Posted on March 19, 2013 by Rev. Stuart Campbell
The usage of Nazi terminology to refer to any actions of a democratically-elected UK government is nearly always an absurd and unhelpful exaggeration. Today, however, one such analogy is absolutely literally justified.
The words “Arbeit Macht Frei” were emblazoned, usually in iron, over the gates of numerous concentration and extermination camps in 1930s and 1940s Germany, most infamously Dachau and Auschwitz. The phrase is usually rendered in English as “work makes you free”, though a more precise translation of the first word is “labour”.
That the same exhortation is used in Britain in 2013 by The Salvation Army tells you all you need to know about the ideological climate of the modern United Kingdom.
Today the House Of Commons will vote to pass legislation denying compensation to people the Westminster government was found guilty in a court of law of mistreating by forcing them onto unpaid-labour schemes. The measure, brought forward by the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition administration, is expected to be tacitly backed by Labour MPs who will, under a party whip, abstain rather than oppose it.
The “workfare” programmes involved order the unemployed, sick and disabled to work for both charities and large commercial corporations without pay for varying periods of time, effectively as punishment for continuing to be unemployed. (Regardless of the fact that there are millions more sick, disabled and unemployed people than there are job vacancies available.)
For the disabled in particular, that period can be indefinite, and refusal for any category of “offender” can be – and is – met with the removal of all state benefits, leaving the subject with no means of paying for food or shelter. A public outcry over the inhumane policy has seen many charities withdraw from the scheme, but a remarkable statement from the Salvation Army this month took a different view.
“At The Salvation Army, we have a history of believing in emancipation through employment”“Emancipation through employment”? Or, put another way, freedom through work. In the eyes of the Salvation Army – and also of the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour – it seems that citizens of the UK (sometimes known as “subjects of the Queen”) no longer have the unalienable right to freedom, though we don’t recall the passage of such a law. Liberty apparently must be earned, by stacking shelves in Poundland or sorting old jumpers in charity shops for nothing, against your will.
Successive right-wing governments in Westminster, urged on by even more right-wing newspapers (such the Daily Mail, which last year quoted “Arbeit Macht Frei” directly and approvingly before hastily coming to its senses), have succeeded in creating an atmosphere whereby the unfortunate, ill and disadvantaged are seen by the British public as parasitic, workshy scroungers undeserving of state assistance.
‘The same survey, incidentally, shows that support for Scottish independence among Scots has grown as UK attitudes towards social security have hardened. Contrary to the oft-aired media narrative of stagnant or falling numbers in favour of independence, the data shows that support in 2011 was at the second-highest level recorded since the opening of the Scottish Parliament in 1999′With no major party opposed to it in the Commons, workfare is unquestionably the future for the United Kingdom’s poor. Labour introduced it – and has made it explicitly clear that the party doesn’t represent those who aren’t in work – while the Tories have naturally embraced it with alacrity as part of their drive to return Britain to a feudal age by turning the disadvantaged into serfs.
We should be clear, for the benefit of the faux-offended who invariably spring from the swamps at the first sniff of an an analogy involving the Nazis – we’re NOT for a moment suggesting that the UK is on a path to extermination camps, or that the Work Programme is equivalent to the Holocaust. But that doesn’t mean turning a blind eye to the plain facts.
When even the Christians find themselves able to advocate government policy by asserting that “work makes you free”, in days when the vulnerable and frightened end their own lives in growing numbers rather than endure any more state persecution, and thousands designated “fit for work” die of their illnesses while waiting for the DWP to send them out to unpaid forced labour for the “charities” who are supposed to be their last hope of protection, a chill runs up our spines just the same.
See also:
Scottish independence is fast becoming the only option Posted on January 22, 2013
Why Labour doesn’t need Scotland Posted on January 10, 2012 by Rev. Stuart Campbell
Please sign and share – this petition is being handed in to Liam Byrne at the Labour Party’s Disability Summit in London on Monday morning!
Joint Statement and Petition by Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and Black Triangle Anti-Defamation Campaign in Defence of Disability Rights on the Labour Party Anti-Bedroom Tax Campaign
WE, THE UNDERSIGNED,
Urge all disabled and non-disabled activists campaigning against Tory welfare reform and in particular, the Bedroom Tax, to call on Labour members, constituency parties, plus affiliated and non-affiliated unions and political groups, to:
Challenge the Parliamentary Labour Party in the strongest terms, on why it considers compulsory labour necessary to combat the Bedroom Tax.
To start with, they should be told:
1. To use the current protests against the bedroom tax by disabled activists and others as a Trojan horse from which to promote a policy of benefits that is conditional on compulsory work is utterly beyond the pale.
This means that those unemployed and disabled men and women, who campaign against the Bedroom Tax within the Labour Party will, in effect, be campaigning for their own forced labour under a future Labour government.
2. We have to be absolutely clear: There is no such thing as a civilized society that treats people in inhumane and degrading ways.
A welfare ‘safety net’ conditional on exchanging labour for an uncertain standard of material life is a contradiction in terms.
3. No real job is compulsory – does the Labour Party understand the economic meaning of free labour? If not, how can it run any kind of economy, let alone a socially just economy?
A Labour Party welfare policy should support those whose lack of social power has reduced their circumstances, not compete with a Tory-led government to smear them as feckless and undeserving of a living wage.
4. Liam Byrne should immediately strike out all references to work conditionality or compulsory work, attached to the Labour Party Campaign Against the Bedroom Tax.
NO FORCED LABOUR UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES AND NO SANCTIONS FOR ANY REASON
