The Poet V The British Establishment.

international | arts and media | opinion/analysis

Saturday September 22, 2007 14:14

by C Murray

There's No Need for a Conservative Party...

The preamble to 'V':-

"My Father still reads the dictionary every day. He says your life depends on your power to Master
words" Arthur Scargill, Sunday Times, 10th January 1982.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Scargill

'V', by Tony Harrison is no means his definite statement on or deconstruction of the systems
of power that mitigate against people, that would involve a look at his entire work, which include
his use of the Leeds vernacular in 'The Mysteries', his Translations of Seneca, which informed
the 'Theatre Works', his defence of ordinary people in Bosnia, Bradford, northern ireland
and his television collaborations which are collected in 'The Shadow of Hiroshima and
other film poems'

But in the last week the bogeys of the Thatcherite era have been re-surfacing in photo and
press and contemporarising for the neo-cons.. The Brown regime.

Scargill- A BBC Image

Scargill was loathed by the estabishment Tory party and it's motley collection of industrial
magnates and Harrison loathed the establishment using his poetic voice to highlight
inequity of treatment throughout his long career. He even came to Cuirt in Galway to read
and discuss the necessity of deconstructing the language of the establishment.
International newspapers this week carried multiple images of a magenta clad Mrs Thatcher
in the company of a variety of politicians including Gordon Brown and Yulia Tymoshenko,
And Rudy Giuliani too!

These delightful images culminated in info that the UK is exploring the possibility of
annexing areas in the North and South Atlantic for the purposes of gas and oil exploration.
[Guardian filler material]

The Book which probably most reflects the poet's defence of free speech is actually
a series of narratives that accompany the film poems, where he worked in close
collaboration with production companies to play with the idea of the illusion of TV
as a medium for expression:- 'The Shadow Of Hiroshima'

It includes 'The Blasphemer's Banquet' which uses images of fundamentalist theocracy
in all creeds and the simplification of language to accomplish appalling abuses on
people by those in power. The action is set around the scenes of Fatwa book burning
of 'The Satanic Verses' and as the production developed it included images of the
funeral of the Ayatollah Khomeni amongst the narrative . I cannot find a single link to
the film so include an extract:-

"'This isn't paradise but the Bradford Square
Where Rushdie's book got burnt, just over there.
By reading it where fools had it cremated
I bring it whole again, out of the air'

The films include 'The Gaze of the Gorgon' which has a Schuman Lieder as the central theme
and 'May day in Kazakhstan'.
Harrison includes The Reverend Ian Paisley (but not the Pope) in the movie.

He reported from the Frontline in Bosnia and did a cycle on the Miner's Strike which was
scathing in it's criticism of the Tories and defends the NUM and the 1984 pickets.
He refused the Laureateship, though many assumed that he was never seriously considered.
Interestingly the tension between the output of the former Laureate (Ted Hughes RIP-
an apocalyptic poet and defender of nature and language) and the voice of Harrison who
came from and espoused a socialist working class backround is great, with both
siting their major works in the Greek classics and language of myth and transformation.
Hughes 'Tales from Ovid' (in translation) speaks of human metamorphosis whilst
Harrison celebrates the human voice in 'V'.

So whilst Mrs Thatcher suits and policies are aired for a contemporary UK audience
its only fair that her most voiceferous critic too gets an airing:-
"If Love of art, or love, gives you affront
That the grave I am in's graffitied then, maybe,
erase the more offensive FUCK and CUNT
but leave, with the worn United, one small v.

victory? For vast, slow, coal-creating forces
That hew the body's seams to get the soul
Will earth run out of her 'diurnal Courses'
Before repeating her creation of black coal?

save preference

Comments (4 of 4)

Links to The Miner's Strike

Sat Sep 22, 2007 16:53

The NUM is still active and BBC has been running a series od ducumenataries on the splits
within families because of the Miner's Strikes in England, it had a societal impact and
social resonance that still goes on today. Many can trace their beginning in political
activism to the issues surrounding the breaking of the unions and the effect it had
on internal organisations of the Old Labour Party.

(Much like many of us will remember the response to the 1981 hunger-strikes and how
Ireland reacted to the deaths of the men- where I lived was draped for months in black
flags, black Bunting and images of the hunger-striker's).

Links to backround material:-

http://en/wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Miner's Sttrike_(1984-1985)
The NUM is still active and opposing the fossil fuel policy of the New Labour Party:-
http://www.num.org
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_News/3534415.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_News/3532987.stm

The other Thatcherite policies in relation to the hunger strikes are widely available on
archive :- http://larkspirit.com/hungerstrikes

and the area of interest for the current Labour administration is thousands of square miles
around Rockall/Argentina and the Falklands.

The Break between the Unions and the Labour Party resulted in a by-election defeat for Arthur Scargill , where he managed only 2.4% of the vote against a New Labour candidate:-
Peter Mandelsshon. (links later- that was a chequered career). The wave of revulsion
against the Thatcherite regime which saw the division of communities, the break up
of the Transport infrastructure to private profiteers, as well as the severe stress on
the education and school systems brought Swept Tony Blair to power.

Contemporary poster

Didn't Tony Blair "sweep into power" against John Major not Thatcher?

by filler comment

Sat Sep 22, 2007 18:36

John Major won the 1992 general election as sitting prime minister for two years and continued for another 5.
so there couldn't really have been that wave of revulsion against the Thatcherite regime you write so confidently about.

Perhaps it's as simple a thing as you being wrong??? Does that ever occur to you???

'V' or 'v'' was always about community and power.

Sat Sep 22, 2007 19:06

The Miner's Strike divided communities, familes and New and Old Labour. Scargill split away
from Labour and founded his own Party which ran against New Labour candidate -
Mandy Mandelsshon(aka- the Prince of Darkness- thats what he was called in the North Of Ireland).
Tony Blair was swept into power in revulsion at Thatcherism/Toryism.
Major was only presiding over the ruins of theTories- and continuing failed policies (or fingering the Dyke)-
The Miner's strike divided Britain right down the middle and Scargill ultimately failed in his
decisions. Kinnock and Major represented the Old party policies, the Blair spring tide was
meant in many ways to usher in political history- with wall to wall images of his walk into
Downing Street- the deeply divisive policies of Thatcher ended Toryism and Cameron is
attempting many ways to regain control of Middle England- his party won many seats
in the recent by elections but there doesn't appear to be a Tory resurgence- the use of
Green language and policy doesn't seem to be working for him.

The wiki entry on the issue of Old Labour's relation to unions and dropping articles from their
constitution is quite interesting- it shows the move to centrism which made for popular
appeal, much in the same way the new Labour of Ireland has largely accepted the PPP
structure and the amalgamation of unions. Thatcherism was a virulent form of Conservatism
that in many ways has still to be studied- it was moved and directed by a leadership
(Baroness Thatcher) rather than policy- reflected in the 'softer ' approach of Major.She dominated
everything and drove it, giving the impression of widespread knowledge of how the issues
worked-you could see her handiwork in everything and there was nothing she did
not comment on or personally intervene in- wheras Major tended to backseat and allow the
other ministers work their 'areas'. Thatcherism provided a huge watershed in
international politics and Major worked beneath its shadow, the pieces alluded to
by Harrison reflected his anti-establishment loathing of those policies with cycles
on Northern ireland, The NUM, The Flying Pickets and treatment of her foreign policy-
about which I know little (btw) except its repurcussions here and in the Middle East
and her relation to Reagan.

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, Wrong.

Sat Sep 22, 2007 20:18

our subtitle "No Need for a Conservative Party" implies New Labour replaced the tories. If that is so, then Blair did not sweep into power on the crest of a wave of revulsion against toryism.
In fact though Kinnock had told his mp's of the "old labour" party to return and prepare for government. John Major won the election. Blair moved to the centre of electorate and created the "new labour" party profiting ideologically and organisationally from Thatcherism to the extent of winning her public approval.

As usual you're wrong. & as usual you refuse to admit it. If you stuck to recycling your daily Guardian or weekly Observer, or sharing your poetry collection with us no harm would be done. But you are it seems attempting to offer younger readers who may not remember or understand the history of the miners' strike & the birth of New Labour an education. If they are to be taught about that period of great importance, it would be most preferable that their teacher knew what he or she was talking about.

Peter Mandelson was a key member of the "new Labour" core who came from a media background. It was whilst working at London Weekend Television that he earned the nickname "prince of darkness" & also became one of the first people termed a "spin doctor". The nickname stuck and was first used in reference to Mandelson in 1985 by the British satirical magazine "Private Eye". That is 14 years before his period at the northern Ireland office & a full ten years before he joined the Blair team.

Understanding of what and why and who those "spin-doctors" were is vitally important to activists or those intersted in social or social movement politics today. You are incapable of explaining it to them.

You are wrong on so many points so frequently, it would really be best were you to confine your writing efforts to that which it is difficult to be wrong on - poetry, and till you've read more on politics and political history desist from the incessant misleading & inaccurate fictions of history.

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The Poet V The British Establishment.

Comments (4 of 4)