Dear J
You ask what my schooling was like in the UK? Well, I went to school in 1972 in a post-industrial town in rural Devon. As the UK was entering the EEC, I learned the old imperial measures and the new metric measures. The 1970s had lost the gloss the 1960s and the National Front was on the march (mass immigration from the colonies was to blame). Yes – Britain still had en empire but was losing it rapidly. Millions of Indians and Pakistanis were resettled en masse – mostly up North – a reality I did not appreciate to fairly late in my life. The 1976 film above shows a South London school – oddly enough – where I live now and my children go to learn. I started to explore London in the mid-1980s – and got to see other groups of people, realising my family was Irish and Chinese, as well as being English. My instinct, oddly enough, was to hang round with other non-White or Irish people.
I very rarely got on with Anglo-Saxons and this is still the case – although I hide it much better today (there are working realities). I have always advised that irritating the dominant ethnicity is not a good idea as it leads to even more pressure and injustice. The Chinese have a saying that means we should “not stand-out” and “appear to not be there” when in another people’s country. This is why Chinese people do not riot or stick-up for their rights. Obviously, this attitude, as wise as it may seem, does have its downside, as in the US the Black community attacks the Chinese community out of frustration for what the White community is doing to both. Some Black people are like this in the UK – but not all. When stood queuing outside the London Aquarium once, a West Indian woman started racially abusing Gee and ramming a push-chair into the back of Gee’s legs – accusing her of being responsible for the queue. Being racist, she had no idea that Gee was with me.
When she realised this – she looked worried and left. So, White-looking people can still be of some use to non-White people. You would be surprised at the extent of internecine in-fighting between non-White groups in the UK. Anyway, I am a proletariat “Internationalist” – Marxist-Leninist-Maoist. I was all this when I was born – but it took me years and years to work it all out. Marx was right and we will end-up living in a Communist paradise at some point in the future. This might be violent, peaceful, or quite natural. If you had told someone 500-years ago that the Catholic Church would be gone, the monarch beheaded, and society Secular today – they would have thought you made. And yet here we are. The reactionaries can spew-forth their filth – it doesn’t matter one jot. We all know our duty. Be brave and never show it hurts.
In the meantime, evolution has equipped you with this magnificent thing called a “brain” – use it well. Think for yourself and NEVER let anyone tell you what to think (When I was about 12 – I visited a coal-mining friend of my Dad’s living in Wales – and this is what he told me between 12-hour shifts down the pits). No matter what is happening in your life at this very moment, as the Buddha said, “It will pass.” In my youth I remember the Milkman coming a 3am and the Postman at 7am. I remember the street-lights outside being switched-off at midnight – and back-on again at 6am. I remember a Socialist NHS that actually cared for use, a welfare system that worked, libraries packed with books worth reading, and getting a council houses after a two-week wait. How lucky I was to have experienced all these things. Even now I only have a nodding acquaintance with the metric system.
I measure things in inches, feet, yards and country miles. Weight is in ounces, pounds, stones, and tons. Horses are measured in hands. What I did lose was the old money system. There used to be 240 ounce in a pound, but the EEC ruined that by reducing a pound to just 100-pence (mimicking the US dollar we are being groomed to accept). Oh yes, and during the 1970s, teachers in the UK possessed the right to administer corporal punishment using an open-hand, a slipper, or a cane. The blows could be to the bottom or the palm of the hand. Thankfully, we have moved away from this and a teacher would be imprisoned today for even touching a child in the wrong way. Teachers used to hit the children they did not like – and spare the children they did like. Class played a part – as the poor were hit and the rich merely warned.
Although I never witnessed or experienced anything like this, I have read that paedophile teachers were everywhere in those days and sexually abused children. British society was premised upon military discipine – as if we were always being prepared for mass conscription and war. Even then, I noticed that Black kids with no training were really good at football – and I say this coming from a background where my Dad played for Leicester City Reserves and was scouted by Nottingham Forest. He taught me everything he knew and I was good (in defence). I understood what I was looking at. The raw talent of Black children from abject poverty was incredible to behold.
Best Wishes
Adrian
PS: I moved to a different school in the city of Exeter in 1977 (a product of British Socialism) when I was 10-years old – and my life changed dramatically for the better. That school had no uniform and had voluntarily outlawed corporal punishment. There was also a zero tolerance toward bullying – which was unusual in those days (bullying was a national pastime).
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 