Remembering Today with Sadness the Victims of the Bloody Sunday Massacre in Derry January 30th 1972.

On this day today/a date that wont be forgotten in Northern Ireland, when 14 innocent  peaceful Irish Catholics were murdered in broad daylight  by the British army, many more were injured  as they were marching for their basic freedoms and civil rights, under almost siege like conditions under unjust British rule in the city and across Northern Ireland. in what is regarded.as one the darkest days of Northern Ireland's troubles. 

The civil rights protestors were shot in the Bogside by British soldiers  from the Parachute Regiment. The protestors were opposing the policy of internment which allowed the authorities to imprison suspected members of the IRA without trial. On 9 August, 11, British soldiers detained 342 people, many of whom were tortured and had no connection to the IRA . This disastrous policy led to an immediate increase in violence, with 17 people killed within the next 48 hours.On 22 January 1972, soldiers attacked an anti-internment protest in Derry, firing rubber bullets and beating protestors severely.

However the Northern Ireland Civil Rights  Association was determined not to be intimidated. so on this day around 10,000 people marched towards the city centre, but their route was blocked by army barricades. Here and there, some stones and bottles were thrown at the troops but collectively the marchers posed little threat to the well armed British soldiers, who  exceptionally on this day were members of an elite parachute regiment, thus trained for combat, not policing crowds. At some point for reasons that as never been established, British soldiers began firing into the crowd of civilians.

Soon many were falling to the ground.

All of the dead were unarmed, five were shot in the back. Most were shot fleeing the soldiers and several were killed trying to assist the wounded. One man was shot and killed while assisting a victim and waving a white handkerchief another killed with his arms raised in surrender position. Seven of them were teenagers.Another marcher died a month later and there were many more wounded from rubber bullets. The massacre became a worldwide symbol of state brutality – and community resilience.

Like internment, Bloody Sunday provided the IRA with a huge  recruitment boost and 1972 marked the single most violent year of the troubles. I can understand  why  any working class Catholic who having watched  their friends get killed and detained, their houses burnt down and their communities left attacked by pogroms, could choose the path of resistance, in defense of their people.

List of those killed. Never  forget their  names.Still no justice  for  any of them.

Patrick ('Paddy') Doherty (31)

Gerald  Donaghey (17)

John ('Jackie' ) Duddy (17)

Hugh Gilmore (17)

Michael Kelly (17)

Michael McDaid (20)

Kevin McElhinnet (17)

Bernard ('Barney') McGuigan (41)

Gerald McKinney (35)

William ('Willie') McKinney (26)

William Nash (19)

James ('Jim') Wray (22)

John Johnston (59)

It was later revealed that some days prior to this massacre, the British soldiers had been briefed 'to shoot to kill' at the march. An immediate inguiry, led by then Lord Chief Justice Lord Widgery, was labelled a whitewash, after it largely cleared the soldiers of blame.

It would take the  Saville report  and inquiry which had taken 12 years  to confirm the innocence of the victims, exonerating every one of them,  and even our own Prime Minister David Cameron  at the time was forced to announce that the British armies actions on this day were' Unjustified and Unjustifiable,' It vindicated not only those who died, and the many injured, but also the families and supporters who had campaigned  for so long to have their innocence recognised. Like the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa a shameful day in history, it is a continuing outrage that not one person was prosecuted for the murder in cold blood of 14 innocent peaceful civilian protestors.  Let us hope that the future sees no more bloody Sundays.The long road for true justice continues.;

Take a moment of silence wherever you are at 16.10pm, the time the shooting started. Remember those marching for civil rights, marching peacefully in their own home town, before being gunned down by British soldiers. 

 “I walked among their old haunts, the home ground where they bled, 

And in the dirt lay justice like an acorn in the winter 

Till its oak would sprout in Derry where the thirteen men lay dead.”  Seamus Heaney (The Road to Derry)

I conclude with  a poem called Butcher’s Dozen. from the poet Thomas Kinsella  that he wrote  in the aftermath of the massacre:

 

 BUTCHER'S DOZEN:
A LESSON FOR THE OCTAVE OF WIDGERY

by Thomas Kinsella

I went with Anger at my heel
Through Bogside of the bitter zeal
- Jesus pity! - on a day
Of cold and drizzle and decay.
A month had passed. Yet there remained
A murder smell that stung and stained.
On flats and alleys-over all-
It hung; on battered roof and wall,
On wreck and rubbish scattered thick,
On sullen steps and pitted brick.
And when I came where thirteen died
It shrivelled up my heart. I sighed
And looked about that brutal place
Of rage and terror and disgrace.
Then my moistened lips grew dry.
I had heard an answering sigh!
There in a ghostly pool of blood
A crumpled phantom hugged the mud:
"Once there lived a hooligan.
A pig came up, and away he ran.
Here lies one in blood and bones,
Who lost his life for throwing stones."


More voices rose. I turned and saw
Three corpses forming, red and raw,
From dirt and stone. Each upturned face
Stared unseeing from its place:
"Behind this barrier, blighters three,
We scrambled back and made to flee.
The guns cried Stop, and here lie we."
Then from left and right they came,
More mangled corpses, bleeding, lame,
Holding their wounds. They chose their ground,
Ghost by ghost, without a sound,
And one stepped forward, soiled and white:
"A bomber I. I travelled light
- Four pounds of nails and gelignite
About my person, hid so well
They seemed to vanish where I fell.
When the bullet stopped my breath
A doctor sought the cause of death.
He upped my shirt, undid my fly,
Twice he moved my limbs awry,
And noticed nothing. By and by
A soldier, with his sharper eye,
Beheld the four elusive rockets
Stuffed in my coat and trouser pockets.
Yes, they must be strict with us,
Even in death so treacherous!"
He faded, and another said:
"We three met close when we were dead.
Into an armoured car they piled us
Where our mingled blood defiled us,
Certain, if not dead before,
To suffocate upon the floor.


Careful bullets in the back
Stopped our terrorist attack,
And so three dangerous lives are done
- Judged, condemned and shamed in one."
That spectre faded in his turn.
A harsher stirred, and spoke in scorn:
"The shame is theirs, in word and deed,
Who prate of justice, practise greed,
And act in ignorant fury - then,
Officers and gentlemen,
Send to their Courts for the Most High
To tell us did we really die!
Does it need recourse to law
To tell ten thousand what they saw?
Law that lets them, caught red-handed,
Halt the game and leave it stranded,
Summon up a sworn inquiry
And dump their conscience in the diary.
During which hiatus, should
Their legal basis vanish, good,
The thing is rapidly arranged:
Where's the law that can't be changed?
The news is out. The troops were kind.
Impartial justice has to find
We'd be alive and well today
If we had let them have their way.
Yet England, even as you lie,
You give the facts that you deny.
Spread the lie with all your power
- All that's left; it's turning sour.
Friend and stranger, bride and brother,
Son and sister, father, mother,


All not blinded by your smoke,
Photographers who caught your stroke,
The priests that blessed our bodies, spoke
And wagged our blood in the world's face.
The truth will out, to your disgrace."
He flushed and faded. Pale and grim,
A joking spectre followed him:
"Take a bunch of stunted shoots,
A tangle of transplanted roots,
Ropes and rifles, feathered nests,
Some dried colonial interests,
A hard unnatural union grown
In a bed of blood and bone,
Tongue of serpent, gut of hog
Spiced with spleen of underdog.
Stir in, with oaths of loyalty,
Sectarian supremacy,
And heat, to make a proper botch,
In a bouillon of bitter Scotch.
Last, the choice ingredient: you.
Now, to crown your Irish stew,
Boil it over, make a mess.
A most imperial success!"
He capered weakly, racked with pain,
His dead hair plastered in the rain;
The group was silent once again.
It seemed the moment to explain
That sympathetic politicians
Say our violent traditions,
Backward looks and bitterness
Keep us in this dire distress.
We must forget, and look ahead,


Nurse the living, not the dead.
My words died out. A phantom said:
"Here lies one who breathed his last
Firmly reminded of the past.
A trooper did it, on one knee,
In tones of brute authority."
That harsher spirit, who before
Had flushed with anger, spoke once more:
"Simple lessons cut most deep.
This lesson in our hearts we keep:
Persuasion, protest, arguments,
The milder forms of violence,
Earn nothing but polite neglect.
England, the way to your respect
Is via murderous force, it seems;
You push us to your own extremes.
You condescend to hear us speak
Only when we slap your cheek.
And yet we lack the last technique:
We rap for order with a gun,
The issues simplify to one
- Then your Democracy insists
You mustn't talk with terrorists!
White and yellow, black and blue,
Have learnt their history from you:
Divide and ruin, muddle through,
Not principled, but politic.
- In strength, perfidious; weak, a trick
To make good men a trifle sick.
We speak in wounds. Behold this mess.
My curse upon your politesse."


Another ghost stood forth, and wet
Dead lips that had not spoken yet:
"My curse on the cunning and the bland,
On gentlemen who loot a land
They do not care to understand;
Who keep the natives on their paws
With ready lash and rotten laws;
Then if the beasts erupt in rage
Give them a slightly larger cage
And, in scorn and fear combined,
Turn them against their own kind.
The game runs out of room at last,
A people rises from its past,
The going gets unduly tough
And you have (surely ... ?) had enough.
The time has come to yield your place
With condescending show of grace
- An Empire-builder handing on.
We reap the ruin when you've gone,
All your errors heaped behind you:
Promises that do not bind you,
Hopes in conflict, cramped commissions,
Faiths exploited, and traditions."
Bloody sputum filled his throat.
He stopped and coughed to clear it out,
And finished, with his eyes a-glow:
"You came, you saw, you conquered ... So.
You gorged - and it was time to go.
Good riddance. We'd forget - released -
But for the rubbish of your feast,
The slops and scraps that fell to earth
And sprang to arms in dragon birth.


Sashed and bowler-hatted, glum
Apprentices of fife and drum,
High and dry, abandoned guards
Of dismal streets and empty yards,
Drilled at the codeword 'True Religion'
To strut and mutter like a pigeon
'Not An Inch - Up The Queen';
Who use their walls like a latrine
For scribbled magic-at their call,
Straight from the nearest music-hall,
Pope and Devil intertwine,
Two cardboard kings appear, and join
In one more battle by the Boyne!
Who could love them? God above..."
"Yet pity is akin to love,"
The thirteenth corpse beside him said,
Smiling in its bloody head,
"And though there's reason for alarm
In dourness and a lack of charm
Their cursed plight calls out for patience.
They, even they, with other nations
Have a place, if we can find it.
Love our changeling! Guard and mind it.
Doomed from birth, a cursed heir,
Theirs is the hardest lot to bear,
Yet not impossible, I swear,
If England would but clear the air
And brood at home on her disgrace
- Everything to its own place.
Face their walls of dole and fear
And be of reasonable cheer.


Good men every day inherit
Father's foulness with the spirit,
Purge the filth and do not stir it.
Let them out! At least let in
A breath or two of oxygen,
So they may settle down for good
And mix themselves in the common blood.
We are what we are, and that
Is mongrel pure. What nation's not
Where any stranger hung his hat
And seized a lover where she sat?"
He ceased and faded. Zephyr blew
And all the others faded too.
I stood like a ghost. My fingers strayed
Along the fatal barricade.
The gentle rainfall drifting down
Over Colmcille's town
Could not refresh, only distil
In silent grief from hill to hill.

 

Printed in the Republic of Ireland by the Elo Press Ltd., Dublin
for PEPPERCANISTER and sold by the Dolmen Press Limited and the booksellers.
26 April 1972.

., .

 

Nigel Jenkins (1949- 28/1/14) Poet and Peacemaker R.I.P

Found out yesterday, the very sad news that  the people of Wales have lost one of their most eminent writers, the poet, Journalist, psychogeographer and associate English Professor at Swansea University, Nigel Jenkins, aged 64 after suffering from a short illness. Active on the Anglo-Welsh literary scene for over 30 years, he has long been a personal inspiration.
Emerging in prominence in the 1970's, his voice  established the emerging politicised voice, released with warmth and candour. An activist who stood among us in  the peace, environmental and movements for social justice here in Wales, identifying himself as an internationalist, who also happened to be a localist. He was also  editor of Radical Wales magazine and was actively invloved  in the Welsh Union of Writers. A learner  and great supporter of the Welsh language. I first became aware of his presence at  demonstrations against a nuclear bunker in Carmarthen  in the 1980's.

Nigel Jenkins was born on a farm in Gower, after periods of travel abroad, including a spell working in a circus, Mr Jenkins returned  home, to base live in the Mumbles, near Swansea, capturing his love for the land of Wales, and his locality in his various collections. He was also a great writer and devotee of  the haiku poetical form.
A generous and gentle man, with a rich voice who I was privileged to meet several times. At a reading in Aberteifi, his strong voice drew me in, and over the years I would chance upon him at hay- on-wye, and bump into him a couple of times on the train to Abertawe. Was also privileged to encounter him under his guise as a fine blues musician, and I remember that he always seemed to have a warm glint about him. He will be missed by his friends, family and students alike as a kind man and a wonderful poet.

2999,792.5 kilometres a second - Nigel Jenkins

Light leaves us as it leaves the stars:
I see you as you were
a fraction of a fraction of a second ago,
sunned at the window, this bitter day,
by a light that's eight minutes out from home
we kick heels waiting

And for a sudden upturn, the happy accident
while gazing perpetually out on the past:
a quasor as if it was fourteen billion years back;
a face across the room
whose light hit the road
a hundred millionth of a second ago.

think us back some years, you and I...
Where now, I wonder, is the light of that time?

Autumn 96, New Welsh Review

The Watch - Nigel Jenkins


To pass the time, time after
time in those last long days
he'd take his watches to pieces
and dreamingly
shove it together again.

Time passed. And with time's
passing - a lightening
of the load, as one by one
the little screws wandered
the gems hid their light
in the folds of his chair,
and the glass smashed.

Time passed, and now the watch
is mine. From time to time
it turns up un a drawer.
and I hold it in my hands, cloud
its mirrors with my breath.

His toil remains: the tobacco,
hayseeds. sand of his pockets
gathered round the rim: the hands
of the watch ripped clean away.

And what time does it tell
with its blank face? You can
sometimes shake it into brief life,
and the time it tells is
always never, always never,
never never, always never,
always never, always never,
always always now.

from Acts of Union; Gomer, 1990.

.

Full Stop- Nigel Jenkins

Whatever in life
is muddled, side-stepped, misconstrued
there is no ignoring me,
full stop, new sentence.
And should that sentence prove
too painfully long
you have only to invoke
my careful abbreviatory skills,
full stop, new par.

Whichever way you wind-
via colons of plenty, dashes of joy -
I will oblige yo, ready or not,
with your vanishing point.

From Ambush;
Gomer, 2006


Last Word - Nigel Jenkins


She, like the planet, lovely and hurt
by squalorious man, shocked the fiesta.
"Why not?" she smiled, congested with grief,
"Why not make the whole disater,
let nature start again...?
It would be like having a good shit."

But, they reasoned, there might not be time
for a wiser model to fumble from the wreck
before the Sun, swollen
to a red giant, and devouring its children,
gobbled up the Earth.

"Well," she said, "perhaps we should all
self-obliterate, leave the planet in peace
to the birds, the gorilla, the wiser whale."

A noble4 abdication, butno, they said, it is
now too late: our madness, our systems-
we cannot simply walk away from them,
there'd be anarchy, melt-down, a thousand
Chernobyls, death world-wide to bird and beast:

we have made ourselves indispensable.


Autumn 96, New Welsh Review.

Remembering Pete Seeger (3/5/19 - 27/1/14) - Troubadour activist

Pete Seeger, the iconclastic American singer, songwriter and social activist, who devoted his whole life  to fight against social injustice, armed with a banjo, a guitar and the transformative power of song, has died , aged 94.
He lent his voice to  the labor, peace and civil rights movements, being  a musician and a revolutionary, his powerful songs helped soundtrack the 1960's protests, advocating for change, offering his services too in opposition to war and racism.
A Harvard College dropout, he became the indefatigable champion of the voiceless, at the same time almost single-handedly sparking the folk-musical revival,over the course of his long journey, despite blacklisting, even death threats, he never softened his core political beliefs. His dedication never wavered, his indomitable spirit, one to be celebrated.
Born at his grandparent's estate in Patterson, New Jersey on May 3, 1919, he was the son of a musicologist called Charles Seeger, and his mother was a violin teacher called Constance de Clyver Edson Seeger.
From meeting Woody Guthrie in the 1940's he was to be on the frontline of every key progressive crusade- from labor unions and migrant workers in the 1930's and 1940's,anti-fascist, the banning of nuclear weapons and opposition to the Cold War in the 1950's , civil rights and the anti-Vietnam War movement, environmental responsibility, opposition to South African apartheid, the oppression of the Palestinians in the present day, the occupy movements and a supporter of human rights throughout the world. Blacklisted by the media for more than a decade after tangling with the House of UnAmerican Activities Committe in 1955, at the height of McCarthyism, and paranoid withchunts. He never stopped fighting, never stopped believing.
His legacy consists of over 80 albums, his influence  on other musicians immeasureable, from Bob Dylan, to Rage Against the Machine bringing political and folk traditions to the masses, his contribution  to the world cannot be overstated, inimitable and courageous, singing with defiance, inspiring countless generations.
It only takes one person to care, one person to make a difference, Pete Seeger, musician and activist did all these things with abundance.We shall overcome, someday soon, Pete Seeger R.I.P. Heddwch/peace.

A selection of my favourite Pete Seeger songs, there are so many wonderful ones to choose from.

Pete Seeger and the Almanac Singers- Solidarity Forever

 

Pete Seeger - Little Boxes

Pete Seeger - Where have all the flowers gone.

Pete Seeger - If I had a hammer

Pete Seeger - Bells of Rhymney

Pete Seeger - To my old Brown Earth

 

PeteSeeger -Turn, Turn, Turn

"IF THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG SPEAK UP"

"THIS BANJO SURROUNDS HATE AND FORCES IT TO SURRENDER"

"A GOOD SONG REMINDS US WHAT WE'RE FIGHTING FOR"

-Pete Seeger

Oxfam and Channel 4 - Say No to Occupation, No to Sodastream..

 

One of the main reasons that people don't like Oxfam and Channel 4's ( who are currently promoting Sodastream via their programme ' The Jump' ) association with this company is the fact that Palestine Solidarity activists across the globe are  currently boycotting  it, because it is produced in an illegal Israeli settlement, on stolen Palestinian land. This is why Oxfam, a charity I volunteer for,must disassociate itself from their current ambassador Scarlet Johannson, who has recently also been seen promoting this soft drinks firm, who despite valid  criticism has continued her support in a display of casual disregard to the core issues at stake. I respect Oxfams recent statement in response to the bad publicity to  one of their ambassadors seemingly endorsing a product that for many is complicit in profits made from occupation and apartheid.
Oxfam and Channel 4  I believe should drop their association, they cannot be allowed to  cosy up to this unethical  company.
SodaStream is made in the Mishor Edomim industrial zone, that is part of the illegal Israeli settlement Ma'aleh Adumim, which cuts deeply into Palestine's West Bank, severing Palestinian towns and devastating their economy and daily lives, Sodastream's factorty is built on stolen land, on seperated Ramallah, Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Jericho.

The fact remains that daily, Palestinian workers in  factories  like this  are underpaid, denied basic rights such as holiday or sick pay, denied the riht to organise into unions, and are left to fend for themselves if injured at work, and lets remember that the  Israeli government encourages companies like this to locate within its illegal settlements by allowing less environmental and labor standards than those required in Israel., allowing a complete disregard for human rights and international law to continue.
I believe it is impossible to be an 'ambassador'  or pretend to be a respectable Public broadcasting Company whilst at the same time through association  promote what in my eyes is a  human rights abuser. Businesses that operate from illegal settlements further the ongoing poverty of the Palestinian Communities,  we should keep up the pressure on Oxfam and Channel 4, any one of value really, to  dissasociate from a company that  profits from the exploitation of Palestinain land, labour and resources. Sodastream tries to garner repectability,  but under international law, operates illegally , exploiting the poor of this region, whilst promoting a dubious ecological agenda, and while it remains constitutes as a barrier to peace in this region.
There is nothing clean about SodaStreams product, parroting  its message does not build bridges, it is time to let it's bubbles free.

Further information here:-

http://www.palestinecampaign.org/scarlettjohansson/

http://www.palestinecampaign.org/complain-to-your-local-shop-about-sodastream/


https://www.change.org/petitions/tell-stores-don-t-buy-or-sell-sodastream-3

Love Actually - A poem for Dydd Santes Dwynwen/ St Dwynwen's Day (Welsh Patron Saint of Lovers)

Under Ceredigion sky,
the wind catches my breath,
her presence all around,
plants her smile on our lips,
takes us to places where we don't mind,
sighing, bursting, laughing, singing,
her voice lingers long in our hearts,
turns grey spaces, into colourful bloom,
wraps us up in warm swoon,
like a marvellous scent,
that runs inside and out,
takes away the darkness,
overcomes barriers and borders,
in every language, releases poet's tonque,
there is consolation in love's certainty,
deep, deep, deep, it's roots are strong,
I try my utmost, that she is not hurt,
share it's sap, for this fragile world to consume.

Illumination :- (For an old dear friend, who never returned)

Image:- Emma Ferreira, 2009 

I remember when, reason got lost,
wild rivers, ran their ragged course,
on old mountains, the sky spat its blood,
veins  of burnt silver burst,vapours released,
thick white smoke, waved it's dragons tail,
and the pretence of tomorrow, released a form of
                                                     satisfaction.

A line was drawn,
bunkerered down, in a dream of rest,
measured vision one by one,
navigated, transcended, forgot,
released abandonment,
from the weight of perception.

The night softly dissolved into flames,
and comforts ambience, lifted its finger,
wrapped up in a warm place, of numbed release,
consciously blinking, in stretched defiance,
he fell asleep, to quietly wait,
for mornings hungry breath, to wake,
and the return of summer,
bringing some new shards of hope.

The Benefits System: EXPOSED

People aren't 'playing the system' to even a fraction of the degree the media and politicians make out.
Scapegoating just paves the way for further cuts in support to people who need and deserve help - including pensioners, low waged workers and people who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own.
The government is currently using  the right wing tabloids and media to lead an assault on the welfare system, in a deliberate  attempt at misleading the public with this constant onslaught of propoganda.
In the above video from the T.U.C  it tries to tackle some of the media and political myths about the benefit system, with the aid of a talking dog.
Oh and  lets remember the words of H.L Mencken who once said ' The whole aim of  practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed ( and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.