Saturday 5 May 2012

Spanish Civil War meeting

There was a meeting on the Spanish Civil War at  the Peoples History Museum, Manchester on April 28th addressed by the "learned" professor Paul Preston a self proclaimed expert of 40 years standing on the Spanish  Civil War. Professsor Preston in his own inimitable style traduced the role of the anarchists linking them to bandits, murderers, and common criminals.     During questions I spoke from the microphone adjoining the top table.    At one point after I had heavily criticised the Professors decidedly biased narrative and vitriolic  attack on the anarcho-syndicalist role, he "lost the plot" completely, jumped up and pushed me aside from the microphone. Such behaviour was a sad commentary on the professors composure and inability to respond in a professional manner to  my critique of his quasi communist apologia for the Republican Governments repression of the most radical opponents of the direction of official policy. His quite disgraceful antics occasioned a significant degree of support for the libertarian arguments I was presenting to an audience of the IBMT trust which would not necessarily be especially sympathetic to an anarcho-syndicalist take on the Spanish Civil War.

No comments: