Respected members of the diplomatic corps

Comrades and Friends

I want to say a few words of thanks.

Thank you to the 94 years young Professor Kamal Majid for his touching words, for his decades of friendship, comradeship, kindness, generosity, and wisdom, and above all his unstinting commitment to the cause of human liberation.

Thank you to the representatives, our friends and comrades, from the People’s Republic of China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and the Republic of Cuba for joining us all here this evening.

And special thanks also to Ambassador Felix Plasencia of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela for his greetings. This morning his office conveyed his regrets given, and I quote, “the post-electoral circumstances and the intense daily work schedule that we are carrying out from the embassy.” We, of course, send our full support and solidarity, as ever, to the Venezuelan people, and their leadership, heroically defending their revolution.

There’s a line in the Internationale that goes: ‘A Better World’s in Birth.’

Those inspiring words of revolutionary optimism were written amidst the bitter defeat of the Paris Commune.

But every time I visit the People’s Republic of China, over more than four decades now, as well as on all my numerous visits over almost as many years to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and the single visits I have made to Vietnam, Cuba and Venezuela, I have drawn strength and inspiration from the fact that, in those countries and some others, that better world is now not simply in birth. It has been born and, yes, with all the trials and vicissitudes of growth and development, it is maturing and becoming stronger with each passing day.

The British communist leader Harry Pollitt recalled how his mother Mary had worked in a cotton mill since she was twelve years of age. According to her son, she rose at 4.30 a.m. to get ready for the 6 a.m. start. She rushed back to give the children’s breakfast at 8 a.m. but she had to be back to work at 8.30. Dinner time, 12.30 to 1.25, brought another scramble home so that she could provide the children’s dinner. Her working day did not end until 5.30 p.m. In the evenings she attended classes in economics and industrial history and went to political meetings. She told her son that she found in socialism the hope of a new and better future for humanity.

Harry Pollitt grew up in extreme poverty and saw two of his siblings die. As one writer has put it: “His mother, like most working-class women, lost as many children in infancy as she brought up, for want of sufficient care, the right food, and enough time off from her exhausting job to look after herself and her babies.”

This was the background to Pollitt’s response to the revolution in Russia. He recalled in his booklet Looking Ahead:

“The workers have done it at last. It wouldn’t have mattered where this revolution had taken place… The thing that mattered was that lads like me had whacked the bosses and the landlords, had taken their factories, their lands and their banks…. That was enough for me. These were the lads and lasses I must support through thick and thin.”

As his biographer John Mahon was to write: “The impact of the Russian socialist revolution upon Pollitt was profound, it decided the future course of his life. Immediately, without hesitation, doubt or reservation, he took his stand in support of the Soviet Republic. His decision was no temporary fit of enthusiasm, to evaporate as did that of so many others, as capitalist and reformist disapproval hardened into hatred and repressive intervention… It was a passionate personal commitment impelling him to reject any prospect of his own aggrandisement through cooperation with the capitalist establishment and to devote his whole being to the service of the working class and the cause of socialism.”

It is in that spirit that we welcome the representatives of the socialist countries this evening.

Thank you, also, to Joe Dwyer from Sinn Féin for joining us. Long ago, James Connolly wrote that, “the cause of Labour is the cause of Ireland. The cause of Ireland is the cause of Labour. They cannot be dissevered.”

History does not proceed in a straight line. It can move forward in unexpected ways, and it can take time to properly understand things. But one thing we can surely say is that the independence and reunification of Ireland is now not simply a task placed on the agenda but definitely a task taken up for solution. And, if as a confirmed atheist I can borrow these words, let me echo those I once heard Gerry Adams use to conclude his address to a Sinn Féin Ard Fheis (or Annual Conference): “God speed the day.”

A huge thank you to my friend and comrade of half a century, Hugh. For his amazing generosity, and his countless hours of hard and painstaking work that has made this evening possible, and for everything else.

Another huge thank you to Carlos. It’s an oft repeated truism that nobody is indispensable. But in the work that he and I do together almost literally every single day, especially on Friends of Socialist China, Carlos certainly gives that truism a good run for its money.

Thank you to each and every one of you. For coming along this evening. For your friendship, but especially for your comradeship, and for everything you do.

A fairly broad spectrum of progressive opinion is represented here this evening. We won’t all agree on everything. But let’s also try to remember that, at the end of the day, the essence of where we might disagree is on how best to realise the better world that we all believe in and all long to see.

And, especially, thank you to the management, staff and all the team from this just-opened Palestine House and from the Hiba Restaurant downstairs.

It is a huge privilege to be among the first to support this worthy venture this evening.

In each decade and generation there are causes, struggles and episodes of history that speak to the conscience of humanity and go on to echo through the ages.

Be it the defence of Madrid by Republican Spain and the International Brigades; the epic Long March in China; the Battle of Stalingrad and the Siege of Leningrad; the Fatherland Liberation War of the Korean people; the Cuban revolution; the struggle and victory of the Vietnamese people; the fight against apartheid or against the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile; and so on.

And today the cause of humanity finds its most poignant, heroic and noble expression in the struggle of the great Palestinian people – against genocide, for the right to be, to constitute themselves as the nation, and to engage in a process of democratic nation building from the river to the sea.

As Chinese President Xi Jinping and Foreign Minister Wang Yi have repeatedly said, the denial of the Palestinian people’s right to independent nationhood is one of the longest lasting injustices in the contemporary world and that right is one that can no longer be delayed or denied.

And as the leader of the DPRK, Comrade Kim Jong Un said, in a speech to his country’s parliament this January:

“The deputies present here should not regard the indiscriminate war and holocaust in the Middle East as the affair of other people.”

There is legitimate debate among historians as to what extent the German people knew about the holocaust, about the appalling wickedness being perpetrated in the death camps.

Today, when we can see genocide unfolding on our phones, there can be no such excuse. I want to quote from a great American hero.

Aaron Bushnell was a 25-year-old serving member of the US Air Force when he gave his life for Palestine on February 25 this year. In a Facebook post that has become his Testament, Aaron wrote:

“Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”

Let’s keep Aaron’s words in mind and always do whatever we can to support the people of Palestine and the struggles of oppressed people everywhere.

As Che Guevara said: “If you tremble with indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine.”

Thank you all. Comrades.

Please enjoy the rest of the evening.