Towards Contemporary Co-operative Studies: Perspectives from Japan’s Consumer Co-ops. Edited and Published in 2010, by The Consumer Co-operative Institute of Japan. 15, Rokubancho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 102-0085 Japan.
ISBN: 978-4-915307-00-3.
A Review by Nick Matthews
The Japanese consumer co-operative sector deserve great credit for establishing the Consumer Co-operative Institute (CCIJ) and then for allowing it such a wide ranging brief to look at the future of consumer co-operation in Japan. In an excellent piece of work the CCIJ has conducted, “comprehensive multidisciplinary studies on consumer life, consumer co-ops and civil society by involving both researchers and practitioners.” Something the UK Society for Co-operative Studies aims at and has been set a benchmark by this study.
The sector is an important actor in the Japanese economy with nearly 40% of Japanese households belonging to a consumer co-op generating a turnover of around Three Trillion Yen (at the time of writing there where 76 Yen to the US$).
The latter half of the nineteen nineties saw the stunning growth of the sector in Japan stagnate the growing realisation that they faced a new set of problems and challenges was the stimulus for the development of Consumer Co-op Studies.
There was also a deep realisation that the changes in Japanese society are not unique - so I am delighted that this work has been published in English – and that a new kind of research was needed “transcending the framework of the existing body of research, to deal not only with the organisation and management of the consumer co-ops, but also the various external conditions influencing them.”
This research covers four main areas, firstly the organisation and management of consumer co-op’s, secondly and perhaps more innovatively, an analysis of “changes in consumers lives in relation to consumer co-ops”, thirdly to understand the role of changes life style and in society generally that are driven by globalisation and the information society and fourthly, and the most far reaching, to “draw up a vision for a new communal society in the 21st century.”
They argue that, “consumer lives will be stabilised and the basis of democratic participation will be secured, when consumers voluntarily set up strong community organisations for the improvement of life and welfare.”
The book tackles these issues in three parts, in the first part Japanese Consumer Co-ops Today and Tomorrow, there are some fascinating insights into Japanese consumer co-operation. Japan was an early adopter of the “Rochdale model” with the first co-op shops opening in Tokyo and Osaka in 1879. In the early day’s three different types of co-ops developed, ones attached to companies for their employees, worker-orientated co-ops associated with the radical labour movement and citizens co-ops organised by the middle classes. However the Second World War almost completely destroyed these societies leading to a fresh start in the 1940’s.
Whilst the leadership came from the pre-war movement the post-war consumer co-op movement was based on necessity as the economy was in a state of near collapse. Co-ops in the form of buying groups mushroomed but as the economy stabilised and began to grow this movement, lacking effective management and organisation, was unsustainable. In the 1950’s growing trade unions took on supporting “workers welfare businesses” to supplement their main role of collective bargaining. Local Trade Councils began to set up co-op shops again this was relatively short lived as they faced stiff competition from the new supermarket formats introduced by existing retailers.
The transformation in the movement came with the development of “Citizen Co-ops” these where partly a reaction against the industrialisation of foodstuffs from Japanese housewives. Indeed this is probably the most distinctive feature of Japanese Consumer Co-ops – the active participation of women members.
The key unit of organisation was the Han group, traditionally they where small groups of women in a neighbourhood who came together to channel their opinions into the co-op. A third of the total co-op members belonged to Han groups although the average group size was only four members. The second key feature was home delivery – something that has gone in, out and back into fashion here in the west.
Akira Kurimoto, points out that “Joint buying is a unique system of home delivery to Han groups, in which members place joint weekly orders to co-op delivery staff who then deliver the food and groceries the following week.” Akira is Director and Chief Researcher of the Consumer Co-op Institute and also Executive Director of the Robert Owen Association.
The big issue for Han customers was primarily food safety many Japanese consumers where concerned about food safety and demanded produce free of additives, pesticides and any form of adulteration. This particularly appealed to those living in the new suburbs which often lacked the range of shops consumers wanted.
Members demands where quickly communicated and acted on by managers thereby strengthening customer loyal. By law all customers had to be members so a strong pattern of member involvement from the Han groups to district committees, consumer panels’ up to annual meetings and boards developed.
Also being restricted in their trading areas and restrictions on advertising to the general public forced them to be very close to their members and the communities they served. By the way it is clear from this book that the Japanese know a great deal more about European consumer co-op’s than we do about Japanese ones and seeing ourselves through Japanese eyes is not always flattering.
As a Director of a UK retail co-operative society I was particularly interested in Akira Kurimoto’s chapter on Consumer Co-ops Retail business operations. Like everywhere the retail co-ops are facing intense competition and there has been a downturn in the amount members have been buying from stores driving a consequent downturn in floor space and this trend seems set to continue. However to compensate they have established a dominant position in home delivery indeed individual home delivery seems to be replacing the Han groups.
It is only in the last decade that more intensive forms of federal buying and product development functions have developed and it is hoped this will improve the sectors competitiveness improving quality, product safety and prices.
Considering the debates we have in the UK in developing a consistent national co-operative brand another fascinating chapter is by Deborah Steinhoff who whilst based in the US received her PhD in Agricultural Economics from Hokkaido University and worked for many years for Coop Sapporo and who writes about the development of COOP brand merchandise.
The cornerstone of the COOP brand in Japan was and is the Japanese consumers’ anxiety about food safety and the ‘credibility’ of agricultural products after WWII.
Historically that anxiety was expressed through the Han groups – today the movement is harnessing internet technology to engage members in product development.
The way this anxiety was addressed is through a system known as Sanchoku. This is a sophisticated provenance system providing fresh foodstuffs directly from the producers based on three principles, traceability, standardisation and a direct line of communication between consumers and producers. As the distance between producers and consumers with the growth of more complex larger scale buying arrangements this system has come under some strain.
Despite this consumers still join primarily to buy COOP brand products. Indeed in surveys members say that they value security, safety and transparency as the key issues. These are followed by the fact that members support the concern the movement expresses for the less fortunate in society perhaps surprisingly price was of lesser importance.
The growth of co-op’s has gone along with educating members about food, as issues around food production, health, nutrition, and the environment have also gone into the development of the brand.
The second part of the book looks at the way consumer co-operation has diversified into two other areas, into what are called University Co-ops and Medical Co-ops. There are lessons again to be learned from how Japan has diversified into these areas for us in Europe. The University Co-ops are established on University campuses to supply, cafeterias, bookstores and other services to staff and students. There is perhaps more we can learn from the medial co-ops as the Japanese health care sector has some similarities to our own and the co-op sector offers a particular service.
They seek to challenge the ‘problems associated with asymmetric information’ and as such they are empowering consumers of heath care through “learning and participation and taking on the challenge to create networks for heath promotion and medical and social care in communities.”
The last part of the book looks at consumer co-operation in the wider Japanese economy and society, including the changing institutional framework of co-ops, their role in the Japanese food system, their role in civil society and the way they could play a role in ‘reconstructing the livelihood security system’.
This latter chapter by Professor Mari Osawa, of the Institute of Social Science of the Univesity of Tokyo, looks at unpicking the welfare state to look at welfare government and governance and how co-operative forms could drive participation in community management. These are particularly challenging ideas that deserve a much wider sounding than is possible in this review.
Overall this is a terrific publication which both articulates the issues and challenges facing the Japanese consumer co-operative movement and also offers some powerful insights that co-operators everywhere could learn from.
Tuesday, 17 January 2012
2012 A Special Year for Co-op's
Everyone in the co-op movement was chuffed when the United Nations designated 2012 as the International Year of Co-operatives. Co-operation has been an international movement for a long time with the founding of the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) in 1895.
Co-op’s where a key ingredient in the formation of the International Labour Organisation in 1919. The ILO, formed as part of the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I reflected the belief that peace could only be accomplished if based on social justice.
The first Director General of the ILO was French Co-operator Albert Thomas (ex- executive committee of the ICA) and the Co-op Branch of the ILO was established in 1920.
The 1920 Governing documents of the ILO say that “The Peace Treaty foresees that the ILO should not only be concerned with the conditions of work but also with the conditions of workers. By and large, it is under the organisational form of co-operatives that this concern is best addressed for the largest part of the population. The Co-operative Section will not limit itself to the questions of distribution, but will also research into the question of housing, leisure time of workers and transportation of the workforce etc.”
Sadly before this could be fulfilled the world was plunged into depression and world war. Following which international politics was blighted by the cold war. Unlike the International Trade Union Movement the ICA was not split by the cold war. Whilst this degree of unity was laudable the consequence was the organisation was to be largely ignored by the western dominated UN and it was unable to be firm about co-op’s being independent of the state until it ended.
It is only in modern times then that the ILO and UN have rediscovered the importance of Co-ops to social justice and the global economy. It may be hard to believe but the contemporary global Co-op sector secures the livelihoods of three billion people. There are a billion owner members of co-ops and they directly employ over 100 million workers.
To put this in perspective that is twenty percent more than all the transnational corporations added together. There are also three times as many member owners of co-operatives as there are shareholders in capitalist businesses, as there are only 328 million people who own company shares.
I celebrated the launch of the international year at Birmingham Film Co-op one of many new co-op’s that have sprung up to fill the gap in the market for the distribution of radical films.
The film was The Take. It follows thirty unemployed car-parts workers in Buenos Aires during Argentina’s economic collapse of 2001. They march into their idle factory, roll out sleeping bags and refuse to leave. All they want is to re-start the silent machines, armed only with an abiding faith in shop-floor democracy they face off the bosses, bankers and a system that sees their factory as scrap. What shines through the film, directed by Canadian journalist Avi Lewis and writer Naomi Klein, is the simple drama of the workers struggle for dignity. Importantly this is not just another tale of heroic failure.
Over a decade after the campaign - ‘Resist, Occupy, Produce’ - the Argentine recovered factories movement began there are still 300 factories that have survived as workers co-ops. But co-op’s are not just acts of desperation by workers or small social clubs for radical film goers.
The top 300 co-op enterprises worldwide have a turnover of US$ 1.6 trillion. This - a bigger economy than Spain - is a significant sector in any language and if anything despite being the home of modern co-operation the UK has a lot of lost ground to make up. In Europe, three countries have over half of their population in co-operative membership – Ireland is top with 70%, then Finland at 60% and Austria at 59%. Other countries with the high proportions of people in co-operative ownership are India with 242million and China with 160million. Even the land of free enterprise the USA has a higher proportion than the UK with 120million co-op members.
It was good to see former Labour MEP Pauline Green, now President of the ICA speaking to the UN General Assembly to launch the year in New York where she called for countries globally to provide co-operatives with a “level playing field”.
She said the unique legal and financial framework of co-operatives should be fully recognized in public policy and regulation saying “Co-operatives are asking for their model of business to be given equal promotion with the shareholder model. The diversity and robustness of the co-operative business model is based on principles and values. This is why co-operatives were resilient during the global financial crisis, employing over 100 million people worldwide and enabling the development and welfare of societies in the most competitive economies.”
The strap line for the UN year is, Co-operative Enterprises build a better world. Whilst I am sure that is true, given the state of the UK economy, the crying need is for more co-operation here!
Co-op’s where a key ingredient in the formation of the International Labour Organisation in 1919. The ILO, formed as part of the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I reflected the belief that peace could only be accomplished if based on social justice.
The first Director General of the ILO was French Co-operator Albert Thomas (ex- executive committee of the ICA) and the Co-op Branch of the ILO was established in 1920.
The 1920 Governing documents of the ILO say that “The Peace Treaty foresees that the ILO should not only be concerned with the conditions of work but also with the conditions of workers. By and large, it is under the organisational form of co-operatives that this concern is best addressed for the largest part of the population. The Co-operative Section will not limit itself to the questions of distribution, but will also research into the question of housing, leisure time of workers and transportation of the workforce etc.”
Sadly before this could be fulfilled the world was plunged into depression and world war. Following which international politics was blighted by the cold war. Unlike the International Trade Union Movement the ICA was not split by the cold war. Whilst this degree of unity was laudable the consequence was the organisation was to be largely ignored by the western dominated UN and it was unable to be firm about co-op’s being independent of the state until it ended.
It is only in modern times then that the ILO and UN have rediscovered the importance of Co-ops to social justice and the global economy. It may be hard to believe but the contemporary global Co-op sector secures the livelihoods of three billion people. There are a billion owner members of co-ops and they directly employ over 100 million workers.
To put this in perspective that is twenty percent more than all the transnational corporations added together. There are also three times as many member owners of co-operatives as there are shareholders in capitalist businesses, as there are only 328 million people who own company shares.
I celebrated the launch of the international year at Birmingham Film Co-op one of many new co-op’s that have sprung up to fill the gap in the market for the distribution of radical films.
The film was The Take. It follows thirty unemployed car-parts workers in Buenos Aires during Argentina’s economic collapse of 2001. They march into their idle factory, roll out sleeping bags and refuse to leave. All they want is to re-start the silent machines, armed only with an abiding faith in shop-floor democracy they face off the bosses, bankers and a system that sees their factory as scrap. What shines through the film, directed by Canadian journalist Avi Lewis and writer Naomi Klein, is the simple drama of the workers struggle for dignity. Importantly this is not just another tale of heroic failure.
Over a decade after the campaign - ‘Resist, Occupy, Produce’ - the Argentine recovered factories movement began there are still 300 factories that have survived as workers co-ops. But co-op’s are not just acts of desperation by workers or small social clubs for radical film goers.
The top 300 co-op enterprises worldwide have a turnover of US$ 1.6 trillion. This - a bigger economy than Spain - is a significant sector in any language and if anything despite being the home of modern co-operation the UK has a lot of lost ground to make up. In Europe, three countries have over half of their population in co-operative membership – Ireland is top with 70%, then Finland at 60% and Austria at 59%. Other countries with the high proportions of people in co-operative ownership are India with 242million and China with 160million. Even the land of free enterprise the USA has a higher proportion than the UK with 120million co-op members.
It was good to see former Labour MEP Pauline Green, now President of the ICA speaking to the UN General Assembly to launch the year in New York where she called for countries globally to provide co-operatives with a “level playing field”.
She said the unique legal and financial framework of co-operatives should be fully recognized in public policy and regulation saying “Co-operatives are asking for their model of business to be given equal promotion with the shareholder model. The diversity and robustness of the co-operative business model is based on principles and values. This is why co-operatives were resilient during the global financial crisis, employing over 100 million people worldwide and enabling the development and welfare of societies in the most competitive economies.”
The strap line for the UN year is, Co-operative Enterprises build a better world. Whilst I am sure that is true, given the state of the UK economy, the crying need is for more co-operation here!
Tuesday, 13 December 2011
Bradlaugh contra Marx
Book Review by Nick Matthews
Bradlaugh contra Marx, Radicalism versus Socialism in the First International.
Published by the Socialist History Society, Occasional Publication No 28.
86 pages £4.00
This is a short quite delightful monograph published by the Socialist History Society (the successor organisation to the Communist History Group) and written by playwright and society member Deborah Lavin. It is a well researched paper about the tussles between Karl Marx and Charles Bradlaugh in the workings of the International Working Mens Association. She seems to have discovered details of this interesting tussle whilst working on her biography of Dr Edward Aveling the partner of Karl Marx’s daughter Eleanor.
The journey through the exile organisations of late nineteenth century politics are reminiscent of Joseph Conrad’s Secret Agent or of in the case of Bradlaugh, who she virtually accuses of being an agent provocateur, G.K. Chesterton’s the Man who was Thursday.
In Lavin’s hands neither Marx nor Bradlaugh come out of this episode very well. Marx comes across as an arrogant, sectarian whilst Bradlaugh comes across as an opportunist, charlatan. In one critical episode, what she describes as the oaths question, she argues Bradlaughs battle over taking the Parliamentary oath, was not a matter of principal but merely a misunderstanding.
The six year struggle ending in the “Tories oaths Act of 1888 is generally credited as a Civil Rights victory for Bradlaugh, but as he only got entangled in the oaths question by accident, and the moment he was allowed, Bradluagh willingly swore allegiance to Queen Victoria on the Bible.”
She says that it is “quite erroneous to see Bradlaugh as playing the part of the heroic man of principle”. Equally to give Bradlaugh some credit, however, he was an extraordinarily good public speaker, something Marx could never be accused of, and was also an extremely tenacious campaigner.
Lavin is clearly more sympathetic to Marx and he was clearly successful in keeping the mere Liberal Bradlaugh out of the IWMA but ultimately he kept everyone else out of it too by moving its HQ to New York ostensibly to escape the anarchist Michael Bakunin.
Bradlaughs attempts to recreate a version of the IWMA under a new name the International Labour Union also failed. Bradlaughs effort to court the newly rising working class however does show their emerging importance in Liberal politics.
There is much in this wonderful monograph, very rich in references, that would repay careful reading but it does highlight two obvious things. Firstly there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. How any of the organisations portrayed in this paper could have lasted more than a second or had any lasting influence is astonishing. And secondly it does not pay to look too closely at ones heroes as their feet are undoubtedly made of clay as they too are mere flesh and blood and subject to the same vanities and needs as the rest of us.
Bradlaugh contra Marx, Radicalism versus Socialism in the First International.
Published by the Socialist History Society, Occasional Publication No 28.
86 pages £4.00
This is a short quite delightful monograph published by the Socialist History Society (the successor organisation to the Communist History Group) and written by playwright and society member Deborah Lavin. It is a well researched paper about the tussles between Karl Marx and Charles Bradlaugh in the workings of the International Working Mens Association. She seems to have discovered details of this interesting tussle whilst working on her biography of Dr Edward Aveling the partner of Karl Marx’s daughter Eleanor.
The journey through the exile organisations of late nineteenth century politics are reminiscent of Joseph Conrad’s Secret Agent or of in the case of Bradlaugh, who she virtually accuses of being an agent provocateur, G.K. Chesterton’s the Man who was Thursday.
In Lavin’s hands neither Marx nor Bradlaugh come out of this episode very well. Marx comes across as an arrogant, sectarian whilst Bradlaugh comes across as an opportunist, charlatan. In one critical episode, what she describes as the oaths question, she argues Bradlaughs battle over taking the Parliamentary oath, was not a matter of principal but merely a misunderstanding.
The six year struggle ending in the “Tories oaths Act of 1888 is generally credited as a Civil Rights victory for Bradlaugh, but as he only got entangled in the oaths question by accident, and the moment he was allowed, Bradluagh willingly swore allegiance to Queen Victoria on the Bible.”
She says that it is “quite erroneous to see Bradlaugh as playing the part of the heroic man of principle”. Equally to give Bradlaugh some credit, however, he was an extraordinarily good public speaker, something Marx could never be accused of, and was also an extremely tenacious campaigner.
Lavin is clearly more sympathetic to Marx and he was clearly successful in keeping the mere Liberal Bradlaugh out of the IWMA but ultimately he kept everyone else out of it too by moving its HQ to New York ostensibly to escape the anarchist Michael Bakunin.
Bradlaughs attempts to recreate a version of the IWMA under a new name the International Labour Union also failed. Bradlaughs effort to court the newly rising working class however does show their emerging importance in Liberal politics.
There is much in this wonderful monograph, very rich in references, that would repay careful reading but it does highlight two obvious things. Firstly there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. How any of the organisations portrayed in this paper could have lasted more than a second or had any lasting influence is astonishing. And secondly it does not pay to look too closely at ones heroes as their feet are undoubtedly made of clay as they too are mere flesh and blood and subject to the same vanities and needs as the rest of us.
Thursday, 8 December 2011
Histories of Labour
Histories of Labour, National and International Perspectives, Edited by John McIlroy, Alan Campbell & Joan Allen, Merlin Press, 2010, ISBN 978085036677.
a review by Nick Matthews
I greatly enjoyed this book although I would not recommend reading it in a single sitting. There is a lot to take in and numerous changes in perspective to accommodate. When I was young I could never understand why people kept writing new books about the same period in history. Now I am a bit like the person in the Bob Dylan song who was “so much older then” but is “younger than that now”!
It requires perspective and some distance to understand the real significance of events and this collection of essays does that in spades. Interestingly the event it both commemorates and celebrates is the birth of the Society for the Study of Labour History. The editors say, “Histories of Labour, which documents the development of the subject in a variety of countries around the world, is published to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Society for the Study of Labour History (SSLH), its organised expression in Britain”.
In the introduction Eric Hobsbawm explains how this seminal event occurred and how the idea of the Society “came from the collective of friends formed in the Communist Party Historians’ Group.” At the height of the cold war even Hobsbawn was finding it hard to get published, difficult to believe now given his status as a ‘national treasure’ and the Order of Merit.
The man chosen to front this new Society was Asa Briggs then easily the most established academic historian with a record of work in the field. What exactly this field is over fifty years and numerous changes in historiography I found more difficult to pin down. The best definition occurs in the final essay of the book by Marcel van der Linden, Research Director of the International Institute of Social History and Professor of Social Movement History at the University of Amsterdam;
“The term ‘labour history’ has a dual meaning. Strictly speaking the concept refers to the history of the labour movement: parties, trade unions, cooperatives, strikes and related phenomena. More broadly interpreted, the concept denotes the history of the working classes: the development of labour relations, family life, mentalities, culture. This ambiguity seems characteristic of the term in English. In many other languages labour movement history and working-class history cannot be summed up in a single term.”
By the time I got to this final chapter having worried at this ambiguity throughout the book I was glad to see it confirmed. Van der Linden, continues that both this ‘broad’ and ‘narrow’ Labour History have their origins in the North Atlantic region so it is good to see the impact that this school of thought, if that is not too strong a term, has had internationally.
There are fascinating essays in this book from India and Japan, where both labour history and Labour History have taken significantly different turns. Although there appear to be two threads that echo across the world, the first is the enormous impact of Edward Thompsons the making of the English Working Class. Van der Linden again,
“In the 1960’s we see the beginnings of the so called ‘new labour history’, with E.P.Thomson’s The Making of the English Working Class as a landmark publication. This great book, by emphasizing culture and consciousness, integrated broad and narrow labour history, once its message was assimilated.”
Of course this transition can be exaggerated but I do not think it would be inaccurate to argue that almost all Labour History since has been a dialogue with this great work. Who, having read it, can forget that wonderful preface written in Halifax in 1962 and Thompsons hope that he was,
“seeking to rescue the poor stockinger, the Luddite cropper, the “obsolete” hand-loom weaver, the “utopian” artisan, and even the deluded follower of Joanna Southcott from the enormous condescension of posterity.”
He did something else too I think and that is break the almost Whiggish nature of much so called Marxist writing of Labour History which saw the continuous march of organised labour to state power as inevitable. Whilst nothing could have been more literally English about Thomson’s work it had a huge international impact which is reflected in this book.
In his essay, Organised Labour History in Britain, John McIlroy, points out that;
“It was said of Thompson that he ‘opened new ways of enquiring into the past in India and Latin America,[…] He has influenced Chinese labour historians and inspired the feminist scholar of Arab texts, Fatima Mernissi.’ He lectured in Canada and the USA and maintained his family’s links with India. His influence marked the developments in labour history in all three countries.”
This canonisation of Thompson is not to diminish the work of other scholars but it does point up the huge contribution to both broad and narrow Labour History from those outside the academy and the fact that institutionalised university history has never been quite sure what to do with the history of the lower orders.
The second thread is that well before the forward march of labour was halted in Eric Hobsbawms immortal phrase the subject matter had begun to fragment with new dimensions to the central ambiguity. Some of these especially the interest of feminists has been very welcome others like the so called ‘linguistic turn’ less so.
Hobsbawm suspects that what made British Labour history influential however, apart from the sheer size of the community and the high quality of some of the work produced was “its function as a catalyst of political rethinking on the British left”.
“Neither E.P. Thompson’s Making or Raph Samuels initiatives, the ‘History Workshop’ movement , nor my Primitive Rebels , can be fully understood accept as an attempt to find a way forward in left politics through historical reflection.”
Anyone interested in Labour History will find terrific value in this book I found references to works that I was not familiar with that I will now seek out to fill gaps in my understanding and readers will gain huge benefits from the references and bibliography. I particularly welcome the opportunity to look at Labour History through the prism of the Indian, Japanese and German experience which these international essays give us.
If I have one disappointment it is that although Van der Lindon mentions co-operation in his definition (and as a co-operator) I found only one reference in the index to Co-operation and that is in the context of the Canadian Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. Clearly there is work still to be done and I hope the next fifty years of organised labour history are as rich as the first fifty and we will continue to look for ways forward in left thinking with active historical reflection.
Nick Matthews is the Chair of the UK Society for Co-operative Studies
a review by Nick Matthews
I greatly enjoyed this book although I would not recommend reading it in a single sitting. There is a lot to take in and numerous changes in perspective to accommodate. When I was young I could never understand why people kept writing new books about the same period in history. Now I am a bit like the person in the Bob Dylan song who was “so much older then” but is “younger than that now”!
It requires perspective and some distance to understand the real significance of events and this collection of essays does that in spades. Interestingly the event it both commemorates and celebrates is the birth of the Society for the Study of Labour History. The editors say, “Histories of Labour, which documents the development of the subject in a variety of countries around the world, is published to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Society for the Study of Labour History (SSLH), its organised expression in Britain”.
In the introduction Eric Hobsbawm explains how this seminal event occurred and how the idea of the Society “came from the collective of friends formed in the Communist Party Historians’ Group.” At the height of the cold war even Hobsbawn was finding it hard to get published, difficult to believe now given his status as a ‘national treasure’ and the Order of Merit.
The man chosen to front this new Society was Asa Briggs then easily the most established academic historian with a record of work in the field. What exactly this field is over fifty years and numerous changes in historiography I found more difficult to pin down. The best definition occurs in the final essay of the book by Marcel van der Linden, Research Director of the International Institute of Social History and Professor of Social Movement History at the University of Amsterdam;
“The term ‘labour history’ has a dual meaning. Strictly speaking the concept refers to the history of the labour movement: parties, trade unions, cooperatives, strikes and related phenomena. More broadly interpreted, the concept denotes the history of the working classes: the development of labour relations, family life, mentalities, culture. This ambiguity seems characteristic of the term in English. In many other languages labour movement history and working-class history cannot be summed up in a single term.”
By the time I got to this final chapter having worried at this ambiguity throughout the book I was glad to see it confirmed. Van der Linden, continues that both this ‘broad’ and ‘narrow’ Labour History have their origins in the North Atlantic region so it is good to see the impact that this school of thought, if that is not too strong a term, has had internationally.
There are fascinating essays in this book from India and Japan, where both labour history and Labour History have taken significantly different turns. Although there appear to be two threads that echo across the world, the first is the enormous impact of Edward Thompsons the making of the English Working Class. Van der Linden again,
“In the 1960’s we see the beginnings of the so called ‘new labour history’, with E.P.Thomson’s The Making of the English Working Class as a landmark publication. This great book, by emphasizing culture and consciousness, integrated broad and narrow labour history, once its message was assimilated.”
Of course this transition can be exaggerated but I do not think it would be inaccurate to argue that almost all Labour History since has been a dialogue with this great work. Who, having read it, can forget that wonderful preface written in Halifax in 1962 and Thompsons hope that he was,
“seeking to rescue the poor stockinger, the Luddite cropper, the “obsolete” hand-loom weaver, the “utopian” artisan, and even the deluded follower of Joanna Southcott from the enormous condescension of posterity.”
He did something else too I think and that is break the almost Whiggish nature of much so called Marxist writing of Labour History which saw the continuous march of organised labour to state power as inevitable. Whilst nothing could have been more literally English about Thomson’s work it had a huge international impact which is reflected in this book.
In his essay, Organised Labour History in Britain, John McIlroy, points out that;
“It was said of Thompson that he ‘opened new ways of enquiring into the past in India and Latin America,[…] He has influenced Chinese labour historians and inspired the feminist scholar of Arab texts, Fatima Mernissi.’ He lectured in Canada and the USA and maintained his family’s links with India. His influence marked the developments in labour history in all three countries.”
This canonisation of Thompson is not to diminish the work of other scholars but it does point up the huge contribution to both broad and narrow Labour History from those outside the academy and the fact that institutionalised university history has never been quite sure what to do with the history of the lower orders.
The second thread is that well before the forward march of labour was halted in Eric Hobsbawms immortal phrase the subject matter had begun to fragment with new dimensions to the central ambiguity. Some of these especially the interest of feminists has been very welcome others like the so called ‘linguistic turn’ less so.
Hobsbawm suspects that what made British Labour history influential however, apart from the sheer size of the community and the high quality of some of the work produced was “its function as a catalyst of political rethinking on the British left”.
“Neither E.P. Thompson’s Making or Raph Samuels initiatives, the ‘History Workshop’ movement , nor my Primitive Rebels , can be fully understood accept as an attempt to find a way forward in left politics through historical reflection.”
Anyone interested in Labour History will find terrific value in this book I found references to works that I was not familiar with that I will now seek out to fill gaps in my understanding and readers will gain huge benefits from the references and bibliography. I particularly welcome the opportunity to look at Labour History through the prism of the Indian, Japanese and German experience which these international essays give us.
If I have one disappointment it is that although Van der Lindon mentions co-operation in his definition (and as a co-operator) I found only one reference in the index to Co-operation and that is in the context of the Canadian Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. Clearly there is work still to be done and I hope the next fifty years of organised labour history are as rich as the first fifty and we will continue to look for ways forward in left thinking with active historical reflection.
Nick Matthews is the Chair of the UK Society for Co-operative Studies
NORTHERN WRECK
I was surprised when Tory rhetoric went from “No such thing as Society” to the “Big Society” and even more surprised about their new found passion for co-operatives and mutual’s. Well we can all now see that it was purely cosmetic. The coalition has fallen at the very first fence. The first chance the Coalition gets to turn the rhetoric into action about creating co-ops and new mutual’s and they sell Northern Rock to of all people Richard Branson.
As Ed Mayo general secretary of Co-operatives UK said “The government had a real chance to show the strength of its commitment to co-operatives and mutuals….it passed it up”. The winner is the people’s capitalist and self publicist par excellence Richard Branson.
This is the man who made his first pile from the Exorcist. A film that like the Coalition was pretty scary. Every time we went towards that room we heard the music of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells. Released as single in America on the Virgin label it became a top ten hit. The success of the film drove the sales of the album, until then an underground success, and made it the first hit on Branson’s Virgin records – a hit that made a fortune for Oldfield and for Branson.
Tom Bower wrote a wonderful biography of Branson, a book which had this glowing endorsement from its subject, “What I have read has offended me on every single level ... it is a foul, foul piece of work from the first words to the last - really rotten, nasty stuff.” In the book Bower points out that, “Virgin Music - started amid a sophisticated purchase-tax fraud that Branson admitted in 1971 - was sold in 1992 for a record £560m”. The money was used to found an airline Virgin Atlantic (which is now 49% owned by Singapore airlines) created when the government stripped BA of landing slots at Heathrow.
Since then Branson has been lending his Virgin brand name to various enterprises to give what are a set of fairly mediocre business a bit of hippy radical gloss as customers using any thing carrying the Virgin brand will tell you.
Most of the things he has launched in competitive markets have failed, Virgin, condoms, cola or vodka anyone and what happened to Virgin stores?
And there are Virgin trains (49% owned by Stagecoach) currently operating the West Coast franchise who used to be much bigger until they lost the cross-country franchise after lumbering it with the worst modern train fleet in Britain. Trains that are noisy, uncomfortable and unable to cope if passengers dare to turn up with luggage.
As with Virgin phones, Branson operates in protected markets. As Aditya Chakrabortty said in the Guardian, “the Virgin boss keeps himself in homes in Holland Park and Necker Island by taking taxpayers subsidies and operating in heavily protected businesses.”
Now he has written a book, called ‘Screw Business as Usual’ needless to say published by Virgin Books in it he talks about the “new capitalism”. He says that he has a new name for it, “Capitalism 24902” apparently because the circumference of the earth is 24,902 miles. Then you read in the Financial Times Branson’s chief investor in Northern Rock, American Financier Wilbur Ross saying, “We would hope to sell out a few years down the road.”
This sounds like business as usual to me. It is not the business that is being screwed it is the taxpayer. The Northern Counties Building Society founded in 1850 and the Rock Building Society in 1865 they survived two world wars and the great depression before merging in 1965 to form Northern Rock. Then it floated as a mortgage bank on 1st October 1997. Less than ten years later it in 2008 it was spectacularly bust!
Many commentators have pointed out that the £747 million price Branson is paying for Northern Rock means that every taxpayer in Britain is paying Branson £13 to take Northern Rock away. But this is not the full story. Branson is only buying the good part of Northern Rock. So far the Coalition has no plans to sell Northern Rock Asset Management or the so called Bad Bank.
In October 2010 Northern Rock (Asset Management) plc and that other busted bank and former building society Bradford & Bingley were integrated under a single holding company, UK Asset Resolution which has a plan that hopes to wind down the institutions in a way that repays a combined debt to the taxpayer of around £50billion.
There is no reason to think that this tiny mortgage bank can survive on its own with just 75 branches and investors would be wise to get out as soon as practically possible. None of the converted Building Societies have survived as Mortgage Banks because the model simply does not work.
That is why many people campaigned for the Rock to be remutualised to return to its roots as a provider of mortgages based on savers deposits. But no George Osborne has decided to make his own horror movie and once again the Virgin label is providing the soundtrack.
As Ed Mayo general secretary of Co-operatives UK said “The government had a real chance to show the strength of its commitment to co-operatives and mutuals….it passed it up”. The winner is the people’s capitalist and self publicist par excellence Richard Branson.
This is the man who made his first pile from the Exorcist. A film that like the Coalition was pretty scary. Every time we went towards that room we heard the music of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells. Released as single in America on the Virgin label it became a top ten hit. The success of the film drove the sales of the album, until then an underground success, and made it the first hit on Branson’s Virgin records – a hit that made a fortune for Oldfield and for Branson.
Tom Bower wrote a wonderful biography of Branson, a book which had this glowing endorsement from its subject, “What I have read has offended me on every single level ... it is a foul, foul piece of work from the first words to the last - really rotten, nasty stuff.” In the book Bower points out that, “Virgin Music - started amid a sophisticated purchase-tax fraud that Branson admitted in 1971 - was sold in 1992 for a record £560m”. The money was used to found an airline Virgin Atlantic (which is now 49% owned by Singapore airlines) created when the government stripped BA of landing slots at Heathrow.
Since then Branson has been lending his Virgin brand name to various enterprises to give what are a set of fairly mediocre business a bit of hippy radical gloss as customers using any thing carrying the Virgin brand will tell you.
Most of the things he has launched in competitive markets have failed, Virgin, condoms, cola or vodka anyone and what happened to Virgin stores?
And there are Virgin trains (49% owned by Stagecoach) currently operating the West Coast franchise who used to be much bigger until they lost the cross-country franchise after lumbering it with the worst modern train fleet in Britain. Trains that are noisy, uncomfortable and unable to cope if passengers dare to turn up with luggage.
As with Virgin phones, Branson operates in protected markets. As Aditya Chakrabortty said in the Guardian, “the Virgin boss keeps himself in homes in Holland Park and Necker Island by taking taxpayers subsidies and operating in heavily protected businesses.”
Now he has written a book, called ‘Screw Business as Usual’ needless to say published by Virgin Books in it he talks about the “new capitalism”. He says that he has a new name for it, “Capitalism 24902” apparently because the circumference of the earth is 24,902 miles. Then you read in the Financial Times Branson’s chief investor in Northern Rock, American Financier Wilbur Ross saying, “We would hope to sell out a few years down the road.”
This sounds like business as usual to me. It is not the business that is being screwed it is the taxpayer. The Northern Counties Building Society founded in 1850 and the Rock Building Society in 1865 they survived two world wars and the great depression before merging in 1965 to form Northern Rock. Then it floated as a mortgage bank on 1st October 1997. Less than ten years later it in 2008 it was spectacularly bust!
Many commentators have pointed out that the £747 million price Branson is paying for Northern Rock means that every taxpayer in Britain is paying Branson £13 to take Northern Rock away. But this is not the full story. Branson is only buying the good part of Northern Rock. So far the Coalition has no plans to sell Northern Rock Asset Management or the so called Bad Bank.
In October 2010 Northern Rock (Asset Management) plc and that other busted bank and former building society Bradford & Bingley were integrated under a single holding company, UK Asset Resolution which has a plan that hopes to wind down the institutions in a way that repays a combined debt to the taxpayer of around £50billion.
There is no reason to think that this tiny mortgage bank can survive on its own with just 75 branches and investors would be wise to get out as soon as practically possible. None of the converted Building Societies have survived as Mortgage Banks because the model simply does not work.
That is why many people campaigned for the Rock to be remutualised to return to its roots as a provider of mortgages based on savers deposits. But no George Osborne has decided to make his own horror movie and once again the Virgin label is providing the soundtrack.
Thursday, 24 November 2011
Somerset’s Co-op Champion
Chewton Mendip, Coleford, East Harptree, Bradford-on-Avon, Frome, Trowbridge and Radstock names that sound like a stopping train journey with John Bejtemen on the pre-Beeching Somerset and Dorset railway.
What these places have in common is that until the 1970’s they all had their own retail co-operative societies. The exception in the list is the small Somerset town of Radstock a former mining village in the old Somerset coalfield. Not only does it still have an independent Co-operative Retail Society – it is thriving - with in 2011 gross sales topping £21million, a record £1.5 million trading surplus and is totally debt free.
In 1868 the early meetings to form the Radstcock Co-operative and Industrial Society took place in the towns Workingmen’s Hall. A temperance house, supported by the agent of the local coal owner Countess Waldegrave, this ensured that according to Society President and historian George Donkin, “those budding co-operators were not going to hang about”.
The society was formed by a mixed bunch drawn from the railways and agriculture as well as mining. One founder Septimus Kidd, who sounds like a character from a Dickens novel, was the head bailiff for the Waldegrave collieries.
At the end of the first year the 145 members enjoyed a dividend of one shilling and five pence in the pound - quite a useful sum at the time. As there where so many co-op societies in the surrounding villages up until the 1920’s rather than form branches they went into house building. Most of the sturdy terraces sold to members and staff are still standing today.
It was the new century, 1901, before the Society began to branch out, the first branch opened in High Littleton and branch thirteen in Midsummer Norton in 1913.
The Society had a close relationship with the mining community. In the 1912 mining dispute the Society lent a £1,000 to the Miners Association a considerable sum causing the Society some difficulty until it was repaid in 1913. The Society always supported local workers in difficulties including in 1920 the Boot and Shoe Operative Union and in 1921 the Miners and Enginemen’s Association was loaned £6,600 together with a donation of £160 to their distress fund.
The First World War saw many of the Societies workers conscripted. Ten men never returned a large number out of a staff of just 200 when the war started. The War saw the Societies first foray into farming, one it has maintained unlike most independent societies, right through to the present day.
In 1926 they were steadfast once again in supporting the miners. A loan of £10,300 was made to local miners unions and £515 donated to the distress fund as well as £210 in food vouchers from the Co-operative Union. Staff also expressed solidarity with the donation of a days pay to the relief fund. The 1930’s where very difficult in the coal mining areas Somerset was no exception but thanks to support from the Co-operative Wholesale Society they survived.
The Radstcock that people came back to after the Second World War was very different to those troubled inter war years and in modern times the Society has been able to survive as an independent society by being a good retailer.
In 1959 it made a huge investment in a new central store in Radstock. To outsiders this looked like not only putting the entire Society under one roof but putting the whole town of Radstock under one roof! It was a dynamic modernist style of building that would have looked more at home in post-war Coventry than in rural Somerset.
Despite any architectural misgivings for over fifty years as many of the branch stores closed this has been the anchor of the Society. In more recent times as well as totally refurbishing the superstore they have been once again been opening new branches growing from six to ten.
The Society's 1000 acre farm at Hardington on the outskirts of Frome also played its part after some very difficult trading conditions in the farming industry. Nowadays supermarket cheddar can come from anywhere in the world so here is a novelty, the milk from the farm goes to make Wyke Farm cheddar which supplies co-op stores across the country. Cheddar from Somerset who would believe it!
Today the Society is well grounded in its local communities and a staunch supporter of the Eat Somerset campaign being keen to support local suppliers by selling and showcasing their products which all helps to cut down on food miles.
Don Morris, CEO said, “We were really proud to gain the Social Enterprise Mark in 2010. We are committed to supporting local suppliers and helping our communities to thrive. We are determined to protect our independence so we can be responsive to local needs and react quickly to changing local conditions. We are not just in business to make money, but to serve our local communities."
At a meeting recently a friend whose wife owns a shop in Glastonbury that sells crystals and all sorts of new age stuff to those seeking the Arthurian experience said how delighted they where with the new Radstock Co-operative shop in the town.
So there you have it - at the end of the search for the Holy Grail is a Co-op shop.
What these places have in common is that until the 1970’s they all had their own retail co-operative societies. The exception in the list is the small Somerset town of Radstock a former mining village in the old Somerset coalfield. Not only does it still have an independent Co-operative Retail Society – it is thriving - with in 2011 gross sales topping £21million, a record £1.5 million trading surplus and is totally debt free.
In 1868 the early meetings to form the Radstcock Co-operative and Industrial Society took place in the towns Workingmen’s Hall. A temperance house, supported by the agent of the local coal owner Countess Waldegrave, this ensured that according to Society President and historian George Donkin, “those budding co-operators were not going to hang about”.
The society was formed by a mixed bunch drawn from the railways and agriculture as well as mining. One founder Septimus Kidd, who sounds like a character from a Dickens novel, was the head bailiff for the Waldegrave collieries.
At the end of the first year the 145 members enjoyed a dividend of one shilling and five pence in the pound - quite a useful sum at the time. As there where so many co-op societies in the surrounding villages up until the 1920’s rather than form branches they went into house building. Most of the sturdy terraces sold to members and staff are still standing today.
It was the new century, 1901, before the Society began to branch out, the first branch opened in High Littleton and branch thirteen in Midsummer Norton in 1913.
The Society had a close relationship with the mining community. In the 1912 mining dispute the Society lent a £1,000 to the Miners Association a considerable sum causing the Society some difficulty until it was repaid in 1913. The Society always supported local workers in difficulties including in 1920 the Boot and Shoe Operative Union and in 1921 the Miners and Enginemen’s Association was loaned £6,600 together with a donation of £160 to their distress fund.
The First World War saw many of the Societies workers conscripted. Ten men never returned a large number out of a staff of just 200 when the war started. The War saw the Societies first foray into farming, one it has maintained unlike most independent societies, right through to the present day.
In 1926 they were steadfast once again in supporting the miners. A loan of £10,300 was made to local miners unions and £515 donated to the distress fund as well as £210 in food vouchers from the Co-operative Union. Staff also expressed solidarity with the donation of a days pay to the relief fund. The 1930’s where very difficult in the coal mining areas Somerset was no exception but thanks to support from the Co-operative Wholesale Society they survived.
The Radstcock that people came back to after the Second World War was very different to those troubled inter war years and in modern times the Society has been able to survive as an independent society by being a good retailer.
In 1959 it made a huge investment in a new central store in Radstock. To outsiders this looked like not only putting the entire Society under one roof but putting the whole town of Radstock under one roof! It was a dynamic modernist style of building that would have looked more at home in post-war Coventry than in rural Somerset.
Despite any architectural misgivings for over fifty years as many of the branch stores closed this has been the anchor of the Society. In more recent times as well as totally refurbishing the superstore they have been once again been opening new branches growing from six to ten.
The Society's 1000 acre farm at Hardington on the outskirts of Frome also played its part after some very difficult trading conditions in the farming industry. Nowadays supermarket cheddar can come from anywhere in the world so here is a novelty, the milk from the farm goes to make Wyke Farm cheddar which supplies co-op stores across the country. Cheddar from Somerset who would believe it!
Today the Society is well grounded in its local communities and a staunch supporter of the Eat Somerset campaign being keen to support local suppliers by selling and showcasing their products which all helps to cut down on food miles.
Don Morris, CEO said, “We were really proud to gain the Social Enterprise Mark in 2010. We are committed to supporting local suppliers and helping our communities to thrive. We are determined to protect our independence so we can be responsive to local needs and react quickly to changing local conditions. We are not just in business to make money, but to serve our local communities."
At a meeting recently a friend whose wife owns a shop in Glastonbury that sells crystals and all sorts of new age stuff to those seeking the Arthurian experience said how delighted they where with the new Radstock Co-operative shop in the town.
So there you have it - at the end of the search for the Holy Grail is a Co-op shop.
Tuesday, 1 November 2011
Co-op Women and the White Peace Poppy.
The other day I picked up a couple of white poppies with the word Peace boldly displayed at their centre. I wondered at this time of remembrance if people realise that the White Poppy was first launched by the Co-operative Women’s Guild back in 1933.
The Guild with a proud record in campaigning for a peace began with a small ad in the Co-op News of April 13th, 1883.
It read:
'The Women's League for the spread of co-operation has begun. All who wish to join should write their name and address to Mrs. Acland, Fyfield Road, Oxford.'
Mrs Ackland edited the papers women’s pages and from such humble beginnings one of the most important working class women’s organisations of the twentieth century was born. A year later it had a change of name to the Co-operative Women’s Guild and by 1910 had 32,000 members.
What began as vehicle to spread the ideas of retail co-operation soon took on the wider concerns of working women. It was Guild pressure that ensured maternity benefits where included in the 1911 National Insurance Act. The Guild campaigned tirelessly both nationally and internationally for minimum wages and maternity benefits.
In April 1914 they were involved in an International Women's Congress at The Hague which passed a resolution totally opposing war:
“this Conference is of opinion that the terrible method of war should never again be used to settle disputes between nations, and urge that a partnership of nations, with peace as its object, should be established and enforced by the people's will.”
What a pity that the men of Europe did not pay heed to their women! This was the beginning of the Guild's active peace work.
After the 1914-1918 war they sought to understand the social, political and economic conditions which gave rise to war and by 1921 their Congress called for the:
'Cessation of the provocative competition in armaments... revision of the Peace Treaties... purging politics and education of militarism in all its forms.... abolishing force as a remedy for social unrest.... eliminating private profit-making from the industrial system.'
In 1933 at its peak with a membership of 72,000 it launched the White Poppy as an alternative to the British Legions Red Poppy campaign. The red poppy had begun as a way of collecting funds for French war orphaned children and was taken over by the British Legion for the Haig Appeal. Many women who had lost husbands, brothers and sons in the First World War did not want to see Armistice Day used to make war acceptable.
Today of course when war is a matter of choice many people, particularly those in the media have no choice when it comes to the wearing of the red poppy and thereby inadvertently supporting war. No one is critical of those mourning lost loved ones but the theatrical use of the dead by politicians and the military as a justification for endless war lest their deaths be ‘in vain’ is despicable.
When we are not facing an existential threat it is more important than ever to remember all the victims of war. Sadly the number of civilians killed in wars, represented by the White Poppy, totally dwarfs the numbers of service personnel who are killed extending and defending “western interests”. In the First World War the overwhelming number of dead where combatant’s as warfare has evolved it is now largely fought by highly technologically equipped forces against civilians.
In the Iraq war less than 3,000 US service personnel died whilst according to the MIT Mortality Study the civilian death toll was over 650,000.
The fact we have to estimate the Iraqi dead because no cares enough to count them and record their names tells us why we should remember them. The White Poppy therefore has come to represent the true cost of modern warfare and those who are left out of the reckoning when it comes to the laying wreaths at the cenotaph.
The tradition of the White Poppy is kept alive today by the Peace Pledge Union founded by Canon Dick Shepperd. Dicks final appointment was at St Pauls cathedral so it obviously has a history of awkward priests. He was supported by notables such as the Methodist Donald Soper and Labour leader George Lansbury. The newly founded PPU joined with the Co-operative Women’s Guild in distributing the White Poppies and has done so ever since.
This year when Britain has been continuously at war for fifteen years the PPU will lay a wreath of white poppies at the Conscientious Objectors Memorial Stone in Tavistock Square on Remembrance Sunday at 12.30. They will be there to call for an end to war, to reflect on the misery caused by war and those who support it and be inspired by those individuals who have refused to take part in war whatever the consequences.
If you just want to obtain some White Poppies go to www.PPU.org.uk
The Co-op Women’s Guild hit the nail on the head back in 1921 there is still too much profit in war. Thankfully the Guild it is still going, still striving to make the world a better more co-operative place and now accepts individual membership see: www.cooperativewomensguild.coop
The Guild with a proud record in campaigning for a peace began with a small ad in the Co-op News of April 13th, 1883.
It read:
'The Women's League for the spread of co-operation has begun. All who wish to join should write their name and address to Mrs. Acland, Fyfield Road, Oxford.'
Mrs Ackland edited the papers women’s pages and from such humble beginnings one of the most important working class women’s organisations of the twentieth century was born. A year later it had a change of name to the Co-operative Women’s Guild and by 1910 had 32,000 members.
What began as vehicle to spread the ideas of retail co-operation soon took on the wider concerns of working women. It was Guild pressure that ensured maternity benefits where included in the 1911 National Insurance Act. The Guild campaigned tirelessly both nationally and internationally for minimum wages and maternity benefits.
In April 1914 they were involved in an International Women's Congress at The Hague which passed a resolution totally opposing war:
“this Conference is of opinion that the terrible method of war should never again be used to settle disputes between nations, and urge that a partnership of nations, with peace as its object, should be established and enforced by the people's will.”
What a pity that the men of Europe did not pay heed to their women! This was the beginning of the Guild's active peace work.
After the 1914-1918 war they sought to understand the social, political and economic conditions which gave rise to war and by 1921 their Congress called for the:
'Cessation of the provocative competition in armaments... revision of the Peace Treaties... purging politics and education of militarism in all its forms.... abolishing force as a remedy for social unrest.... eliminating private profit-making from the industrial system.'
In 1933 at its peak with a membership of 72,000 it launched the White Poppy as an alternative to the British Legions Red Poppy campaign. The red poppy had begun as a way of collecting funds for French war orphaned children and was taken over by the British Legion for the Haig Appeal. Many women who had lost husbands, brothers and sons in the First World War did not want to see Armistice Day used to make war acceptable.
Today of course when war is a matter of choice many people, particularly those in the media have no choice when it comes to the wearing of the red poppy and thereby inadvertently supporting war. No one is critical of those mourning lost loved ones but the theatrical use of the dead by politicians and the military as a justification for endless war lest their deaths be ‘in vain’ is despicable.
When we are not facing an existential threat it is more important than ever to remember all the victims of war. Sadly the number of civilians killed in wars, represented by the White Poppy, totally dwarfs the numbers of service personnel who are killed extending and defending “western interests”. In the First World War the overwhelming number of dead where combatant’s as warfare has evolved it is now largely fought by highly technologically equipped forces against civilians.
In the Iraq war less than 3,000 US service personnel died whilst according to the MIT Mortality Study the civilian death toll was over 650,000.
The fact we have to estimate the Iraqi dead because no cares enough to count them and record their names tells us why we should remember them. The White Poppy therefore has come to represent the true cost of modern warfare and those who are left out of the reckoning when it comes to the laying wreaths at the cenotaph.
The tradition of the White Poppy is kept alive today by the Peace Pledge Union founded by Canon Dick Shepperd. Dicks final appointment was at St Pauls cathedral so it obviously has a history of awkward priests. He was supported by notables such as the Methodist Donald Soper and Labour leader George Lansbury. The newly founded PPU joined with the Co-operative Women’s Guild in distributing the White Poppies and has done so ever since.
This year when Britain has been continuously at war for fifteen years the PPU will lay a wreath of white poppies at the Conscientious Objectors Memorial Stone in Tavistock Square on Remembrance Sunday at 12.30. They will be there to call for an end to war, to reflect on the misery caused by war and those who support it and be inspired by those individuals who have refused to take part in war whatever the consequences.
If you just want to obtain some White Poppies go to www.PPU.org.uk
The Co-op Women’s Guild hit the nail on the head back in 1921 there is still too much profit in war. Thankfully the Guild it is still going, still striving to make the world a better more co-operative place and now accepts individual membership see: www.cooperativewomensguild.coop
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
