings which help to put some of the tomes I have recently been studying into a clearer perspective.

If I encourage anyone to take up this book and they then come to judge that I have exaggerated my case, then at least I will feel justified in persuading them to have turned to what is by any standards a good read.

A Fine Book On Sunniside Reviewed

Sunniside Days : My Maternal Grandparents (Click Photo To Enlarge)
Sunniside is a former coal mining community situated in County Durham. At its peak it had a population of over 1,500. Its main pit was sunk between 1866 and 1868, but numbers of the miners who settled in the village also found work at neighbouring pits in the Crook and Tow Law area.

When the pit was closed in 1925 (with much of the surrounding coalfield also being worked out), many local miners and their families moved to larger and deeper mines near the Durham coast. The pit was, however, re-opened for a period between 1937 and 1965 with coal extraction taking place beneath the local school.

Today Sunniside has no shops and few services and a population of under 500, but it remains a closely knit and friendly community.

I have culled this information from a fine book which is entitled "A History of a Village : Sunniside" edited by Julie Ward. It is published by the Sunniside Community Association at £7.50p (ISBN 978 0 9555487 0 3). Copies covering postage, package and handling can be obtained for £11 via Julie Ward, 43/44 Gladstone Terrace, Sunniside, Bishop Auckland, Co Durham DL13 4LS with cheques made out to the "Sunniside Community Association".

My interest in the book arises from the fact that my mother's parents settled in Sunniside following their marriage in 1898. My Grandfather, John Gray died in 1920 and my Grandmother Lizzy (Elizabeth) joined the exodus to the Durham coastal coalfield area in 1929. She moved the home to Easington Colliery as my two Uncles had found work at its pit.

I have only ever visited Sunniside once. I was a young boy and it was shortly after the end of the second world war. My Uncle Joe was one of the few miners in the area who owned a car at the time and he lived and worked at Easington's neighbouring Colliery of Horden. When he turned up to give my mother and myself a lift to Sunnside, my Aunt Alice and Cousin Robert were with him. My mother Betty was Alice's sister. They were both born in Sunniside.

When my Grandfather died he was 46, leaving my 43 year-old Grandmother with six surviving children. Three of these were still at school - Robert (12), Betty (11) and Alice (10). The only finances available came from the wages of Bill (18) who worked at the pit and whatever was available from Annie (20) and Bella (15). But the girls worked as domestic servants probably in Whitby (this is a correction added 6 September) and Oldham and would receive little in wages beyond their accommodation and meals.

The harshness of the conditions at that time is shown in the book. Julie points out that annual "epidemics of measles, mumps, diphtheria, scarlet fever, chickenpox and influenza were common well into the 20th century" (page 11).

In addition to general poverty, there were two particular factors which would aid the spread of disease.

First, there was the use of middens as toilet facilities. To use a midden residents had at the minimum to cross a road. As areas of houses were built back to back, those living on the far sides from the middens had to embarked upon a walk round the end of their street. The only way in which the contents of the midden was controlled was by adding the ashes deposited by the coal fires. The middens were emptied by "midden men" with the contents being shovelled out onto a horse-drawn cart and transported to the "shit tip" (Page 37). The only time in my life I have used a midden was on my trip to Sunniside. It is my main memory of the visit.

A second hazard is that the winters in Sunniside were the complete opposite of what its name indicates. My mother told me of how they were cut off from the outside world in winter snow drifts. These occurred because Sunniside is the highest village in County Durham and is situated on a ridge. The stories my mother told are fully confirmed between pages 58 and 61 of the book in a section researched from the school log book and the Northern Echo. These are illustrated with dramatic photographs.

I know that Lizzy and John's first child Louisa was born in the winter conditions of January 1899 and the child died 15 months later. My mother also spoke of a teacher making a comment which hurt her mother when a second child had died. The teacher had said that at least the loss would not be as bad for Lizzy as she had a large family. I hold a copy of a small "summary" birth certificate which indicates that this child was Henry Gray born on 3 July, 1913.

The combination of having to try to use middens in the depth of winter would add to health hazards, as would "slopping out" at any time of the year.

Lizzy's surviving children had no option but to leave school as early as they could in order to find work. My mother was always top girl in her class (but was never able to surpass the top boy). She would have loved to go on to have become a teacher, but she was obliged to join Bella in what they called "place" when she was 14. All but one of the siblings started work at that age. The boys at the pit and the girls in domestic service. Only the youngest, Alice stayed at home when she reached the school leaving age due to her bad health.

Julie provides evidence to show that the Gray's eventual move of the family home to Easington was a common feature of its time. She provides a relevant quote from the school log for 21 September, 1928. It stated that the "number of children on the registers is very unsettled - families moving to Easington, Sherburn and to other places where work is more plentiful" (page 15).

Yet Sunniside for all its hardships built a close and mutually supportive community. The Grays reflected this social bond and when the children set up families of their own, they would meet up regularly even when three out of the six offspring moved distances away from Lizzy's home.

On the day I visited Sunniside 60 or more years ago, I don't know who we visited. Both Lizzy (nee Lauder) and John Gray had come from large mining families in the area. Some of these I later visited at Crook, Tow Law and Shildon.

Julie's book is a must for anyone who knows Sunniside, even someone with my limited experiences. Yet it should also be of interest to anyone with a concern for social history, including researchers. Its strengths seem to me to be (1) the work done on school log books from 1878 to the local school's closure in 1960, (2) the description of an area of Sunniside drawn from the 1881 census and (3) the use made of Kelly's Directories in describing services in the Village up to the final village shop closing in 1996 and the Post Office (by then limited to postal services) departing in 2002.

There are two fine pieces from the past by John Armstrong who was born on 12 June, 1910 (only 16 months after my mother). His piece about his father is particularly telling. His father showed a selfless care for others and this led to his death when only 27.

It must, however, be two school matters on which I close, especially given there significance for the Gray family.

First, for 14 September 1920 in the school log we have - "No exercise books, pens and ink have been received over 13 months, and at the time of inspection the ink had been watered to make it last out, pens couldn't be changed and every available space in arithmetic exercise books was written on. Consequently everything was much below the normal quality of work. The paper of some books supplied is so thin that the ink runs through the other side". At this time my Uncle Robert, my Aunt Alice and my mother were studying under these conditions, as was the above John Armstrong. It was the year in which my Grandfather died.

Secondly, Julie adds that difficulties "caused by the protracted miner's strike in 1921 prompted the school to be in a mass feeding programme in April with breakfast and dinner being served in the school for 'necessitous children'. By June the canteen committee was also providing soup on a daily basis for adults" (page 15). The Gray's would need to draw fully on such essentials. It was the year my Uncle Robert was 14 and would be obliged (when he could) to start work at the pit. Yet this fine school photo also seems to have been taken later in the same year.

Further tough times lay ahead with the closure of the local pit in 1925 and the lengthy mining strike of 1926. Yet the Gray's always looked back on their time in Sunniside with great affection.

Ward's Words

As shown in his latest book "Hugh Bell School 1937 And Other Short Stories and Poems" Bert Ward (above) knows the importance of opening words.

Here are the leads into six of his stories-

"The steel bongie was driving me mad."

"I've been talking to the wall and it's been answering me."

"I first saw it at Argos. The rake, I mean."

"Elsie had got religion. Now that is not a bad thing in itself."

"I've been drinking Lepui"

"I was walking along the promenade at Redcar looking out at sea when I saw the boot."

In each case, the reader just then has to find out what follows.

From Sheffield To Singapore

I enjoy reading when travelling or in, say, a corner of a pub when I turn up early and I am waiting for family or friends. Bert's small book, totals 30 stories and poems. It turned out to be ideal for my habit, which included a bus journey into Sheffield when turning up early at a pub where the Fabians were holding a meeting.

Bert's own explicit politics only emerge fully on the surface in a stanza of one of his poems entitled "The Sailmaker" which is about the HMS Revenge where he undertook his war-time service. Yet it has a sad contemporary ring. It reads -

If you have tears
And those to spare
Shed them for those
Who in despair
Fall into the fascist snare
Of national this
And national that
The evil creed in classless hat
Preaches
"For the common good
Workers must think with their blood",
Then to shed it in great spate
When they have fully learned to hate
Each other.

His stories range widely, from fact to fiction and from humour to pathos. Often mixing together these characteristics. I will only mention one of these for fear of giving his plots away.

The essay which gives the book its title had a special appeal to me. It is about his classmates at a school in Middlesbrough before the 2nd World War. Four were subsequently killed in the conflict,including Bert's special friend John (Jackie) Anderson who is buried in the Kanji War Cemetery.

I have myself laid a wreath at the cemetery, which is in Singapore. This was in 2004 when I was part of a Parliamentary delegation. Having read Bert's book, I just wish that he have been with us.

The story he tells has a lifetime's experiences built into it. His schooldays when only 14 are seen through the prism of his own wartime experiences including the shocks of hearing about his former classmates' deaths and the maturity of experience which comes to someone of a questioning disposition. As Soren Kierkegaard (quoted in the legend at the top this blog) said - "Life can only be understood backwards; but must be lived forwards." Bert's work shows that he has come to understand a great deal which enables him to look back in a telling ways on his own earlier experiences. He also developed the skills to communicate these to us.

For "Hugh Bell School 1937 And Other Short Stories and Poems" by Bert Ward send £5.70 (covering package and postage) to GH Ward, 22 Westwood Ave., Linthorpe, Middlesbrough TS5 5PY.

The Shia Revival

THE SHIA REVIVAL : HOW CONFLICTS WITHIN ISLAM WILL SHAPE THE FUTURE by VALI NASR (W.W. Norton & Company, 2007 edition).

This book has a great deal going for it. To start with, the paperback edition which I bought at Waterstones is beautifully published and is a work which book lovers will enjoy handling. Then, the author, Vali Nasr has a compelling, readable and intelligent style. From the introduction onwards we come across memorable phrases, such as "(w)e live in an age of globalisation, but also of identity politics. It is as if the world is expanding and contracting at the same time."

Above all, the book has a compelling theme. It deals with the Shia of Islam, who account for some 10% of the world Muslims compared to the Sunni's 85%. But as the sub-title indicates we are at a cross-roads in history where the Shia are struggling for their place in the sun. Modern developments in Iran, Iraq and the Lebanon where the Shia have prominence, illustrate this.

Although Vali Nasr centres upon the above major trends amongst the Shia, he provides well crafted and helpful background details about Shia history and its wider international canvas. The significance of the festival of Ashoura is handled sympathetically and the spread and variety of Shia activities is shown to accommodate to (amongst others) Hindu practices in India.

Amongst the insights I gained about Shia politics was that they learnt lessons from the growth of the Iraqi Communist Party which had reached its peak in 1959. The bulk of the labourers who moved into work in the oil industry, Baghdad's factories and Basra's port were Shia. An appeal to their class interests and help for them via Shia social services became part of the religious communities conventional wisdom.

The author takes the side of the moderate, quietest and reflective Shia tradition, rather than of the revolutionary, terrorist and totalitarian tradition. So Sistani's advocacy of the power of the franchise in Iraq (then elsewhere) to extend the Shia's political influence is seen as the big hope for peace and prosperity. He looks to this as an avenue to counter the impact of the Khomeini revolution in Iran. If the only solution is to take sides in this internal Shia debate, then it is (of course) the correct side.

Unfortunately as the book progresses, the author's hopes for the Sistani transformation seem to me to falter in two respects.

First, Vali Nasr sees the Shia's struggle for political space as mainly being directed against Sunni influences. So Sunni politics is presented as being one-sided and oppressive, whether it operates under secular Arab leaders or via bodies such as Al-Qeada. The Sunni are never shown to have their own quietest or democratic-leaning side. Yet whilst Sistani was active from the south of Iraq, Jamal Abul Karim al-Dabban was the senior Sunni religious leader in Tikrit from 2004 until his death in 2007. He was considered to be a moderate. (The nearest Vali Nasr gets to sympathy for the politics of the Sunni camp is his admiration for the influence of King Faysal of Saudi Arabia before his death in 1975.)

Secondly when the first edition of this book was published in 2006, it left us with high hopes for coming Shia democratic and civic practices. However, by the second edition arrived in 2007, the author had to accommodate his views to the seriously deteriorating security position which arose across Iraq following the destruction of the Shia Mosque at Samarra. So he produced an "Afterword" which finds Sistani retreating to his tent to concentrate on religious texts, whilst Sunni-Shia sectarianism bounds forth. If matters have improved somewhat recently (with the tactics around the US surge), they have not yet put Vali Nasr's initial high hopes back on track.

There are only just over 250 pages of text in the book and the two problems I have listed above did not come to my attention until I reached the final 50 pages. In the meantime, Vali Nasr work impressed as a readable and worthwhile introduction to an essential topic which otherwise would be difficult to grasp. For once, I read a book mainly about the Middle East where I didn't become confused by names of the secondary characters, for each argument and analysis fitted into the books overall framework. It was only in the "Afterword" that the author was forced into a fresh situation. It was at least good to see that he did not duck from this task.

Bert Ward's Book

Yesterday I reviewed Jonathan Rose's book "The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes". Anyone interested in that telling topic will find the book shown opposite to be a sheer delight. It is from someone who emerges solidly from the tradition which Rose describes.

Bert Ward, the author is 85. He left school at 15 and for the following two decades he undertook a variety of solid working class occupations; first in the Navy, then at a building site, a foundry, the steelworks, a shipyard, on the railways and as a scaffolder. He also found time to train as a student nurse. During this time he became an active trade unionist and a dedicated rank and file worker for the Communist Party.



Building On His Base

Bert's consuming interests led him into full-time adult education as a student at Ruskin College and then on the London School of Economics (LSE). He retained and polished his wider political commitments. He always did this in a questioning way and his book shows that he was as fascinated with the ideas of Hobbes, Rousseau and Michels as with those of Marx.

I studied at Ruskin just two years after Bert moved on. It was then a College essentially for people from working class backgrounds who held few or no formal educational qualifications. Today's pattern has altered as further education is now solidly into forms of training people within modules for accreditation, so they can move to higher stages. This pattern rubs up against the norms of education which Bert experienced and then pursued as a Lecturer. He also drew lessons from his Ruskin experience on the importance of questioning, discussion and debate when involved in the practice of politics.

Bert went to Ruskin on a trade union scholarship and before he moved on to the LSE he had a spell working for the Amalgamated Engineering Union. After his final studies, he became a lecturer for a further two decades in Politics at the South East London College, before retiring and settling in his native Middlesborough.

Into Non-Retirement

I first met Bert in 1990 when he was retired and was finding even more time for political activity. The Communist Party he had devoted himself to (but at least after Ruskin, never uncritically) was nearing its final collapse.

We were both involved in the establishment of the British Section of a group called "New Consensus" which I described in my Constituency Labour Party Report at the time as being "a broad-based group which aims to challenge ambivalence and apathy about the right to life in Northern Ireland.....(it) condemns violence from wherever it comes from and campaigns for devolved government, a Bill of Rights and integrated education as a means to undermine sectarianism and terror..".

This was certainly not the hard-left politics of being soft on Sinn Fein. I would describe Bert's approach as neither being orange nor green, but red. For instance he sought avenues for working class unity in Northern Ireland in order to undermine the sectarian divide. He describes well how he moved away from the common hard-left stance whilst active on Irish issues in the Communist Party in the 1980s.

His work with our group, who later became known as "New Dialogue" was unstinting, effective and intellectually uplifting; particularly in his editorship of our influential bulletin with its column "Ward's Words".

Bert's Example

When I first met Bert he was roughly the age I was when I stood down from Parliament. He illustrates that when you arrive in the region of "three score years and ten" that you can devote yourself more fully to your concerns. Bert's interests also being kept alive by his love of writing poetry.

So he provides me with two New Year Resolutions. One is to return more fully to the political game, whilst ignoring the temptations of politicking for positions. The second is to start writing my own book of essays on my own political journey - to date.

As Manny Shinwell showed when he wrote "Lead With The Left: My First Ninety Six Years" (London Cassell, 1981), Bert also has time to write a sequel. I hope so anyway.

Ordering A Copy

Bert's story is easy to read, but never lacking in depth and insights. To obtain a copy send £6 (covering p&p) to G.H. Ward, 22 Westwood Avenue, Linthorpe, Middlesbrough TS5 5PY.

On The Thinking Person's Thoughts

This is a review of "The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes". The cover opposite is from a Yale Nota Bene paperback edition (Yale University Press) published in 2002. I only came across this work recently on the shelves at Waterstones on Oxford Street. At the time there was a stock of at least six copies for sale. Perhaps an enterprising member of staff thought it would be good for our souls. It is a view I now share after reading it, even though I tend to concentrate on criticism rather than praise below.



An Inheritance

Once a month I organise a discussion meeting at a Club which has links with my local Labour Party. A number of us end up in the lounge bar afterwards to continue our discussions. Recently I discovered that five of us who were sitting in a corner had all attended different Adult Education Colleges which (in our time) catered for people from the working class who held few formal educational qualifications. The Colleges we had attended were Coleg Harlech, the Northern College, Newbattle Abbey. Ruskin and the Co-op College.

In essence, Jonathan Rose's book describes working class struggles for the forms of education which the five of us had come to benefit from. He starts with the harsh conditions of the early industrial revolution, where the self-taught labouring person was often confined to sparse copies of religious literature, such as the Bible and Pilgrims Progress.

Many A Manny

A century or so later in 1896, Manny Shinwell left school at 12 after only 2 years of schooling in London, 9 months at South Shields and one and a half years in Glasgow. Rose describes him as going on to become one of the most accomplished autodidacts of the 20th Century.

I also benefitted directly from Manny's Progress. First of all, I joined the Labour Party to entered an essay competition he ran in the Easington Divisional Labour Party and gained second prize. Then he later provided a reference which helped me to secure a place to study Politics and Economics at Ruskin College. Nearly 40 years later I ended up sitting in the same seat in the Commons Chamber which Manny had occupied when he finally left the Labour Front Bench.

Even if we were poorer copies, there was many a Manny who followed this type of pattern.

Autodidact Addicts

Self education can not advance far on its own. Its practitioners require the intellectual stimulations of argument and debate to meaningfully discover and test out the understandings of others. They need libraries, meetings, comradely classes and face-to-face discussions with fellow addicts.

So Rose takes us on a journey into classes run by the Workers' Educational Association (WEA), the Women's Co-operative Guild, on University Extension Courses and by bodies such as the Miners' Institute of South Wales. Rose describes the latter as having been "one of the greatest networks of cultural institutions created by working people anywhere in the world". By the second world war, the Tredegar Workmen's Institute was circulating 100,000 volumes a year and ran a 800 seat cinema with a film society and celebrity concerts.

Mining His Material

Rose has delved deeply into a whole host of invaluable sources, including 2,000 published and unpublished documents listed in "The Autobiography of the Working Class: Annotated, Critical Bibliography" edited by David Vincent, John Burnett and David Mayall in 3 Volumes (New York University Press, 1984-89). Use has also been made of important surveys of working class reading by the WEA, the Sheffield Educational Settlement and various academic researchers.

In 53 pages of notes there is a cornucopia of references for someone with my own interests. For not only did I study at Ruskin, but I later taught Politics and Industrial Relations to industrial workers for 21 years before I went to Parliament and I also ran access courses for those without formal qualifications who were looking to move to study full-time in higher education.

Whilst my own experiences explains why I devoured Rose's book, it also explains my disappointments with it. I felt that it could have reached the following glowing assessment by Christopher Hitchen, but unfortunately fell short - Hitchen claims that it "bears comparison with the best work of Edward Thompson". Yet for me to say that this work does not match up to a masterpiece such as "The Making of the English Working Class" is itself hardly a criticism. But I do have three serious niggles about Rose's otherwise compelling work.

(1) What Is It All About?

The book covers massive and exciting grounds, but it lacks an overall analytic framework in which the author's discoveries could have been marshalled. This would have helped the reader to grasp hold of the logic of developments. Even if the reader then came to disagree with the author's particular perspective.

I appreciate that there is the alternative danger of imposing a one-sided viewpoint upon the wide variety of material which research unearths. But a sensitive analysis would have enlivened the mining of Rose's empirical details.

At times, within a chapter I could not see why he had moved from one interesting bit of information onto another. This problem also arose between chapters. For instance, why do details about working class people at theatres being confused about distinctions between fact and fiction, follow on from a survey of Mutual Improvement Societies who are described as being Friendly Societies "devoted to education" ? Perhaps we are moved dramatically to reveal the contrasts.

(2) No Marks On Marx

The above overall eclectic style is suddenly burst asunder in a chapter well into the book entitled "Alienation From Marxism". Rose now has a sub-theme which is to show why the British Working Class did not take to Marxism.

After a fruitful start in which he summarizes the range of possibilities offered by Ross McKibbin in "The Ideologies of Class" (Clarendon Press, 1990),we descend into an attack on Vulgar Marxism and on manipulations by the Communist Party. Even the Marxist use of jargon is criticised as putting Marxism beyond the pale, although earlier we have been given examples of British working class intellectuals mastering the more complex and obscure works of Kant and Hegel.

Rose's problem is that he moves away from his study of autodidacts and working class intellectuals to generalisations about the working class as a whole.

Writers such as GDH Cole who claimed to be Marx-influenced explained Marxist ideas and had a close following amongst the category of working people Rose is supposed to be examining.

A tradition of a more sophisticated Marxist approach was also reflected in what happened in 1956 when people such as Lawrence Daly of the National Union of Mineworkers resigned from the Communist Party over the Russian invasion of Hungary and the revelations about Stalin, yet retained a keenly critical Marxist outlook.

Nor were all those who remained in the Communist Party (such as the late Bas Barker and his comrades in Chesterfield) the intellectual zombies which Rose indicates.

(3) Where Are We Now?

In the final chapter of his book, Rose turns his attention more specifically to developments after the second world war. The extension of formal education, cultural studies, the rise of popular and modern writing, the decline of a concentration on the classics, modernism, then post-modern studies, plus the rise of the mass media are all given as reasons for the decline of the tradition of the autodidact and their associates.

Yet the impact of the changes Rose highlights may have been much slower and less dramatic than he claims. For instance, he ignores the Adult Eduction College tradition which I mentioned at the start of this review, apart from his coverage of an early Ruskin College in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Coleg Harlech, Newbattle Avenue, Fircroft, Hillcroft, the Co-op College and the Catholic Workers' Colleges are either ignored or merely given passing references. Whilst the Northern College was only founded in 1978 in the very midst of what Rose sees as a barren period.

Neither do University Extramural Departments enter the frame, including the Sheffield University Industrial Day Release Scheme which ran up to the eventual decline of the Coal Industry: nor do we hear of bodies such as the Society for Industrial Tutors.

It is only from the early 1990's that these post-war forms of education began to be transformed by moves to further education based on modules and accreditation.

Even then Trade Union Education Schemes which had expanded in the post-war period survived, although they provide more of a training ethos than provisions based on widening people's horizons and interests.

Yet as Rose points out earlier in his book, workers are capable of adjusting to a variety of seemingly alien conditions for wider educational ends. Even though the hay-day of the popularity of the classics of the Everyman Library has long since gone, there are today's alternatives. Future surveys may well come to throw up a fresh form of viability of the intellectual life of the British Working Class - especially if the use of Sky Channels from History to Foreign News Services, DVDs, CDs. iPods, overseas travel and surfing the Net are all added to paperback book buying. The modern world may be short of interest groups with wide ranging and communal concerns, but specialist groups vie for membership.

We do, of course, have to recognise that the diversions of modern life offer fresh stumbling blocks to the intellectual growth of the working class. These differ from the deprivations of the past. But this does not means that everything isn't still worth playing for.

Final Thoughts

Even when my above criticisms have been taken into account, the book under review is still full of rich sources of material, revealing tales of our past and fascinating events. There is no reason why on my bookshelves it should not at least earn an honourable spot near "The Making of the English Working Class". I will certainly recommend it to anyone attending our Sunday Evening Discussions who has not read it already.

The Undiplomatic Diplomat

Craig Murray's Cocktail

Craig Murray's book "Murder In Samarkand" is a compelling read because it is such a heady cocktail.

In part it is a fascinating travel book about Uzbekistan. Whilst this takes the reader into the harsh downside of life in this much blighted nation, we are also given telling descriptions of the splendours of Samarkand and the humanity of many Uzbeks; especially of those who bravely stand out against the tyranny of the ruling elite.

Elsewhere, it is a book of confessions. Craig openly deals with his love of women, alcohol and the good life. Yet he firmly puts down Foreign Office allegations which claimed that he had abused his position as Ambassador in Tashkent to gratify such desires. The claim that he traded visas for sexual favours is seen as the deepest insult by a man who obviously feels that its is his personality, charm and the propensity to wear a kilt which sweeps women off their feet.

Another part of the book is a heart-rending horror story, detailing systematic abuses of human rights by top level and minor officialdom. Hideous beatings, sadistic murders, regular rapes and the disgusting and widespread exploitation of child labour are all fully detailed.

On top of all this, there is intrigue in the diplomatic service and manipulations by Western Governments. It all has the grip of a top John Buchan adventure story, yet we are dealing with cruel facts and not fiction.

Craig, Jack And Claire

The book also holds a wide range of personal fascinations for me.

To start with, my wife Ann and I met Craig in Ghana in 1999. He was British Deputy High Commissioner in Accra and was standing in for the High Commissioner who was out of the country. We were with a Commonwealth Parliamentary delegation.

He organised a first rate visit, participating in a whole host of our activities and ensuring we gained the maximum benefit and understanding from our visit.

He also openly displayed that side of his character which was later twisted by his diplomatic and political bosses over his human rights work in Uzbekistan. After a key visit to the gold mines at Obuasi in the middle of a crisis about world gold prices, most of our group were ready for an early night when we finally reached the mining compound. But Craig was up until the early hours drinking and chatting with engineers and managers, who were astonished to see him leaving the following morning in a Land Rover flying the Diplomat's Union Jack from its bonnet.

He delivered a top flight reception at the Ambassador's residence when we returned to Accra. It was his typical blend of seriousness and enjoyment.

A second fascination for me is that he writes about a world I have peeped into. It is filled with Diplomats, high ranking Civil Servants, Government Ministers and fellow politicians. Jack Straw comes in for fairly justified hammering. Yet I also know something of the other side of Jack's character. He is the person who helped to progress one of my proposals to improve electoral registration and is the only Minister I ever came across who pushed to get invitations to address Socialist Campaign Group Meetings - so he could confront the flack. I am, however, disappointed about Craig's revelations about Jack's human rights failings; especially as I was always impressed that Jack had a well thumbed copy of John Keane's "Tom Paine" in his room in the Commons.

In particular, I found Craig's description of Claire Short's visit to Tashkent when she went to Chair a conference of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development to be highly revealing.

Claire did a fine job in standing up for human rights against the Uzbek regime. As soon as she returned home she resigned her post as Secretary of State of Overseas Development over the Government's involvement in the invasion of Iraq.

I had been amongst those who criticized Claire for not resigning earlier when Robin Cook went. Yet what she stood out for in Uzbekistan was of great importance and is a justification in itself for the delayed resignation. Her period at Overseas Development was also one of the limited avenues of achievement of the Blair Government.

I have two final minor links with what Craig has to say. First, I feel I can come up with a good shot at the name he deletes from Simon Butt's pathetic letter which he reproduces on page 252. Then when he is rushed into St. Thomas's hospital which is opposite the Commons, he seems to have been placed on the same floor and in a similar room to the one I occupied 5 years earlier when I had a stroke.

The Politics Of Diplomacy

Whilst it might add to a good read when you can put some known faces to places, it isn't essential. I have never been to Uzbekistan, but I was pleased to been taken there via Craig's writings.

The final fascinations about Craig's book are his peculiarities. He is a most undiplomatic diplomat. Not only does he never hide his interests in wine (or whisky), women and song; but in Uzbekistan he behaved overtly in an open political fashion and did not limit himself to the hidden form of politics which is the diplomats forte. No matter how he gets there, he even ends up addressing a meeting set up to establish a united opposition made up of varying dissident groups.

He is a man with considerable abilities (and sees no reason to be modest about these). He moves with speed and outrage when he sees an injustice. This is fine when he sees a specific injustice, but there are times on the wider canvas when he seems to be guilty of resorting to what Nye Bevan termed "an emotional spasm". The only question here is whether such an approach undermined his overall effectiveness for the values he adhered to. Although many of us would have remained in ignorance about Uzbekistan but for his actions and his book.

A Sociable Non-Socialist

In being bounced out of the diplomatic game, Craig became a hero of the Hard Left. But he fits this role oddly.

In no way is he a socialist. Some of his most effective work in Uzbekistan was on behalf of British Companies seeking to operate in that alien climate. He is the strongest possible advocate of privatisation.

His eye for women. his passing comments to and about them and his attempts to have his wife act as a female version of a cuckold, will upset many feminists.

It is his human rights stance that appeals to the Hard Left and what makes him their friend is his related opposition to Bush and (at the time of his book) Blair.

I suspect, however, that if Craig was pushed into meeting terror from terrorists on a daily basis that he would try to undermine their actions just as he did with State terrorism in Uzbekistan.

A Human Rights stance is one that in logic and emotion is opposed to both Imperial aggression and Terror Group tactics. Perhaps there is enough on Craig's Web-Site to show that he has a foot in both Human Rights' Camps. If not, we still need to accept that he did more for the cause of human rights in a couple of years in Uzbekistan than the rest of us achieve in a lifetime.

Political Islamism v Spiritual Islam

The Need To Study Islam

Sometimes old dogs need to learn new tricks.

I have studied, taught and practiced politics for over half a century. Arab and Islamic issues have at times dominated my perceptions, from the Suez Crisis in 1956 to the current situation in Iraq. Yet inevitably I have viewed such events through the prism of the Western Political Tradition. So the concepts I have invariably used as critical tools have tended to be those of Capitalism, Socialism, Democracy, Social Justice, Fascism and Totalitarianism.

I am not for ditching my basic approach, but I feel a need to try and grasp hold of more of Islam from inside its own tradition. This seems to me to be possible without descending into a form of cultural relativism, which can ditch a belief in basic democratic values.

A practical difficulty in studying Islam is that it is dominated by, to me, difficult Arabic names and concepts. Whilst my experiences as an MP were also limited by the fact that the Constituency I represented has one of the smallest ethnic minority populations of any in Britain. Although it was Constituency casework that pulled me into taking a long term interest in developments in Pakistan.

Where To Start

It is by no means the first book I have read on Islam, but what I feel may be an invaluable feed into the area I am looking for is Ed Husain's recent book
"The Islamist".

The author effectively describes his own move into the world of Political Islamism. His route (away from traditionalist family Islamic influences) is via the Young Muslim Organisation and then Hizb iu-Tahrir. This is a complex world for the outsider and has characteristics of the divided world of Trotskyism which held its fascinations in the era of the Miltant Tendency. It is, however, a more dangerous world, opening up to anti-semitism, homophobia, the domination of women and suicide bombing. It is Ed Husain's personal story which helps the reader to put all these bits and pieces into a clear focus.

Breaking Free

A dramatic incident shakes the writer's commitment to the cause he had played a leading role in. But it takes him time (and counter-experiences) to be able to move firmly onto the alternative ground which he calls "Spiritual Islam".

Whilst his shift is essentially back to the ground his parents stood upon, his personal understanding of his move is given depth by the fact that he has travelled such a complex ideological journey. This is all conveyed meaningfully to the reader.

Towards the end of the book he draws us into key experiences he has in Syria and Saudi Arabia. The former are mainly positive experiences and the latter entirely negative ones. What he says on Syria may pleasantly surprise some.

What is missing?

Ed Husain refers to interesting sounding literature from the camps he moves between. Some of which I will seek to follow up. Unfortunately, his own book lacks some useful technical data. There is no index, no regular footnotes for the references he makes and no reading list drawn from his many references. So I will have to go back to the book to dig out what I need.

There is something even more important that is missing. Whilst we can follow the influences that move him between different interpretations of Islam, he does not provide his intellectual justifications for having a belief in the very existence of Allah.

I find this to be a vacuum as I have also have had an interest in philosophy as well as politics over the past 50 years. As an gentle atheist, this includes an interest in Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Religion. Although again, my approach is dominated by approaches within the Western Philosophical Tradition. Perhaps Ed Husain could think about writing a follow-up book that would cater for such interests. But with an index and proper references please.

God Save Me From This Fellow Atheist

A.C.Grayling is Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College. A good selection of his books can be found on the ever-shrinking Philosophy shelves at Waterstones and Borders. Unfortunately, a recent book of his entitled "Against All Gods"(Oberon Books, 2007, £8.99) is a setback for atheism.

Lacking Both Quantity And Quality

The book is only some 10,000 words long; which is only the length of my last nine blogs. Yet it could be a pleasing (if still expensive) short read, if it wasn't equally short on quality.

Apart from its introduction, it consists of six self-proclaimed polemics against religion and a more positive six page essay which he grandly tells us is on "non-religious ethics".

These brief snippets "began life as journalist contributions". We aren't told where they were cut and pasted from and some repeat points taken from Karl Popper and from Grayling's earlier works.

My Polemic Against Polemics

He has two strange arguments for presenting us with these "brief and blunt" polemics. First; if we would like more detailed (and reasoned?) expositions of what he is saying, then he tells us we can consult three of his longer books. It was a pity I did not know that before I purchased the book under review - although I find that I have picked one of these books up recently as publisher's surplus.

Secondly, he feels that a "combative" tone is appropriate as there can be no "temporising" with religion over the matters he covers. This indicates that he is keen to take on the propaganda of religious zealots, rather than to face up to theology at its strongest and then cap it with reasoned arguments.

He is a most unphilosophical philosopher.


I will now respond to three of his polemics. If I tackled more, there would be a danger that my review would end up being longer than Grayling's book. I use his own chapter titles

1. Does Religion Deserve Respect?

He feels that religious people overwhelmingly expect and receive far too much respect for the views they hold. Whilst there are, of course, many cases where this happens, there are two important considerations which Grayling gives no thought to.

First, some religious people are aware that there are strong counter-arguments to their particular religious stance. Some have felt the need to try to overcome such "doubts". If we argue with them without rancour, then they (and any third party involved ) will benefit from the friendly dialectics of such discussions. I had hoped that a Professor involved with Adult Education would have held such a perception.

Secondly, whilst I believe that all religious belief in the existence of God is mistaken, I recognise that some people have come to the viewpoint I reject - yet they link it in with many of the "humanitarian" values which Grayling and I share. In challenging someone's belief in God, we should not do this in ways which will also dent such related value systems.

2. Can An Atheist Be A Fundamentalist?

Grayling finds the use of the term "atheist" to be a strange one, as it attempts to describe a non-belief or a nothing. More than once in his book he repeats his past argument that we don't feel a need to refer to people as "a-fairyists" because they don't believe in fairies. So he sees no scope for an atheist to be described as being a fundamentalist or otherwise. Atheism is just a non-acceptance of other people's claims about God.

But what if a person's non-belief in the existence of God is part of a wider-belief system in, say, historical materialism or evolution? Surely, we can have fundamentalists and extremists in such camps, who wish to ram their views down our throats in ways that refuse to grapple with any counter-claims. The strength of Darwin's position is that it has stood up to rigorous debate.

To me, atheism (along with any other belief and non-belief system it is part of) can be pushed by some in extremist and fundamentalist ways. I hope that it is an approach I normally avoid.

3. The Death Throes Of Religion

Grayling claims that religion is on its way out. The rise of extreme versions of Islam, faith schools and creationism are merely its death throes.

He claims that this is what happened in the Victorian Era and after the Counter Reformation. This is an interesting theory, but where is Grayling's proof that this seems to be happening now?

In fact, the above argument is the exact counter to the one presented by Alister McGrath in his book "The Twilight of Atheism" (Rider, 2005, £7.99). For McGrath, Atheism took off from the time of the French Revolution and has started to move into free fall with the collapse of the Soviet Union. As with Grayling, he offers no evidence for his claim - although it takes him 279 pages to develop his case, compared to 5 pages by Grayling.

I find it worrying that Grayling should adopted a similar non-methodology to that pursued by McGrath as a Christian Crusader.

Conclusions

A further problem with Grayling's book is that whilst his polemics sometimes repeat points, at other times they contradict each other. So that whilst in the above polemic he sees the coming triumph of atheism, in another he worries about a survey which shows that 30% of University Students believe in creationism and intelligent design. He then reads like a Daily Telegraph editorial as he attacks what he sees as the lowering of educational standards by the opening up of University access.

I have now had a go at two atheists who have "God" in the title of their books - Richard Dawkins and AC Grayling. I will, however, correct the balance in the future for there are some fine atheist writings for which I don't need God's protection.

Shaking Up What's Left

A review of Nick Cohen’s “What’s Left? How Liberals Lost Their Way” (Fourth Estate, 2007.)

Love it or hate it, this is a readable and serious political romp.

Nick Cohen wishes to shake up wide elements of left and liberal opinion whom he feels can’t see some clear home truths about terrorist, nihilist, totalitarian, criminal and fascist activities in the modern world.

When a writer is driven by such a passion, they are liable to look for evidence and arguments that will tug at the heart strings. It is this very passion which explains both the strengths and weaknesses of this book
.
Post Modern and Anti-Imperialist Blunders

The author is not claiming that the Bush administration, with support from Tony Blair has been spotless in its moves to police sections of the world. But he is highly critical of those who condemn the Bush-Blair Axis and then go on to “understand”, excuse or even endorse the acts of Muslim extremists and others - including those of the late and unlamented Milosevic.

Nick Cohen believes that such errors of judgement are widespread and arise from two major factors.

First, many on the Left see what they term as forms of Western Imperialism as merely reaping what they have sown in countries such as Iraq. The plight of the Iraqi people under attack from criminals, sectarians, religious bigots and people with wild international agendas are then written off as only having been created by the forces which invaded that country.

Secondly, post-modern viewpoints of an avant-garde nature on cultural relativism have led many to excuse Non-Western excesses against homosexuals and women as just being part of alternative and distinctive cultures. Monstrous actions are then accepted as being essential parts of such life styles. It is then believed that we have no right to criticize what our own mind-sets can’t comprehend.

Nick’s Pickings

I have a great deal of sympathy for Nick Cohen’s negative thesis. He targets many who often make me moan and groan; including Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Robert Frisk and the leadership of the Stop the War Coalition.

Yet like an old fashioned “balanced” Manchester Guardian editorial, I nevertheless feel that some of the above do come up with criticisms of Western excesses which we do at times need to take on board. Although I also recognise that the modern-day Guardian also fits well into the camp that is under criticism.

One of my main concerns is the way that Nick Cohen builds up his case. He is in danger of constructing a counter-mythology of his own. Even though he recognises the excesses of Guantanamo Bay and Al Ghraib, pressures for Oil privatisation and many other Western style failures and abuses; his criticisms are only made in passing and merely give the appearance of statutory condemnations made to protect his back.

Vigour Instead of Rigour

His arguments often lack rigour. He uses what he feels will best hit the emotions and create the mood he is seeking. Plays, poems, psychiatric experiments and hoaxes are all drawn upon.

The socialist shortcomings of Stalin, George Bernard Shaw, HG Wells and Virginia Woolf (“a pacifist and screaming snob”) are delved into to show that some elements of the left have always been liable to flip over to elitist, dictatorial and totalitarian extremes.

When he moves on to tackle the more modern nonsenses which have arisen within socialism, he provides racy tales about the follies of Tony Cliff, Ted Grant and Tariq Ali. But there is no mention of any figures over the past 20 years on what is left of Labour’s hard left. The Bennite past remarkably does not get a single look in.

He concentrates instead upon the living-dead of recent socialism - trotskyists and troglodytes such as Gerry Healy.

Genesis Of the Present Dilemma

To Nick Cohen, the modern dilemma for left liberal opinion started under Major’s Conservative Government when it failed to move to defend Bosnians from acts of Serbian paramilitary genocide ( which the International Courts have just accepted was at least aided by deliberate inactivity from Belgrade, although the guilt goes much deeper than sins of omission.)

The Conservative acts of appeasement provided no counterpoint to a growth of sympathy on the left for Milosevic, which was motivated by a concern not to see the continuing break-up of the former Communist Yugoslavia.

When a Labour Government finally joined moves to protect Kosovo Albanians fleeing from Serb forces in 1999, many of the Left opposed the move pointing to the bombing of civilians which NATO undertook in and around Belgrade.

It seemed to me that there were two sides to the coin. We could and should have acted in defence of Bosnia (and even earlier still to counter the ethic battles which raged between the Serbs and Croats.) Yet much of the eventual bombardment from the air hit civilian areas with the military only experiencing the collateral damage. This is a continuing problem with Western-led military action.

We need the development of alternative means of anti-insurgency, drawing upon those we move to protect. We should no longer act as if we were involved in a hot version of the Cold War.

Whose Side Are We On ?

Nick Cohen’s position on Bosnia is important in showing that his condemnation of extremism in the Muslim world isn’t part of a general anti-Muslim stance. For Muslims were prominent in what had been a fairly integrated Bosnian Society.

Under the stimulus of Al-Qaeda’s destruction of the Twin Towers, he next supported military action in Afghanistan which also had the key justification of seeking to overturn the Taliban’s marriage of modern totalitarianism techniques with medieval reaction.

I again went along with this stance, but I was still a continual critic of the inappropriate methods of US led warfare and their occupational techniques.

Whilst Nick Cohen is in no doubt that the Gulf War and the invasion of Iraq were fully justified to tackle Saddam Hussein’s expansionism and his genocide against wide categories of his own people, he displays an ambiguity towards those of us who warned against invasion because of its destabilising consequences but immediately after the event moved to support Iraq’s own complex forces of democracy and pressed for the tackling of terrorism.

We are guilty of marching with the Stop the War Coalition in that mass demonstration, but we are then patted on the head for our subsequent stance. On the latter, we are at least seen to be acting in the best traditions of the old left in the Trade Unions and in the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Indeed, he goes as far as to dedicate his book to the late Hadi Saleh, the Iraqi Trade Union leader who was brutally murdered by terrorists in Baghdad in 2005. Yet Hadi (whose meetings I chaired in the Commons) had been an opponent of the invasion, although as soon as it took place he returned to his homeland and become an activist and organiser for furthering trade unionism and democracy inside Iraq.

I have always argued that Hadi’s opposition to the invasion and the use he then made of the new openings it provided, were both correct positions. Although I grant that those of us who opposed the invasion were under an obligation to say what alternatives we sought in order to end Saddam’s reign of terror. This always seemed to me to involve support for the very type of clandestine activity which Hadi and his comrades were involved in. With practical acts of solidarity from outside of Iraq this could have opened the way for progressive Iraqi forces themselves to have instigated regime change.

On The Zionist Question

In dealing with the general situation in the Middle East, Nick Cohen adopts a strong position for the defence of Israel, whilst arguing that a solution of the Palestinian conflict requires a confrontation with both Jewish and Muslim ultras.

There is then a strong criticism of those liberals who camouflage forms of anti-Semitism under a cloak of anti-Zionism.

Here it seems to me that it is fruitful for the left to avoid such dangers by clarifying what we understand by the use of the concept of “anti-Zionism”. For it is possible to adopt forms of Zionism and anti-Zionism at the same time.

Zionism was initially a movement to establish a Jewish State in Palestine. With the establishment of a State of Israel with its widely recognised borders and its theoretical rights for its Arab citizens as embodied in its Constitution, a major element of the initial project has been achieved.

Without recognising the rights of settlements on the West Bank nor of Israel’s freedom to act at will in Gaza and the Lebanon, those of us who recognise the right of Israel to exist and to take reasonable action to defend itself have, in fact, come to accept a partial Zionist position.

Many of us have not done this from ideological positions, but mainly as a matter of coming to terms with what we saw as the politics of the situation. Although those of us who were young children at the time of the holocaust, may have developed Jewish sympathies which gave little consideration at the time to the Arab Question.

On Zionism, we need to be clear that we are opposed to its expansionist form and to any desire to treat Arabs as second class citizens.

Many anti-Zionists obscure the distinction I have made. Their ill defined form of anti-Zionism allows them to gain the acceptance of those who wish to destroy the State of Israel, whilst telling the rest of us that they aren’t anti-Semitic as they actually favour a two State solution to the Palestine problem.

Clarity on what we mean by anti-Zionism might not be everything, but it sure is an important starter.

But whilst we have a three card trick being played by some to obscure the distinctions we need to have in our mind between Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism, Zionist lobbies (of both the types I describe) can also be used to hide counter criticism of un-praiseworthy acts by Israel or its supporters. We should avoid being fooled by the language tricks on both sides of this divide.

Walking and Chewing Gum

Nick Cohen’s achievement is to alert us to the very real dangers of the contemporary evils I listed earlier, including totalitarianism. Although he needs to recognise that these will not always be experienced in their absolutists forms. As Mary Kaldor has pointed out in relation to Iraq “by spring 2003 the regime exhibited characteristics that are typical of the last phase of totalitarianism - a system that is breaking up under the impact of globalisation, unable to sustain its closed, autarchic, tightly-controlled character” (Iraq: the wrong war, 21.4.05, Open Democracy web-site.)

There is, however, an urgent need to contain, push back and end the forms of development which concern Nick Cohen. It is, of course, difficult to achieve his aims without the involvement of the world’s major economic, cultural and political power - the USA. After all without our moral support, they will still either automatically intervene in some form or they will go into an even more dangerous form of isolation. We need to acknowledge this, yet seek to significantly influence their role.

Democratisation at the level of the world’s major institutions, within the USA and in bodies such as the European Union or within ad hoc cosmopolitan groupings, is an essential. It is needed to direct these structures towards only justifiable interventions which are directed towards worthwhile ends and which ensure the use of the best available humanitarian methods.

The democratic taming and revitalisation of such power structures is part of the very means by which we make it easier to make the world and its peoples safe from the forces which Nick Cohen wishes us to face up to.

Even though hard choices have to be made in situations of crisis, we can’t always easily choose between Imperialism on the one hand and Fascism on the other. We will often need to tackle both at once as we learn to “walk and chew gum at the same time” - to use a phase employed by Nick Cohen. George Orwell used to understand this.

In The Meantime

I appreciate that we can’t wait for improved forms of democracy, before we next act to protect ourselves and others. Although each crisis does offer a democratic opportunity of its own - like the world-wide marches against the invasion of Iraq, whose main humanitarian drive Nick Cohen fails to understand.

Whilst we wait for a full democratic break-through, we have no option but to decide how to deal with passing problems according to the complexities of each set of circumstances. So despite serious problems, I am solidly opposed to an attack on Iran.

But that doesn’t mean that my thought processes fit in with those of Andrew Murray or George Galloway. For the Iranian regime needs working upon (being pulled into discussions, for instance) to move it away from its own development of nuclear weapons and its Shia expansionist instincts.

I also realise that in politics, we often are pressed into a need to act quickly in accordance with our gut reactions. I am not, therefore, arguing that before we can act we have to engage in a never-ending series of academic seminars. But regular thought and discussion on the left about our democratic, humanitarian, libertarian and socialist values will help us to see the wood as well as the trees.

The paradox of Nick Cohen’s stimulating book is that it was in an earlier work of his that he showed us what had taken place within the Labour Party which set back the very processes of thought which I recommend above. Although things were far from perfect beforehand, it was those “Pretty Straight Guys” (Faber and Faber, 2003) around Tony Blair who helped abandon the Labour Party’s traditional ideals. The problem for Nick Cohen is that in “What’s Left?“ he throws away his earlier perceptions along with the murky bathwater which he has now discovered.

When he twigs and produces a synthesis of “What’s Left?” and “Pretty Straight Guys”, it should really be something.

Nick Cohen's Myopia

The Death Of Socialism

I would never claim that socialism is in a healthy state in this country nor that it is a serious political force in current circumstances. But how can Nick Cohen begin to reach conclusions about our socialism having died without assessing or even mentioning the role of Labour's parliamentary bodies such as the Tribune and Socialist Campaign Groups? Yet nowhere do these emerge in his book "What's Left?".

He also fails to look at the Tribune Newspaper, numbers of other publications that can be purchased at Compass Conferences or the Morning Star (except in its old guise as the Daily Worker) . Compass itself is ignored for his preferred Euston Manifesto buddies.

At The Fringe

Yet the Revolutionary Communist Party, Socialist Alliance, the Socialist Workers Party and the Workers Revolutionary Party are all delved into; not to mention ye olde Communist Party. When it comes to left-wing personalities we get Perry Anderson, Tony Cliff, Ted Grant, Tariq Ali and Gerry Healy. And whilst this is all interesting stuff for officionados, where are the more recognisable lefties such as Tony Benn and his re-incarnation John McDonnell ? The latter is currently trying to stand for the leadership of the Labour Party, which at the moment provides the additional post of Prime Minister.

I don't agree with what John is doing, even though he has given me an open invitation to pop in to a Socialist Campaign Group Meeting in the Commons sometime. Nick does not seem to know that John even exists and is currently, in fact, using up a great deal of kinetic energy.

Thesis Fodder

The strange thing about Nick's omissions are that (from his own perspective) he could have used these as fodder to feed his overall thesis about the left's self inflicted wounds. For instance, the Socialist Campaign Group spawned "Labour Against the War", which has a close relationship with the "Stop the War Coalition". The latter is a clear target for Nick's polemic. Why does he not spread his net to also take on "Labour Against the War?".

I was on the platform at the launch of Labour's version of the "Stop the War Coalition". I later resigned when I felt that they seriously lost their way as a supposed democratic socialist organisation after the invasion.

The Shape Of Things To Come

I will return to what Nick missed in the future. This includes the strange absence of any analysis by him of the bulk of the hard lefts shortcomings over Northern Ireland. For current failures by many on the left to turn against terrorism in Iraq, follows on from much the same people associating themselves with the Provisional IRA's use of Sinn Fein.

In the meantime, the type of lefty who Nick criticizes over Iraq includes the strange case of Sami Ramadani whom is himself a London based Iraqi. To glimpse at what Sami gets up to scrawl down to question 6 here and then here.

A Disservice To Atheism

I have finally read Richard Dawkins' book "The God Delusion ". It was a big disappointment. It falls way short of his key works on evolution, such as "The Blind Watchmaker"

Bible Bashing

Whilst Dawkins' argues that all religious beliefs share similar defects, much of his criticism in "The God Delusion" is directed against Christianity. The Bible comes in for a bashing. It is, therefore, paradoxical that I requested and received my copy of his book as a Christmas present.

A clear sign that I found the book to be highly problematic was that it took me so long to read it - the whole of January. Picking it up became a task I kept avoiding. It was rather as if I had set myself a chore such as reading the Bible itself.

Knock, Knock

The book is full of knock-out and knock-about arguments. Such an approach is neither intellectually not emotionally stimulating.

To maintain sets of knock-out arguments, a writer is obliged to set up a series of Aunt Sallys which can be bowled over. Dawkins' criticisms are also directed more at the easy target of the Old Testament than at the Gospels (although he disputes that this is what he is up to).

For knock-about, he deals with American style Christian fundamentalism, rather than the type of socially conscious Methodism I absorbed in a pit village over 50 years ago.

The knock-about comes in when Dawkins' delights in digging up the best bits of Christian stupidity he can find. Some from experiences in his past, the others from a great deal of Googleing.

Dialect instead of Dialectics

Dawkins uses the same tone (or harsh dialect) all of the time. Religion is always mad and bad. There is no delving into the inspirational aspects of religion, which in Christianity alone have grabbed such people as Martin Luther King, Keir Hardie and Desmond Tutu.

It is easy to despatch the nonsense which emerges from creationists and the pro-life lobby, but answering religion at its most inspirational requires both empathy and deepth of thought. The best arguments as to whether God exists should touch on morality and metaphysics as well as science. All these forms of analysis require a critic to be involved in 'give' as well as 'take'. Such an approach is called dialectical reasoning. You will not find it in this book.

Dawkins lack of questioning also leads him to condemn religion as being a catalyst to social conflict and political excess. Yet when similiar patterns of trouble emerge in atheist regimes such as the Soviet Union, they are said to have risen from factors other than the prevailing godlessness. What goes for the goose does not go for the gander.

Using his same logic on the Soviet Union, it is possible to argue that the recent troubles in Northern Ireland were of a tribal form relating to the question of whether the region should be part of the Ireland or the United Kingdom and that religious affiliations only slotted people into the two different camps.


The Problem With The Interesting Bit

Dawkins is at his best when he draws from his own expertise.

He explains the significance of Darwinism in ways that will turn many readers to those fine Dawkins' books which litter the Popular Science section at Waterstones.

In one of these ("The Selfish Gene") he developed the notion that there is a similarity between genetic development in nature and the development of mental/cultural understandings in what he named as the equivalent of the gene - the "meme".

When he concentrates on genetic mutuations and on survival resting with those whom nature has best adapted to the conditions around them, then I am fully with him.

When, however, Dawkins claims that concepts such as that of God develop in our understandings in similar ways, then I am not convinced with his explanation. He may be making what Wittgenstein used to call a category mistake.

I am not, of course, arguing that God put the idea of himself in our minds. To explain what has happened I would seek to resort to historical and sociological explanations. Turning Darwin's biological explanations into explanations about thought processes seem to be unlikely, even for someone like me who rejects Decartes distinction between body and mind.

The Weakness Of His Strength

Unfortunately for Dawkins, his very strength is also his weakness. He is a leading scientist, but he turns science into a creed. The Scientific method needs to draw from other methodologies and needs to be aware of Karl Popper's argument that any understandings it comes up with must at least in theory be falsifiable if they are to be meaningful. So just as Einstein's theories subsumed Newton's theories, then the same is always possible for Einstein - and even for Darwin and Dawkins.

Dawkins gives the appearence of someone who believes that it is science alone (and isolated) which can move towards solving the problems of the universe.

I am no critic of the achievements of science and of the significance of the scientific method. But I don't think that we should ignore what other forms of intellectual investigation have to offer.

The Philosophical Vacuum

I had expected a book about the question of God's existence to contain a reasonable amount of philosophical analysis. Dawkins, however, knocks down classical theoretical arguments for the existence of God at breakneck speed. This results in him skimming over both the pros and cons of these arguments.

Yet amongst the critics of such arguments is the highly readable David Hume the 18th Century Scottish Philosopher in works such as "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion". Although Hume is given a nod and a wink by Dawkins, he isn't given any serious coverage.

In dealing with the problem of whether we could be good without having God to guide us, again there is only a passing reference to the philosopher Immuel Kant. Yet Kant is recognised as one of the world's greatest thinkers. Whilst his "Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals" is his most (or his only) readable book.

A serious canter around the Philosophical problems is "Difficulties in Christian Belief" by Alasdair C. MacIntyre (SCM Press 1959). Dawkins missed this one as it came from a serious Christian publisher. Anyone reading it, however, can see why MacIntyre became an atheist soon after its publication.

Tunnel Vision

It is the form of Dawkins' scientific certainty which leads him to his absolutist claims and to his unwllingness to look for a good thing to say about religion. Aided by the fact that he is writing also for an American market, he regularly turns his face and fire towards Christian fundamentalism. They present. of course, a serious problem. But they should not have been allowed to distort the issues Dawkins was investigating.

His approach leads him to take up a counter fundamentalist position of his own. So the non-fundamentalist religious person is dismissed as he or she are held to be guilty of opening the door for extremists (including terrorists). Whilst the agnostic (and even the closet atheist) are damned for failing to root out religious viewpoints.

As Dawkins seeks to win each contest hands down (and each sub-point), his book loses its way. It even lacks a conclusion in which the threads of a writer's arguments can be drawn together. This is because his many separate issues only really have one thread to them.

As a result he ends up talking a great deal about himself and his own experiences. He does not need to do this, of course, as his knowledge is encylopedic. So he knows how to keep saying things. The problem is that what he adds in relation to his subject matter is always exactly where he started out from in his very first chapter. To repeat ones case in numerious different contexts gives an unfortunate impression of padding.



What Next?

What worries me about Dawkins'approach is that he (and anyone taking on board his stance) are in a vunerable position.

They are unlikely ever to adjust to the above types of criticism. To do so requires a different form of mind set. But there is something which just could get him to shift his ground. The very form of religious fundamentalism which he currently abhors.

In intellectual terms his position is hard. Yet hard atheism and hard religious belief have more thinking processes in common than they would care to admit. It is soft and closet atheism that is less likely to be subject to a death bed conversion.

If Dawkins ever gets around to giving in to Christianity and then writes "The Atheist Delusion", I will give it a miss as I have already struggled through its equivalent.

Oh, My Daddy is a Left-wing Intellectual

Oh, my daddy is a left-wing intellectual
He supports the Co-op Movement do or die
We must nationalionize, he cries
Down with private enterprise
But his divi comes from shares in ICI

Alex Glasgow - Oh, My Daddy is a Left Wing Intellectual (The Songs of Alex Glasgow Vol 1)

Apart from its introductory material and a postscript, The Intellectual by Steve Fuller, consists of two essays and a dialogue, with an additional relevant preface to the paperback edition.

The dialogue is in the form of a fictional argument between a Philosopher and an Intellectual. Although the author accepts that philosophers can sometimes also be intellectuals, he feels that too few professional philosophers reach such heights.

The mixture of a dialogue with essays, presents problems for the reader. How are Fuller’s views on intellectuals being reflected in the dialogue? Is Fuller himself to be seen in the guise of the dialogue’s Intellectual who has various deep disputes with the Philosopher? Or are Fuller’s views to be seen in the interplay between the arguments of the two characters? After all he believes (obsessively) in the power of dialectical discourse.

When the above problem is resolved, there is still the question of trying to fit the other two essays in with the dialogue. This isn’t easy.

Fuller would probably argue that my above questions don’t matter as long as he makes the reader think about the issues raised. But the problem for the reader is that the views of intellectuals presented in the essays are often at variance with those of the Intellectual of the dialogue. Such confusion might actually hinder the development of a Socratic discourse in the mind of the reader.

One area of distinction between the Intellectual of the dialogue and the intellectuals of the essays is that the former is much more dismissive of philosophy itself (as you would expect in the drama of a dispute; but it is still a poor fit for the reader.)

Surprisingly, the essays give a chuck-on to a whole host of Philosophers to whom he grants the accolade of “intellectuals”. But this is partly due to the fact that Fuller is given to a form of name dropping. For Philosophers alone, he includes Protagorus and other Sophists, Erasmus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Russell, Sartre and Heidegger. Yet is only part of a small book of around 35,000 words.

It should be noted, however, that the Greek Philosophers who are closer to Fuller’s paradigm for intellectuals were universal “lovers of wisdom”. Generalists and not specialists. He only grants Bertrand Russell the title of intellectual once Russell had graduated from being a mere logician !

Whilst the Intellectual in the dialogue does recognise that philosophers can reach his own lofty status, he is extremely grumpy about four areas of Modern (i.e. post-Descartes) Philosophy. And these feelings do impact upon Fuller’s approach in the essays.

(1) Continental Philosophy is criticised as being given to closed systems, which override both questions and challenges by reverting inward to their own pre-programmed systems.

(2) Analytic Philosophy (the sort I studied in the 1960’s) is mainly seen as being involved in knit-picking ways of avoiding significant questions, by centring upon the meaning of the use of words - hence this knit-picking review.

(3) Science is often seen as a mixture of the too low or the too high. Either as low level theorising operating within specific and restricted areas, or as a form of non-cashable Philosophy of Science. The latter is seen as either involved in unfathomable jargon or (like Analytic Philosophy) acts to close down its investigations. Hence Karl Popper’s theory of “falsification” (that a scientific claim is only meaningful if presented in a way that in logic it is open to a possible falsification), is dismissed by the Intellectual in the dialogue.

(4) Metaphysics is also slated. Whilst it can escape the knit-picking arguments used against it by Analytic Philosophy, it falls (as with Continental Philosophy) into the trap of employing closed, immovable systems. On this matter, Fuller is now on the side of Popper and he calls for the use of open reasoning in an Open Society.

There seems to me to be two problems about Fuller’s approach. If we dismantle all of the above, we seem to be left empty handed. Whilst it also seems to be unfair to Popper. Clearly there is an intellectual connection between Popper’s call for an Open Society (which Fuller accepts in 4 above) and the open minded nature of his test of falsification (which Fuller rejects in 3 above.)

Yet Fuller’s attitude on Popper does not arise from a lack of knowledge, for he is also author of another work entitled ’Kuhn vs. Popper’ ( 2003, ICON books.)

In the 115 pages outside of the dialogue, Fuller is much more generous in granting his accolade of “intellectual” to philosophers and others. Fifty people are given the title. Ten of whom I grant, I had never heard of before. Most of those I had come across fit my own (admittedly analytic usage) of the term. They are thinkers who are highly skilled, widely knowledgeable and use reasoning and detailed empirical research in ways that the rest of us (in our critical and reflective moments) find to be innovative , informative and telling.

But Fuller reduces the scope of my above categorisation by continuing to exclude those he sees as specialists, advocates of closed systems and manipulators of ideas. The problem here is that Fuller is seemingly looking for idealised intellectuals, rather than human intellectuals with warts. Yet this is strange given his feelings for the importance of arguments and disputes, which leads him to say that it is better that we criticize him than that we report what he says uncritically. I should be in for some Brownie points.

On Fuller’s criteria we should really delete some people from his own list of intellectuals. Galileo should go as a specialist. John Gray when a Thatcherite should go for advocating a closed system. Whilst most of us would expect the Sophists to go as manipulators. Fuller does however defend the Sophists, whom he claims are misunderstood.

Noam Chomsky makes the list. But on Fuller‘s terms should he? When Chomsky produced his work on linguistics he was in a specialist area. As a political pundit, he clearly reveals a closed mind operating in a closed system - or so Oliver Kamn insists.

On the positive side (when he isn’t doing his own weeding out), Fuller sees intellectuals as having an interest in meta-politics. So as some-one with a joint degree in Politics and Philosophy (and an interest in their synthesis), how can my biases not be appealed to?

To give meta-politics its place, he says we need to look for independence of thought, rejection of personal interests, a search for truths and a “democratic sentiment” which leaves people to decide on matters for themselves.

Ignoring the question of how far we can tolerate the intolerant, he feels that we should exclude nothing from our agenda; even forms of racism, creationism and sexism should be investigated on their own terms as they might contain truths. What we find worrying about them are best grappled with through his beloved avenue of dialectical reasoning.

After the first publication of the hardback edition of his book in 2005 ( and as outlined in the Preface to this paperback edition), he went on to give evidence in defence of the teaching of creationism alongside Darwin’s theory of evolution in the Kitzmiller Vs Dover Area School District case in Pennsylvania. He felt that both positions (and those investigating them) would benefit from the interchanges.

As I am myself given to listening or reading Wagner (a racist), St Augustine (philosophically, a form of pre-creationist), and Schopeneur (a misogynist), I don’t necessarily disagree with what he is after; although I am more than sceptical of his Pennsylvanian hopes. But in the context of this book, it is clear that his willingness to make such concessions to strongly anti-social ideas, enables him to grant the title of “intellectual” to many who fall way short of his otherwise perfectionist criteria.

The paradox is that under my own above criteria, I am more than willing to designate, say, Schopeneur as an intellectual. But I don’t think that Fuller should via his own (mistaken) criteria. This is because Schopeneur’s use of his concept of “the will” is a closed and circular one.

In his book, Fuller is described as “a trainee Multi-media public intellectual”. I presume that he feels that in his academic work, he has already established his credentials and he is now training to adapt his skills to a post-modern canvas.

I hope that, within his own standards, this works. For as a self claimed socialist he comes up with a couple of telling points on New Labour and on a 36 year olds perception of the meaning of socialism. See the final paragraph of page 135 and the overlapping paragraph on pages 159/60.

A final word on dialectics. I am all for its use in the Socratic or educational sense, as I tried to pursue such avenues for 27 years as a tutor in Adult Education. I don’t, however, want people to be carried over into Hegelian Idealism or into the worst bits of Marx and Engels which is their Historical Materialism. Neither does Fuller, as these approaches are clearly part of Continental Philosophy and Metaphysics.

Yet, Fuller is such a strong advocate of dialectical reasoning that, he should really be more open minded about Empiricism, Logical Analysis, Metaphysics, Continental Philosophy and Scientific Methods.

It is a pity that he downgrades all these, whilst giving a boost to the anti-social theories of racism, sexism and creationism which thrive on non-intellectual techniques.