Words of wisdom from famed former Labour MP Tony Benn

A CLASS ACT: Words of wisdom from famed former Labour MP Tony Benn Review by Ruth Latta Letters to my Grandchildren: Thoughts on the Future, by Tony Benn, Hutchinson (Random House), 2009, $48.50.

"Every generation has to fight the same battles for peace, justice and democracy," writes Tony Benn, "and there is no final victory or final defeat.'

Benn is best known to North Americans through Michael Moore's documentary, Sicko, about the American need for a national health care program. His eloquent, informative remarks when interviewed by Moore provided one of the film's highlights.

Now retired after a 50-year career as a Labour Party Member of Parliament in Britain, Benn considers the National Health program to be his country's greatest achievement. These days, the 84-year-old Benn is president of Britain's Stop the War Coalition and has just published Letters to my Grandchildren: Thoughts on the Future.

Older readers may remember him as Anthony Wedgwood Benn, elected to Parliament at age 26 in 1951, after serving in the RAF and working for the BBC. Both Benn's grandfathers were Liberal MPs, as was his father, who switched to Labour and was later made a peer. Upon his father's death, Tony Benn declined to leave the Commons for the House of Lords (which he wants abolished) and ultimately renounced his peerage.

Benn does not subject his grandchildren, who range in age from 13 to 31, to a longwinded, preachy discourse. Only when past events pertain to a current issue does Benn take a quick trip down memory lane. For instance, he views the environmental crisis as basically one of shortage, and asks, "How has shortage been handled in the past?

"In theory, it would have been perfectly possible to tackle the food shortages [in World War ? Britain] by raising prices," he writes, "but this would have meant starving the poor, which was not acceptable, not least because the poor were needed to fight the war." So food was rationed. "However wealthy you were, you could not get more than your allotted ration... The height of working class children rose by two inches as a result of their improved diet."

Benn relates rationing, "an incredible act of public policy," to the principle of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and links this in turn to his objection to carbon credits as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Remembering the 1930s, Benn sees the current economic situation as "a rerun" of those hard times, only this time on a global scale. He deplores Brown's New Labour government for failing to seize the day.

"A really determined government," he argues, "would not just be bailing out the banks in the hope that the old system could be recreated and made to work again. It would be analyzing the need for food, work and homes, and would invite local authorities to make a list of what is needed to be done... and would fund them to do it." This is not happening because New Labour's policies do not differ much from those of ultra-conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Benn's assessment of Thatcher is highly relevant to readers outside of Britain who are now living under conservative administrations. Also of universal interest is Benn's delineation of the ways in which �lites maintain and exert power and control. These include violence and terror; religion; debt slavery (which puts people at the mercy of their employers); fear of a dangerous enemy (the "war on terror"); divide and conquer (pitting men against women, young against old, one race/ethnicity/culture against another); demoralization (the idea that only a few have the capacity or entitlement to run things); and cynicism.

"Confidence," writes Benn, "is a class issue," and "encouragement is the most important thing that can be given." He advises demonstrators never to say that they are "protesting," for "protest" implies that all is lost and that one can only complain. Rather, he advises them, speak of demands for change.

Benn is wholeheartedly in favour of social media and the Internet as great tools for rapid organizing and building solidarity worldwide. Although many older adults worry about youth illiteracy, Benn does not. Oral communication is more important than written, in his view. He writes: "It has often occurred to me that the great civilizations of the world were made up of illiterate people." He claims to have learned more by listening than through formal education, which can be used as a means of social control by making people feel inferior.

But what of Benn's 20 previous books, listed in Letters to my Grandchildren! Although Benn says modestly, when asked about his education, that it is "still in progress," he is an Oxford graduate who had a grandfather in the publishing business and who has benefited from being part of a milieu that values the written word. His belief that "what we want for ourselves we desire for all" therefore seems inconsistent with his notion that illiteracy among young people is not a serious problem.

Generally, though, Benn has written a wise and warm book. Let's hope it will soon be published in paperback and win a wider readership.

[Author Affiliation]

(Ruth Latta is the co-author of Grace Maclnnis: A Woman to Remember, and author of They Tried: The Story of the Canadian Youth Congress).