Robert Burns Honoured
FRIENDS AND SUPPORTERS of RCPB(ML) in Birmingham recently organised a
Burns’ Night to honour the life and work of Robert Burns (1759-1796).
In a speech some views were given on what it was that endeared Robert Burns to
so many people both in Scotland and throughout the world, so much so that he is
known as the People’s Poet. The speaker pointed out that Burns is
celebrated not just for his poetry but for the sort of person he was and the
positions he took culturally and politically in the context of his time.
Burns wrote about the things that are close to people’s hearts: love,
friendship, joy in nature, the pain of emigration, love of one’s country
and language amongst them. Some of his songs have endured through the centuries
and are frequently sung today, e.g. “My Love Is Like a Red, Red
Rose”, “Afton Water”, “Ae Fond Kiss” and of course
that internationally famous song of friendship, “Auld Lang Syne”.
As well as a recognition of his own and others’ failings, an intense love
of his fellow human beings shines through Burns’s poetry. One of his
poems, “The Slave’s Lament”, (also written as a song) reveals
Burns’s sentiments for people taken from their native land:
“It was in sweet Senegal that my foes did me enthrall
For the lands of Virginia-ginia O;
Torn from that lovely shore, and must never see it more,
And alas! I am weary, weary O!
...
The burden I must bear, while the cruel scourge I fear,
In the lands of Virginia-ginia O;
And I think on friends most dear with the bitter, bitter tear,
And alas! I am weary, weary O!”
Burns wrote many very humorous and sometimes bitter satires against the
oppressive and inhuman practices of the church of his time and also against his
so-called “superiors”. Whilst being a great admirer of English
poetry, he upheld the use of Scots as the language of culture against the
promotion of English which followed from the destruction of the Scottish
Parliament in 1707. He also did important work on collecting and publishing
traditional songs.
Politically he was a dissident, a radical and a republican. In several poems he
bitterly opposes the sell-out by one section of Scotland’s rulers of the
Scottish Parliament to England. In one well-known poem he says that Scotland
had never been subdued by force or guile, but a “coward few” had
brought Scotland’s downfall and he declares:
“We’re bought and sold for English gold,
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!”
His poetry is deeply egalitarian and in the spirit of his age (as in
Schiller’s poem “Ode to Joy” set to music by Beethoven), he
wrote that
“The rank is but the guinea’s stamp,
The Man’s the gowd (gold) for a’ that”,
And finishes with a statement of faith in the eventual triumph of
international fraternity:
“That Man to Man the warld o’er
Shall brothers be for a’ that”.
The speaker went on to give some views on Burns and his influence on Scottish
culture and identity and how in many ways the ideas contained in his poetry
have become part of a way of life and are deeply embedded in the culture in the
same way that the deeds of Wallace, Bruce and others are. This led to
discussion in particular on questions of English culture and identity, as well
as the culture of the working class. Pointing out that the imperialist
bourgeois policy is to negate all aspects of people’s lives, that its
stock-in-trade is fragmentation and spiritual devastation and that it seeks to
break the unity of the Scottish and English working class and people, the
speaker suggested that the working class perspective would be to develop
everything that is pro-social, positive and life-enhancing in every culture in
order to strengthen the unity and fighting spirit of the working class and
people of all origins.
The evening continued with many lively and wide-ranging discussions on cultural
and political questions, including on traditional songs and music and their
modern counterparts, the marginalisation of singers and groups who work with a
wide range of instruments and traditions and give them modern expression, and
how “culture” is manufactured and manipulated by the imperialist
bourgeoisie to suit its own ends.
The participants listened to and discussed old and new songs and music from the
Celtic/Scottish tradition. Two participants played guitar music and sang some
popular songs to an appreciative audience.
As an initial step towards developing thinking and positions on culture in
social form, culture and identity, and at the same time opposing all forms of
chauvinism, the evening was considered to be a great success. |
US jets are stepping up their criminal
bombing of sites in Iraq. According to news reports, Sandy Berger, the US
National Security Adviser, said that pilots enforcing no-fly zones have been
operating under expanded rules of engagement since last month. US imperialism
now considers the entire Iraqi air defence system, not just sources of attacks,
as a legitimate target for response to so-called “violations of the no-fly
zone”.
On Thursday, January 28, four British Tornado aircraft were also scrambled
along with the US jets. Ten US F-15 and six F-16 fighter-bombers, two escort
“Prowler” radar-jamming aircraft and two AWACS radar and control
aircraft as well as four tankers took off in the course of the morning. On
Thursday, January 26, US warplanes based at Incirlik in Turkey attacked five
targets in northern Iraq after they had been targeted by Iraqi anti-aircraft
systems. The day before, a US missile had landed in a residential area of the
southern city of Basra. According to Iraqi sources, 18 people were killed and
59 injured in the blast.