Recently I became a grandfather and since the birth I’ve had the opportunity to reflect on the kind of society young Zach will inherit as he grows up. A chance to also consider whether all those changes I dreamed of and campaigned for as a young man have happened.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s we were going to change the world. Our heroes were radicals with exotic names – Tariq Ali, Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Mao Tse-Tung. We fought on the streets, on campuses and in the back rooms of dingy pubs, all in the belief that any day the old order would fail and we would herald a new age. An era with equality for all, an absence of poverty and above all, freedom from the threat of nuclear war.
Forty years on, it seems to me very little has changed. Our revolutionary leaders either conformed to the “system”, or have been discredited. Tariq Ali became one of the leading lights of mainstream Labour party politics, Daniel Cohn-Bendit joined the Greens and sits in Strasbourg as a member of the European Parliament and Mao has been thoroughly discredited and found to be far more authoritarian than all our worst nightmares.
In the 60s and even in the 70s, we marched against a variety of wars, including the Six-Day war and Vietnam. Today we oppose conflicts in Iraq or Afghanistan. Forty years ago, we marched from Aldermaston to London in opposition to nuclear weapons. Nowadays, we stand silently as the government announces there will be a replacement for Trident.
As a young man and eager member of the Communist party, determined to change the world I stood horrified as the Berlin wall was raised, and watched the oppression in Czechoslovakia. There is no Communist party today – well there is, depending on whether you want to look at the Communist Party of Great Britain, the New Communist Party or the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist). The revolutionary road has been largely superseded by the democratic path but, just like in the 1960s there is little or no money in the coffers, so most of the hard left find it hard to stand candidates.
The Labour Party back in the 1960s was led by a one-time lefty, who swung to the right once he took over the leadership. Those on the left in those days had held much hope in the leadership of Harold Wilson, only to find him slipping away from the fundamental values outlined in Clause lV of the Constitution of the Party. In 2011, there is no Clause lV – well that’s not strictly true, but there is no longer any requirement for the party to seek control for the means of production and distribution. Blair and his New Labour project effectively put paid to that idea. The latest incarnation of leadership in the Labour Party is a product of the New Labour project and despite being nicknamed “Red Ed”, his pronouncements against strike action to oppose the cuts are reminiscent of the words of Wilson, Callaghan and Kinnock.
In the 1960s, we rediscovered the notion of poverty and began to realize there is an ‘underclass’ in modern society – a sector who earn less than 60% of the national average income. Fourteen years ago, New Labour declared war on poverty – they failed – we still have an underclass and little, if anything has changed. The top elite still own the vast majority of the wealth in this country. A carer will still live on a substandard income whilst a banker can earn an annual income in excess of £8m
So am I cynical? Yes – and I think I have a right to be. My generation let our young people down. We sold out our values for the comfort of a modern three- or four-bedroomed semi in the ‘burbs. We satisfied our idealism with pay increases and a more comfortable life. When Maggie set about dismantling the unions we didn’t cry out in horror and when Blair finished the job we sniffed and said: “So what can I do about it?”
In short, my generation doesn’t have much to be proud of. A lot of failed ideals and trashed values. So my prayer for my young son is simple. Learn from us – don’t sell out, don’t give in and don’t trust those who tell you that sooner or later the system is about to change. It isn’t. The system will never change – you have to change it.
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