Shire Councillor Signs Petition Opposing Trump Visit

 Aberdeenshire, Opinion  No Responses »
Feb 022017
 

With thanks to Martin Ford.

Aberdeenshire councillor Martin Ford has signed the petition to the UK Government opposing an official state visit by Donald Trump during his term as US president. 

The petition states that Mr Trump should not be invited to make an official state visit because it would cause embarrassment to the Queen.

Over 1.8 million people have already signed the petition. Cllr Ford signed it on Sunday, 29 January.

Cllr Martin Ford said:

“The petition has coincided with world-wide protests at Mr Trump’s shameful and discriminatory travel ban.

“The information with the petition specifically describes Mr Trump as a vulgar misogynist, which, amongst other things, he certainly is.

“The petition makes the point that since, unbelievably, Mr Trump is now the President of the United States, the UK will have to deal with him and admit him to this country in that capacity. However, we don’t have to give him the honour of an official state visit and meeting the Queen and we clearly shouldn’t.

“Mr Trump is a deeply unpleasant individual with abhorrent views. So while we can’t ignore Mr Trump, the UK must do nothing that suggests support or approval of his behaviour.”

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The Paris Commune of 1871: Part 2

 Articles, History, Information  No Responses »
Mar 282013
 

Last  week marked the 242nd anniversary of the Paris Commune of 1871. The Commune was one of the most important examples in history of people taking control of their own lives and reorganising their society. In the second part of Simon Gall’s two-part analysis of the Commune through the eyes of some important progressive scholars, we examine its destruction by the French government in May 1871, but learn how its legacy lives on and how it has influenced and inspired the generations since.

commune
The Downfall of the Commune

On 21 May, Versailles troops entered Paris and spent seven days massacring “defenceless Men, Women and Children”.

They were “cut to pieces” and “shot down in hundreds by mitrailleuse fire”.

There were random street executions and accounts of people being buried alive after the firing squads had failed to do their jobs properly.

Marx wrote, “Even the atrocities of the bourgeois in June, 1848, vanish before the ineffable infamy of 1871” and continued, “the great problem…(was) how to get rid of the heaps of corpses…after the battle was over. About 30,000 Parisians were shot down by the bestial soldiery, and about 45,000 were arrested, many of whom were afterwards executed, while thousands were transported or exiled.”

Opinions on the Commune

The Communards were endlessly praised by socialist writers the world over for their determination and bravery in attempting to bring about a new society, but many also offered their own analysis of what went wrong. All realised that the cards were stacked against the Commune from the beginning.

Indeed the situation led Peter Kropotkin to write, “The Commune of 1871 could be nothing but a first attempt. Beginning at the close of a great war, hemmed in between two armies ready to join hands and crush the people.” Nevertheless, scholars gave their opinions on the movement.

Peter Kropotkin was both heartened and disheartened by the Commune.

He saw traces of Anarchism in its governance, “By proclaiming the free Commune, the people of Paris proclaimed an essential anarchist principle, which was the breakdown of the State” and recognised its historical importance when he stated that with the movement of the “Commune of Paris a new idea was born”, and that it was “to become the starting point for future revolutions.”

In the months following the fall of the Commune, the luxury of hindsight meant that he was able to ponder calmly what he felt went wrong.

The first problem he noted was, “It neither boldly declared itself socialist nor proceeded to the expropriation of capital nor the organisation of labour. It did not even take stock of the general resources of the city….nor did it break with (in practice) the tradition of the State, of representative government…..they let themselves get carried away by the fetish worship of governments and set one up of their own.”

He felt that the Commune went some way towards realising the vision of a stateless society

He felt that this led to elected representatives falling out of touch with the electorate. He proposed that they had lost the “inspiration which only comes from continual contact with the masses” and had become “paralyzed by their separation from the people” and that “they themselves (had) paralyzed the popular initiative.”

In 1892, he continued his observations on the Commune, noting that the hunger that plagued Paris had been instrumental in the downfall of the revolution, the “Commune perished for lack of combatants. It had taken for the separation of Church and State, but it neglected, alas, until too late, to take measures for providing the people with bread.”

Mikhail Bakunin joyously claimed that, “Revolutionary Socialism (Anarchism) has just attempted its first striking and practical demonstration in the Paris Commune.” He felt that the Commune went some way towards realising the vision of a stateless society. Federated Communes, delegates bound by the imperative mandate, and the concept of instant recall were concepts which Bakunin had been discussing since around 1848.

He continued, “I am a supporter (of the Commune), above all, because of it was a bold, clearly formulated negation of the State.”

Whilst being careful to never lay blame at any Communard door he observed, “The proletariat of the great cities of France, and even of Paris, still cling to many Jacobin (radical bourgeois) prejudices, and to many dictatorial and governmental concepts. The cult of authority – the fatal result of religious education, that historic source of all evils, deprivations, and servitude – has not yet been completely eradicated in them.”

To him, the influence of the Jacobins “was the great misfortune for the Commune” because “they were paralyzed, and they paralyzed the Commune….they lacked the time and even the capacity to overcome and subdue many of their own bourgeois prejudices which were contrary to their newly acquired socialism.”

Karl Marx wrote one of the most comprehensive accounts of the Paris Commune, praising the revolution with the best of words, “Working mens’ Paris, with its Commune, will be forever celebrated as the glorious harbinger of a new society. Its martyrs are enshrined in the great heart of the working class. Its exterminators’ history has already nailed to that eternal pillory from which all the prayers of their priest will not avail to redeem them.”

launching a resolute offensive against Versailles would have crowned its victory in Paris

He was immensely proud of what the Commune had achieved, despite being unconvinced about it at its inception. When he heard of the plan to overthrow the Government, he called the plan “a folly of despair.”

He changed his tune and began watching in awe as the proletariat of Paris took the reins. The movement had such a profound effect on their thinking that in 1872 he and Friedrich Engels edited the Communist Manifesto stating that, it was, in places out of date and declared “that the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes.”

Later, Marx would call the Commune “the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economic emancipation of labour.” After Marx’s death in 1883, Engels wrote in March 1891, “Look at the Paris Commune.That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat” using the Commune to prove their thinking.

In a letter to Dr. Kugelmann, Marx pointed to two mistakes the Communards made.

The first was that “They did not want to start the Civil War”. This point was pondered by Lenin years later. He felt that the Communards should have marched on Versailles because “launching a resolute offensive against Versailles would have crowned its victory in Paris”. He wrote that the hesitation “gave the Versailles Government time to gather dark forces and prepare for the blood-soaked week of May.”

He felt that the Commune aimed to achieve something very important – anti-parliamentarianism

The second mistake in Marx’s eyes was that the Central Committee of the National Guard “surrendered its power too soon, to make way for the Commune.” Presumably Marx thought that the Central Committee should have kept things under tighter control for longer, or perhaps decreed more reforms before resigning.

Lenin too paid tribute to the people of the Commune.

He wrote that the events and their actions were “unprecedented in history. Up to that time power had, as a rule, been in the hands of landowners and capitalists, ie the hands of their trusted agents who made up the so-called government.” He noted its importance as a grassroots movement by stating that “no one consciously prepared it in an organised way.”

He felt that the Commune aimed to achieve something very important – anti-parliamentarianism. It was to be “a working body” that sought to combine the work of the executive and legislative branches of government into one.

This was vital for Lenin as it stopped Parliament from becoming just a talking shop for “the parliamentarians must themselves work, must themselves execute their own laws, must themselves verify their results in actual life, must themselves be directly responsible to their electorate.”

However, he criticised the Commune for not “expropriating the expropriators”. He noted that large organisations, such as the Bank of France had not been targeted. The Communards could have made use of the capital. Also, he wrote that there was “no workers’ party, the working class had not gone through a long school of struggle and was unprepared.”

Despite his criticisms, Lenin diligently noted that “the chief thing which the Commune lacked was time – an opportunity to take stock of the situation and to embark upon the fulfilment of its programme…The Commune had to concentrate primarily on self-defence…it had no time to think seriously of anything else.”

Conclusion

The Commune is held up as proof by both anarchists and socialists of how their ideas and theories work in practice. The anarchists saw it as a negation of the state and the socialists saw it as the functioning Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

It is still the subject of much analysis and discussion in academia and among activists and trade unionists around the world. It has been examined on numerous occasions by the arts.  La Commune Film is one example.

It has inspired and continues to inspire people in search of alternative ways of living.

References and further reading

M Bakunin        The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State

F Engels          Introduction to The Civil War in France

F Engels          Reflection in Introduction

P Kropotkin      The Conquest of Bread

P Kropotkin      The Commune of Paris

V Lenin             Lenin on the Commune

V Lenin             Lenin on the Commune – Experience of the Paris Commune of 1871 – Marx’s Analysis

V Lenin             Lenin on the Commune – Lessons from the Commune

V Lenin             In Memory of the Commune

K Marx               The Civil War in France

K Marx               Letters to Dr.Kugelmann on the Paris Commune

The Paris Commune of 1871: Part 1

 History, Information  No Responses »
Mar 212013
 

This week marks the 242nd anniversary of the Paris Commune of 1871. The Commune was one of the most important examples in history of people taking control of their own lives and reorganising their society. In the first part of Simon Gall’s two-part examination of the Commune through the eyes of some important progressive scholars, we take a look at how the Commune came about, its short history and its structure.

The experiment ended in May 1871 when it was destroyed by the French government, but its legacy lives on and it continues to inspire. The Commune was the subject matter of the Socialist and Anarchist anthem, “L’Internationale”

The Commune and its importance.

“Working men’s Paris, with its Commune, will be forever celebrated as the glorious harbinger of a new society. Its martyrs are enshrined in the great heart of the working class. Its exterminators’ history has already nailed to that eternal pillory from which all the prayers of their priest will not avail to redeem them.” – K Marx – The Civil War in France

“Paris inflicting a mortal blow upon the political traditions of the bourgeois radicalism and giving a real basis to revolutionary socialism (anarchism) against the reactionaries of France and Europe….Paris destroying nationalism and erecting the religion of humanity upon its ruins; Paris proclaiming herself humanitarian and atheist, and replacing divine fictions with the great realities of social life and faith in science.” – M Bakunin – The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State

“It was an event unprecedented in history. Up to that time power had, as a rule, been in the hands of landowners and capitalists, ie the hands of their trusted agents who made up the so-called government.” V Lenin – Lenin on the Commune – 3 – In Memory of the Commune

“The direct antithesis of the Empire was the Commune.” – K Marx – The Civil War in France

 “The political form at last discovered under which to work out the economic emancipation of labour.” – K Marx – The Civil War in France

Overview

commune
In 1871, the citizens of Paris took control of their own destinies and sought to break with the idea of bourgeois government, by seizing Paris and moulding it into something new.

On 18 March, they proclaimed the Commune and began dismantling the old Bonapartist structures of government.

People grew excited at the prospect of being masters of their own lives as the Commune began promulgating revolutionary decrees. However, after only 72 days, the rebellion was ferociously crushed by Government troops in a seven-day massacre.

Tens of thousands lost their lives but the idea lived, and still lives on. The experience of Communards changed political thinking forever and provided a sort of blueprint, or the beginnings of a blueprint, for future revolutions.

Lenin wrote of the Commune,

“The significance of the Commune, furthermore, lies in the fact that it endeavoured to crush, to smash to its very foundations, the bourgeois state apparatus, the bureaucratic, judicial, military and police machine, and to replace it by a self-governing, mass worker’s organisation in which there was no division between legislative and executive power.”  – Lenin on the Commune – 6. Bourgeois Democracy

Who what when where why?

In July 1870, French Emperor Louis Bonaparte (Napoleon III) declares war on Prussia. However, only three months later, he and his General, MacMahon, are captured along with more than 80000 soldiers at the Battle of Sedan. On hearing the news, the workers of Paris storm the Palais Bourbon and force the legislative body to proclaim the fall of the Second Empire.

By evening, the provisional Government of National Defence (GND) is formed, “All Parisians capable of bearing arms had enrolled in the National Guard and were armed” and the Third Republic is proclaimed.

In the next few weeks, Bonaparte’s forces surrender and, by October 31, the GND is ready to begin negotiations with the Prussians, but the Parisian workers rebel. The enemy reaches Paris but is only allowed a small corner of the capital by the Parisians. The Prussians disarm the city’s Mobile Guard but permit the National Guard to keep their weapons.

The revolutionary sections of the National Guard form the Central Committee to coordinate matters inside Paris and the newly-formed government of Adolphe Theirs flees to Versailles in March.

On the 18 March, Theirs sends government troops to disarm Paris but the soldiers refuse to carry out their orders and instead turn their guns on their Generals Claude Martin Lecomte and Jacques Leonard Clement Thomas. Some soldiers join the Commune. Thiers is outraged and the Civil War begins.

The Paris Commune was elected through universal suffrage on the 26 March 1871.

The Structure of the Commune

The Paris Commune

“made use of two infallible means. In the first place, it filled all posts – administration, judicial and educational – by election on the basis of universal suffrage of all concerned, subject to the right of recall at any time by the same electors. And, in the second place, all officials, high or low, were paid only the wages received by other workers.” The maximum wage was set at 6000 francs, providing “an effective barrier to place-hunting and careerism…even apart from the binding mandate to delegates to representative bodies.”

The Commune was to spread across France. It was to be the structure of even the smallest hamlets.

“Rural Communes of every district were to administer their common affairs by an assembly of delegates (with the imperative mandate) in the central town” and was to be a “working body, not a parliamentary body, executive and legislative at the same time.”

Marx noted that the Municipal Councillors were “naturally working men, or acknowledged representatives of the working class.”

Decrees and Actions of the Commune

28 March

The Central Committee of the National Guard dissolves itself after decreeing the abolition of the Police.

30 March

The Commune abolishes conscription and the Army and declares the National Guard, comprising everyone who can bear arms, to be the sole armed force.

The Commune remits all payments of rent for dwelling houses from October 1870 until April 1871, with the amounts already paid to be used as future rent payments.

Foreigners elected to the Commune were confirmed in office. “The flag of the Commune is the flag of the World Republic”

1 April

Maximum wage set for Commune at 6000 francs (£4)

2 April

The Commune decreed the separation of Church and State. It abolished all state payments for religious purposes (priests’ wages etc) and all property was to become national property.

5th April

In response to the daily shooting of Commune prisoners by Versailles troops it was decreed that NO prisoner of the Commune should be shot.

6th April

La Guillotine was brought into the street by the National Guard and publicly burned “amid great popular rejoicing.”

8th April

Religious symbols, pictures, dogmas and prayers were excluded from schools.

12th April

The Commune decides to destroy Napoleon’s victory column, made from smelted weapons captured from a fallen army, as a symbol of nationalistic chauvinism.

16th April

Review of closed factories with a view to organising worker’s control of those factories in the form of co-operatives. The co-operatives were to federate into one great co-operative union. In the end 43 factories were organised this way.

30th April

Pawnshops were closed as they were “in contradiction with the right of the workers to their instruments of labour and to credit.”

5th May

The Commune orders the razing of the Chapel of Atonement which had been built in expiation of the execution of Louis XVI

9th May

The Versailles army closes in on Paris and captures its first Parisian fort.

10th May

The Treaty of Frankfurt is signed by Bismarck, the Prussian Chancellor, and Thiers the head of the French Government. The conditions were set out mainly by Prussia as they were in the strongest position. The deal was that France would pay Prussia 5bn Francs in indemnities over a shorter period of time than first agreed and Bismarck would continue the occupation of Parisian forts until he “should feel satisfied with the state of things in France”, making him the “supreme arbiter in internal French politics”. In return, Bismarck would release the remaining “100,000 French prisoners of war to help crush revolutionary Paris.”

References and further reading

M Bakunin        The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State

F Engels           Introduction to The Civil War in France

F Engels          Reflection in Introduction

P Kropotkin      The Conquest of Bread

P Kropotkin      The Commune of Paris

V Lenin             Lenin on the Commune

V Lenin             Lenin on the Commune – Experience of the Paris Commune of 1871 – Marx’s Analysis

V Lenin             Lenin on the Commune – Lessons from the Commune

V Lenin             In Memory of the Commune

K Marx               The Civil War in France

K Marx               Letters to Dr.Kugelmann on the Paris Commune

In part 2 of Simon’s brief overview of the Commune, he will detail its destruction, the lessons that writers and political historians have learned from it and how its influence still permeates radical and progressive thinking nearly 250 years later.

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Plant-a-Tree In Palestine Project: Aberdeen Represented

 Articles, Community, Featured, History, Information, News  No Responses »
Jan 122012
 

On January 2nd an Aberdeen-based member of Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) took part in a new project to re-plant trees in previously devastated areas of Palestine.  Dave Black, along with other members of the Stop the JNF international delegation, joined individuals from a nearby refugee camp, trade union representatives, youth activists, Stop the Wall campaigners and representatives of political parties. The group planted 111 trees, representing the number of years that the Jewish National Fund (JNF) has been in existence, playing a key role in Israel’s policy of displacing and dispossessing Palestinians.

82-dave-in-imwas-or-canada-park
The JNF controls land that the organisation openly decrees is solely for the benefit of Jewish people; non-Jewish people are not able to live or work on the land and it can only be sold or rented to Jewish people.
The organisation is a quasi-governmental one, with extremely close ties to the state; it is often referred to as a para-statal organisation.

Despite the JNF’s clearly discriminatory policies, the Israeli state maintains this strong relationship with the organisation.

The trees were planted in Tulkarem district, formerly one of the richest and most important districts of Palestine. In 1948, most of its lands were taken and dozens of villages destroyed. The JNF played a key role in the destruction of some of these villages and the ethnic cleansing of their population.

The land where the trees have been planted, in the city of Tulkarem, was historically part of the agricultural land of the city. However, in 2002 the Israeli military bulldozed the entire stretch of land, supposedly for “security reasons”.  Tulkarem has also been one of the districts most affected byIsrael’s illegal separation wall, which has destroyed some 8.4 square kilometres of olive and other fruit trees, 37.3 km of water networks, 15 km of agricultural roads, as well as irrigated agricultural land in Tulkarem, Qalqiliya and Jenin districts.

Despite poor weather on the day there was a large turnout and the event was welcomed by those involved.  A representative from the Palestinian Farmer’s Union explained the importance of such events that bring different groups together:

“the participation of farmers, youth groups, friends from various organisations and others increases belief in the justice of our cause and the belief that we are not working alone against the Occupation. The land that was so important land to us was uprooted by the Occupation”. 

He also added that the event was timely because of the ongoing attacks by settlers on Palestinian land.

Aberdeen’s ties to the project were already significant as the local branch of SPSC last year raised £650 for the Plant-a-Tree in Palestine project.

92-tulkarem-tree-planting
Over 5 days the group walked 84 miles along the path of Hadrian’s Wall, raising awareness of the Stop the JNF campaign and also of the separation wall.

The group’s efforts went towards funding the planting event in Tulkarem.  It is hoped that the Plant-a-Tree in Palestine project will build to support the ongoing struggle of Palestinians to rebuild by providing resources for villages to plant trees that are indigenous to Palestine’s natural environment and agricultural life.

The delegation included members of Palestine solidarity and campaign groups in Scotland, England, the United States, France, Austria, as well as a representative of Midlothian Trade Unions Council.  The main activity of the delegation was 5 days of fact-finding and educational visits around Israel and the West Bank, followed by the day of tree planting in Tulkarem.

The group visited Al-Araqib in the Naqab/Negev desert, a Bedouin village which has been destroyed 33 times since July 22nd 2010.  The trees of the village have been destroyed and thus the village’s livelihood and the JNF has been instrumental in displacing the Bedouin people of this area.

Within clear view of the village that remains is the Ambassadors Forest, one of the JNF’s many forests in Israel.  As the delegation spoke with villagers, including the sheikh of the village, a truck drove by on the sandy, desert road.  The truck was on its way to provide water for the new JNF trees; the wrong trees planted at the wrong time, thus requiring much additional water.  The village of Al Araqib has no water supplied to it, but instead villages have to watch trucks drive past on their way to irrigate trees that are steadily taking over their land.

94-dave-planting
The group also spoke to a staff member of the UK ambassador’s officer in Israel, who was visiting the village in preparation for the visit of the British ambassador and Parliament Under Secretary of State Alistair Burt.

The chance meeting allowed the British members of the delegation to raise the issue of the UK’s complicity with the JNF and Israeli crimes, and specifically Early Day Motion (1677) which was tabled last year and currently has over 50 signatories.

The Early Day Motion outlines the discriminatory nature of the JNF and calls for the revocation of the JNF’s charity status in the UK.  The motion also criticises the Prime Minister’s patronage of the JNF, a situation which was addressed for the first time since the foundation of the JNF when David Cameron stepped down as patron last year.

For the first time since its creation not one of the three main party leaders in the UK are patrons of the organisation.

Later in the week delegates visited refugees in Ramallah (in the West Bank) who had originally lived in the Palestinian village of Imwas.  The refugees told the group the fate of their village in 1967 when it was overrun by Israeli forces set on taking the Latrun Salient, a hillside seen as a key strategic target.

Photos were shown, taken from exactly the same position, that illustrated the dramatic changes to the village and land in the 1960s and 70s.  The first photo showed part of the thriving village, the final one showing what is now known as Canada Park.

Canada Park is one of the many parks and forests that JNF has been responsible for establishing in Israel, or in this case Israel and the West Bank.  Sections of the park, such as where the village of Imwas once stood, are within the Palestinian side of the “Green line”, or armistice line drawn up at the end of the 1967 war.  However, there is no sign of this and almost all visitors to the park remain oblivious, nor is it explained that the walls of the park entrance are built with the bricks of the houses of Imwas.

Delegates visited the park along with Said, a direct descendant of a family which was displaced from Imwas.  Said stood with his own children at the remains of his father’s house, now only the barest of remnants.  The group was also shown the other remaining evidence of the village: unmarked, unprotected memories scattered around the archaeological set-piece of Roman Baths for tourists to enjoy.  The gravestones of villagers stand just a few feet from one of the park’s picnic benches – a stark, chilling image.

46-british-park-sign
Another JNF park, British park, was also visited.  This was of special interest to the UK participants on the delegation.

The park is built over 2 Palestinian villages: Ajjur and Zakariyya. The villages were 2 of the roughly 500 villages where massacres and forced population transfer of Palestinians from their lands in 1948.

This period is known by Palestinians as the Nakba – Arabic for “catastrophe”.

The JNF played a key part in planning the Nakba and then went on to expropriate the land of Palestinian refugees and proceeded to build parks, such as British Park, on the land using funds raised by the JNF around the world.

In 1948 the village of Ajjur was populated by 3000 people. Three of the original houses of Ajjur remain today, including what was previously a clinic and is now a winery serving the new Israeli towns that now intersperse British Park.  Where the market of Ajjur once stood is now inhabited by a play-park and some, presumably, “British” sheep; a favourite picnic spot for those visiting British Park.

On the fifth day of the delegation the group visited Al-Walaja, a town that was established in the West Bank after the original village of Walaja was destroyed; the JNF went on to build the Kennedy memorial on the land.  After years of living in caves near the original town, the new town was established and former residents could return to some form of normality.  Normality, that is, until the development of Israel’s illegal Separation Wall, which is set to once again devastate the village.

The wall is still under construction and already surrounds much of the town, but when complete will completely surround the town.  Residents will be forced to use an access road controlled by the Israeli military if they wish to leave. This wall will cut residents off from much of their agricultural land, and will inevitably lead to displacement away from the town as residents look to find viable employment.

56-al-walaja-wall-ends
The locations visited by the delegation left those involved in no doubt of the JNF’s deep complicity in crimes against Palestinians, past and present.

Witnessing the situation that faces so many Palestinians inevitably shocked, saddened and deeply moved those involved.

However, none of the delegates failed to be inspired and in awe of the resistance of the Palestinian people who fail to lie down and accept the injustice that has been forced upon them.

Many different forms of resistance were seen, some large and obvious and some more subtle but no less impressive.  The commitment to resistance of those that were encounters served to emphasise the important of the ongoing efforts around the world to show solidarity with Palestinians, such as the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment campaign against Israel.

The Plant-a-Tree in Palestine project is one such way in which people can resist the injustices enforced by the JNF and the Israeli government.

The project will never be able to compete with the financial clout of the JNF and the 240 million trees that this has allowed the organisation to plant in Israel and the West Bank.  However, the project does allow a positive way to act against such crimes, enabling Palestinians to resist ongoing attempts at dispossession.

As Stop the Wall Co-ordinator Jamal Juma pointed out, it is also serves as an ideal way to educate those affected, Palestinians young and old, about the role of the JNF in the dispossession of their homes.  The project also offers great potential for future collaboration between Palestinians and the international community to take part in non-violent resistance against the Israeli government’s attempts to entrench the illegal occupation of the West Bank, dispossess Palestinians within Israel of even more of their lands, and take away the rights, enshrined in international law, of 7 million refugees to return to their homes in Israel.

For more on the Stop the JNF campaign:   www.stopthejnf.org
Join the Palestine campaign in Aberdeen:  Aberdeen@scottishpsc.org.uk
Visit:  www.Facebook.com/Spscaberdeen

Old Susannah No. 62 – A Tale Of Three Cities

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Creative Writing, Environment, Information, Opinion, Satire and Humour, Sport  No Responses »
Jan 062012
 

Old Susannah tries to get to grips with the newspapers, the actual news, and council-speak.  By Suzanne Kelly.

dictionary
Tally Ho and Happy New Year! Old Susannah’s had a bit of a holiday break in London and New York, but is back in the Deen and looking for news in all the wrong places.
All major world cities have their problems – New York, London – even Aberdeen.  It’s how these problems are dealt with that show the intelligence, logic, and well class of a city’s government.
New York at Christmas has subtle holiday lights, but all the stores (particularly 5th Avenue ones) do their best to have creative, exciting, individualistic window displays.

This just makes things look non-uniform and that’s a bad thing of course.  If only there were some giant red balls and uniform lights overhead to herald the presence of the New York Government.  Better still if such lights would fall down now and then  for a bit of drama as well.

There is a policeman on every corner of 5th and people are well behaved as a result.  Our streets are of course ‘livelier.’  How sad.  No one is allowed to use the streets for fighting/throwing up/robbing/ rolling around drunk in while the police stand idly by.  Here in Aberdeen there is more freedom to indulge in these traditional holiday past times.

Iconic landmarks such as Manhattan’s statue of Atlas, Ice-skating rink and the Christmas Tree just demonstrate how stuck in boring tradition NYC really is; hardly anyone comes to see these things.  I’d like to see a few buildings levelled (maybe the Chrysler and Empire) and a gigantic concrete public square created – that’s clearly what’s needed to revitalise NY’s dull city centre.

London’s  Soho was absolutely packed with people, music venues, and restaurants.  Believe it or not, the local shops don’t all close at 6pm; some even close when they feel like it.  Trash collections are regular, and I found myself missing my overflowing Torry communal wheelie bin with its broken lid and binbags torn open by hungry birds.   There weren’t even any sofas dumped on the streets to sit on.

In a not very vibrant or dynamic tradition, the Geoffrey Museum had  its annual  display showing how households used to look in times past for Christmas.  This tedious attraction could have done so much better if a monolith had been built on its historic front lawn.

You’ll never believe me, but in London’s massive Richmond Park (again just wasted space filled with lots of grass and trees) there is actually a deer park.

I suppose the biggest disappointment in New York and London as compared to Aberdeen  is the scale of waste.  New York has its (comparatively) massive Central Park and there are long stretches of coastal lands on nearby Long Island.  No one’s proposed any football stadiums, giant forests on the dunes, or turning the place into a giant golf course resort.

London has more parks than you could count that are filled with little more than grass – which so bothers Councillor Stewart.  These parks  do allow food kiosks and restaurants, something our City is far too cool to allow in Union Terrace Gardens (well, at least not until we build something over it first).

New York has great sports teams, but it’s not following our lead.  The Rangers continue to play in the outdated Madison Square Gardens rather than building something new outside of Manhattan.  Mr Milne could teach them a thing or two.  It’s almost as if people were fond of their historic sports venue and wanted to keep using it.  I think they’re in denial – the thing doesn’t even glow in the dark.

Finally an old building has been sensitively restored for re-use as a Native American heritage museum.  Doubt that made much money for any new-build businesses.  Shame.

You’ll never believe me, but in London’s massive Richmond Park (again just wasted space filled with lots of grass and trees) there is actually a deer park.

One of many deer allowed to thrive in major London parks as a highly popluar visitor attraction.
  No, the deer are not there for people to have their dogs chase.  The deer I have to admit are sometimes culled – when absolutely necessary – after living a lifespan where they can eat, roam free, and live.
Note: They are not culled for reasons other than animal welfare.

No one is proposing to shoot them in order to turn their turf into a lumber-producing forest.  Some eccentrics actually go out of their way to come and see the deer, or ‘vermin’ as Neil Fletcher and others would call them.

London and New York should really take a page from Aberdeen’s book and do much much more building in their empty green spaces.  The funny thing is that people actually choose to live near such places and pay more money for the privilege.

My one regret is that I missed the Christmas event in Union Terrace Gardens which by all accounts was a perfect afternoon.  The children loved seeing their artwork displayed; they loved the vermin – sorry – deer which had been brought in as a special treat.  The music was spectacular and everyone had a vibrant and dynamic time.  So my compliments to the organisers –  the Bothwell family and their friends, and to those who supplied prizes – Lush and The Artist’s Pad on Castlegate in particular.

I was happy to have been one of the judges for the art competition which was a real pleasure if not a nearly impossible task.  Watch Aberdeen Voice for an upcoming display of the childrens’ artwork and the entries for the Aberdeen Voice Union Terrace Gardens art competition – as soon as I can scan the 300+ items that were entered, that is.

But at this rate there won’t be room for definitions, so here we go.

Blindspot: (compound noun; English) An area which cannot be perceived whether due to physical limitations or psychological ones.

Old Susannah begins to wonder if any of our local press realise that by 23 January the City must relinquish details to me of what land was sold to Stewart Milne companies and for how much money? If they are aware, they certainly don’t find this revelation worthy of any space in their pages.

When I was travelling I kept up with local news via the internet – there were fascinating pieces on weather, a bit of vandalism, some bits of petty crime, another local store closed, and football games were won and lost.  But no word on Aberdeen Council being criticised by Scotland’s Information Commissioner or on the looming disclosure of what property ACC sold to Stew at what price. Guess this just isn’t as interesting as all the other stuff.

  seems northern Scotland can get windy in winter.  Who’d have guessed?

Still, by 23 January the City is meant to supply me with the info on Milne I requested a year and a month ago.

Let’s see who publishes the next development besides Aberdeen Voice.

I also read Private Eye when I was away (although I usually find it far too critical of our elected officials and millionaires), and a small item reminded me that the National Union of Journalists was ‘de-recognised’ by the Press and Journal and its sister, the Evening Express.

A cynical person might think the owners of these papers want to keep a tight rein on any reporter who goes ‘off message’ and writes anything too critical of their largest advertising revenue sources.  I just think the P&J management don’t want their staff to have to have the hassle of Union membership when they are so perfectly well remunerated.

Is there really any bias towards the powerful forces in the  City?  Just as  a matter of interest, a colour advertisement in the Evening Express supporting the ‘phase 2 tree for every citizen’ scheme cost the city c. £145.  A similar sized colour ad by those opposed to the tree planting and related deer cull cost over £700 (with 2 reprints in the Citizen).  Just thought you might like to know.

Festive Decorations: (noun) holiday-themed lights, banners, etc.

Well, the City’s outdone itself this year.   From 21st November 2011 to the 5th January 2011, Aberdeen City Centre was festooned with festive lighting and decoration.  Of course some of the lights came down almost as soon as they went up; seems northern Scotland can get windy in winter.  Who’d have guessed?  (Note – this historic pattern of high winds will of course be no object to planting trees on Tullos Hill, even if a Forestry report says wind is a problem there).

  I have my own theories about what the giant, over-sized, totally out-of-proportion red balls symbolised

According to the City’s website ‘Other communities around the City also take part with their own festive lighting on lamp-posts.  Aberdeen’s main thoroughfare (Union Street) is the centre piece with 11 cross street lighting all with a Christmas theme.’

I was surprised that Christmas was the theme for the beautiful lights on Union Street – I’d have thought the City was supposed to be non-denominational.  But I saw the light.  The decorations on Union Street show pictures of presents, toys and sweets – and buying stuff like that is the true meaning of Christmas after all.

I have my own theories about what the giant, over-sized, totally out-of-proportion red balls symbolised, but perhaps I’ll keep that to myself.  I look forward to watching them fall down again next year.

Jargon: (noun) vocabulary which is not recognised in the mainstream, is hard to decipher, and which may be deliberately exclusionary.

Next week I intend to look at upcoming budget/financial actions our fair city may be taking.  Believe it or not, I am not always convinced their financial skills are as good as you might think.  If anyone can help me decipher  the following paragraph which I found on the ACC website, then please get in touch:-

“There are also other projects currently active that will produce efficiencies for all Services, i.e. ICT infrastructure and connectivity, procurement revisions, etc. The ICT infrastructure and connectivity work is delivered solely by Service Design and Development and therefore is not included  in the above listing. The projects listed above all fall into the category of technology enabling making change happen.”

It sound absolutely wonderful, but I haven’t a clue what it means.  It’s from an older document covering finance and budget.

Is it  possible that a lack of straight-talking is confusing issues?  No, I thought not.  I guess I’m just not ‘falling into the category of technology enabling making change happen’ as naturally as everyone else must be doing.

Final thought:  Children in Need:
Spare a thought to those who don’t have the things they need this season.  Take the case of Stewart M.

Stewart, aged fifty-something years, will not have a happy holiday season (or any kind of happy season) without some help.  A mere 7.8 million pounds will give him the toy football stadium he wants.  Next year he may also buy some toy players to go in the toy stadium if it’s not all been thrown out of the pram.  Please give generously.

Another Final thought:  Electoral Roll:
Live in Aberdeen?  Want to vote on the future of Union Terrace Gardens?  Make sure you are registered to vote before 10 January.  IF you are not on the electoral role, follow this link and register:  http://www.grampian-vjb.gov.uk/clients/GVJB/flexviews/core/assets/pdf/er/voterregistrationform.pdf

 

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Old Susannah No. 57 – Pictures And An Exhibition

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Environment, Information, Opinion, Satire and Humour  No Responses »
Nov 042011
 

Old Susannah takes a look at the events of the past week.

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After another event-packed week in Aberdeen, Wednesday’s Press & Journal surprised on two counts.  The cover tells me that the Scottish Government, previously strapped for cash, will give us £70 million to make our city garden project dreams come true.
All we have to do is show that we’re all behind Wood/Milne/Craw/Brough and all.  Should be easy enough.

But, the surprising thing was that the story was illustrated with not one but two photographs taken inside the hallowed temple of design which is the Pier, and they clearly showed the exhibitions.

I was chased by security guards for taking a photo of the lovely stripy poster when I stood on Belmont Street, and several of the protestors were told in no uncertain terms that photographs of the great designs were absolutely forbidden. 

I fully expect that Gerry Brough (or Sasha M maybe) will send the security guards straight over to P&J offices and demand that the photos be deleted.  After all, a rule for one should be a rule for everyone.  Otherwise people will get the wrong impression that rules are not uniformly enforced in our fair city.

The other item which surprised me pleasantly was an account of the recent Housing & Environment Committee meeting:  Neil Cooney brought up some of the many reasons why the deer cull and tree planting on Tullos are not as popular with the public as they might be.

One other teeny omission that Ho Malone and other proponents of the bullets for trees scheme forgot to mention in their reports and consultations is the fact we’ll have to spray weedkiller on Tullos for 2-3 years.  Result!  This is jobs creation at its best, although you might not want junior riding his moped any time soon after the spraying has occurred.

One other minor detail – after all this fuss over the deer and press releases saying that everything is in readiness for the saplings – the city has not actually put in its formal bid for the tree scheme.   This makes people like Pete and Ho look just a little foolish for saying that the scheme is cost-neutral. 

I’m no accountant, but if you’ve not got any funding for a plan that failed before to the tune of £44,000, you might be just a little bit premature to announce that the great plan is ‘cost neutral.’  Neil also has this wild idea that the wildlife we already have on Tullos should be kept, and the hill be designated a meadowland / grassland – possibly deer park.  Watch this space.  (Thank you Neil from a great number of people).

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The best events of the week save the Housing Committee meeting were the Pumpkin Procession and the Mooring’s Alternative Design Competition Award night.

At the Pumpkin Procession in UTG, a great selection of pumpkins were on display in the near darkness.

A particularly frightening carving of a witch disturbed the group greatly; this was of a famous witch named Margaret Thatcher.

Over two dozen bright, vibrant, dynamic, forward-looking, connectivity-rich, level-access, city-saving schemes for boring Union Terrace Gardens were on display at the Moorings on the night.  These are still available for viewing on that Facebook thing the kids are using today.
See: Alternative-City-Gardens-Design-Contest

Believe it or not, I was allowed to take photos without security accusing me of any felony offence.

And I got to drink some nice beer called ‘Alhambra’ – named after a rather boring bit of architecture in Spain which has far too much garden space incorporated, and actually no parking or shops.  Shocking.  No one will ever go to the Alhambra just for a visit (unlike our forthcoming glass worm).  The Moorings winner didn’t get £135,000 (which is what I believe you get if you were shortlisted for your monolith or Teletubby habitat), but got a bottle of drink instead.

All things considered, I think the finalists at the Moorings should have been given great wads of money and the official designers should have been told to stay off the drink when working.

The winner’s design had suggested putting AFC’s stadium in UTG, but this leaves the problem of what then to build in Loirston, which has for far too long just been a meadow.

But at this rate there won’t be any definitions, so here goes.

Outburst

(noun) an uncontrolled, sudden verbal attack, usually unsuspected.

Dear oh dear.  The credit crunch is having a devastating effect on so many of us.  I can’t even get to BrewDog as often as I’d like for openers.  But spare a thought for those less fortunate than us who are really feeling the strain at this difficult time.

Do you know someone who’s having to sub an unprofitable football team?  Someone who’s year-end profit wasn’t all that big (although whether or not that’s true outside of the UK is anyone’s guess)?  Someone perhaps who is facing a big legal action over a land purchase deal?  And you thought you had problems!

Some of us are down to our last 60 mill or so.  Such strains could easily make you tear your hair out.  Or be grumpy.  Or even have a wee outburst.  Before you make fun of such a person because they seem like a child who’s thrown his toys out of the playpen, just think : it could be you who’s lost your temper/grip.  The last thing we should do is call attention to such a temporary lapse of reason/class/reserve.

Therefore, if someone sends you a link to a video where such an outburst is captured, best thing you can do is stay clear.  For purposes of illustration, I have just such a link here, wherein a normally lovely bloke has an uncharacteristic outburst and makes something of an exhibition of himself.  So pity such a creature.  They may have come from a broken home.
See:  Stewart_Milne_Outburst_Video_Article

Nanny State

(modern English phrase) a derogatory term to describe an overly interfering government, particularly from the UK’s past.

I am eternally grateful to those wiser heads than ours in government who want to protect everyone from the ills and evils of drink.  There are people who have problems with drink; and drink driving is a threat to everyone – I say without any sense of sarcasm; I’ve lost too many loved ones to drink drivers.  Rather than helping people with drink problems, the best thing to do is make drink more expensive for everyone.

The SNP previously tried to save us all from the great evils of Marks & Spencer’s ‘eat in for a tenner’ scheme (as I previously detailed).  This was a plot by the sinister M&S to give us affordable four-dish meals to eat at home with another person.

It’s clear to  see where this kind of thing could lead – one thing leads to another as you progress from a ‘herb’ salad to a rump steak with onion ‘rings’ on the side while sharing a bottle of red wine before moving on to dessert (I had profiteroles with my meal last week – it was delicious.  OOPS!)

Having been as successful at banning these society-destroying balanced meals as they were at making Scotland independent, the SNP have decided to raise the price of alcohol.

This will immediately result in alcoholics quitting booze cold turkey.  Kids will no longer wish to experiment with alcohol, and the world will be a better place.  Since Scotland doesn’t have much of a vibrant or dynamic alcohol presence in the world’s drinks market, there will be no economic repercussions at all.

Nanny Goats

(noun type of goat; female)

I don’t know where we would be without the ‘new-look’ Scottish Natural Heritage agency to make sure we have a perfect natural world with as few deer, foxes and goats as possible.  For the movers and shakers (or ‘empire builders’ and climbers if you will) of SNH want to destroy the Tullos Hill deer (and other deer), and they are making sure we don’t have too many goats on the remote Isle of Rum.

To ensure that we have a perfect balance of nature, it seems SNH had a nice quantity of the goats shot, as reported in the Sunday papers.

What intelligent method was used to get rid of the corpses?  Were they fed to birds of prey?  No, they were allegedly thrown off cliffs into the sea.  The SNH denies this, but it is their word against the word of observers.  Seeing as how the SNH wrote to Aberdeen City Council encouraging a sneaky approach to the Tullos Hill deer cull, I might not be inclined to believe them all the time. 

It is almost as if someone at SNH wanted to make a name for themselves and was running around getting as much media coverage as possible, and was using draconian, cruel animal slaughter to get press attention.  But remember, the world was a far less balanced, manicured, less managed place in the days before SNH got into the killing, sorry, culling or ‘managing’ game.

We now have targets as to how many animals a patch of land can hold.  This is of course not control-freakery.  If the animals don’t stick to the figures, well then, they become the targets for hunters. 

Of course if such a person existed, they would have quite a job of silencing other experts who clung to old-fashioned ideas about not shooting animals to maintain the new population figures.  This would never happen of course.

However, if you want to ask any questions to reassure yourselves that all is right and proper in the world of animal ‘management’ at the SNH, feel free to write to Jamie Hammond.  He really does have all the answers, and is in no way faddist or revisionist in his proposals for animal management.  Tally Ho!

Next week:  more definitions and an update on our poor stressed out friend.

Dr David Kennedy On Sustainability

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Environment, Featured, Information, Opinion  No Responses »
Oct 212011
 

Former RGU Principal Dr David Kennedy, whose background is in the sciences has believed for a long time that we are destroying the world around us. In another extract from his conversation with Voice’s Suzanne Kelly he talks of his horror at what we are destroying in the name of progress.

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Dr Kennedy and I discussed where the world may be heading, and I mentioned Albert Einstein, who said:

“I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought with, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

Dr Kennedy Continues:

“Emily Spence of Massachusetts  http://smirkingchimp.com/author/emily_spence and I corresponded on a number of issues: global warming, environment, overpopulation. The sad thing is the only sustainable communities we know of are the primitive ones we have destroyed. People on some of the remote Philippine islands lived entirely sustainably. They met their needs until the outside world impinged on and destroyed their way of life.

“However, we want more and it doesn’t matter how much we get, we still want more. It comes from the pleasure centres of the brain. Gambling and winning gives you a kick and so you go on. How can a man like Bill Gates, whose wealth could feed his family for generations, still want more? This causes me to despair. There is a weakness in the human brain or perhaps it is how nature defends itself and we may be on the way to destroying ourselves.

“How quickly is it all going to come? People talk about planning and planning horizons. The Romans had the idea of looking at things after every 5 years. As a manager in education I had to plan ahead as to what we needed, what courses we would offer, how many students would there be, and what resources would be needed. I took the areas I knew most about, and looked at 10-yearly intervals. At the time I did this, the changes in education were colossal and totally unpredictable. In the 70s there were ten colleges of higher education in Scotland, and they were like sacred cows. Scotland was proud of having had the highest literacy rate in the world.

“On coming to the 80s, dramatic changes were occurring in education. For a start, demographics – the birth rate. In the 1980s the number of colleges of education began to shrink. Some closed; some merged. In the 90s, most had disappeared, Northern College of Education here in Aberdeen being the last survivor. Now there are none.

“The same was true in nursing. I came to the conclusion that you might be able to guess what would happen in five years, but accurately forecasting for ten years ahead was absolutely impossible. The rate of change in technology is so incredible only a fool would predict what things will look like ten years from now.”

Dr Kennedy has a track record of concern for the environment and ecology. Apart from protesting over Trump’s honorary degree award, what are some of the issues that concern him most, locally and further afield?

“I’m very interested in what happens internationally. Governments swither over the issue of global warming. Scientists tell them that it is real; big business tells them it is a myth, and governments sit and fiddle while the earth warms and climates change dramatically.”

“As you might have guessed, I am a strong environmentalist with a long and deep concern about what we are doing to the biosphere on which all life depends. Biologists have known for decades about the acidification of the oceans and consequential damage to coral reefs and the communities that live on them.

“Likewise, we are poisoning the land by excessive use of chemicals, the production of which depends heavily on fossil fuel energy. With a rapidly rising population, human life will soon find it difficult to feed itself. Hence one of my concerns is about the short-sighted use of good farmland for house building.

“Just as disastrous is the pollution of the atmosphere with harmful radiation from nuclear power stations, by depleted uranium and gases emitted when burning fossil fuels, while at the same time tropical rainforests that absorb carbon dioxide and emit oxygen are being destroyed. Lack of rainfall in the Amazon basin, because of climate change, could result in its eventual desertification and the release of trillions of tons of carbon dioxide presently bound up as wood cellulose.”

In future extracts from this interview, we will carry Dr Kennedy’s views on how personal standards and values have had far-reaching consequences. No interview with this former university principal would be complete without establishing his views on education. That too will feature in Voice soon.

Dr David Kennedy On Morality And Values

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Featured, Information, Opinion  No Responses »
Oct 132011
 

As conversations go, our own Suzanne Kelly found her recent discussions with former Robert Gordon University Principal Dr David Kennedy fascinating. As always, conversations lead to discussion of inter-connected events. Here, in a further interview extract, Dr Kennedy talks frankly about how personal and societal standards, values and morality have changed and how individual actions have affected and influenced matters, perhaps unintentionally, on a much larger scale.

moneycalculator
We had been discussing land use and EU farming bureaucracy, and how, for many farmers, European subsidies had made them rich.
See: Aberdeen Voice article  ‘Dr David Kennedy On Land Use And Farming’ )

Dr Kennedy is in no doubt that elected politicians have much to answer for, on numerous issues in addition to agricultural policy.

“It‘s a bizarre state of affairs. These are supposed to be highly-intelligent people elected to represent us. The sad truth is, as one old friend used to say, ‘they are just filling their own pooches’. And that’s absolutely true. Some investigative journalist did the work on MPs’ expenses and when her work was made public, we saw the full extent of their greed. The MPs’ expenses scandal was an absolute disgrace, but that is nothing compared to what is happening in Brussels.

“Morality is fast disappearing for some reason or another. There is a lack of integrity and it now seems that it doesn’t matter what you do as long as you are making money. Trump boasted on his website of brutality, toughness and greed. Are these behaviours we all really value?

“Why do humans behave in this way? Well, it’s a long story involving conditioning the human brain. This began in a scientific way early in the last century, not by Joseph Goebbels as we are encouraged to believe, but by an American named Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, who could, fairly, be called the father of advertising, propaganda, and public relations. He knew how to play on the pleasure and pain centres of the brain. Goebbels was an avid pupil of Bernays.

“Brainwashing didn’t begin with the wicked Chinese, or the godless Communists, or even the evil Nazis. It began in America, where it has been perfected over the years, and we are all subjected to it. Trump is simply one example of The Big Lie. Anyone who analyses the mainstream media will readily see how words are used, not to inform, enlighten and clarify, but to mislead, confuse and confound. And it is all done to amass wealth”.

“There has been a massive cultural change. I’m 80 or so, and I look at changes such as wealth-creation, sustainability, satisfying our needs and the problem of waste. The thing is, in about the last 30 years the speed of technological change has been bewildering. Sixty years ago an Edinburgh academic, Professor CH Waddington, looking at the future, predicted that, given the rate of change in the accumulation of knowledge, it would eventually be impossible to keep up with all the changes. I think what he said has come to pass.”

Pressed for an example, Kennedy continued.

“Take micro-electronics. When I was a young man you learnt about thermionic valves and their use in radios. A few years earlier, radios were powered by accumulators that seemed to weigh a ton. Electrical engineers who were brought up on thermionic valves, then had to learn about transistors, and the technology of valves was forgotten. Transistor radios were very much smaller and easily carried around. Noise pollution increased. A new technology had to be learned, which lasted for about 10 years before being replaced by the silicon chip. Things are getting even smaller.”

There are serious issues with the UK’s higher education system – tuition fees, devalued degrees, an imbalance in the areas of tertiary learning where we can’t all be Media Studies graduates, poor employment prospects and very grim student loan burdens. What, I asked, are Dr Kennedy’s views on where these problems came from? Where does he think we are heading, and what can be done about it?

Again, the issues of personal morality and values were raised.

“I think it is fairly easy to see where the problems come from. They arise from economics. Mrs Thatcher radically changed the basis of economic life in Britain famously claiming, ‘There is no alternative’.

“This assertion has been accepted by all the major political parties and involved rolling back the state, decrying collective activities while promoting individualism, standing on one’s own two feet. Since then, we have seen the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. This is another example of Trump’s mantra, ’greed is good’.

“So, education is no longer thought of as being for the greater good of society. Health is no longer thought of as a basic necessity, best provided by an all-inclusive system. Caring for the elderly through a comprehensive system of pensions paid for whilst one is healthy and working is now too great a burden.

“Instead, leave it to the individual and let the market decide what should be provided, and for whom. This is completely against the 1940s wisdom of William Beveridge and the subsequent foundation of the welfare state. And, of course, the same attitude prevails when it comes to protecting the environment – nothing must be allowed to stop the onward march of progress”.

More from this fascinating conversation will appear in future issues of Voice.

Image Credits:
 Pound Man © Chrisharvey | Dreamstime.com
Calculator and Money © Timothy Nichols | Dreamstime.com 

A Change Of Name – RGIT To RGU – Part 2

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Featured, History, Information, Opinion  No Responses »
Sep 302011
 

In last week’s Voice, we carried part one of A Change of Name, a chapter from Dr David Kennedy’s forthcoming book in which he outlined how significant pressure had been applied to merge The University of Aberdeen with its perceived less-worthy educational neighbour, RGIT. In the second part of the chapter, we hear of the passionate fight to preserve RGIT and have it elevated to university status in 1992.

RGU Schoolhill
So, here we were in 1991 with the prospect of merger very much as proposed by our old friend from Napier way back in 1989. All of the older central institutions were under threat, but the greatest injustice was to those that already had delegated powers from the CNAA to award their own degrees: the technical institutions in Dundee, Paisley and Aberdeen.
Had the Secretary of State inverted the position of the five technological institutions in Scotland, leaving Napier and Glasgow at the bottom, he would have been much nearer the mark in everything but size, and size was simply due to an accident of location.

I know the advertisers tell us that size matters, but quality is even more important.  Small can be beautiful.

This massive injustice needed to be fought and the battle for the survival of the Institute was on.  I prepared a document setting out the very powerful case for the Institute and then went to see a group of members of the Aberdeen District Council.  They were impressed by what they read and the answers given to their questions.  Once they were clear about what was at stake, they readily agreed to ask their Council to support our case.

An all-party group from the District Council gave enthusiastic support and decided, if necessary, to lobby Parliament in our favour.  Money was set aside for this to happen.  The Council also sent a formal request to the local enterprise company seeking its backing for the institute.  While the board members of the company fully supported the request, its chairman (Ian Wood – a local businessman) felt the issue was too political and should therefore not be supported.  Due to the diplomacy of its chief executive, a letter of support was suitably worded and sent off to The Scottish Office.

Copies of the campaign document were sent out far and wide, including the Prime Minister and most of his senior cabinet colleagues.  The response was overwhelming. 

Although some quangos were unwilling to commit themselves because of their fear of government reprisals, ordinary people had no such qualms and responded in their hundreds and perhaps even thousands, across all walks of life and across all generations.  From across Scotland the letters poured into The Scottish Office, many being copied to me.

For the first time, I realised just how much an educational institution can mean to a community.  John Gray, who had founded the Institute in 1885, had done them a great service and they greatly valued what he had done.

Many of the letters were very eloquent, some were very moving, but I think the one I treasured most came from a very special person, a honest man who was courageous and true, and sadly, something of a rarity among politicians: Alick Buchanan-Smith.  Alick wrote on 26 August to give us his full support, just a day or two before his premature death.

There were many other letters of support, including a senior government minister, Michael Howard, who knew personally of the work of the Institute.  The Prime Minister did not reply in person, but nor did he dismiss it out of hand.  My letter eventually found its way down to The Scottish Office for reply.  The Head of the Higher Education Division wrote: 

“You now have a reply from Mr Michael Forsyth … and there is little I can usefully add.  I would, however, re-emphasise that it is not right to suggest that a decision has been taken on this matter when the intention is in fact to take decisions only after consultations and careful consideration of the arguments”.

Once again, the point was being deliberately ignored.  Decisions had been taken.  Napier had been allowed to call itself a polytechnic and no reply was ever given to my queries about the criteria applied, when these criteria were determined and by whom, nor of the purpose of the exercise, remembering that it all took place in 1988.

If criteria existed for this, why were they not publicised and applied to the other Scottish institutions with degree-awarding powers?  According to Mr Forsyth’s letter, “explicit and well-defined criteria” exist which justify according degree-awarding powers and university status to Napier and Glasgow polytechnics, but not to any other grant-aided college in Scotland.

I noted that the Minister had not said these were the criteria that WERE USED in the case of Napier, only that criteria NOW exist that would justify the decision taken by The Scottish Office.  This was simply tricky-micky, political evasion.

A press conference launched the Institute’s campaign.  The launch was extremely well attended and the arrangements made by our Press Officer were excellent.  We got off to a brilliant start.  The problem then was, how to keep up the momentum and stop the campaign running out of steam.

At this point I told him very bluntly just what I thought of his threat to hurt students as a way of trying to coerce me.  

Our Press Officer, June Davis, better known a year or two earlier as the ‘Torry quine’, was superb.  She arranged interviews with a long sequence of North East notables who had responded to our request for support.  These interviews were written up and fed to the media, so that rarely a day went by without some comment of interest and support.

Then there were the visits to the Institute, not from supporters, but from The Scottish Office.  They came on the flimsiest of pretexts to see what was going on.  I received a phone call from another of The Scottish Office worthies.  He told me in a very brusque manner that if I kept on with my campaign I wouldn’t get an honour.

In language only slightly more moderate than that used to me by the oil company chiefs at the time of the Piper Alpha disaster, I told him how much I longed for an honour and how worried I was at the prospect of not receiving one.

Being a civil servant, he couldn’t understand my levity.  He then said that they could easily have me sacked.  I told him that I hoped to leave the job anyway and that my Governors were not too happy about my going at such an early age.  He then threatened to make the institution suffer financially.  At this point I told him very bluntly just what I thought of his threat to hurt students as a way of trying to coerce me.

The untimely death of Alick Buchanan-Smith meant a by-election in his North East constituency of Kincardine and Deeside.  This was a difficult time for the Government.

Disbanding the Gordon Highlanders; de-commissioning of the fishing fleet; and the creation in Aberdeen of the first of the hospital trusts that was widely perceived as some kind of attack on the health service caused some disaffection.  Of all these issues, the one that could be resolved with least cost was to settle the future of RGIT.

MPs kept up the pressure in the House, harrying the Minister about the criteria for degree-awarding powers.  At last, the Secretary of State and his Minister saw that they would have to concede.  The Scottish Office suggested I might invite the Minister to come to the Institute and meet with senior staff.  I readily agreed and arrangements were made for him to attend our annual management conference.

When the Minister came into the room to address the staff he ostentatiously ‘left the door open’.  Although he made no unequivocal statement about degree-awarding powers, it was abundantly clear that that was the burden of his message.  It was exactly one week before the by-election for the Kincardine and Deeside seat.

The battle had clearly been won.

Although the battle was now over, this was by no means the end of the matter.  New articles and instruments of governance had to be drafted and submitted for vetting.

The acid test would be whether our university remained true to its traditions and mission

Whereas most statutory instruments are drafted by civil servants, in this case it was for each institution to propose the powers it wished to exercise and to set these out in an appropriate fashion.  This was an extremely important task, since it laid down the pattern of governance that, once settled, could not easily be amended.

After twenty years of senior management in education there were aspects in the existing arrangements that I believed could be improved upon.  I did not favour the division of staff into academic and non-academic.  All had a part to play in creating a successful organisation.

One of the problems is how to exert enough control to safeguard public funds, without becoming excessively overbearing and in effect, usurp the authority of those appointed to exercise it?  Although important, systems alone are not enough.  So these were the things I had in mind while writing the draft articles and instruments.

Although approved by the Governing Body, it was not acceptable to The Scottish Office.  I was forced to follow the existing model, which had been designed by civil servants many years before.  Being accepted by them meant that it was also acceptable to the Privy Council, and so at last the job was complete.

On Friday, 12 June 1992, the Institute formally adopted the name of The Robert Gordon University. Aberdeen, once again, had two universities.

The acid test would be whether our university remained true to its traditions and mission, or whether, like so many before, it adopted the traditions and mission of the old universities.  If it adopted their values then, without doubt, our own had been vanquished and they had won.

Who can say what the future will bring?  In order to at least make clear what I believe RGIT stood for, what the former mechanics institutes had stood for, what the old crafts and trades had stood for, we had a parchment prepared that set out our mission.

“The Robert Gordon University is pledged to produce versatile and resourceful practitioners who are relevantly qualified for their chosen professions and vocations within an educational environment that fosters innovation, enterprise and an enthusiasm for excellence”.

This was formally presented to the City of Aberdeen as an earnest of our intentions.  No doubt it is mouldering somewhere in a basement of one or other civic building, but perhaps many years into the future someone will come upon it and know just what we stood for on that memorable day.

 

 

A Change Of Name – RGIT To RGU – Part 1

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Featured, History, Information, Opinion  No Responses »
Sep 222011
 

Dr David Kennedy served as  Principal of RGIT/RGU, having been appointed in November 1984  and took up the post on 1 May 1985.  He retired in September 1997. Aberdeen Voice is delighted to present, in two parts, Chapter One of his forthcoming book wherein he recalls the educational debate of the early 1990s and reveals behind the scenes moves to merge Aberdeen’s two higher education establishments.

RGU Schoolhill
1991 was an eventful year for higher education in Britain. Colleges operating under the aegis of the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA) had conducted a lengthy campaign for parity of esteem with universities, which had now met with success.

A Government White Paper published on 20 May 1991 set out the proposals for all polytechnics to have the right to award their own degrees and to decide on the name by which they chose to be known.

Significantly, it also set out the closure of the CNAA, thus forcing those colleges without degree-awarding powers to seek an association with a neighbouring university.  But it did hold out the possibility for some colleges to qualify for degree-awarding powers at some future time.

Here in Scotland, the immediate expectation was that the five major Scottish central institutions, which were fully equivalent in all but name with the English polytechnics, would also become universities.

In launching the White Paper, the Secretary of State for Scotland, Mr Ian Lang, confirmed that polytechnics would become universities.  He went on to say that other colleges would have to wait until criteria were devised by which they might be judged on their suitability for the university title.  He stressed that the title of university had a very special distinction in the United Kingdom and government had to be sure before letting just any old institution call itself a university.

I took the precaution of phoning The Scottish Office to check the accuracy of what had been reported.  This was confirmed, but with regret over Mr Lang’s addition about the distinction of the title ‘university’ to the speech they had prepared for him.

In 1986, two local authority colleges, one in Edinburgh and the other in Glasgow, were brought under the direct funding of the SED.  They became central institutions. 

The one in Edinburgh had a close link with the then Secretary of State for Scotland, Mr Malcolm Rifkind.    His wife had worked at the college where she enjoyed a happy relationship with her colleagues.  The college principal became an educational adviser to the Conservative Party in Scotland, SCUA, and within a couple of years Napier College triumphantly announced itself as Napier Polytechnic Edinburgh.

 The latter must have known what was going on, but kept it from the rest of us.   

This was despite the fact that the Scottish Office had hitherto adamantly refused to allow Scottish institutions to use the title polytechnic and had turned down a number of earlier proposals to do so.

Seemingly, having bedazzled the Scottish Office with Napier stardust, its principal went on with great confidence to say that their next name change would be to that of university.

This was in 1988.

The longer established and more mature institutions were surprised that the expected blast from the Scottish Office never materialised.  We were to learn later to our cost why this was.

Two years after Napier, and shortly before the publication of the White Paper, Glasgow College of Technology changed its name to Glasgow Polytechnic and advertised the fact as “having earned a few more letters” after its name!  Its Principal told me that they had used the word ‘earned’, because they had undergone a thorough vetting by The Scottish Office.  The latter must have known what was going on, but kept it from the rest of us.  We were never told about any change in policy, nor that the title of polytechnic was of such profound significance in Scottish higher education.

Many non-polytechnic colleges in England had grown in size and maturity and were clamouring for polytechnic status.  Government asked the funding council responsible for polytechnics and colleges to recommend the criteria for polytechnic designation.  It did this towards the end of 1989: long after Napier had changed its name!  The criteria were accepted and a handful of new polytechnics were created.  RGIT would have satisfied the required conditions.

Meantime, the Principal of Napier Polytechnic did a little kite flying for the Scottish Office. 

He circulated a paper suggesting there were too many institutions of higher education in Scotland and proposing possible mergers.  ‘Mergermania’ was in the air.

No one at RGIT had been consulted about this and the announcement caused quite a stir. 

During the seventies, universities, unlike colleges in the non-university sector, had been funded to pay for staffing and space in advance of any expansion.  This was before the experts had got to work on their predictions of demographic decline, but well after the decline in the birth rate had started.

By the eighties, universities found themselves with an embarrassment of riches: too much space, too many staff, and too many under-utilised resources.  Swinnington-Dyer of the University Grants Committee spent much of his time trying to rectify the funding follies of earlier times.  The University of Aberdeen was one of those particularly badly hit, as was the university in Cardiff, which perhaps suffered most of all as a result. Edinburgh University had to sell off some of its art treasures to pay its debts.

First mention of a merger between the two institutions in Aberdeen occurred early in 1981, when the principal of the university issued a press statement to the effect that his university would be taking over RGIT.  No one at RGIT had been consulted about this and the announcement caused quite a stir.  Unsurprisingly, there was considerable resistance to the suggestion.

Shortly after my appointment to RGIT, the principal of the university invited me over for lunch in order to explain the rationale of his plans for merger between our two institutions.

The institute would be asset-stripped of degree courses, students, and estate, leaving a rump of sub-degree work to be done by whichever staff were left.  The sale of the estate would pay for staff redundancies and the university would be immeasurably strengthened and enlarged.

This view received strong support from some local people.  I was told my position would be protected: a professorial title and an attractive salary, because universities were free to pay professors on a very wide scale.

For my part, I explained that I had already refused the title of professor – being of a Quakerish disposition, titles have never been high in my order of priorities – and nor was money an over-riding concern since, being somewhat abstemious, I had more than enough to meet my needs.  However, I understood the point that was being made very well.  In their position, I might have agreed with it.  But I had a different set of responsibilities, not least to students and staff of the institution for which I carried responsibility. 

A senior official in The Scottish Office told me that three influential businessmen had persuaded the Secretary of State of the benefits of a merger.  If RGIT were denied the right to award its own degrees it would be forced to seek the help of another degree-awarding body, which, of course, would have to be done on terms dictated by that body.  Their hope was that the Institute would merge with its local university.

A local parliamentary candidate (Nicol Stephen) issued a press statement of ‘the plot by the Scottish Office to get rid of Aberdeen’s world famous Robert Gordon Institute of Technology’.

Voice will carry part 2 of A Change of Name next week recalling the fight to save the much-loved and respected RGIT from being absorbed by a predatory neighbour; of the triumph in attaining university status on the abolition of the CNAA; and the bestowal of full degree-awarding power on the new university.

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