12 Aug
Jimmy Reid R.I.P.
I remember little of the Glasgow shipbuilders occupation and work-in of 1971-72 as I was at that time I was doing my thing in Ibiza. However, I have always been aware that the work-in – which was not a strike, a withdrawal of labour – was successful.
Jimmy Reid, who died aged 78 on Tuesday, was a leader, the public orator, of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, and his advocacy of ‘the right to work’ – with dignity – is a cause dear to me. (Mind you, I’ve always felt that there should be a ‘right to not work’, but that can wait for another time, another post.)
No doubt I will be reminded by a commentator or two that he was a member of the UK’s Communist Party’s executive committee and that therefore nothing of value can be said about the man.
So I will let these words justify the man.
“From the very depth of my being, I challenge the right of any man or any group of men, in business or in government, to tell a fellow human being that he or she is expendable.”
And from his speech upon his inauguration as Rector of Glasgow University in 1972.
“A rat race is for rats. We’re not rats. We’re human beings. Reject the insidious pressures in society that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you, that would caution silence in the face of injustice lest you jeopardise your chances of promotion and self-advancement.
“This is how it starts, and, before you know where you are, you’re a fully paid-up member of the rat pack. The price is too high.”
Fine words which encouraged dignified action.
Absolutely fine words and noble sentiments but unfortunately that minor detail of his leading membership of the most homicidal, tyrannous and dehumanising political movement in the history of mankind means that he was either a hypocrite or a fool, I'll leave others to judge which as I will not speak ill of the recently deceased.
As I noted above, I expected you to pass by Miko.
And I also note that you don't mention Hitler or Franco, fascists at the other end of the closed circle to authoritarian regimes, or any of the despots, such as the South American dictators and Suharto, who wiped out communists.
So, how many were wiped out by the UK Communist Party, eh?
We need more communists like Jimmy Reid. The world would be a better place for it.
As the Mirror reported today: Reid inspired a generation of union leaders. Scotland First Minister Alex Salmond said yesterday: "Jimmy Reid has been Scotland's great rallying figure over the last four decades and was one of the few political figures who can genuinely say they provoked real change for the better."
"So, how many were wiped out by the UK Communist Party, eh?"
None of course, but then no one was wiped out by the British Union of Fascists either but somehow I suspect you wouldn't have such a benign attitude to a recently dead British fascist would you?
I didn't mention Hitler, Franco or Suharto because they were not relevant to this post. However Reid's membership of an organisation actively involved in attempting to overthrow the democratic institutions of the UK and replace them with despotic one party rule is rather relevant to his attitude to his fellow man is it not?
Just for the record I loathe fascism too, I believe fascism and communism to be two sides of the same statist, anti-humanist, anti-individualist, anti-liberal, anti-democratic coin. I don't have double standards in the issue, I have no time for dead fascists but I don't romanticise dead communists either.