Fighting chance for world

Press, 23 November 1988, Page 21

Fighting chance for world

TONY VERDON meets E. P. Thompson, a well-known British historian and peace activist who visited New Zealand recently:

Historian E. P. Thompson sits back in the lounge of his rambling two-storey Queen Anne home, just outside Worcester, and contemplates a brighter outlook for the world. For decades, he has been one of Britain’s most outspoken, and eloquent, advocates of nuclear disarmament. “I believe we have a chance of succeeding,” he says, “Whereas in 1980 I was desperately pessimistic about the world situation.”

Professor Thompson led Britain’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the early 1980 s, when thousands of people were brought on to the streets oi London demonstrating against nuclear weapons. His face, with its intense features, became a familiar sight on British television screens and in the newspapers. His strident views brought him into sometimes bitter personal conflict with successive British defence Ministers.

But the years as a full-time, unpaid peace worker took their toll on both his health and his academic work. Over the last two years, he has dramatically scaled down his involvement in the movement.

Earlier this year, he published his first novel, and another book on eighteenth century customs. He makes the point that he was invited to New Zealand to lecture as an academic, not as a campaigner for peace. “Besides, there isn’t anything we have to teach the New Zealand people — they have been teaching us quite a lot,” he says.

Edward Palmer Thompson was born in 1924. His father, a poet, novelist and historian, had been a missionary, as had his mother.

The extraordinary experiences of his elder brother Frank, and official silence about his death, is said to be one of the reasons for Professor Thompson’s life-long mistrust of officialdom. His first book, “There is a Spirit in Europe: a Memoir of MXS, or Frank Thompson,” outlined the story. In 1939, after a year at Oxford, Frank Thompson joined the Communist Party, like so many of his generation in the gathering gloom of the late 19305.

Frank volunteered when war broke out. After action in the Western Desert and Sicily, he parachuted into South Serbia to liaise with Bulgarian partisans. He was captured by pro-Axis Bulgarians and executed, just months before his twenty-fourth birthday. There has never been an official account of the incident.

A friend of Edward Thompson believes he still feels in his elder brother’s shadow, and others say it is difficult to exaggerate Frank Thompson’s influence on him. Unlike many other peace activists in Britain, Edward Thompson has seen active war service. After a year at Cambridge, he was commissioned into the 17/21 Lancers and fought in one big action, Cassino, said to be one of tte bloodiest encounters of the War. He also took part in many

smaller actions against the Germans. Back at Cambridge after the war, he resumed his studies and took a degree in history. He met his wife Dorothy, also an historian. In 1948, he began work as an extra-mural lecturer at Leeds University. While lecturing to Workers’ Educational Associations throughout Yorkshire, the historian also wrote a 900-page book on the life of William Morris and what has become a standard work, “The Making of the English Working Class.” The original contract was for 60,000 words, but the result was nearer 400,000. A fellow Marxist historian once said of E. P. Thompson: "Edward is the only historian I know who has the touch of genius. But the Wicked Fairy said at his birth ‘You shall not have an internal sub-editor.’ It always comes out much longer — and always worthwhile.”

Q _Jr c brother, Edward was a member of the Communist Party. He out over

writing an article in a journal he had helped found, “The Reasoner.” In the 19605, he was invited to become the leader of the new Warwick University Centre for the Study of Social History. According to “The Observer,” he quickly became the “most prestigious” figure in the univeristy’s history department. But during later student revolts, he was accused of inciting students, even though to some Leftist students at the time he was regarded as “something of a bete noire."

From about 1980, he devoted all his time to peace activities, C.N.D. and what he describes as a C.N.D. fringe organisation, European Nuclear Disarmament. “I was for six or seven years pretty well a full-time, unpaid, peace activist,” says Professor Thompson. He believes the work of the peace movement has helped create the less tense international situation which exists today. , “Partly due to o® own efforts,

and a good deal owing to the new, much more flexible regime in the Soviet Union and a response to it that has been more encouraging than one might have expected from the Reagan Administration, the situation is now much less tense than it was,” he says. The “raising of consciousness” in the West had played a part in making politicians much more cautious, and more willing to attempt peace proposals. At times during the early 1980 s, when the British Government decided to accommodate Cruise missiles, anti-nuclear demonstrations in Trafalgar Square would attract up to 800,000 people.

“The peace movement had tremendous support then — I used to be amazed at how much support there was not just in the big cities but in small market towns.”

Professor Thompson’s impressive performances at public meetings helped boost the movement’s strength. Such enthusiasm

could not be maintained forever, and people went on to become involved in other issues. Professor Thompson says politicians today ignore the antinuclear movement at their peril. “It is something of a slumbering giant which can be awoken at any time.”

He believes the New Zealand Government’s anti-nuclear stance has also contributed to present signs of hope internationally. “I think these pressures on both super-Powers are a necessary part of the process of peacemaking. Even the Chinese — who are a little bit ambiguous, you never quite know what they are going to do — appeared to take a sympathetic approach and appeared to be on the verge of doing the same thing.” He says he is not a particularly moderate person himself, but admires the moderate way in which the New Zealand Government has stuck to its non-nuclear policy. While there had obviously been an undercurrent of national sentiment behind the policy in New Zealand, it had also been pursued with great principle by the Government.

"You can contrast this with say Greece and Papandreou, who when he came to power was making far more radical statements about getting rid of American bases, and now after two terms in office he has done almost nothing,” says Professor Thompson. “I know almost nothing about New Zealand politics, but it is strange now in Western Europe to have prominent politicians who are actually principled people, and who actually fulfill their promises.” While Professor Thompson is more optimistic about international affairs, he is less enthused about the future of Britain. He describes himself as a “critical” . supporter of the British Labour Party leader, Neil Kinnock, and as being on the “centre-Left” of the party. He is saddened by attacks on the British National Health Service, introduced by a Labour Government after the war. That administration had introduced a wide range of measures which loosened the class-bound structures of the time. “There is less sense of common spirit now, and less searching for the common good,” he says.

“There is a resurgence of the divisions between the rich and the working population generally, of privilege, although this is not taking the forms of a traditional deferential society. It is much more a success and money society.” He believes the country is split between the wealthy south-east, and the poorer north. “It is an amazing division, and I think people are not necessarily any happier. “They may be in material terms somewhat better off, but it is a very edgy material success, with people being up to their necks in mortgages and hire purchase repayments. “The paper could come off the cracks very quickly.” «