The Fury of the Goths by Paul IvanowitzI’VE always considered the first ten minutes of the movie Gladiator to be some of the finest work Ridley Scott has ever produced.
The brutal engagement between the formidably armed Roman legions and the wildly undisciplined but unquestionably brave Gothic tribesmen is a fantastic piece of cinematography.
Russell Crowe’s "Maximus", the Roman commander, issues the grim order: "On my signal, unleash Hell." His well-trained centurions do not disappoint.
The brutal engagement between the formidably armed Roman legions and the wildly undisciplined but unquestionably brave Gothic tribesmen is a fantastic piece of cinematography.
Russell Crowe’s "Maximus", the Roman commander, issues the grim order: "On my signal, unleash Hell." His well-trained centurions do not disappoint.
"On my signal, unleash Hell."Scott’s design of the battle, I’ve always thought, owes a tremendous amount to a 19th Century painting entitled The Fury of the Goths, executed by the now long-forgotten Austrian artist, Paul Ivanowitz.
I’ve been an admirer of Ivanowitz’s masterpiece ever since, as a little boy, I encountered a reproduction of the painting in an illustrated encyclopaedia. As soon as I laid eyes on the opening sequence of Gladiator, I just knew I’d seen Scott’s battle scene somewhere before.
Of course a pan-German nationalist like Ivanowitz was not about to celebrate some unrecorded victory by Marcus Aurelius’ legions over a rogue Gothic tribe. No, The Fury of the Goths celebrates the much earlier defeat of the Roman General, Varus, by the proto-nationalist German war-leader, Arminius, in the Teutoburg Forest.
Ambushed as his line was strung out along the narrow forest trail, Varus and his approximately 20,000-strong army was utterly annihilated. A small expeditionary force, sent in by Caesar Augustus a few years later to learn the fate of "Varus’ lost legions" discovered a battlefield literally covered with the whitening bones of their butchered comrades. The terrified legionaries buried them where they had fallen, and fled.
At Teutoburg it was the "Goths" who unleashed Hell.
All of which will, I hope, serve to preface the following critique of the NZ Council of Trade Unions’ (CTU) lamentable failure to anticipate and respond forcefully to the new National Government’s first assault upon the rights of New Zealand workers – the so-called "Fire At Will" Bill.
It is several months now since I had dinner with the President of the CTU, Helen Kelly, but I clearly remember practically begging her to have the trade union movement in readiness for the National Party’s inevitable sneak-attack, and to – please, please, please – learn from and avoid the critical strategic error committed by Ken Douglas and Angela Foulkes in the first few months of the fourth National Government.
It was the CTU leadership’s failure to answer the Bolger Government’s introduction of the Employment Contracts Bill with massive industrial resistance by the organised working-class, that saw the level of union density in the private sector workforce fall from close to 60 percent, to around 10 percent. Their point-blank refusal to sanction and lead a General Strike destroyed, practically overnight, New Zealand workers’ faith in the trade union movement. It was a defeat from which the Left, in general, and the working-class, in particular, never really recovered.
Nine years later, and just as the New Zealand working class was lifting itself up off its knees, the CTU has, once again, failed to meet the Tory challenge. In spite of the fact that they knew the 90-Day Bill was a key element in the National Party’s manifesto, and in spite of the fact that the introduction of the Bill, under urgency, was an obvious tactic for Key’s Government to adopt, the trade unions were caught napping.
A CTU that had learned the lessons of history would have planned for just such a contingency. It would have prepared a campaign as comprehensive as Maximus’s punitive expedition against the unfortunate Goths. Most importantly, they would have let Key know that, should he attempt to begin again where Bill Birch left off, they were ready to give the signal to: "Unleash Hell".
But what did the trade union leaders actually do in the 30-day period between National’s victory and the introduction of the 90-Day Bill? They spent their time billing and cooing with the newly elected government, and debating whether or not the Maori Party should be considered a progressive force.
Instead of being ready to pour their affiliated members into the streets, and to rally the tens of thousands of potential members targeted by the legislation to the CTU’s banner, the best they were able to organise was a pathetic (and constitutionally suspect) petition to the Governor-General – urging him not to sign the Bill into law.
With courage and imagination, this past week could have been National’s Teutoburg Forest. Instead, it has turned out to be yet another victory for right-wing ruthlessness.
In 1991, more than 100,000 unionists marched and rallied against the ECB. That this vast mobilisation of working-class anger was never translated into a General Strike was a true tragedy.
In 2008, it was a few hundred e-mails to the Governor-General.
As Marx said: "the second time as farce".
Of course a pan-German nationalist like Ivanowitz was not about to celebrate some unrecorded victory by Marcus Aurelius’ legions over a rogue Gothic tribe. No, The Fury of the Goths celebrates the much earlier defeat of the Roman General, Varus, by the proto-nationalist German war-leader, Arminius, in the Teutoburg Forest.
Ambushed as his line was strung out along the narrow forest trail, Varus and his approximately 20,000-strong army was utterly annihilated. A small expeditionary force, sent in by Caesar Augustus a few years later to learn the fate of "Varus’ lost legions" discovered a battlefield literally covered with the whitening bones of their butchered comrades. The terrified legionaries buried them where they had fallen, and fled.
At Teutoburg it was the "Goths" who unleashed Hell.
All of which will, I hope, serve to preface the following critique of the NZ Council of Trade Unions’ (CTU) lamentable failure to anticipate and respond forcefully to the new National Government’s first assault upon the rights of New Zealand workers – the so-called "Fire At Will" Bill.
It is several months now since I had dinner with the President of the CTU, Helen Kelly, but I clearly remember practically begging her to have the trade union movement in readiness for the National Party’s inevitable sneak-attack, and to – please, please, please – learn from and avoid the critical strategic error committed by Ken Douglas and Angela Foulkes in the first few months of the fourth National Government.
It was the CTU leadership’s failure to answer the Bolger Government’s introduction of the Employment Contracts Bill with massive industrial resistance by the organised working-class, that saw the level of union density in the private sector workforce fall from close to 60 percent, to around 10 percent. Their point-blank refusal to sanction and lead a General Strike destroyed, practically overnight, New Zealand workers’ faith in the trade union movement. It was a defeat from which the Left, in general, and the working-class, in particular, never really recovered.
Nine years later, and just as the New Zealand working class was lifting itself up off its knees, the CTU has, once again, failed to meet the Tory challenge. In spite of the fact that they knew the 90-Day Bill was a key element in the National Party’s manifesto, and in spite of the fact that the introduction of the Bill, under urgency, was an obvious tactic for Key’s Government to adopt, the trade unions were caught napping.
A CTU that had learned the lessons of history would have planned for just such a contingency. It would have prepared a campaign as comprehensive as Maximus’s punitive expedition against the unfortunate Goths. Most importantly, they would have let Key know that, should he attempt to begin again where Bill Birch left off, they were ready to give the signal to: "Unleash Hell".
But what did the trade union leaders actually do in the 30-day period between National’s victory and the introduction of the 90-Day Bill? They spent their time billing and cooing with the newly elected government, and debating whether or not the Maori Party should be considered a progressive force.
Instead of being ready to pour their affiliated members into the streets, and to rally the tens of thousands of potential members targeted by the legislation to the CTU’s banner, the best they were able to organise was a pathetic (and constitutionally suspect) petition to the Governor-General – urging him not to sign the Bill into law.
With courage and imagination, this past week could have been National’s Teutoburg Forest. Instead, it has turned out to be yet another victory for right-wing ruthlessness.
In 1991, more than 100,000 unionists marched and rallied against the ECB. That this vast mobilisation of working-class anger was never translated into a General Strike was a true tragedy.
In 2008, it was a few hundred e-mails to the Governor-General.
As Marx said: "the second time as farce".
