The Lifeboat News
[ Message Archive | The Lifeboat News ]

    Any good articles on Peterloo? Archived Message

    Posted by Ian M on August 19, 2019, 1:11 pm

    Thought I'd include a bit for the next XR newsletter.

    I saw that Peter Linebaugh article: https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/08/peterloo/ mentioned in a K264 thread in May and will try to find the Mike Leigh film somewhere. A possible lesson for XR folk might be that scrupulous adherence to nonviolence and respectability doesn't guarantee that the state will abide by the same standards:

    'Samuel Bamford, a local radical who led the Middleton contingent, wrote that "It was deemed expedient that this meeting should be as morally effective as possible, and, that it should exhibit a spectacle such as had never before been witnessed in England."[4] Instructions were given to the various committees forming the contingents that "Cleanliness, Sobriety, Order and Peace" and a "prohibition of all weapons of offence or defence" were to be observed throughout the demonstration.[22]

    [...]

    The assembly was intended by its organisers and participants to be a peaceful meeting; Henry Hunt had exhorted everyone attending to come "armed with no other weapon but that of a self-approving conscience",[41] and many were wearing their "Sunday best" clothes.[27] Samuel Bamford recounts the following incident, which occurred as the Middleton contingent reached the outskirts of Manchester:

    On the bank of an open field on our left I perceived a gentleman observing us attentively. He beckoned me, and I went to him. He was one of my late employers. He took my hand, and rather concernedly, but kindly, said he hoped no harm was intended by all those people who were coming in. I said "I would pledge my life for their entire peaceableness." I asked him to notice them, "did they look like persons wishing to outrage the law? were they not, on the contrary, evidently heads of decent working families? or members of such families?" "No, no," I said, "my dear sir, and old respected master, if any wrong or violence take place, they will be committed by men of a different stamp from these." He said he was very glad to hear me say so; he was happy he had seen me, and gratified by the manner in which I had expressed myself. I asked, did he think we should be interrupted at the meeting? he said he did not believe we should; "then," I replied, "all will be well"; and shaking hands, with mutual good wishes, I left him, and took my station as before.'     - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterloo_massacre

    Admittedly the circumstances are somewhat different, XR not being driven by class struggle in the same way. However, demands for government reform, if made continually and insistently enough with escalation of tactics will likely result in state repression, albeit maybe not on the same scale.

    Any contributions welcome.

    cheers,
    I

    Message Thread: