Services made with our hands and our hearts

There is a lot of election talk in the UK these days, which is unsurprising with the EU elections recently taking place and the next national election due in one year’s time. Current polls are starting to suggest that the lead the opposition Labour Party has held for a few years is beginning to slip, and the Conservatives may rebuild their base over the next year and win the election outright – rather than having to go into coalition with the Liberal Democrats as they did this time around.

All of this is very interesting, but only if you’re a bit of a geek for UK politics. What might prove more interesting to all of us in the long term, however, is that a particular topic seems to slowly be creeping onto the radar of the national discussion that will take place over the next year – and that topic is renationalization. The Green Party are explicitly arguing for the railways to be nationalized again, and some in the Labour Party are encouraging leader Ed Miliband to do the same, seeing it as a potentially very popular policy among voters from all sides of the political spectrum.

Many British institutions that were traditionally owned by the state – most notably the railways and the energy infrastructure – were sold off to private companies during the 18 years that the Conservatives were in power under Margaret Thatcher and John Major. The current Conservative government is following a similar path by slowly trying to sell off more and more of the much-loved National Health Service. However, such policies are seen by much of the public as a disaster – they have seen the ways in which energy bills and train tickets are permanently going up while service levels get worse and worse. A recent poll by YouGov found that 68% of the British public support handing the energy companies back to the state, 66% support nationalizing the railways, and a massive 84% believe that the health service should not be sold to private companies.

The railways, energy companies, and health service were built up by generations of hard work from the people of Britain. They were not created by private companies, and private companies did nothing to create the value they had when they were privatized. By selling them off, Thatcher essentially gave away decades of labor to her corporate friends at a price far below what it was actually worth. The companies running these services have proven that they do not have the same level of passion for them that the British people do, they do not care for the effects of their policies on the people, and they care only about profits rather than about providing an efficient service to those who need it. Things will be no different if the health service is given to private companies – indeed, they may be worse, as profit would then be taking precedence over what is literally a matter of life and death.

The damage privatization did to the UK was huge, and is ongoing – both in terms of the gradual decline of the railways and the energy companies, and in terms of the ideology of private profit and ‘free markets’ that it helped to spread. However, we still have time to reverse it if we act now, and consequently the upcoming election campaign needs to hinge around the issue of keeping the National Health Service in public hands, and returning the other services to the people who built them. The Green Party should be commended for making this part of their platform, and those on the left need to encourage Labour to follow suit – for the good of all working people in the UK.

British institutions, British people, British public support, Conservative government, Conservatives, damage privatization, Ed Miliband, effects of policies, efficient service, election talk, energy bills, energy companies, energy infrastructure, EU elections, free markets, gradual decline, Green Party, health service, in public hands, John Major, Liberal Democrats, Margaret Thatcher, national discussion, national election, National Health Service, opposition Labour Party, political spectrum, popular policy, private companies, private profit, railways to be nationalized, renationalization, train tickets, UK politics, upcoming election campaign, win election, working people, YouGov

In remembrance of Nelson Mandela

Deng Xiaoping, the former President of China, was asked in the 1980s what he thought the impact of the French Revolution had been on world history. He replied “it is too soon to say”. To an extent, the same answer can be given to the question “what is the historical significance of the life of Nelson Mandela?”. As the tributes and eulogies are being written we can say for certain some of the events he inspired and facilitated, but it's really too soon for any of to fully understand the impact this man had and will have on history.

But we can say a few things. We know that he fought for the downtrodden, the oppressed, the unequal – the people with nothing. He fought against unjust and undeserved power, against powerful people who had no qualms about hanging on to their privileges through violence and repression and racism. This is the well-known Nelson Mandela, the version that will be taught in schools and repeated on news broadcasts, and to an extent this is rightly so – for he did all of these things.

However, some of the details of Mandela's life and work will be less repeated in  the media in the coming days, as they reveal a man who was not just the simple anti-racist symbol that western politicians would like him to be. Mandela, like Gandhi, understood that you don't get equality just by asking nicely. There must be the underlying threat that equality, because it is a right, will at some point be taken if it is not freely given. This explains Mandela's leadership of the armed wing of the ANC, one of the most controversial aspects of his life, and the thing that most directly led him to a prison cell on Robben Island. And Mandela knew the power of solidarity among the oppressed, and the way in which working class organization can provide that threat and that promise – he was a lifelong supporter of trade unions.

Another thing that is forgotten by the politicians that are currently celebrating him – their predecessors, the powerful people of the 1970s and 80s, hated Mandela. In the last decade-and-a-half, as an old man who had retired from active political life, he was easy to refer to as an example of how capitalism and liberal democracy can allow some level of justice and equality. But before the changes in the South African regime became inevitable in the early 1990s he was despised and abandoned by western leaders like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan – called a communist and a terrorist. Those leaders understood that Mandela posed a challenge to them, and they wanted to keep him down for as long as possible. Today's leaders are largely the same – a modern-day Mandela, championing the poor against the powerful, would no doubt spend a very long time in prison as well.

One final thing that we can definitely say about Nelson Mandela at this point – his life should be seen as an inspiration for future action, not merely as a monument to past achievements. Not everything he did was perfect, and the difficulties he faced in overturning centuries of oppression are evident in the continuing struggles of South Africa today. But ultimately, his vision was one of justice, equality, and fairness – the same things that we are fighting for, in our very different way. We hope you will join us in the journey.

Mandela, Deng Xiaoping, Gandhi, ANC, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, NRGLab, SH-box, violence, repression, racism