REPRESSIVE TOLERANCE

STORIES OF A SHALLOW DEMOCRACY

The French philosopher/writer Albert Camus wrote,
“Artists did not sign up but were compelled to embarked on a slave galley,
having to do service for the ownership class.”
The artist, like the mass of workers in poverty
or struggling from paycheque to paycheque
are denied access to the best food,
medicine, housing, education and wellbeing in life,
and are left behind the great plough of capitalism
gagging on their financially imposed class limitations
which not only create huge pressures on family life
but deny people the richness of our commonwealth and culture.

Within these oppressive conditions,
when there was a viable industrial working class,
there were continual fracas, rebellious moments,
withdrawal of labour, strikes, sit-ins and street battles.
One needs to remind oneself that along with a representative state,
freedom to worship, and a free press,
trade unionism is one of the guarantees of a free society.

Under Reagan and Thatcher, both of whom seemed to have decided
that the working class was composed of sub-humans,
enemies of liberty and safety,
who were always on the verge of barbarism.

It was vital to the liberal establishment that the masses:
the people, the mob were kept under,
what the German philosopher, Herbert Marcuse named as
repressive tolerance.
This was to create a sense of oppression,
always letting the masses know that the state was there amongst them
and ready to strike should the people become overly demanding.
A businessman assigned to the US Supreme Court by Reagan, L.F.Powell,
referred to the people’s desire for a decent life as “an excess of democracy”.

Having spent time across several years in factories, with working people
I witnessed many moments of fissure as well as street demonstrations
for jobs, fair pay,
or to release some leader who had been arrested and sentenced to prison
for simply speaking out.

Below you can continue my witnessing the existence of the now defunct
English industrial working class for the next few weeks.
Below are some moments of those confrontations.

An older miner at Kellingley Colliery, Yorkshire, having to re-apply for a lower paid position, being humiliated. 1974 photo:Robert Golden

A miner at the check-in window being told he hasn’t been allowed work for the day. This often happened to miners know to be trade union activists. photo: Robert Golden

Anti-Nazi activists trying to stop a Nazi march in London, separated by several cordons of police. photograph: Robert Golden

Activists find a place in the road to try to block the march; they are pushed around and arrested by the police. In my witnessing, I never saw a demonstrator hit a policeman,although I am sure that somewhere, sometimes it did happen. Today in the UK, simply standing peacefully on the side of the road, watching can get a person arrested and left with a criminal record. This is happening more and more to young people and climate change activists. photo:Robert Golden

This happened at the beginning of the first Notting Hill Festival when the police attacked a friendly peaceable crowd. photograph: Robert Golden

When there was an industrial working class, members of the class and of the trade unions understood that fairness of conditions, pay, schooling were not given by the rich or the state, but rather demanded and gained on the basis of activisms. photo; Robert Golden

The Socialist Worker’s Party organised the Right To Work march from Manchester to London in 1976. The marchers were hindered by regulations and police intimidation (especially their several attempts to arrest the leaders).

When the march reached north London, just in front of a police station, police poured from every direction, violently attacking the marchers and successfully arresting its leaders. My pictures and therefore I was a witness to the event in court. Several of my pictures showed clearly that a young miner could not have attacked a policeman’s coat with a knife as in the same picture the miner is being carried into the station by two other policemen and the supposedly attacked policeman is standing aside with an unripped coat. I was accused of doctoring the negative (this is way before Photoshop); the miner got a year in prison. photograph: Robert Golden

The next day the above rally took place in what was then the Albert Hall. photograph: Robert Golden

The audience cheering a speaker. This was a period when citizens recognised the need to be part of a community that by necessity, recognises for themselves and others that changes are not given but won...photograph: Robert Golden