History and the tales it tells.

 Subject: History and the tales it tells.



Reading of the 1930s imposed famine in the Ukraine one sees the historical tension between Russian an Ukraine played out by a monstrous body count. 6 million largely Ukrainian  peasants died of starvation in the Soviets realignment of productive capacity from farming to industrial pig iron. In a day of media attention the sight of ten million staving agricultural worked dying on their feet from hunger should have stifled all political acceptance of communism as a stable alternative to capitalism in the 1930 but the malign aspect of Bolshevik ideology, where people were expendable to the  national ideological plan dreamt up by Marxist/ Leninist thinkers who, when led  by Joseph Stalin was ultimately responsible for up to over 10 million deaths of his own people. These dark age statistics have never been understood in this country as it struggles to come to terms with its period of Empire and Colonialism. The Jallianwala massacre in the Indian town of Amritsar where 379 Indian people were shot by the British Army is a black mark on our history and taught in our schools as such but the Maoist extermination of millions of their own people in the cause of mind cleansing, ranks with Stalin and Hitlers monstrous purge of 6 million Jews in Germany.

The point of history and historians is to set the record straight and by doing so warn the present of the depths mankind can sink when ideologically unhinged. We are different but similar to wild animals and whilst, through the black art of propaganda and untrammelled communication we can be worked up to accept the killing at least the animal does it for food and self preservation.

Language and communication therefore sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom and in the case above it was ideology which allowed the blood letting, ‘ideology’ a phrase easily used but little understood, a set of ideas or beliefs, often political which characterise a particular culture. There has to me to be a certain acceptance of a totalitarian mindset for ideology to take over as the dissenter is pushed aside (and often murdered) to collectivise a national viewpoint and its a danger when through media platforms the ‘common man’ is exposed to propaganda. Truth and rational debate give way to scurrilous rhetoric, rabble rousing anger is easily bent to some sinister purpose and the population becomes complicit to what is going on around them. The Weston Capitalist have their own sinister agenda I believe globalisation is one. It desensitises people to the real cost of their consumerism and the hardship it causes in distant communities. It was only through the real time exploitation of the World Wide Web that the fragmentation of the industrial process allowed the poorest to be engaged in production and whilst this brought some relief to the poor in western countries it also took away their ability to compete for work

The politician here and seems obsessed by winning votes rather than being effective in which ever ministry he or she is given. The sense of ‘conviction’ politics seems dead but without conviction the political dynamic is worthless. The merry go round of a prime ministerial reshuffle, moving the dummies in the shop window serves little purpose unless it’s to remove a non performer. The ministerial brief of a department is pretty unique to the type of department they control. Learning that brief and then a year later move the person on to new responsibilities seems totally counter productive.

Rory Stewart’s book “Politics on the Edge” was an incisive expose of the turbulence of ministerial office when plotting and almost internecine warfare between smart boys of Eton prevented him from doing his job when birth has given you privilege, the job you do is almost incidental and the out come almost irrelevant.

We will see I hope a change in emphasis with this new government but never underestimate the power of the civil service and its phalanx of Etonians ready and willing to impede its change.