Taking Liberties

Memory of the World

Recent additions to the UN's Memory of the World Register have been announced today, including Magna Carta (1215), which was the centrepiece of the 'Rule of Law' section of the exhibition.  Other items on the list include Anne Frank's Diaries, the League of Nations' Archives, the Archives of Terror, and Woodblocks of Nguyen Dynasty - a list of hope and horror, and all records that must be preserved for posterity.  The full list is online.

Meare reflections

Not much evidence of a movement towards an autonomous Somerset at the weekend, but there was a village street party (or there would have been if rain hadn't stopped play), a village scarecrow competition, debate about lorries rampaging through the main street, and lots of signs advertising a fete for the playing field; all evidence not just of life imitating the Archers, but of civil society in full swing. 

Getting a campaign together must surely be as much about creating a sense of community, having meals together, and discussing things informally as it is petitioning, marching, or protesting.  The Chartists knew this, which is why historians have begun to look as much as who was involved in organising tea and sandwiches, playgroups and informal schooling, as well as the more formal 'public sphere'.  On the train back I read something in the London Review of Books about the current possible failure of 'democracy’s authentic potential'.  The Chartists were fighting for this potential; I wonder if localised action, disconnected from national politics, is more the melancholy sound of its retreat.

And speaking of things outside of London, and on a more upbeat note, there's still time to see the travelling Henry VIII exhibition at York.

Yes, Hominid

Sir Anthony Jay was on the Today programme this morning (listen again at 8:47).  The co-writer of Yes, Minister, was arguing that smaller communities should be given greater decision-making power.

At root, he suggests that the ideal of a decision-making community is 6,000 - in part a legacy of our social evolution from the great apes - and that this should form the basis for a New Great Reform Act (the full report, from the Centre for Policy Studies is online).   The larger the administrative unit, or the greater the number of representatives, the less people feel able to get involved with politics or feel that it represents them.  Constituencies of 70,000 mean we are unlikely to feel we know our M.P., or our fellow citizens.

We showed a map of one of the new constituencies - in Brighton -  that followed the original Reform Act (1832) in the exhibition (along, of course, with the Reform Act itself), but this piece particularly caught my attention, as Sir Anthony lives in the village next to where I grew up (indeed, he kindly inscribed a copy of the scripts of Yes, Minister during a village fête).  As it happens, I'm heading off there for the weekend, so I'll report back on any stirrings for a more autonomous Somerton or an independent Meare.

P.S., last call to take part in the 'bloggers' circle', developed by Matthew Taylor (of the RSA) and Matt Cain, an experiment in peer review

Springtime in Germany

Readers of this blog may be interested to know that colleagues in the German section have begun a blog: "Dach-Blog".  So far, they've outlined the work of the section and posted some reflections on the staging of Mel Brooks's The Producers in Berlin's Admiralspalast.

Dates

Today is 14 July, or as it's known with more violent echoes in Britain, Bastille Day.  The French national day always brings to mind happy memories: France is one of the few places where I can be convinced to try and dance, and this includes the convivial atmosphere of the fire station in the 18e as part of their traditional firemans ball.   

The French spent a fair amount of time discussing when to hold their national holiday (or festivals), both during the Revolution and afterwards. 14 July was only settled on in the late nineteenth century, suggesting how difficult it can be to agree on a what might be called the national story.  In Britain, the idea of a national day comes up from time to time, but although 15 June (a possible date for 'Magna Carta Day') would at least be in summer, the lack of a clear moment of rupture or creation in our national history perhaps suggests that any such event might be at best rather artificial and souless; at worst, it would deny the complexity of history and promote an outdated view of nationalism.

That said, inventive and joyful national events, perhaps involving picnics and dancing, are a good thing.  And why does it have to be on a set date?  A roaming national festival, perhaps one year co-inciding with Wimbledon and celebrating Darwin (survival of the fittest?), the next the Ashes and Newton (gravity and physics must have something to do with cricket, surely?)...

Taking the Time

I promised/threatened in my last post to mention the Tour de France, and it hasn't taken me long: the quotation of the TdF so far has to be from the current leader, Fabian Cancellara, who commented laconically on his 0.138 second retention of the yellow jersey after the third stage Team Time Trial, "Swiss timing – very precise." 

Time and timing has come up again, after I attended a wonderful commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the birth of the Peruvian historian Garcilaso de la Vega, which included commentaries by the historian John Hemming, the novelist Mario Vargas Llosa and the psychoanalyst Max Hernández. Curious about one of Peru's leading intellectuals, I was delighted to find this piece on Hernández's role in the co-ordination of a campaign to encourage punctuality - "La Hora sin Demora" (time without delay), as I'm always intrigued by geographical (and historical) differences in time-keeping and awareness.  And more pressingly, my eyes are still propped open after spending 8:45 pm Sat - 4:20 am Sun riding to Dunwich.  Matters of time and timing are everywhere, it seems.

The exhibition, of course, also implicitly acknowledged the role of time.  Chronology provided an underlying, inescapable structure, from Magna Carta to the Human Rights Act, even as it was given apparent second-billing to themes (such as the Rule of Law or Freedom of Speech and Belief), and led to the risk of accusations of 'whiggery'.  But time, and its control, are also tied up with the tensions implied by liberty, rights and freedoms, just as much as they are about property or space.  The control of time, historians such as E. P. Thompson argued, have been centrally important to the creation of a productive, - and docile - citizen and subject.

Many important rights, such as freedom from detention without charge, are time-bound; measures of time, such as 42 days, were very much at the fore during the exhibition's gestation.  Many of the great nineteenth-century social movements charted in the section on social rights, concentrated on limited the hours worked by children, and eventually by all workers.  More recently, attention has been drawn to the 'double-day' demanded of many women, especially in the developing world.  Time still means much more than who wears a yellow jersey.

P.S., congratulations to the TL team for winning the Nominet Best Practice Challenge 2009 in the 'Open Internet' category. 

Declaration of Independence

It's the tenth anniversary of the Scottish Parliament this week (1 July) and most opinion polls seem to suggest that while devolution has been popular, the desire for independence from the Union seems to have waned. If anything, the anniversary has been rather understated, with any hand wringing about national identity, Britishness, etc. relegated to water-cooler and discussions of events in SW19.  

There may be more sports-related remarks on this blog following 4 July. That date - and discussion of independence - also brings to mind a recent discovery in The National Archives, according to PhiloBiblos.  An unknown copy of the first printing of the U.S. Declaration of Independence (called the 'Dunlap Declaration' after its printer) has been uncovered by a New Jersey rare book dealer.  The dealer also paid a visit to the BL (which at the time was displaying one of TNA's copies of the Declaration in the exhibition), but as far as I know didn't make any similar discoveries here...

Still, issues of national identity still abound: according to the blog account of the discovery, "The whole thing was really very English. No cause for excitement. You find a new D of I, you have a cup of tea, and you move on."