800 years Magna Carta 1215-2015
Editing and commentary by Carolyn Bennett
Charter of English liberties, the Magna Carta, was granted
by King John in 1215 to appease the “high born” (kings and barons) and it “became
a symbol and battle cry against oppression,” with succeeding generations
reading into it protections of their own “threatened liberties.” The Petition of Right (1628) and the Habeas
Corpus Act (1679) in England referenced the Carta’s Clause 39. National and state
constitutions in the United States contain phrases whose ideas are traceable to
Magna Carta.
Clause 39 states “No free man shall be
arrested or imprisoned or disseised [dispossessed: deprived especially wrongfully
of chattels or lands] or outlawed or exiled or in any way victimized, neither
will we attack him or send anyone to attack him, except by the lawful judgment
of his peers or by the law of the land.” |
| 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights |
Clause 40 states “To no one will we
sell; to no one will we refuse or delay right or justice.”
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B
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| Endless struggle |
ut
the Magna Carta is not and was never intended to be a liberating document for all
people anywhere. This is why any centuries-old document—even a later
document such as the 1787 Constitution of the United States of America—requires
sustained, deliberative progress, wise leadership of true progressives.
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| International neglect Homelessness Right to basics to food, shelterEndless struggle |
Essential Occupy
Movement
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| Occupy Movement Endless struggle |
In the early centuries of the Great Charter, some people recognized
its deep flaws. One of its critics was an English Protestant religious reformer
and political activist, Gerrard Winstanley (b. 1609, d.1676), a founder and
leader of the English group called the “True Levellers” or “Diggers” whose
members used to occupy public lands that had been privatized by enclosures.They dug them over, pulled down hedges, and filled in ditches to plant crops.
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| Women's Movement Endless struggle |
Does any of this have a familiar ring to it, now, in the twenty-first century? Unless you've been sleeping in a cave, it should, because the same flaws are underlying causation for the same continuing struggles of victims of war, of women, of children, of masses of people needing basics of food and shelter and sustaining livelihoods--all the while the barons, the plutocrats (politicians and corporate peddlers, NGOs and pious charities), plunder and pillage, gorging themselves on far more than their share.
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| Basrah US war crimes against Iraqi women, childrenEndless struggle |
Leveller Richard Overton observed that the charter
was “‘a beggarly thing containing many marks of intolerable bondage’”
Winstanley held that the Magna Carta retained kings as task
masters
and that these best of laws were yokes and manacles “‘tying one sort of
people to be slaves to another. Clergy and Gentry have got their freedom but
the common people still are and have been left servants to work for them.’”
Sources and notes
Magna Carta
The Great Charter or The Great Charter of the Liberties
(Latin) “agreed by King John of England at Runnymede near Windsor on June 15, 1215,
was first drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury to make peace between the
unpopular King and a group of rebel barons.”
“It promised the protection of church rights, protection for
the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift justice, and limitations
on feudal payments to the Crown, to be implemented through a council of 25
barons.” Neither side adhered to their commitments; Pope Innocent III annulled
the Magna Carta, after which came “the First Barons’ War.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta
See also: Magna Carta.
(2013). Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Deluxe
Edition. Chicago: Encyclopedia
Britannica.
Diggers
The Diggers, one of several “nonconformist dissenting groups”
of the time, were “Protestant radicals” begun by Gerrard Winstanley as True
Levellers in 1649. They came to be known as Diggers because of their attempts
to farm on common land, acts based on a belief in “economic equality.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diggers
Gerrard Winstanley (October 19, 1609 –September 10, 1676)
An English Protestant religious reformer and political
activist during The Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrard_Winstanley
Also The Sunday Edition March 8, 2015, with Michael Enright:
“Happy birthday, Magna Carta!” Enright notes in his introduction that “…Without
the Magna Carta, there would be no United Nations Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, no Constitution of the United States, no Canadian Charter of
Rights and Freedoms. In this 800th anniversary year, hundreds of Magna Carta
events are planned. In England, the celebrations have already begun, with
academic lectures, conferences and exhibitions—even a Magna Carta tourism
trail. In Canada, a not-for-profit organization called Magna Carta Canada is
also planning a series of events, including a cross-country trek with an
original copy of the Magna Carta.” In this episode Enright interviews historian
Carolyn Harris, a teacher at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing
Studies who has partnered with Magna Carta Canada in writing a commemorative book
Magna Carta and Its Gifts to Canada:
Democracy, Law, and Human Rights. http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayedition/digging-a-hole-just-for-fun-barbara-taylor-s-madness-years-mozart-s-sister-equality-for-muslim-women-in-c-1.2983437/happy-birthday-magna-carta-1.2983523
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A lifelong American writer and writer/activist (former academic and staffer with the U.S. government in Washington), Dr. Carolyn LaDelle Bennett is credentialed in education and print journalism and public affairs (PhD, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan; MA, The American University, Washington, DC). Her work concerns itself with news and current affairs, historical contexts, and ideas particularly related to acts and consequences of U.S. foreign relations, geopolitics, human rights, war and peace, and violence and nonviolence. Dr. Bennett is an internationalist and nonpartisan progressive personally concerned with society and the common good. An educator at heart, her career began with the U.S. Peace Corps, teaching in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Since then, she has authored several books and numerous current-affairs articles; her latest book: UNCONSCIONABLE: How The World Sees Us: World News, Alternative Views, Commentary on U.S. Foreign Relations; most thoughts, articles, edited work are posted at Bennett’s Study: http://todaysinsightnews.blogspot.com/ and on her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/carolynladelle.bennett. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/08UNCONSCIONABLE/prweb12131656.htm http://bookstore.xlibris.com/Products/SKU-000757788/UNCONSCIONABLE.aspx Her books are also available at independent bookstores in New York State: Lift Bridge in Brockport; Sundance in Geneseo; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center in Buffalo; Burlingham Books in Perry; The Bookworm in East Aurora
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