Recently in Glasgow we have had a spate of school closures and campaigns to save them. This in turn sent my prowling through some old anarchist material and I came across some bits and pieces from 1996 that highligts that nothing ever changes on the agenda of the ruling class. It is always the same attack, cut spending on the needs of the ordinary people.
The peom below was written during such a campaign in 1996 by Freddie Anderson, Irish born Glasgow based anarchist, poet, playwrite and activist. Freddie was born 11 September 1922 and died 10 December 2001.
WHO’S TO BLAME?
Whenever misrule grabs state power
and keeps in bond the nation,
the foremost of its great misdeeds
are cuts in education
for learning is a noble thing
and in its grans pursuit
we throw old predudice aside
and seek to find the Ttruth.
So those who shut our school-house doors
do so with vile intent
be they local councillors
or a gangster government,
they’ll blame each other endlessly
for crimes they common share,
conveniently forgetting that
two must make a pair.
Now who are the bigger vandals
the louts who burn our schools
or the scoundrels who just close the down
according to the rules.