Our Efforts that Backfired

Our Efforts that Backfired In 1982 Arthur Scargill was elected president of the National Union of Mineworkers, Britain’s oldest and most illustrious industrial union. A revolutionary left-wing socialist, his overriding aim since assuming office has been to use his union as a tool for destabilising the conservative government of Margaret Thatcher. He has made repeated attempts to organize a national strike of the mineworkers which would succeed in bringing down the government, as happened with Edward Heath’s government in 1974. But he has never been able to gain the 55% support of his union required for strike action. Unable to achieve his aims by democratic means he then resorted to letting areas which support his policy—like Yorkshire and Scotland—picket other areas, thus forcing them to strike whether they like it or not. Though a ballot showed that a massive majority of miners opposed a national coal strike, strike action was imposed on them, in March 1984, by the leadership and militant minority that supports its policies. The first victim of Mr. Scargill’s strategy has been his own union. Bitter antagonism has developed between those who resisted the strike, and those who supported it and forced others to join in. As Keith Harper writes in The Guardian it is going to be a hard job “to restore the unity and end the divisions which the leadership’s tactics have so far produced...In the end, Mr. Scargill may say he pointed the way and nobody cared to follow, but at what cost to the structure and stability of the greatest union this country has produced?” Exactly the same fate as has befallen Mr. Scargill’s union has befallen Muslim movements in modern times. These movements have all made it their aim to destabilize and unseat governments and rulers. All their efforts have centred around this central objective. First of all their struggle was directed against foreign colonial powers. Then, when the age of colonialism came to an end, they diverted their anger to those Muslim leaders and monarchs whom they considered to be practicing tyrannical and unislamic methods. This policy has had serious repercussions within the Muslim community itself. Some have supported the rulers whom these movements have risen up against; others have thrown their weight behind those attempting to overthrow the present government, and