A TOAST FOR THE NEW YEAR


My thoughts turned to doing a conventional year closing letter, possibly encompassing my books of the year, or simply a few ‘closing thoughts,’ as the door is firmly closed on another passing year. Then I read Paul Mason’s article in the Guardian; http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/27/political-protest-networked-age-edward-snowden


 Had I listed my books of the year Mason’s, Why It’s Still Kicking Off Everywhere, would have featured highly. In an otherwise dismal period politically and socially it was a book that gave me a taste of that rare and dangerous commodity - hope.

What Mason’s book demonstrates is that not only can rapacious global capitalism be resisted, more importantly, indeed much more important than hope, it reported where and how this was happening.

Across the world from Turkey and Ukraine, from Bulgaria to South Korea, Brazil and Spain people have taken to the streets; defying governments of all political colours.[1] In Russia a small punk band, Pussy Riot, have disturbed the sleep of the autocrat gangster Vladimir Putin. Now, far from having peaked, resistance to ever increasing disparities of wealth and the erosion of systems of democratic accountability appears to be spreading and the existing political order from Greece to Spain and Brazil is clearly seen as operating openly against the interests of their citizens.
A protester in Bulgaria

In Britain, after the disappearance of ‘Occupy’ from the news media and the scattered and seemingly ineffective protests against austerity, the government must have heaved a sigh of relief, “well,” you can almost hear them saying, “if that’s the best that they can throw at us we've nothing to worry about.”

Now suddenly activism is once more gripping the universities.[2]  This should give the government pause for thought. In addition some of the most severe cuts in local services have yet to be felt. So, as in work poverty continues to grow, energy bills rocket and the gap in pay between ordinary workers and executives becomes a chasm,  government ministers must continue to cross their fingers and hope that the populace will continue to remain passive and that Britain will continue to be immune from the unrest being felt elsewhere across the globe.

The greater the threat the established order feels the higher the price it exacts from those who challenge it. Protesters from Russia to Brazil can testify to this, whilst in this country the full force of the law is being brought to bear upon protesting university students. This will clearly deter many, as of course is the intention. If protest is to remain vibrant old lessons will need to be learnt anew, most importantly the need for solidarity, strength in numbers.

Of course the people of Britain may choose to accept their fate calmly, slaves to a system indifferent to their needs, wants, desires and hopes, but they have not always been so passive in the face of injustice. So with much to be pessimistic about and in a culture that feeds the populace on a constant diet of dreary cynicism, fatalism and the tired old Thatcher line‘there is no alternative,’ as the year draws to the close I propose a toast, I give you resistance, let the words of Shelley ring out:-


Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many — they are few"


A STIMULATING NEW YEAR TO ALL WHO VISIT THIS PAGE
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[1] As I write this there are mass protests taking place in South Korea, the Ukraine and Turkey.
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