Tony Benn - Great Britain
Tony Benn, former Labour MP, on
how Britain Secretly Helped Israel Build Its Nuclear Arsenal
www.democracynow.org, March 10,
2006
We have an extended conversation
with Tony Benn, one of Britain's most distinguished politicians
and the longest serving MP in the history of the Labour party.
Benn discusses the new revelations the British government helped
Israel build the atom bomb. Benn also speaks about U.S. and U.K.
relations, extraordinary rendition, Guantanamo Bay, torture, religion,
and the state of the media.
BBC News revealed Thursday the
British government secretly supplied Israel with hundreds of chemical
shipments in the 1960's, despite fears the chemicals could be
used to develop nuclear weapons. Analysts say the shipments, which
included plutonium, helped speed up Israel's acquisition of an
atomic bomb. All told, the BBC reported the British chemicals
could have been used to produce bombs 20 times as powerful as
those dropped on Hiroshima.
The deals were made in violation
of strict government policy. According to de-classified government
documents, a British government official named Michael Michaels
oversaw the shipments behind the backs of his superiors. One of
these superiors is our guest today. Tony Benn was Britain's Minister
of Technology at the time. That post was one of many that have
come in the career of one of Britain's most distinguished politicians.
Tony Benn served in the British
Parliament for over half a century. He is the longest serving
MP in the history of the Labour party, which he joined in 1942.
In May 2001, Benn retired from House of Commons to, in his words,
"devote more time to politics." While many politicians
take on corporate or lobby positions when they leave office, Benn
became one of the harshest and most vocal critics of the Iraq
war. He is a prominent leader of the Stop the War Coalition in
Britain.
In February 2003-one month before
the invasion of Iraq-Benn interviewed Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.
In December of last year, Benn was the lead signatory to an appeal
sent on behalf of dozens of prominent British political and cultural
figures asking the UN to investigate the US and British governments
for war crimes in Iraq.
Tony Benn, former British Labour
MP, one of Britain's most distinguished politicians and the longest
serving MP in the history of the Labour party. He is the author
of several books, including "Free Radical: New Century Essays"
and "Dare to be a Daniel: Then and Now," an autobiography.
AMY GOODMAN: We welcome Tony Benn to the
studios here in London to Democracy Now!
TONY BENN: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: It's great to have you with
us. Well, let's begin with why you're in the news this week in
Britain, and that has to do with-well, we'll talk about Iran in
a minute, but right now, this expose on, some 40 years ago, Britain
helping Israel develop the atomic bomb secretly.
TONY BENN: This came out of the availability
of papers that have previously been secret. I knew Michael Michaels
very well. I went through my diary, which is about 17 million
words long, and picked out every reference to him. And I had good
grounds for not trusting him. But I had no idea of this, of course,
at all. And he was doing it behind the back of ministers, and
he undoubtedly did assist Israel and was intended to assist Israel,
because I believe after he retired, he was given a job by the
Israeli government. So there could be little doubt that that was
what it was about.
But if you look at the story of nuclear
weapons and nuclear power, it's very interesting. What I remember,
as a navy pilot, hearing at Hiroshima, and I visited it later
and Nagasaki, then Eisenhower said, "atoms for peace."
And that moved me, I thought a classic case of swords into plowshares,
if you remember the Bible. And I a became an advocate of civil
nuclear power. I was told it was cheap, safe and peaceful. And
having been responsible for it for many, many years, I learned
from experience, it wasn't cheap, with the cost of storage of
nuclear waste and the research; it isn't safe, because Chernobyl
and Three Mile Island and Windscale and so on; and it wasn't peaceful.
But all the time it was motivated by the desire to build nuclear
weapons.
And, I mean, the example we're just discussing
was one. But I discovered after I left office, that without telling
me, the plutonium from our civil power stations, what we called
"atoms for peace power stations," all the time was going
to the United States for its weapons program. So, I've learned
a lot from this. I'm now a passionate opponent of nuclear power
and nuclear weapons, always was against nuclear weapons. But this
story highlights the hypocrisy that lie behind so much of the
comment about the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
AMY GOODMAN: In the BBC Newsnight story
that we watched last night, that's big headlines today, one of
the people interviewed is a man named Peter Kelly, who was at
Whitehall, who was a defense intelligence analyst, who said he
recognized quickly, back then in the 1960s, when shown pictures
of what the Israeli government was saying was a textile factory-this
was Dimona-he said, this is a nuclear factory.
TONY BENN: Well, of course, Mordechai
Vanunu, who was arrested by-he was kidnapped in London by the
Israelis-he was telling the Sunday Times what was going on-in
prison, much of it in solitary confinement, recently released
with restrictions. But he warned us about Dimona. And I did know
later about Dimona, as an Israeli military establishment, but
I never knew until yesterday, or until it came out a few days
ago, that we had helped to assist the Israelis in building it.
AMY GOODMAN: And you, as technology minister,
would have had to sign off on this if you had known, is this right?
TONY BENN: Well, it wasn't put to me at
all. It wasn't put to ministers. I mean, this is the trouble with
the nuclear industry, I came not to believe what I was told, and
that throws a doubt on more than nuclear power: the question of
democracy, if officials can operate as a state within a state.
Where is the democratic control of policy? So it was a very, very
serious thing to happen. And, of course, it also comes up at a
time when, as you've been pointing out, there's a lot of pressure
now on Iran not to develop nuclear technology in any form.
AMY GOODMAN: We're going to go to Iran
in just a minute, because I want to play you some clips of politicians
in the United States, like Donald Rumsfeld, like the New York
Senator Hillary Clinton, about Iran. But before that, do you think
Harold Wilson, the prime minister at the time you were technology
minister, signed off on this, knew about what Britain was doing?
TONY BENN: I have no reason to believe
he did. I would find it very hard to believe he had known. But
I can't be absolutely sure. He was very sympathetic to Israel,
I knew that. But he was so strong on non-proliferation, and you
see in another case later, when we discovered Pakistan was developing
the bomb, I took it straight to a cabinet committee on nonproliferation
to see if we could take action to prevent it. So there's no question
of that government being weak on the proliferation question. So,
I have no reason to believe he knew.
AMY GOODMAN: I also heard Mordechai Vanunu
interviewed on the BBC, responding to this expose in Britain,
and he said, "I continue to call for international inspections"-or
rather, "independent inspections of the Dimona nuclear plant."
TONY BENN: Well, you see, the United States
and Britain are in total breach of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The Non-Proliferation Treaty says three things. One, the nuclear
powers will agree to disarm collectively. Secondly, that other
countries can develop nuclear technology. And thirdly, that nuclear
powers will give absolute assurances they will never use nuclear
weapons against a non-nuclear state. And both the United States
and Britain have now said that if their security was at stake,
they would use nuclear weapons. What Bush has done-I don't think
you realize it-that make the case for the spread of nuclear weapons,
because I tell you this, if Iran had nuclear weapons now, he would
not dare to attack it. So, actually, Bush is encouraging the spread,
and when he went to India the other day, which isn't a signatory
to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, he signed an agreement. So, I
mean, the thing is total hypocrisy. I think if we could get that
clear, then we can consider how we deal with the situation that
faces us.
AMY GOODMAN: Technology that could be
used for nuclear weapons to India?
TONY BENN: Well, I mean, India is a nuclear
weapons state. It isn't a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
And Bush's technical agreement will obviously assist the whole
thing.
***
TONY BENN: I was Energy Minister in 1976,
thirty years ago, and I had three hours with the Shah in Iran.
The Shah, as you know, had been put there by the C.I.A. They got
rid of Mosaddeq, the very courageous Iranian leader, and they
put the Shah on the throne. And when I was there, the Americans
were pushing me to give nuclear technology to the Shah. And indeed,
President Gerald Ford, with Cheney as one of his very junior officials,
and I rather think Wolfowitz involved as well, was trying to get
Iran to adopt nuclear power.
AMY GOODMAN: Wait, talk specifically,
say again-the U.S. was trying to get you, as Energy Minister-
TONY BENN: Well, the U.S., itself, I mean,
there's no doubt, the U.S. was involved, as well. But I was also
involved, because they were trying to persuade me. And I was a
bit nervous about it, because I knew the link between nuclear
technology.
Second thing to say is that those three
statements would justify Iran going to the Security Council and
making a complaint that those three statements constituted a threat
to them and a threat to world peace. Now, of course, with the
veto, would never get it through, but that is something that if
it were the other way round, supposing Iranian ministers had made
that statement, Bush would have made a preemptive strike. And,
you see, language is so important. And I think that it's totally
hypocritical, particularly as Britain and America are building
new nuclear weapons and are defying the Non-Proliferation Treaty
themselves. I think, actually, Iran could go to the International
Atomic Energy Authority and complain that the United States was
in breach of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
AMY GOODMAN: We just broadcast last week
from New Mexico, of course, the home of Los Alamos and the building
of the atomic bomb. And Britain and the U.S. just participated
in another-well, I don't know if it was supposed to be secret,
but it certainly wasn't, test, at the Nevada test site.
TONY BENN: Well, all along the line, I
mean, Blair says he wants a new generation of civil nuclear weapons,
which-nuclear power stations, which is what Iran wants, and also
he wants to upgrade the Trident missile, which is out of date.
So, while Blair and Bush are planning nuclear power and nuclear
weapons, which is in breach of the treaty, they're then accusing
Iran of being in breach of the treaty, which they're not. Nobody
has suggested that Iran is in breach of the Non-Proliferation
Treaty. What the IAEA says is that they should be more transparent.
So this is being whipped up exactly as in Iraq.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, the president of Iran
has said he will make the U.S. feel pain if the U.S. does the
same to Iran. Do you find that threatening?
TONY BENN: Well, if you're about to be
attacked, and the three statements you've made indicate that a
military attack may be on the cards, and there are far more explicit
statements than that from the Israelis and from others-if you're
under attack, or threatened attack, I suppose it's reasonable
to say, "If you attack me, there will be consequences."
Now, don't think I'm defending Ahmadinejad, who has made some
statements that have been very unhelpful, but this is all being
built up.
Remember when Colin Powell went to the
Security Council and said he had pictures of mobile biological
laboratories, a complete lie, and it's a terrible thing to say,
but I no longer feel under any obligation to believe what my own
prime minister says. I've never-I've disagreed with prime ministers
in the past. But I do not feel we are told the truth, and I don't
think the President tells the truth, and we are being moved into
a situation rather like Iraq, where, you remember, they went to
the U.N. Security Council, couldn't get support, so they attacked,
anyway, and if I were the Iranians, I would be very concerned.
I broadcast to Iran about once a week,
and I say to them exactly what I'm saying to you, and I think
there is a danger. I don't think the United States plans to invade
Iran, but to bomb it. And when they complain that Iran is involved
in Iraq, well, who really is involved in Iraq? United States and
Britain have occupied the country, and then they say Iran is providing
some support for the Shias. I mean, it is an extraordinary story,
and most people in Britain, I think, understand that, and even
in the United States, the President's popularity seems to be very
low, so there must be a lot of people in the United States who
understand this, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: We were talking to a New
York Iranian professor about what happens to the pro-democracy
movement in Iran when the U.S. intensifies a campaign against
Iran, and they said the pro-democracy movement there is the first
to suffer-
TONY BENN: Of course.
AMY GOODMAN: Because they're very critical
of the regime, but in times of heightened tension, the regime
sees them as allied with the West, with their critics outside,
when they're not.
TONY BENN: Well, that's exactly parallel
with what's happening in the United States. I mean, the United
States, under attack, following 9/11, is giving up its civil liberties,
so if you threaten Iran, such civil liberties as they have will
be given up, and those who advocate more democracy will also be
locked up as agents of the United States. I do think language
is so important.
I mean, take Guantanamo Bay, for example.
We never say about Guantanamo Bay the truth, which is that America
has kidnapped these people and is holding them as hostages. We
say it when the Iraqis seize people, but there's been a kidnapping
of all of these people by the United States, and they're held
outside international law. We don't say that. So, I think language-this
is why Democracy Now!, my favorite program, is so important, because
you bring to people's attention facts that are indisputable, that
throw a different light upon the situation.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about
the crackdown on civil liberties here at home. It's interesting,
we spent this morning-it was very cold outside, but we went over
to Parliament Square, right across from the Parliament, where
Brian Haw is.
TONY BENN: Yes, I know Brian Haw.
AMY GOODMAN: I think he's very famous
here, perhaps not as well known in the United States, but a man
who has stood outside the Parliament for more than four years
now, probably right around the time you left Parliament.
TONY BENN: Oh, yes. I've known him from
long before, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: He's taken up an encampment
there. He's the only one in Britain who is allowed to stand there.
Yesterday on Democracy Now!, we had Milan Rai, who has been arrested
because he was too close to Parliament as he read off the names
with another protester, standing without a permit, of British
soldiers who have died, Milan Rai, and also, Iraqis who have died
in the Iraq war, and he will be tried next week. What about the
crackdown?
TONY BENN: Well, it's very interesting,
because Brian Haw is a very principled man. He's been there, and
his revolutionary slogans say things like, "Don't kill children."
"Love thy neighbor as thyself," from the Bible, but
this so worried the government that they introduced an act of
Parliament with the incredible title, the Serious Crime and Disorder
Act. So it is now a serious crime and disorder to say, "Love
thy neighbor as thyself," within yards of Parliament.
Then, when they took him to court-the
judges said, "Ah, half a minute, he's been doing this before
the act came into force." So the only man who can commit
this "serious crime and disorder" is the man it was
intended to deal with, and they tried to apply it to others. Mind
you, the police are a bit worried about it, because I went and
read the names of soldiers killed and Iraqis killed in Parliament
Square, and I said to the police, "Be very careful,"
and they didn't do anything about it. So it's a bit flexible.
They don't go for people who are well known, but it is the most
restrictive policy on public protest.
AMY GOODMAN: What about the discussion
of a national I.D., national identification?
TONY BENN: Well, national identity cards,
you see, I've had identity cards. When I was a pilot in the Air
Force, I had a picture and my address and office and same in other-the
real problem is the database. Every bit they can pick up about
you will be put on a database, and under the arrangements we have
with the United States, the United States lends us nuclear weapons-we
don't have our own-but in return, demand access to all of our
intelligence.
So, all the information on my identity
card, which may or may not be true, on the database, will be available
in the United States, and it is a police state. I mean, let's
use plain language about it. When you can't move or do anything
without an identity card, and that identity card links to a database,
and the database contains lots of information-I'll give you one
example, you may have heard of him. There was an old man of 83,
who said, "Nonsense!" at the Labour conference last
year. He was interrogated by the police under the Prevention of
Terrorism-
AMY GOODMAN: He said what?
TONY BENN: He said, "Nonsense."
All he did was to shout during the Foreign Secretary's speech,
the single word "nonsense." He was thrown out of the
conference and interrogated under the Prevention of Terrorism
Act, and that will be on his database forever.
AMY GOODMAN: Parliament, the place where
you resided for many decades, is also debating the whole issue
of so-called extraordinary rendition."
TONY BENN: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: What others call kidnapping.
Can you talk about this, with the latest revelations of perhaps
more than a dozen C.I.A. flights going through British airfields?
TONY BENN: Well, what is clearly known
is that the United States has found it convenient to send people
they suspected of some terrorist activity to countries where torture
occurs and to ship them there by aircraft. Now, since the United
States is a long way away from Jordan or Algeria or Egypt, they've
been landing at British airports. And since torture is absolutely
banned by international law and by our own domestic law, it is
a scandal that the British government allowed this to happen.
They denied it was happening, and some countries in Europe raised
it, and now they've had to admit that some of these flights have
occurred.
But you see, this is a problem for Bush
and Blair. How can you talk about maintaining your values when
you hold people without trial, don't allow them access to lawyers,
shift people across the world to be tortured? I mean, it completely
invalidates the argument that this so-called war on terror is
a war between people, on the one hand, who have absolute disregard
for human rights, and people, on the other side, ourselves, who
are absolutely above reproach.
And I think the impact of the rendition
flights and Guantanamo Bay and all the other policies has gone
back to Iraq and quite properly has infuriated those Iraqis who
want American and British troops to withdraw, so it's making the
situation worse and totally undermines our idea that this is a
crusade for high moral standards against brutality. There's no
truth in that at all. I regret to say, but I'm afraid there is
no truth in that argument we hear from the White House and Number
10 Downing Street.
AMY GOODMAN: We're flying out of Britain
today. It has been a remarkable week, and last night we spent
with Moazzam Begg at the Institute for Contemporary Art. He was
speaking out. His book has just come out. He is synonymous with
Guantanamo, though was tortured also at Bagram, and as we went
back home last night to the hotel, we turned on Channel 4, the
network here in Britain, to watch The Road To Guantanamo about
the Tipton Three, the three young men who were held at Guantanamo
for years, a devastating documentary. Can you talk about Guantanamo
and Tony Blair and the British people?
TONY BENN: Well, Guantanamo, of course,
is part of Cuba and was held by the United States after the Spanish-American
War, and because it's in Cuba-first of all, Castro has no control
over it, and Castro has been criticized for civil rights breaches,
but the greatest civil rights breaches in the island of Cuba is
in Guantanamo Bay, controlled by the Americans. Then the President
says that there is no jurisdiction in Guantanamo, because it's
not on American territory. So he gets it both ways and, of course,
what happens is torture.
And Moazzam Begg was held. He's written
this brilliant book in which-what's interesting about it, he gives
credit to those of his captors who were nice to him, were good
to him. There's not a bitterness about it, although there are
grounds for being bitter, and the torture there, the forcible
feeding-there's now evidence that-well, we know that this has
been going on for a long time, and British citizens or British
residents are being held in Guantanamo Bay, and all the Prime
Minister says, "It's an anomaly." I was very pleased
that Kofi Annan, whom I saw again-I've known him for some time,
saw him in London the other day-very, very pleased he came out
about Guantanamo. The Archbishop of York, the second-most senior
bishop in the Church of England, in the Episcopal Communion, he's
come out against it, and I think the United States is totally
isolated.
You see, the funny thing about this, looking
back at my life, because I was born in an empire, twenty percent
of the population of the world was governed from London, and we
locked people up. I met Mr. Gandhi; he was locked up. I met Nehru;
he was locked up, Mandela was locked up, Kwame Nkrumah was locked
up, and then they all ended up having tea with the queen as head
of Commonwealth countries, and I suppose you could argue, though
it might be unacceptable to your audience, George Washington was
a terrorist. He raised an army against the King of England who
was a legitimate king of the colonies. And so, the whole thing
is completely fraudulent. It has nothing to do with morality.
It has to do with power, and when Bush said the United States
was addicted to oil-which I've been saying for years-but he said
it, addicts have a way of killing to get what they need, and I
think the thing-I think the important thing for us now is to understand
what's happening.
AMY GOODMAN: Alberto Gonzales has also
been here this week.
TONY BENN: Yes, I heard him.
AMY GOODMAN: Campaigning on behalf of
the practices at Guantanamo, said you can interpret torture in
different ways. What's your interpretation?
TONY BENN: Well, I thought it was an amazing
thing, that since Britain is supposed to be the closest ally to
the United States, that on their "Hearts and Minds"
campaign, they had to come and persuade the British people that
torture was okay, and, you know, once you apply this argument,
you see, supposing that Saddam Hussein had been criticized for
the brutalities of which he was guilty, and he could have done
a broadcast just like Gonzales and said, 'Well, we're under attack.
We've got people trying to undermine us. How regrettable it is.
I have to put them in Abu Ghraib prison. I'm sorry about it.'
And, you see, these arguments, there's
a parallel that is never drawn and although sometimes people feel
powerless, if you understand what's happening, you're very powerful,
which is why the United States now is launching a big attack on
Google and the internet, because they realize that under FOX News
and CNN, information is spreading now, people are understanding
it, and on the March the 18th, there's this big demonstration
in London. It's going on simultaneously in 40 countries. You remember
three years ago, the New York Times said, "There are two
superpowers in the world: the United States of America and the
world peace movement." We are a superpower, and in the end,
the pen is mightier than the sword; the mind is mightier than
the bomb. So we have to be optimistic. We mustn't allow all this
to depress us.
AMY GOODMAN: What makes you optimistic?
Why don't you get depressed? I mean, here you are, head of the
Stop the War Campaign. You've served in Parliament for many years,
trying to stop war and torture, and yet, look at the state of
the world today. By the way, Abu Ghraib, that-well I don't know
if the U.S. is going to be closing it. There was the big news
here in Britain last night that Abu Ghraib prison was closing,
and now the Defense-the Pentagon is saying it might not be true,
but symbol of torture under the U.S., symbol of torture by Saddam
Hussein, but built by British contractors.
TONY BENN: Well, I know, but let me put
this to you, because I'm 81 in a week or two. I've mentioned I
met Mr. Gandhi in 1931. He was locked up.
AMY GOODMAN: Where was he locked up?
TONY BENN: I met him in London. He came
to London. I sat on the floor. I was six, and he sat next to me.
AMY GOODMAN: Your father was a Member
of Parliament?
TONY BENN: My father was the Secretary
of State for India at the time, and he brought him over. India
became free. My mother was born in 1897; women didn't have the
vote, and then they did. I spoke in Trafalgar Square, a big center
in London, in support of a very well known terrorist in 1964,
and I was denounced in the tabloids. The next time I met him,
he had a Nobel Peace Prize; it was the president of South Africa,
Nelson Mandela, and if you look at history, I mean, how did the
environmental movement become important? How did the third world
movement become? Because people went on working at it.
I have ten grandchildren, and I think
about them, because my grandchildren, that generation, have got
a choice to make that no one in history has ever had to make.
For the first time in human history, the human race has the capacity
to destroy itself with chemical, biological and nuclear weapons,
but also for the first time in human history, we have the technology
and the knowledge to solve the problems of the human race, and
a fraction of the cost of the war in Iraq would have given everyone
in Africa with AIDS free drugs. That is the choice, and, you know,
if you like, my interest in politics has intensified, and I don't
want anything now.
Old age has certain disadvantages, but
(a) you have experience, and (b) you don't want anything for yourself.
I'm absolutely free of any hint of ambition, not that I ever had
much, and that is what keeps me going, and that's what keeps everybody
going. So don't allow your viewers, who follow everything you
say, Amy, because you're brilliant at it-don't let them read into
the bad news the idea that nothing can be done.
AMY GOODMAN: Your son is Secretary of
State for International Development?
TONY BENN: Yes, yes indeed, yes, for International
Development. He's just been in New York this week with Kofi Annan
trying to build up a permanent fund for drought, so they don't
have to go around collecting money. He's a lovely lad, and my
dad was a cabinet minister, three generations of cabinet ministers,
five members of my family in four generations in Parliament in
three centuries. I'm afraid we're all very committed.
AMY GOODMAN: As head of, now, Stop the
War campaign, going back to Iran, you talk about how the U.S.
and Britain are perhaps scapegoating Iran, but you are fiercely
opposed to nuclear proliferation.
TONY BENN: Yes, I am.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think that Iran has
nuclear weapons ambitions?
TONY BENN: Well, I don't know about that.
All I know is that if you want a nuclear-free Middle East, which
I do, then Israel will have to make all its installations open
to inspection, and indeed if that happened, I think the Iranians
would probably say the same.
But you have also to recognize, even Iran,
with its massive oil reserves will have to think of the day when
oil finishes, and there are people advocating civil nuclear technology.
I don't, myself, but I can understand it, because after all, that's
what the President himself said in the United States. He said
we've got to think of alternative sources of energy, and I think
conservation and benign sources are probably better, but you could
see the case for civil nuclear power, even though I don't share
it. I understand it.
AMY GOODMAN: You even teach about the
issue of religion and politics.
TONY BENN: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: I think Tony Blair just recently
invoked-Talk about that.
TONY BENN: Well, I was brought up by my
mother on the Bible, and she told me something that I've never
forgotten. She said the stories in the Bible are stories about
the conflict between the kings who have power and the prophets
who preach righteousness, and she taught me to support the prophets
and not the kings. It's gotten me into a lot of trouble in my
life, but if I look at the great founders of religion-Moses, Jesus,
Mohammad, Buddha-they were teachers.
They taught us how to live, and then people
come along and try to use religion to get power. 'If you don't
do what I tell you, you'll rot in hell. If you don't do this,
you're hostile to the Quran or the Bible,' and I think the abuse
of religion-because for most people, including myself now, my
religion is part of my culture. I think Jesus was a prophet; I
think what he taught was good, and I think that in my society,
I'm used to Episcopalian churches and Catholic churches and the
odd synagogue and now a few mosques. It's part of my culture,
and to try and turn it into grounds for war-when Bush said it
was a crusade, what a foolish thing to say.
Because maybe they didn't teach you about
the crusades in Texas, but by God, in the Middle East, everybody
knows what the crusades were. We went there. There were seven
crusades over 175 years. We sent armies into Palestine to recapture
Jerusalem for the Christians, and the bitterness was enormous,
and of course, we lost all the crusades, as well. So I see great
dangers in the abuse of religious power, but I am myself, a follower
of the teachings of religious leaders.
I mean, Moses said, "Don't worship
the golden calf." I always took that to be a direct criticism
of the Dow Jones Industrial Average as the criteria by which you
judge human happiness. You sort of know what's happened to the
stock market. So they all have to say something, but the abuse
of it is so dangerous, because this is not a war about religion.
It's about oil and power, and if you understand that, then all
the religious language disappears, and you can go back to following
the culture of your faith. And I respect people of all faiths,
and I would expect them to respect my faith, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: Perhaps one thing that has
changed more than most other things has been the power of the
media. What role do you see it playing now, as the sword or the
shield?
TONY BENN: Well, I'm an old broadcaster
myself. My first job was in the BBC as a producer in the North
American Service in 1949, and I think the media have replaced
religion, because, in the old days in Britain, you see, Henry
VIII had a row with the Pope about one of his weddings. I can't
remember; he married six times. So he nationalized the Church
of England. The Church of England is a nationalized institution.
The bishops are appointed by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister
in Britain could be a Muslim or a Jew, an atheist; he would still
appoint the Archbishop of Canterbury.
So, what the king recognized was that
you have to have the church as a media on his side. So you went
to church and the bishop would say, 'God wants to you do what
the king wants you to do,' and now, with all the multinational
corporations, Rupert Murdoch and all that, they're in effect saying,
'You must do what the President tells you to do,' and in the interest
of commercial interests as well. And so, what we need is a free
media.
That's why I'm so interested in the democracy
movement. I think of you as the Martin Luther of the media, somebody
who is able to hammer something, with a hammer on the Church in
Rheims, I think, or wherever it was, proclaiming the right to
think for ourselves. If we think for ourselves, we're safe, but
if we allow religion, if we allow the mullahs or the rabbis or
the bishops to control what you think, or if you allow Rupert
Murdoch to control what you think, then truthfully, we become
slaves in a society, which we ought to control, because it belongs
to us.
Thomas Paine said, "God didn't make
rich or poor. He made men and women, and he gave the earth to
be their inheritance," and he also said, "My country
is the world, and my religion is to do good." You can't do
better than that.
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Democracy
- a history - narrated by Tony Benn, former British Labour Party
Member of Parliament