February 27 marked the 200th anniversary of the virgin speech of the Philhellene poet Lord Byron in the House of Lords, in defense of the rebellious weavers of Central England.
It sounds paradoxical, but 200 years after the poet's speech, similar economic and social phenomena are flooding Europe.
At that time, the Napoleonic Wars had caused the markets to close and the emergence of mass production looms had led to an over-accumulation of unavailable products.
The British government had phased out any measures to protect the weavers' guilds and banned group wage bargaining, believing it would be a wage cartel contrary to the principles of freedom of trade.
Any legal action by the craftsmen of the weaving art against the new legislation had been rejected.
Falling wages and a dramatic rise in unemployment soon led to violent riots, raids on food warehouses and, ultimately, a movement to destroy mass-produced looms, lay off workers, or refuse to pay old wages.
That "Luddite" movement, led by a non-existent, mythical "King Land", went down in history as "a reaction to technological modernization and the industrial revolution."
Spencer Perceval's government responded with a death penalty for those who destroyed mechanical looms, and the Hugo opposition, despite pledging to introduce a trade union bill, allied itself with the House of Lords in the House of Lords. , withdrawing its own proposal.
In such a climate, on February 27, 1812, Lord Byron denounced the law as inhuman, similar to "the decrees of the Dragon, written as they said, with blood instead of ink," intended for "twelve butchers in the place of jurors."
The historical and prophetic parliamentary speech "Speech of the Impossible" was honored by the poet's friends at the Book Gallery, with Tony Simpson, director of the Bernard Russell Foundation for Peace and Nuclear Presence, as the keynote speaker. Manolis Glezos, representatives of the American "Veterans for Peace", the president of the Society of Greek Writers, Pavlos Nathanael, intellectuals and academics.
Simpson did not fail to parallel the unrest caused in England by the current economic crisis with those of the past, but also to note the expansion of a new wave of philhellenism around the world, both political and cultural, on the occasion of the accusations that are being launched. against Greece.
"Shelley's saying, 'We are all Greeks' is being heard all over Europe again - and the British unions have taken initiatives in solidarity with the Greek people. "Lord Byron would have understood," Simpson concluded.
Source: Nooz.gr