UK Police arrest 474 at Palestine Action solidarity protest in London's Parliament Square .

Police in London yesterday arrested over 474 demonstrators at Parliament Square simply for “showing support for Palestine Action.”  in  a solidarity protest against the Israeli Genocide in Gaza. 

The demonstration was organised by Defend Our Juries (DOJ), a protest group that has coordinated challenges to the ban almost every week since the  government proscribed the activist group under anti-terror laws on 4 July, following an incident in which members broke into the Royal Air Force Brize Norton base earlier this month and spray-painted two planes they said were "used for military operations in Gaza and across the Middle East".

The legislation made membership of and support for the group a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison - the first time a direct action group has been proscribed in the UK as a terrorist group.  

Since then, hundreds of people have been arrested at weekly protests by campaign group DOJ which said this week that the protests have "changed the meaning" of an arrest under the Terrorism Act and that it is considered a "badge of honour" within the movement. 

The group highlighted that the mass arrests could place strain on a prison system already "on the brink of collapse" and remains at 97.5 percent capacity, according to an independent review this week.  Saturday's protest comes amid mounting pressure on the UK government to lift the controversial ban amid concerns that it could be used to stifle criticism of Israel and the right to protest. 

In a post on X, DOJ said that there were "approximately a thousand protesters sat in Parliament Square with signs which read 'I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action'."  "In a collective act of resistance, people are risking their liberty for our civil liberties and for the Palestinian people." 

A spokesperson for the group later said: "The fact that unprecedented numbers came out today risking arrest and possible imprisonment shows how repulsed and ashamed people are about our government's ongoing complicity in a livestreamed genocide, and the lengths people are prepared to go to defend this country's ancient liberties."

The protest comes as Israel is set to expand its war on Gaza, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approving a complete occupation of the enclave and a new offensive on Gaza City.

MP John McDonnell, who made his way to Parliament Square after participating in an adjacent protest for Palestine in London, said in a post on X that "it's a disgrace that people are being arrested for upholding our democratic rights". 

The other protest, organised by a coalition of groups led by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), saw people  on Saturday, marching from Russell Square to the Prime Minister’s Office under the slogan “Stop Starving Gaza.” The Palestine Solidarity Campaign accused Israel of starving Palestinians to death and urged the UK government to act against what it called “genocide.”

Protesters carried Palestinian flags and chanted against Britain’s “complicity.” According to the PSC, "hundreds of thousands" took part in the demonstrations, which saw speeches from Palestinian Journalist Ahmed Alnaouq and Irish actress Denise Gough.  

One protester - Claudia Penna-Rojas 27 - told the BBC: "I don't think anyone wants to get arrested, but I'm more concerned with what is happening to people in Palestine right now, and I refuse to be a bystander." 

Among  those  arrested was a  90 year  old woman,  Moazzam Begg  a British survivor of torture who was freed from Guantanamo Bay,  Colonel (retired.) Chris Romberg, former British army officer  and the son of a holocaust survivor, his Jewish father fled from Austria to the UK, aged 25, to escape the Nazis  He served as a military attache at UK embassies in Egypt and Jordan.

He remembers, more than 25 years ago, the Foreign Office advising the government that Israel was committing war crimes in Palestine. And he remembers the government's response: to say nothing committal; the UK would "hide in the EU pack" 

Others arrested   included NHS workers, Quakers and a blind wheelchair user and a man holding a sign that read “I DON’T support Palestine INaction!” Around half of them (259) were aged 60 and above - including almost 100 people who were in their 70s. All of them  good, honest people driven only by their conscience and their compassion for others. Heroes,  every single  one  of  them.  

Carrying signs supporting action against killing children can now land you 14 years in prison, while killing children in mass carries no prison sentence. The Metropolitan  Police  bragged that the number of arrests was the largest made by the force on a single day in the last 10 years!  Home Secretary Yvette Cooper thanked police for their response. What a waste of money and resources.

Yvette Cooper  has previously expressed support for the suffragettes, a safe thing to do 100 years on. But if the Suffragettes were active today, Yvette Cooper would ban them as a terrorist organisation. 

Amnesty International UK's chief executive Sacha Deshmukh said in a statement: "The protesters in Parliament Square were not inciting violence and it is entirely disproportionate to the point of absurdity to be treating them as terrorists. Instead of criminalising peaceful demonstrators, the government should be focusing on taking immediate and unequivocal action to put a stop to Israel's genocide and ending any risk of UK complicity in it."

Last month, UN human rights chief Volker Turk said that the ban was "disproportionate and unnecessary" and called for the designation to be rescinded,  also on  July 30, 2025, High Court Judge Mr. Justice Chamberlain ruled that the Home Secretary’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action may breach natural justice and rights to free expression and assembly under Articles 6, 10, and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. While a bid to pause the ban was rejected, the judicial review is ongoing, with a potential ruling not expected until 2026.

Amnesty International warned  on  Thursday that the mass arrests could break international law, with Amnesty UK Chief Executive Sacha Deshmukh saying: "Arresting people on terrorism offences for peacefully holding a placard flies in the face of international human rights law."  "At a time when people are quite rightly outraged by the genocide they see being perpetrated in Gaza, it is more crucial than ever that there is space to peacefully express that outrage."  

And  on the  same  day  scores of leading global academics, including Judith Butler, Tariq Ali, Angela Davis, Naomi Klein, Rashid Khalidi, Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappe, signed an open letter denouncing Palestine Action's proscription as an "attack on fundamental freedoms".https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/06/palestine-action-ban-is-an-attack-on-fundamental-freedoms

The immeasurably shameful lack of UK media coverage for these huge, peaceful London marches, or the international marches, or the workers blockading weapons shipments, or the resistance in Israel itself, continues, even as Germany suspends arms shipments over the ruins of Gaza, and former heads of Shin Bet, Mossad and the IDF call on the Israeli government to stop. In response, the Israeli government murdered the entire Al Jazeera press team. 

Palestine Action is not an armed group. It has never been responsible for any fatalities and does not pose any risk to the public. Its methods do involve property sabotage, aimed almost exclusively at disrupting the manufacture of weapons by the Israeli arms company Elbit Systems, and its subsidiaries and are part of a long tradition of campaigners taking direct action against companies involved in war and genocide. Their actions may amount to criminal damage, but they are definitively not terrorism. 

It's  a terrible overreach of the law  to  proscribe  them  because of government embarrassment that Palestine Action broke into an RAF base and spray painted two planes  that they said were "used for military operations in Gaza and across the Middle East". a plane. They are opposed to genocide, the government is not. Acts of daring civil disobedience  should  be applauded.

The attack on Palestine Action spearheads an offensive against opposition to the Gaza genocide and all political and social opposition. Meanwhile Israel has murdered 100,000+ Palestinians, since October 2023 and blown up every hospital in Gaza and is starving 2.3 million Palestinians to death.

In November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.  Israel is also facing a genocide case at the International Court of Justice over its ongoing assault on the enclave.

 Palestine Action's are proportionate and on the right side of history. It's absurd to brand them a "terrorist" group. Proscribing Palestine Action is fascist authoritarianism designed to silence all criticism of "Israel" and  to protect a lawless, violent, ethno supremacist apartheid State. 

I stand in unequivocal support with Palestine Action and am  against  the outrageous decision by this government to try to proscribe them.  I support people who engage in direct action to prevent genocide and war crimes. As the genocide in Gaza continues and Western governments stand complicit it is a farce that activists against the genocide are those being arrested. Netanyahu, Starmer, Trump and the whole Israeli state are the real criminals.

In this moment  in time. we must  all  declare: We are all Palestine Action and not be silent in the face of genocide, occupation, and injustice.  Full Arms Embargo and Sanctions on Israel Now.  Free Palestine.

Marking 80 years after the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

 

On the 6th August 1945 the United States dropped  an atomic bomb called ' Little Boy" on Hiroshima, Japan which is estimated to have killed 100,000 to 180,000 people out of a population of 350,000. Then three days later,  on 9th August 1945  a second  atomic bomb  called "Fat Man" was dropped on the city of Nagasaki in an act of unspeakable violence  which is  often neglected in the wake of Hiroshima..The Nagasaki bomb, bigger and more powerful, wiped out whole communities in seconds. killing  between 40,000 and 75,000 people   that  day   with  another 60,000  seriously injured. Over the next five years, more than 100,000 deaths resulted from the bombing.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were  both  largely civilian towns, meaning there wasn't a strong military reason to drop the atomic bombs over those particular cities. No one was excluded from the horrors of the atomic bomb, a "destroyer of worlds" burnt hotter than the sun. Some people were vaporised upon impact, while others suffered burns and radiation poisoning that would kill them days, weeks or even months later. Others were crushed by debris, burned by unimaginable heat or suffocated by the lack of oxygen. 

Many survivors suffered from Leukemia  and other cancers like thyroid and lung cancer at higher rates than those not exposed to the bombs. Mothers were more likely to  lose their children during pregnancy or shortly after birth. Children exposed to radiation were more likely to have learning disabilities and impaired growth. Leukemia was the first cancer to be observed in children from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In continuing Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission studies on survivors for sixty years and continued by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, children in comparison with older individuals have developed increased susceptibility to other forms of cancer.

Those that did manage to survive  would be traumatised for the rest of their lives. Hibakusha is a term widely used in Japan, that refers to the victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it translates as 'explosion effected  Survivor of Light. These survivors speak of the deep, unabating grief they felt in the days, months and decades since the attack  They have described the shame of being a survivor , many were  shunned, feared for unknown damage to their bodies that could affect others. Women were afraid to sign up for healthcare as it would make it public that they were survivors, and no one would marry them. Decades later, some children of survivors,  felt obliged to tell the parents of people they wanted to marry that history.  others were  unable to find jobs, or live any sort of normal life. 

They have said that many Hibakusha never speak of the day, instead choosing to suffer in silence. They told what it was like to be suddenly alone in middle age, to lose their parents, spouses, children, and livelihoods in a single instant. In memory of them, we should make sure that the  misery and devastation caused by nuclear weapons is never forgotten.

"Please don't make any more like us. We don't want any more hibakusha". This is the prayer of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - also known as "hibakusha".  

The US atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing more than 200,000 civilians, was a barbaric, unjustifiable war crime. As this plaque in the Hiroshima Peace Park explains, there were peace moves afoot but they didn't suit the US cold war agenda.

Even if Japan was not fully innocent, the people of Japan did not deserve to pay the price for their nations wrongdoing, and there was absolutely no moral justification in obliterating these two cities and killing its inhabitants in what was clearly a crime against humanity and murder on an epic scale. Hiroshima and Nagasaki held no strategic importance. Members  of Japan's top leadership at the time  were involved in peace negotiations. and were already on the brink of surrender 

Many believe that these two atrocities were a result of  geopolitical posturing at its most barbaric, announcing  in a catastrophic  display of military capability, of inhumane intention showing America's willingness to use doomsday weapons on civilian populations. The bombings serving as warnings and the fist act of the Cold War against its imperialist rival Russia. A message to the Russians of the power of destruction and technological military capability that the US had managed to develop. Three days later U.S president Harry Truman exulted ; "This is the greatest thing in history! " and gloated that " we are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely."

Then the photos began to emerge, haunting images of burned children with their skin hanging off, of bodies charred and there was Sadaki Sasaki and the 1,000 origami peace cranes she folded before her death at 12 from leukemia ten years after the bomb was dropped on her hometown of Hiroshima. The atom bombs dropped by the US on those Japanese cities served no military purpose, as the Japanese were already suing for peace. President Truman, who ordered the bombs to be dropped, lied to the American people when he said that the atom bombs had saved lives and there were few civilian deaths, The  two atomic bombs killed and maimed hundreds and thousands of people. and the effects are still being felt today. The bombs dropped were  of a indiscriminate and cruel character beyond comparison  with weapons and projectiles of the past. Despite all  this Truman never regretted his decision. .

Today as the world commemorates the lives that were lost and the unacceptable devastation caused to people and planet, we still have so much to learn from this picture of indescribable human suffering.

When American troops arrived in Nagasaki and stumbled upon one of the cameramen, from the legendary film company Nippon Eiga Sha, shooting amidst the rubble, they promptly arrested him and confiscated his film. The Americans would halt the entire production in fact. When they let it continue, they did so as producers, paying for the production and thus retaining the right to the film - and the right to keep it concealed for decades.

The atom bombs dropped by the US on those Japanese cities served no military purpose, as the Japanese were already suing for peace. President Truman, who ordered the bombs to be dropped, lied to the American people when he said that the atom bombs had saved lives and there were few civilian deaths, The  two atomic bombs killed and maimed hundreds and thousands of people .and the effects are still being felt today.

After seeing the barbarous effect of these weapons, did our political and military leaders decide to rid the world of them. Far from it. Today's nuclear weapons make the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs look like water pistols in  comparison, and there are enough of them to destroy not just cities but the whole world.

And who has most of these weapons of mass destruction? The only country to ever  use them - the United States.  It is unfathomable that it has been 80 years and the United States has not apologized yet for dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In fact children in the US are still taught that this unspeakable crime was justified.

And  now  the US, the only country that has used nuclear weapons against a population, provides support for the Israeli bombing of Gaza, which is multiple times worse than the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  have bought B61-12  Nuclear Bombs to to be housed at RAF Lakenheath,  in  Suffolk  contravening Article 1 of Non Proliferation Treaty. The lingering humanitarian aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki should remind us all of what is at stake and galvanise our action. 

Far from protecting Europeans during wartime, these nuclear weapons would contribute to turning Europe into a radioactive wasteland.  Despite the significant issues and risks involved in basing these weapons of mass destruction in Europe, neither the US nor the UK government have bothered to inform citizens or parliament that they have been deployed here, marking the first time since 2008 that U.S. nuclear weapons have been stationed on British soil.

Remember the United States of America, the same country that unleashed the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is now complicit in the atrocities in Gaza. History repeats itself when we turn a blind eye to inhumanity.

Today as the world commemorates the lives that were lost and the unacceptable devastation caused to people and planet, we still have so much to learn from this picture of indescribable human suffering. In today’s world, civilians can document mass atrocities in real time, and their experiences are immortalized on social media and in news accounts. From Ukraine to Gaza, there is no denying the reality on the ground. But in 1945, the horrors unleashed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were largely hidden from the outside world.  

Eighty years later, thanks to the testimonies shared by those who survived the atomic bombings we have a window into the truth of what happened on those dark August days when weapons of previously unimaginable power destroyed these cities.  

Through their tireless testimonies and activism, the “hibakusha”  have helped fuel public demand for post-Cold War arms-control treaties that have resulted in significant stockpile reductions in the United States and Russia  and helped persuade nuclear-armed countries to stop explosive weapons tests that caused grave harm to the environment and to the service members and civilians involved.  

They worked to establish the “nuclear taboo” that has spared the use of nuclear weapons in warfare for eight decades. They delivered millions of petition signatures to the United Nations that have helped bring about norms and treaties to  try and reduce nuclear risks.  

Again and again, they have proved that progress is possible, and for their decades of work to ensure that no families, no communities, no cities, no country ever again face the unthinkable, the survivors in 2024 were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It wasn’t the first time the prestigious Nobel committee recognized efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

Grim descriptions of the immense human suffering caused by the US nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 80 years ago dominate the discourse around their anniversaries. Every year, these attacks are a stark reminder of the existential threat nuclear weapons pose to humanity. The testimonies of survivors and the footage of the hellish aftermath in the two destroyed cities demonstrate vividly the effects of nuclear weapons like no other event.

The lessons seem clear: If two, by today’s standards, small nuclear weapons can cause such death and destruction, the consequences of the use of any number of the 12,000 nuclear weapons existing today would be catastrophic. The nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki also demonstrate that any use of nuclear weapons would almost inevitably violate basic principles of international law because it would cause unnecessary suffering, indiscriminately kill civilians and very likely would be considered disproportionate. By today’s legal standards, the US nuclear attacks on Japan would be illegal.

Yet, in striking contrast to the ritual of remembrance of the gruesome nuclear bombings on 6 and 9 August 1945, the political discourse around nuclear weapons on most other days of the year has become astoundingly light-hearted and increasingly careless. 

Many decision-makers in nuclear weapons states and those allied with them speak about nuclear weapons no differently than about other weapons. They often exaggerate the security benefits of nuclear weapons, while ignoring or downplaying risks associated with their continued existence. Ethical and legal constraints on the possession and proliferation of these horrific weapons rarely get mentioned when nuclear deterrence is discussed. 

While  dominant voices continue to spread the irrational narrative that nuclear weapons keep us safe, that deterrence will always work, that disarmament is not possible.  Nuclear weapons, they say, are a necessary evil in a dangerous world. This has always been an absurd position, and it is unconscionable at a time when the world is closer to a nuclear catastrophe than at any time since the Cold War ‒ with wars raging in regions with nuclear weapons, more countries weighing whether to develop nuclear weapons and new technologies complicating already-complex weapons systems.   

 Demanding a nuclear-free world isn’t naive. True naivete is believing that weapons designed to annihilate cities will keep us safe. Evil is never necessary. The only way to guarantee that these weapons are never used again is to eliminate them once and for all.  

Today Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki  has appealed for an end to the wars raging in the world on the 80th anniversary of the US atom bomb attack which destroyed the Japanese city.  Shiro Suzuki said in a Peace Declaration at a solemn ceremony to mark the event.  "If we continue on this trajectory, we will end up thrusting ourselves into a nuclear war." and called on world leaders to chart a concrete path toward abolishing nuclear weapons, 

Suzuki  urged countries to stop wars immediately and express concern about nuclear war,  He  also shared  messages from hibakusha atomic bomb survivors and of the cruelty of nuclear weapons by referring to the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, or Nihon Hidankyo,  which won last year's Nobel Peace Prize, and a speech by the late former Nihon Hidankyo co-chair Senji Yamaguchi.  "Amid the growing threat of nuclear war, we will call on people to act as global citizens, who transcend races and borders, and make peace,"  He  also  expressed a  determination to pass on the messages of hibakusha to future generations.

"Immediately cease from disputes in which 'force is met with force.' Conflicts around the world are intensifying in a vicious cycle of confrontation and fragmentation."  

Mayor Shiro SUZUKI,  Nagasaki Peace Declaration

Full text of Nagasaki Peace Declaration on 80th anniversary of atomic bombing

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20250808/p2g/00m/0na/035000c

The commemoration in the rebuilt city began with a moment of silence.  Nagasaki's twin cathedral bells also rang in unison for the first time since the attack, in a message of peace to the world.  

As part of Saturday's ceremony, water offerings were made in a moving and symbolic gesture  80 years ago victims whose skin was burning after the blast had begged for water.  Today participants of different generations including a representative of the survivors offered water in a show of respect to those who perished in nuclear fire.

Bomb survivor Hiroshi Nishioka, 93, who was just 3km (1.8 miles) from the spot where it exploded, told the ceremony of the horror he had witnessed.  "Even the lucky ones [who were not severely injured] gradually began to bleed from their gums and lose their hair, and one after another they died," he said, as quoted by AFP news agency.  "Even though the war was over, the atomic bomb brought invisible terror."

Hiroshi Nishioka was a teenager when the atom bomb landed on Nagasaki

 

On  this poignant  anniversary  we remember the thousands who were killed in a crime against humanity, as well as the survivors who carried the pain of the past.  As  we mourn the lives lost at Hiroshima and Nagasaki now is the time for us to redouble our efforts to ensure that such an atrocity does not happen again, 

Israel has now dropped enough bombs on Gaza to be the equivalent of the atomic bombs dropped on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 80 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US-backed genocide in Gaza mirrors the same  brutality. Over 65,000 tons of bombs-3  times the power of Hiroshima-have razed Gaza. From WWII to today,  the US still  fuels annihilation   and  continues  to whitewash its crimes against humanity,

Today with a genocide underway in Gaza, war in Ukraine and rising nuclear threats, we must reaffirm, a collective commitment to disarmament and peace and vow to rid our world of nuclear weapons once and for all. Completely ridding the world of nuclear weapons is a humanitarian and moral imperative and it is the only way forward. Governments must be urged to pursue negotiations to prohibit the use of  nuclear weapons through a legally binding international agreement.

"Nuclear weapons cannot coexist with human beings. Nuclear weapons were made by humans, and used by humans. So it is also up to the humans to abolish them by our wisdom, public conscience and responsibility.  No more Hibakusha! And, no more war!"  Masako Wada, Ass. Secretary General, Nihon Hidankyo

People pray in front of the Peace Statue at Nagasaki Peace Park in the city of Nagasaki in October 2024. (Mainichi/Kota Yoshida)  

The Role that Drones in West Wales have Played in Gaza must come to an end.

Photograph: Getty Images

Evidence revealed by Amnesty International suggests that UAVs , pilotless military drones– have been used by the Israeli army to target air strikes in Gaza. A new campaign group, West Wales Against Arms, has launched a public call to end drone testing  here  in Ceredigion linked to the Israeli military. The group, made up of residents concerned about weapons testing in the region, held its first public meeting at the Guildhall in Cardigan on July 14. 

This is an issue that has long polarised my local community. Over the years people  have been protesting outside Parc Aberporth against the testing of drones here. The reason  being  is that Israeli-manufactured drones including the Elbit Hermes 450 and Hermes 900 have been test flown from  West Wales Airport since 2012. Both models are widely used by the Israeli military, including in operations over Gaza.

Thales UK fly and maintain their Watchkeeper drones for the MOD from West Wales Airport. Thales is the UK branch of Israeli arms company Elbit Systems Ltd (via a subsidiary company U-TacS) and is also in active partnership with Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI).  

Elbit Systems is apartheid Israel's largest arms company. It is privately owned, and provides 80% of the weapons and equipment for Israel's land forces and 85% of the combat drones used by the airforce. The  site in  Aberporth has been a key location for testing Elbit's Hermes series drones, 

Elbit’s Hermes 900 was deployed in Gaza by the IDF in 2014.  and  Israeli military and industry sources openly attribute the success of these Israeli weapon exports to being ‘combat proven’ in operations against Palestinians that have left many Palestinians dead  and  are being used  in  clear  breach of what is considered international law.

Elbit Systems are one of the biggest arms companies in the world and the primary supplier of the Watchkeeper drones used by the IDF against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza strip. The company’s headquarters is in Haifa in Israel, their CEO is Bezhalel Machlis who has been at the helm since 2013, overseeing the company as it generated $4.7billion in revenue in 2020.

The Aberporth site has staged trials for the Hermes 900 model drone, the successor to the Hermes 450, one of the most widely used military drones in the world. These drones have been cited by a variety of international Non-Government Organisations for targeting civilians. The Watchkeeper drones are also based on the Hermes models. Elbit Systems boast of the drone’s capacity for surveillance and ‘target acquisition.’   

West Wales Airport  brands itself as “the UK’s most important test and demonstration area for drones..” but it  is  important  to  note that  QinetiQ, a major UK defence contractor, runs the MOD Aberporth facility. and develops UAVs (drones) for export to the Israeli military for use in the genocide in Gaza, and the decades long illegal occupation of Palestine and the brutal oppression of Palestinians.  

Between 2008 and 2021 QinetiQ received eight export licenses for arms to Israel, including one licence worth more than £14 million .and sends teams abroad with high-tech drones and mock enemy vehicles to run live-fire military training missions. 

Elbit Systems have hit the headlines recently due to multiple of their factories and offices being occupied and having production of the lethal drones shut down by Palestine Action, a direct-action focus group   that  has  recently  wrongly   been  proscribed   as  a terrorist   organisation  whose primary objective  was  to shut down Elbit Systems operations in the UK.  

West Wales Airport   has  advertised itself as a ‘privately owned and entirely independent’, however sources have  discovered that  this  claim of independence   to  be very  dubious.   

West Wales Airport has been dependent for its development on Welsh Government funding/loans, some funds of which still appear to be current in accounts in 2023. The Welsh Government has also secured funding/loans for West Wales Airport against its freehold title deeds, and land at West Wales Airport was sold, somewhat curiously, by the Welsh Assembly Government to the company in 2009 for the sum of £30,000.  

Additionally, Thales UK claims that since 2004 they have invested £12million into West Wales Airport. As of 12 March 2024, Thales UK/MOD have extended their contract with West Wales Airport. The cost of this extension is valued at £6.5 million.

West Wales Airport  also  brands itself as “the UK’s most important test and demonstration area for drones..” and  boast   that their teams can deploy “anywhere in the world at short notice” and run mission planning, launches, radar-evading drones, and even simulate missile attacks. This is big business. But it’s also deeply concerning — especially in regions where military action has caused massive civilian casualties.

QinetiQ systems and employees are being used to train Israeli forces during attacks on Gaza.  These services may be slipping through UK arms control laws by being classified as “services,” not weapons.  QinetiQ is still closely linked to the UK government  The question  many  people  are  asking is should a British company be profiting from conflict?

In a statement, West Wales Against Arms said: “We are horrified by the genocide in Gaza and do not want West Wales to be part of it. We do not want our skies used to test equipment that helps Israel commit war crimes and kill children.”   

 Previous Protest at Parc Aberporth

Since October 2023, over 61,000 people have reportedly been killed in Gaza, including thousands of children. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued applications for arrest warrants against senior Israeli and Hamas leaders for alleged war crimes. 

The campaign group’s flyer claims West Wales is becoming increasingly militarised and calls on residents to oppose what it calls “complicity in genocide.”  

Ceredigion Palestine Solidarity Campaign   recently organised two static protests, at two simultaneous locations, in 18 March. 2024  It was over the Labour-led Welsh government’s complicity in Israel‘s ongoing genocide in Gaza. The details of just how the Labour Party administration is involved are both murky and shocking.  

The protest, supported by CND Cymru, called attention to the Welsh Government’s enablement of suppliers and developers of Unmanned Weapons Systems (UAS) to the Israeli military for use in both the genocide in Gaza and the illegally occupied Palestinian territories.  

At times, people blocked the road into ParcAberporth technology park:  Mock-up coffins were used to visualise the Welsh government’s support for Israel’s war machine.  When you realise just why protesters were angry with the Welsh government – you won’t be surprised. 

Here’s an up‑to‑date breakdown of Israel’s use of drones in Gaza—how they’re used in surveillance, killing civilians, and destroying property. The information is based on verified reporting and rights group investigations. 

1. Precision Drone Strikes on Civilians and Property Modified commercial drones (e.g., DJI Agras and Avata) have been weaponized—used to drop explosives on civilian homes, hospitals, and shelters across Gaza . ‘Human rights groups documented drone attacks that killed entire families, including children and residents running from earlier strikes, such as the El‑Farra family, targeted in their street at night” according to the Middle East Children's Alliance .

A Médecins du Monde office in Deir al‑Balah had been officially marked as safe, yet drone strikes destroyed it, killing at least eight civilians—even though the organization had been “deconflicted” . Local reporting confirms that Israeli drone strikes killed civilians, injuring others near Al‑Aqsa Martyrs Hospital and in Shuja’iyya, warning that drone operations remain active and lethal .

 2. Sniper (Quadcopter) Drones for Targeted Shooting Eyewitness accounts describe miniature sniper drones, or quadcopters equipped with guns, allegedly used to shoot civilians in Gaza—including women and children—often in cramped urban spaces . 

3. Surveillance, Mapping & Tactical Support Drones are extensively deployed for real-time surveillance, tracking movements and mapping Gaza’s tunnels and neighborhoods. One reported incident revealed a DJI Avata drone monitoring Palestinians being used as human shields in Shujaiya, allowing Israeli forces to clear a school under cover of drone observation  

Usage Patterns and Impact 

Direct Deaths and Property Destruction

Thousands of civilian deaths—especially children, women, and displaced persons—have been tied to drone-delivered explosive munitions: roadside bombs, suicide drones, and small precision devices Reports show civilian infrastructure, including homes, shelters, hospitals, and school‑turned‑refuges, being destroyed by drones on multiple occasions—even when no military target was identified (e.g., displacement camps and medical offices)  

Disproportionate or Intentional Targeting 

Amnesty International and other rights groups found strikes on places like the Saint Porphyrius Church and Nuseirat camps killed dozens of civilians (including infants), with drone footage often central to the targeting process—even in highly protected refugee sites  DCI-Palestine reported that 37% of casualties during one summer operation were caused by drone attacks alone, indicating a significant share of fatalities attributable to drone weaponry 

Summary Overview 

In terms of each type of drone and it’s role, function and impact. Armed commercial drones : Carry explosive payloads (e.g. DJI Agras bombs Destroy civilian homes, shelters, hospitals Sniper-style quadcopter drone : Fires small arms at individuals in urban spaces Kill civilians—including women and children,  while  providing  visual intelligence, mapping, and tracking  and  enabling precision targeting and tactical operations 

 

In summary Drones  continue   to  play a major, direct role in civilian casualties and property destruction across Gaza, many of those killed or displaced were struck while sheltering in homes, camps, or medical facilities. A substantial share of fatalities in certain operations stem from drone strikes, including entire families hit by targeted explosive payloads. Surveillance drones also facilitate operations where civilians are exposed to high risk, including use of forced human shields. While sniper drones shooting single rounds are a newer and more isolated tactic, they nonetheless represent a deliberate weaponization of non-lethal platforms. 

It’s clear that drones in the Gaza conflict  are far more than surveillance tools. They’re used offensively, to kill, destroy infrastructure, and reinforce military objectives, while frequently hitting civilian targets even in designated safe zones. Evidence suggests the technology is being employed at scale, in ways that disproportionately impact non-combatants.

The Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA) has raised concerns about the use of drones in Israeli attacks on Palestinian territories, particularly regarding the impact on children. MECA has reported that children have been directly targeted and killed in drone strikes, both in their homes and while attempting to flee. They highlight that Israeli officials often boast of the precision of drone strikes, suggesting that the targeting of children is deliberate.  MECA's work includes providing aid to families in Gaza, including food, medical care, and psychological support. They also focus on projects like educational programs and community development. The organization has also reported on the impact of drone strikes and other attacks on infrastructure like schools and hospitals, and the resulting trauma experienced by children.  

The drone has become a part of the everyday life of Gazans. They wake up in the morning to its noise, and it’s the same noise they hear while trying to sleep. It is always there, to the extent that one might even momentarily forget it is there.

Since their first use in 2000, drones have led to the death of hundreds of Palestinians and have injured thousands more. In addition, they have directly negatively impacted Palestinian psychological and social life, as well as causing a grossly negative impact on education. 

While in comparison, the Israeli use of drones to target individuals, public premises, academic institutions, and schools are more intensified than its use in any other place by any other army. Most studies do not include the Israeli use of drones against the Palestinians in their surveys. They only refer to the fact that Israel manufactures drones and uses them, while the consequences of using drones day and night in Gaza are understudied and nearly absent in the field of drones’ studies. 

In numbers, civilians killed or injured by drones during the frequent Israeli offensives against Gaza are very high. Moreover, drones in Gaza have a different impact on the lives of the people which have not been properly studied. However, the most striking aspect of the Israeli usage of drones in Gaza is how drones are used to intensify the occupation, to make it cheaper and more profitable as well.

UK government contracts with corporations such as Elbit (and its subsidiaries) which are involved in violations of international law must end immediately as  must  a  two-way arms embargo between the UK and Israel. This would see an end to all dealings with Elbit and other Israeli weapons companies, and an end to all licences for UK arms exports to Israel.

Since 2015, the UK has licensed at least £500 million worth of military exports to Israel.  Even though the government has suspended a small number of arms licences, there are still hundreds remaining. The use of drones  as tested   in the  skies of  West  Wales  to conduct lethal strikes, causing civilian casualties, and  the  continuing  complicity of the UK, in Israel’s campaign of genocide in Gaza ,  must  now come to and end. 

Thankfully there  is  growing opposition to drone testing here in West Wales, due to concerns about its use in weapons development,  what is happening in  Gaza and  the potential impact on the local community. 

There  will  be  a peaceful  vigil  this coming  Wednesday 6/8/25 from  1pm  till  2  pm  outside Aberporth MOD  to  highlight what is  happening. It is critical in  the global mass movement of solidarity  with the Palestinian people  that  we continue to speak  out.

In  addition  to  all  this  the  US military is trying to build a huge 27 dish radar array in Wales and plans to use it to militarily dominate all of space! I  also  support the PARC Against DARC campaign which has been set up to stop DARC! Pembrokeshire Against the Radar,

Sign their petition  here :https://bit.ly/4bgVUMh  Lett the MoD know that you oppose DARC on the feedback form here: https://www.gov.uk/.../deep-space-advanced-radar.. And  please follow PARC Against DARC on their social media pages! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/parcagainstdarc   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/parcagainstdarc Twitter: https://twitter.com/parcagainstdarc

Sources  and   information from : 

War on Want

 https://waronwant.org/sites/default/files/Killer%20Drones%2C%20War%20on%20Want.pdf

The Canary https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2024/03/19/welsh-government-israel/

Drone Wars https://dronewars.net/

Middle East Children's Alliance https://www.mecaforpeace.org/

Al Jazeera https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/1/21/i-dream-of-a-quiet-drone-free-gaza

The Lead https://thelead.uk/gazas-skies-cardigan-bay-drone-testing-facility-dividing-welsh-village

Hope in the air as ex-leader Jeremy Corbyn and Zara Sultana launch a new left-wing UK party in Rebuke to Starmer's Labour

This Thursday saw former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s confirming that he and Zara Sultana have launched a new left wing party after weeks of discussions, aimed at taking on the “corporations and billionaires” and their “rigged system”. 

In a  joint statement announcing plans to form the  new party, Corbyn and Sultana vowed to fight injustices such as child poverty, giant corporations making "a fortune from rising bills" and the government saying "there is no money for the poor, but billions for war".

Westminster journalists have described the launch of Jeremy Corbyn’s new party as “chaotic” and “a shambles” in drafts written the day before the launch. Yet over 300,000 people have now signed up in less than 24 hours. Not bad for a political party that hasn't even been officially founded yet! And the reason the party doesn’t have a name year is that the organisers want the name itself to be democratically chosen.

Tentatively dubbed Your Party— it  also hopes to challenge Keir Starmer's Labour from the left and unite disaffected progressives under a populist, anti-establishment banner. The launch, which has been months in the making, promises to shake up the landscape ahead of the next general election. But for Corbyn and Sultana, this isn't just about internal Labour disputes. Central to their platform is an unflinching pro-Palestinian stance—a message that stands in sharp contrast to Starmer's  especially as Labour faces mounting criticism for its position on Gaza.

 'Now, more than ever, we must defend the right to protest against genocide,' Corbyn wrote in Thursday's joint statement. 'We believe in the radical idea that all human life has equal value. That is why we will keep demanding an end to all arms sales to Israel, and for the only path to peace: a free and independent Palestine.'  

Sultana added: 'We can't continue down the road of managed decline and broken promises. This is about building a democratic movement that truly speaks for the people.'can't continue down the road of managed decline and broken promises. This is about building a democratic movement that truly speaks for the people.'

The group intends to bring together independent MPs, grassroots campaigners and trade unionists under one umbrella. Of course ‘Westminster journalists’ have given negative reports. The incumbent authoritarians don’t want anyone challenging their capture of the UK legislature. Remember their the same journalists that propagated the anti-Semitism scam! The same journalists that have barely covered the atrocities in Gaza, and more than likely failed to read the launch doc or understand it, probably on purpose and are best ignored.

Jeremy and Zara are honest and principled leaders who speak for millions. Millions who want to tax the rich, end the wars, take on  the rich and powerful, redistribute wealth, and build a country that serves people, not billionaires. Here’s the sign-up link, if you’re interested in getting involved, read  the  launch  statement or just staying updated on their progress :https://www.yourparty.uk/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email Polls show the new party is already somewhere between 10% and 20% of the vote and potentially level pegging with Labour. 

Neil Kinnock calling the new Left party a 'Farage assistance party' that would 'assist the parties of the right', including Badenoch’s Conservatives and Reform UK  is a joke .His party opened the door to Farage  in  the  first  place, and there is an easy solution as a failing brand, Labour should step aside. 

David Lammy and Keir Starmer will never be able to change the historical record. They drenched the Labour party in the blood of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and it seems to me highly unlikely that most of the 9.7 million who voted Labour in 2024 wanted a government that continues ruinous austerity economics; keeps spreading economic illiteracy; mugs pensioners; economically sanctions disabled people; takes lavish handouts and freebies from their dodgy, mega-rich backers; supports and enables a downright evil civilian starvation programme in Gaza; and eliminates our long-standing British rights to free speech and non-violent protest (in service of the overseas civilian-starvers).

I support a new genuinely militant force that takes them out of power. One that is also against  austerity, war, racism  and oppression. It's been so funny watching the right, the centralists, and the establishment losing their shit because Jeremy and Zara have formed this  new left of centre party. A party that will put the working and precariat class before capitalism and corruption. They can smear, they can panic, all  they like but they can’t stop a movement whose time has come.   

Our political establishment is a truly craven comprador class whose role is to facilitate the exploitation of ordinary people and will do everything in it's to stop this changing, but slowly and surely for the sake of the next generation we must find the means to bring them down, the establishment parties have failed us, now me must fight for the greater good like our lives depend on it. Westminster and the establishment are panicking, and so they should be, as we the people are coming to take them down.

Personally I believe  the so called democratic system of Westminster to be broken and electoral politics seem to be at a dead end in  this present time, but it’s still good to have an organised movement for left wing people to coalesce around. Especially if it can remain pure and for the people. 

I myself would like to  see Scotland, Wales and NI all go our separate ways, and forge a new radical independent autonomous future. So will also  remind  people here in Wales of a new pro-independence, anti-capitalist organisation  called Cymru’n Codi {Cymru Rising)  that's also worth taking a look  at: https://rising.cymru/2025/06/13/join-us/  a  socialist alliance that  has been  set up to fight around the 2026 Senedd Elections and beyond.

At  the end of  the day wherever we  live we  need a radical new direction, putting people first based on justice and human dignity one that brings about hopefully actual, long lasting  meaningful change. Bring it on.

R.I.P. Ozzy Osbourne

 

Came home earlier to discover Ozzy Osbourne  who had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2019, has  passed  away  at  the  age of 76, just a few weeks after giving his fans, one of the greatest and most aptly timed goodbyes in music history after playing a farewell concert  called Back to the Beginning in his home city of Birmingham, England. He couldn’t stand anymore but still captivated every single person in the audience. 

Hey let’s not kid ourselves cats have 9 lives Ozzy must’ve had 20 !! I’m surprised he made it this far but having said that the news of his  passing was  somewhat unexpected. 

Parkinson’s disease charities have praised Ozzy Osbourne for talking about his diagnosis and helping others “feel less alone” in facing the challenges of the condition. Parkinson’s UK said the Black Sabbath frontman “normalised tough conversations”, while Cure Parkinson’s thanked him for “putting a spotlight” on its work. 

The proceeds of his final concert  which raised over £150 million went to Cure Parkinson’s, Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Acorns Children’s Hospice.

I was a huge  admirer of  the stuff  he did  with Sabbath and then with  blizzard of ozz,  but was very disappointed to say  the least that he recently signed a letter to stop the BBC from airing a documentary chronicling Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and broke the boycott  to perform in Israel in  2010 (Tel Aviv) and 2018 (Rishon LeZion)  stating alcohol, not politics, delayed earlier visits .and urged other artists to do the same, he  was not Jewish but reportedly developed a strong connection to Judaism and support for Israel probably under the influence of his  wife Sharon. He was also a staunch  advocate against the BDS movement  and  was recently among those calling for the end of boycotts against Israeli authors, festivals and literary institutions. 

This came after Irish author Sally Rooney, Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy, Pulitzer Prize winner Viet Thanh Nguyen and US writers Percival Everett and Rachel Kushner signed a letter along with others calling for a “mass boycott of Israeli publishers” in response to an unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza,  and saying that “Israeli cultural institutions, often working directly with the state, have been crucial in obfuscating, disguising and artwashing” the way Palestinians are treated by Israel.

Despite serious health problems that forced him to cancel subsequent world-tour dates, Israeli promoters said Ozzy’s two shows drew tens of thousands and helped pave the way for other hard-rock acts who later ignored boycott pressure too. All  this I  believe to be a huge  stain on his fine legacy and a far cry from his Black Sabbath days when he released the song “War Pigs”, which condemned leaders who initiate wars for profit.

Ozzy was undeniably talented and  was loved by  many, but to see a man who co wrote “War Pigs” go on supporting Israel until his death despite any mental or physical condition or outside persuasion I feel is unforgivable and very  hard to process  because I  definitely disagreed with his  point of  view, and  was so sad to see someone I admired, very publicly supporting the oppressors side  in this  way. 

That said, “War Pigs” Pigs, a  powerful timeless anti-war/anti-genocide   song that is so  apposite at this  present time, will far outlive the man or his personal views on Israel. I have to  acknowledge too that  he was  no  bloody  saint, he was after  all  the prince of darkness.

Either clad in black or bare-chested, the singer was often the target of parents’ groups for his imagery and once caused an uproar for biting the head off a bat. Later, he would reveal himself to be a doddering and sweet father on the reality TV show “The Osbournes.” 

Born John Michael Osbourne on December 3 1948 in Aston, Birmingham, he left school at 15 and did odd jobs including factory work, working in a slaughterhouse and spending a short spell in prison for burglary before teaming up with school friend Geezer Butler in several bands.  The pair then linked up with the other founder members of Black Sabbath, Tony Iommi and Bill Ward, to form what was then called Earth Blues Company – later shortened to Earth – in 1968.  

Initially a Mod who loved soul music, according to his biography on the band’s official website, Osbourne crafted his darker image after writing lyrics for a song entitled Black Sabbath after the 1963 Boris Karloff film of the same name.  

The name stuck – after they were forced to change it from Earth – and the band went on to sell millions of records over the next decade on the back of sound-defining tracks including Paranoid and War Pigs.  A product of their working-class roots and the post-Vietnam War era, the band tackled themes of war, social chaos and the supernatural.  

But drug use began to take its toll on Osbourne and his relationship with his fellow band members, and he was eventually fired in 1979. He launched a solo career, enjoying success during the 1980s, before reforming with Sabbath several times – including in 2016 for a final world tour.  

As a solo artist, Osbourne released 11 albums, with his debut Blizzard Of Ozz issued in 1980, which featured two of his most revered songs, Crazy Train and Mr Crowley.   

The Birmingham-born singer sold more than 100 million records worldwide with Black Sabbath and as a solo artist. In 2014, he was presented with a global icon award at the MTV Europe Music Awards.  Osbourne married his first wife Thelma Riley in 1971 and became a stepfather to her son. The couple also had two children but split in 1982 after, he admitted, his rock ‘n roll lifestyle meant he put her “through hell”. 

He married Sharon, the daughter of his former Black Sabbath manager Don Arden, in July of that year.  The pair had met in the 1970s via her father and she took over managing Osbourne after he was booted from the heavy metal group.  

Ozzy and Sharon had three children together: Jack, Kelly and Aimee. The couple became an unlikely hit after starring between 2002 and 2005 in The Osbournes, which also launched the careers of Jack and Kelly, but the pair temporarily split in 2016.  

Former X Factor judge Sharon later revealed they had tried marriage counselling to get their relationship back on track – but gave up because it made him angry. 

In 2017, during an interview with music magazine Rolling Stone, he joked that the secret to his marriage was “don’t get caught with your mistress”.  He is quoted as telling Rolling Stone: “When I was a crazy fucker, I’m lucky she didn’t walk out. Now I’m coming on five years clean and sober, and I’ve realised what a fucking idiot I was. I mean, I’m still nuts, but in control of it a bit more.” 

Osbourne added: “When I said, ‘Don’t get caught by your missus,’ I’m not proud of all that shit. I upset my wife and I upset my family and I made a lot of shock and shame. I love my wife, and it made me realise what a fucking idiot I’ve been.”  

His dependence on drugs and alcohol had begun in the early 1970s while he was associated with Black Sabbath and worsened as his stardom grew. Even after making tremendous strides as a solo artist, Ozzy’s struggles with addiction persisted for many years, frequently drawing public attention with his erratic behaviors and close encounters with death.

His decades-long battle with addiction kept him in the headlines, but his ultimate pledge to sobriety served as an inspiration to many music enthusiasts. Given the macho posturing generally associated with rock and metal culture, Ozzy’s willingness to put his emotions and vulnerabilities on display  was genuinely admirable. His struggles were  obviously not without problematic elements, but the sincerity with which he approached them, without glamourising them, was clearly an enduring and endearing element of his personality.

And  though  I can't forgive  him  for  what  I've mentioned  earlier, I  never  quite  gave  up on him  and will not stop listening to my old Black Sabbath LPs to remind myself of who he once was. Black Sabbath’s 1969 self-titled debut LP has been likened to the Big Bang of heavy metal. It came during the height of the Vietnam War and crashed the hippie party, dripping menace and foreboding. The cover of the record was of a spooky figure against a stark landscape. The music was loud, dense and angry, and marked a shift in rock ’n’ roll.  

The band’s second album, “Paranoid,” included such classic metal tunes as  the aforementioned “War Pigs,” “Iron Man” and “Fairies Wear Boots.” The song “Paranoid” only reached No. 61 on the Billboard Hot 100 but became in many ways the band’s signature song. Both albums were voted among the top 10 greatest heavy metal albums of all time by readers of Rolling Stone magazine.

I also  remember as a heavy  metal  fan  in my  teens that Ozzy Osbourne and Sabbath  moretheless created heavy metal…and with it, they created a world in which generations of people like  me, could feel accepted and welcome…safe and free to be their authentic selves knowing that they won’t ever be alone,  that  counters  the other  stuff  a  bit and am also  pretty sure he was guided by Sharon since he wasn’t very cognizant in his final days and  his music got me through some pretty shit periods in  my life,  so call  me a hypocrite  but Rest in peace, Ozzy. 

Sadly War Pigs are still playing their games - may we put them to an end one day. I so wish Ozzy  was taking  them away with  him. Lets remember Ozzy who had a peaceful death in a clean, safe, caring environment, with medicine to help him pass unlike the 20,000 Gazan children  who have died aged 0-15  in  completely different circumstances.

Black Sabbath - War Pigs

Generals gathered in their masses 

Just like witches at black masses 

Evil minds that plot destruction 

Sorcerer of death's construction 

In the fields, the bodies burning 

As the war machine keeps turning 

Death and hatred to mankind 

Poisoning their brainwashed minds 

Oh, Lord, yeah 

Politicians hide themselves away 

They only started the war 

Why should they go out to fight? 

They leave that all to the poor, yeah 

Time will tell on their power minds 

Making war just for fun 

Treating people just like pawns in chess 

Wait till their judgment day comes, yeah 

Now, in darkness, world stops turning 

Ashes where their bodies burning 

No more war pigs have the power 

Hand of God has struck the hour 

Day of Judgment, God is calling 

On their knees, the war pigs crawling 

Begging mercies for their sins 

Satan, laughing, spreads his wings 

Oh, Lord, yeah

Word of the Day: "Weltschmerz"

 

Someone  kindly shared this word with me earlier ,"Weltschmerz" -- lit; “world-pain”; the feeling of sadness at the suffering that surrounds you; the despair produced by the ubiquity of distress and  hardship; a weariness at the sheer burden of being.  

Like most great words for elusive emotions, this one is German. It’s a portmanteau of welt (“world”) and schmerz (“pain”), and it describes the displeasure we feel when reality doesn’t live up to our ideals and expectations. It’s also distinct from our other downbeat emotions. Unlike angst, which focuses our dissatisfaction inward, or ennui, which makes us listless, weltschmerz can be as rousing as it is troubling. Not only can the world be better, it should be better.

The phrase has its roots in the 1830s. It was first coined by German writer Jean Paul, who used it to describe Lord Byron’s discontent in the novel Selina, and it signifies a sadness about life. “Weltschmerz is the sense both that one is personally inadequate and that one’s personal inadequacy reflects the inadequacy of the world generally,” says Joachim Whaley, a professor of German history and thought at the University of Cambridge. “It is pain suffered simultaneously both in the world and at the state of the world, with the sense that the two are linked.” 

 As explained by the Encyclopedia Britannica,https://www.britannica.com/art/Weltschmerz the expression sought to define “the prevailing mood of melancholy and pessimism associated with the poets of the Romantic era that arose from their refusal or inability to adjust to those realities of the world that they saw as destructive of their right to subjectivity and personal freedom—a phenomenon thought to typify Romanticism.”  

For 19th-century German writers, weltschmerz was an abnormal sensitivity to the evils and ills of the world and the misery of existence

Another word we could use  is empathy, pain we can carry as humans, while releasing compassion, whilst angry with state of the world, and the suffering of other people, A soul that carries empathy is a soul that has survived enormous pain. Empathy is trying to understand what another person is feeling. It’s actually seeing the world through another’s eyes. 

The other sad things that consume many are greed and apathy. There will never be a shortage of these things. Those devoid of conscience, with no ability to put themselves in another’s shoes. look at our leaders. But we can stop them from spreading by standing up and standing in the way. 

However we can never truly know what pain other people are carrying. They may need compassion more than we realize. The world is very fucked up but the kind of love we see now for collective suffering in Gaza has been truly amazing. All the best hope all have a peaceful day.

Marking 89 years since the Spanish Civil War began

 In 1931, Spanish King Alfonso XIII authorized elections to decide the government of Spain, and voters overwhelmingly chose to abolish the monarchy in favor of a liberal republic. Alfonso went into exile, and the Second Republic, initially dominated by middle-class liberals and moderate socialists, was proclaimed on 14 April 1931 the 2nd Spanish Republic was declared. with the proclamation of a Republic and a Socialist-Republican Government . Its arrival was greeted with euphoria by progressive Spain, including the support of many revolutionary forces active in Spain. It had a commitment to the separation of the church and the state, and a commitment to international peace, modern systems of education, land reform, and more equal roles for both men and women. Its greatest achievement: creating some 16,000 schools, During the first two years of the Republic, organized labor and leftist radicals forced widespread liberal reforms, and the independence-minded region of Catalonia and the Basque provinces achieved virtual autonomy.  

The landed aristocracy, the church and a large military clique opposed the Republic, and in November 1933 conservative forces regained control of the government in elections. In response, socialists launched a revolution in the mining districts of Asturias, and Catalan nationalists rebelled in Barcelona. General Franco crushed the so-called October Revolution on behalf of the conservative government, and in 1935 he was appointed army chief of staff. 

By 1936 the Spanish Republic had recently been revived by the election of a moderately liberal government after 5 years of tension and retrenchment. A new popular front alliance of all anti-fascist parties had swept the country the previous year. Franco, at this time was sent to an obscure command in the Canary Islands off Africa.

In February 1936 a Popular Front Government  a broad left-wing coalition headed by Manuel Azaña, wins the majority of seats in the Spanish Cortes (parliament) and began to enact a programme of social and economic reforms. They were planned to modernise the state, improve the income of workers and peasants, to carry out land reform, and massive education measures to tackle the abundance of illiteracy which was widespread at the time. But these involved removing the Church’s monopoly in the school system, as well as a reorganisation of the countries Military, all of which horrified the established elites. 

The military revolted, and a coup  began on the 17th of July 1936, in Morocco and in garrison towns throughout Spain  aimed at overthrowing the country's democratically elected republic. The uprising was mainly planned by the three generals, Emilio Mola y Vidal, 1st Duke of Mola, Grandee of Spain, José Sanjurjo y Sacanell and Manuel Goded Llopis with General Franco a co-conspirator who was based in the Canaries. they quickly seized political power and instituted martial law. but did not successfully capture Spain in its entirety, with the People’s Front Government retaining two thirds of the country’s territory, including its capital and the vital industrial regions of the Basque Country and Catalonia, due to the support of its people, the majority of its navy and air force.  

However on the night of 18th July , 1936 the army mutinied with their generals against the people. They bought in foreign legionnaires and colonial troops and under General Franco proclaimed a military takeover. In much of Spain, the coup was stopped by the working class, who launched one of the most far reaching social revolutions in world history. 

A bitter struggle had begun, during which the most advanced segments of Spains working class were the thrust of a temporarily lived example of workers self management and social revolution.

On 19 July 1936 The Spanish military, led by Generalissimo Francisco Franco rises up against the democratically elected Second Republic. Civil war breaks out. Executions without trial were common place, Franco had the support of the aristocracy, the army, the landlords, the bankers, and the Church hierarchy and a clique of corrupt politicians went over to the conspirators the rest backed the Republic. 

Following the initial success of the military coup against the Spanish Republic, General José Sanjurjo y Sacanell returned from  exile  in Lisbon to Spain to take on a leadership role in the Nationalist junta. Instead of utilizing a larger, more suitable aircraft, Sanjurjo opted for a smaller plane piloted by Juan Antonio Ansaldo. 

 Sanjurjo's decision to travel with an excessive amount of luggage, including his uniforms and medals, significantly increased the plane's weight, which was already a factor given the smaller size of the aircraft. The plane crashed  on July 20 killing Sanjurjo and preventing him from leading the Nationalist forces. Sanjurjo's death significantly altered the leadership structure of the Nationalist faction, with Francisco Franco eventually becoming the primary leader.  

The left wing of the popular front was determined to resist the Generals and Franco and resolved to distribute arms and weapons to newly formed militias. By the morning of 19th July truckloads of rifles from  the Ministry of War were on their way to the headquarters of the Socialist and Anarchist trade unions for distribution to their members. A few weeks later  a government emerged more than capable of defending the Republic against the Generals. It was the first Republican Government to have full Socialist, Communist and Anarchist support. However Franco had both Italian and German fascist support, with their finance and intervention. The fascists defended a common view of the past, while the republican coalition though, had widely different visions of the future.

Within days of the uprising, both the Republic and the Nationalists called for foreign military aid. Initially, France pledged to support the Spanish Republic, but soon reneged on its offer to pursue an official policy of non-intervention in the civil war. Great Britain immediately rejected the Republic's call for support.  Faced with potential defeat, Franco called upon Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy for aid. and within days the military balance of forces had been transformed, as had the conflict from Civil War to a miniature World War, with the support of Germany’s Air Force, divisions of Italy’s regular army, and Moroccan soldiers from Spain’s African army to assist the Nationalist forces. Thanks to their military assistance, he was able to airlift troops from Spanish Morocco across to the mainland to continue his assault on Madrid. 

Those who rose against the Republic did not have so much difficulty in finding a single military and political leader. As of 1 October 1936, Francisco Franco was “Head of Government of the Spanish State”. 

His military colleagues who put him there thought that this post would be temporary, that the war would soon be over with the conquest of Madrid and that then would be the time to think of a political framework for the new State. However, after various frustrated attempts to take the capital, Franco changed his military strategy and what might have been a rapid seizure of power became a long, drawn-out war. 

He was also convinced, particularly after the arrival in Salamanca of his brother-in-law, Ramón Serrano Suñer, who had managed to escape from the “red confinement” in Madrid in mid-February 1937, that all the political forces needed to be united in a single party.  

“Head of Government of the Spanish State”, Caudillo, Generalísimo of the Armed Forces, undisputed leader of the “Movement”, as the single party was known, Franco confirmed his absolute dominance with the creation on 30 January 1938 of his first government, in which he carefully distributed the various ministries among officers, monarchists, Falangists and Carlists. 

The construction of this new State was accompanied by the physical elimination of the opposition, the destruction of all the symbols and policies of the Republic and the quest for an emphatic, unconditional victory with no possibility of any mediation.  

In this quest, Franco had the support and blessing of the Catholic Church. Bishops, priests and the rest of the Church began to look on Franco as someone sent by God to impose order in the “earthly city” and Franco ended up believing that, indeed, he had a special relationship with divine providence. Thus emerged Franco’s Church, which identified with him, admired him as Caudillo, as someone sent by God to re-establish the consubstantiality of traditional Spanish culture with the Catholic faith. 

Throughout the three years of the conflict, Hitler and Mussolini provided the Spanish Nationalist Army with crucial military support. Some 5,000 German air force personnel served in the Condor Legion, which provided air support for coordinated ground attacks against Republican positions and carried out aerial bombings on Republican cities. 

The most notorious of these attacks came on April 26, 1937, when German and Italian aircraft levelled the Basque town of Gernike (Guernica in Spanish) in a three-hour campaign that killed 200 civilians or more. Fascist Italy supplied some 75,000 troops in addition to its pilots and planes. Spain became a military laboratory to test the latest weaponry under battlefield conditions.

The war crime  that  was Gernike ordered by the Spanish nationalist military leadership and carried out by the Congor Legion of the German luftwaffe and the Italian Aviazone Legionairre. Designed to kill  or main as many civilians as possible, Operation Rugen was deliberately chosen for a Monday afternoon when the weekly town market would be at its most crowded. Guernica, in the Basque  country where revolutionary sentiment among workers was deep, was defenceless from the bombers, which could fly as low as 600 feet. The airplanes made repeated raids, refuelling and returning to drop more bombs. Waves of explosive, fragmentary, and incendiary devices were dumped in the town. In total, 31 tons of munitions were dropped between 4.30 in the afternoon and 7.30 in the evening. In the aftermath of the raid, survivors spoke of the air filled with the screams of those in their death throes and the hundreds injured. Civilians fleeing the carnage in the fields surrounding the town were strafed by fighter planes. Human and animal  body parts littered the market place and town center,  in such  horror. much of Guernica was effectively wiped of the map. From a population of 5,000 some 1,700 residents were killed and a further 800 injured. Three quarters of the buildings were raised to the ground. Farms four miles away were flattened.

The infamous bombing of the city, which was a stronghold of the Republican forces, was one of the events that paved the way for Franco’s   forces  to capture of northern Spain.  Hundreds of civilians were killed in the bombing which evoked widespread outrage across the world. The destruction of Guernica was part of Franco's wider, brutal campaign against the existence of the Spanish Republic. This campaign led not just to widespread destruction of property, but thousands of civilian casualties too, as well as widespread displacement. 

The significance of Guernica is that it was the first time that civilians were deliberately targeted in an air attack; it was the first time that a population centre was carpet bombed from the air; and it was one of the first times that a population was used as a target from the air by a foreign power  to test the effectiveness of its aircraft and the effectiveness of terror on the civilian population. Guernica changed the mode of war. Before then, civilians in cities and towns away from the front were by and large relatively safe. In wars before then air power was not capable of such bombing attacks. In World War I, by and large, troops slugged it out in trenches on the front and there was no air war.
Renowned artist Pablo Picasso’s landmark painting  ‘Guernica’  immortalized the bombing of Guernica in his mural, a raw and anguished anti-war statement, a haunting piece of work that  still became a universal howl against the ravages of war. On a large canvas more than seven metres (23 feet) wide, he painted deformed figures of women and children writhing in a burning city. A broken sword in hand, a dismembered fighter lies with wide open eyes, an impassive bull, a wounded dove and an agonising horse nearby. Picasso did not agree with Franco´s regime and he was living in France for a long period of time until his death in 1973 when he was 91 years old. One of the most famous passages about his life is when he was interrogated by the Gestapo while the Nazi occupation  in Paris. When the officers saw the Guernica  they asked him “Did you paint that?” and he replied “No, you did”

General Franco denied that he had nothing to do with the raid and claimed that the town had been dynamited and then burnt by Anarchist Brigades. Franco issued a statement after the bombing: "We wish to tell the world, loudly and clearly, a little about the burning of Guernica. It was destroyed by fire and gasoline. The red hordes in the criminal service of Aguirre burnt it to ruins. The fire took place yesterday and Aguirre, since he is a common criminal, has uttered the infamous lie of attributing this atrocity to our noble and heroic air force."
The Spanish church backed this story and its professor of theology in Rome went so far as to declare that "the truth is there is not a single German in Spain. Franco only needs Spanish soldiers which are second to none in the world." After the war a telegram sent from Franco's headquarters was discovered and revealed that he had asked the German Condor legion to carry out the attack on Guernica. It is believed that the attack was an attempt to demoralize the Basque people. Germany had agreed as they wanted to carry out "a major experiment in the effects of aerial terrorism."
Picasso's picture still resonates with tragedy, capturing the full terror and horror of this terrible moment in history.    

Guernica - Picasso

The town of Guernica, Spain, recently in  December 2023 demonstrated solidarity with Gaza by recreating a scene reminiscent of the bombing it endured during the Spanish Civil War. Organized by the Guernica-Palestine Citizens' Initiative, the event aimed to draw parallels between the suffering of Guernica's civilians in 1937 and the current situation in Gaza. Participants formed a human mosaic depicting the Palestinian flag, and an air raid siren was sounded to evoke the historical bombing. 

Guernica, now and then Trevor Harrison  

I stand before Guernica, the 

familiar canvas of dismembered bodies,

dead babies and soldiers;

a weeping mother, a shrieking horse; 

once remembered for its chronicle of carnage,

warnings of mass murder to come,

enough to move

the dial from tragedy 

to statistic, now forgotten.

Silence has settled upon 

the world, snuffed out 

by apologists for the 

sacred State’s need for 

human sacrifice.  

In Madrid and Cordoba

jasmine petals loose

their fragrance; the oranges

fall to the ground.  

In Gaza and Israel

combatants loose 

their bombs and 

bullets; the 

bodies fall, broken petals. 

Peace protests and beauty bloom 

in the Spanish squares. I ask: 

By what right do I enjoy this now? 

By what right

do I not?  

The burden 

of living 

is to live 

while others

are 

dying.  

Trevor Harrison is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Lethbridge.

Fascist Italy  also supplied some 75,000 troops in addition to its pilots and planes. Spain became a military laboratory to test the latest weaponry under battlefield conditions.  The Spanish conflict quickly generated worldwide fears that it could explode into a full-fledged European war. 

In August 1936, more than two dozen nations, including France, Great Britain, Italy, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union, signed a Non-Intervention Agreement on Spain. The latter three signatories openly violated the policy. Italy and Germany continued to supply Franco's forces, while the Soviet Union provided military advisors, tanks, aircraft, and other war materiel to the Republic. 

Some scholars argue that the Non-Intervention Agreement benefited Franco, who could acquire armaments on credit from his allies, while the Republic had to pay hard currency to arms dealers to obtain often outdated weapons and find ways to transport these goods into the embargoed country.  

It was clear that the militia-based Government forces were badly out-gunned and lacked the military experience to repel the oncoming tide, so they turned to the Soviet Union for aid, with the Comintern (Communist International) establishing the International Brigades to help defend the Spanish Republic. 

Early volunteers came from countries which had already fallen to fascism, such as Italy, Portugal, Austria and Germany, with scores to settle, before and influx of foreign volunteers flooded the Republic. 

Though the United States remained officially neutral in the conflict, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration chose not to intervene officially, although the President sought to clandestinely provide some aid to the besieged Republic after 1937.

The Spanish Civil War divided American public opinion between those who supported the Republic and those who condemned the Republican forces for carrying out attacks on the Catholic Church. Isolationism too proved to be an effective motivation for non-intervention. Fears of war and foreign entanglements helped to shape American politics in the 1930s. 

Some 2,800 Americans made their way to Spain to fight on the Republican side, most famously in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Those returned veterans would become the subjects of the first serious scientific study of fear in battle, insights that would help the United States prepare its own troops to fight in the Second World War.

For many liberals and leftists throughout the world, the Spanish Civil War represented a dress rehearsal for World War II, a pending conflict between the forces of democracy and fascism. By the mid-1930s, fascism and authoritarianism seemed to be on the rise in Europe. In 1936, when Franco launched his rebellion, right-wing regimes were in power in Germany, Italy, Hungary, Romania, Poland, Portugal, Finland, Austria, and Greece. 

And openly pro-Fascist and pro-Nazi political parties existed in many other countries, including France, Great Britain, and the United States.

The important historical truth is the international flavour of those who volunteered to fight in this brutal war. A total of 59,380 volunteers from fifty-five countries served during the Spanish Civil War jjoining joining the  International Brigade, to fight selflessly  side by side for the ideas of liberty and social justice, solidarity and mutual aid .Rallying to the republican cause. The International Brigade, were so called because their members (initially) came from so many different countries. The International Brigaders were recruited, organized, and directed by the Cominterm (Communist International), with headquarters in Paris. 

A large number of the mostly young recruits were Communists before they became involved in the conflict; more joined the party during the course of the war. This included the following: French (10,000), German (5,000), Polish (5,000), Italian (3,350), American (2,800), British (2,000), Yugoslavian (1,500), Czech (1,500), Canadian (1,000), Hungarian (1,000) and Scandinavian (1,000). Battalions established included the Abraham Lincoln Battalion, British Battalion, Connolly Column and the George Washington Battalion among others.

The British Government decided on a policy of non-intervention, which meant that not only would they not send their military to help, but they also wouldn’t provide financial aid or arms to the Republican government. The main leaders on the Republican side were President Azaña and Prime Ministers Largo Caballero and Negrín.

There are quite a few different theories for why this was: whether the government thought that supporting the Republicans would start the large Europe-wide war they wanted desperately to avoid; because the government believed Germany and Italy to be more powerful and war-ready than they really were; or whether it was the strong anti-Communist sentiment that led the government to be reluctant to support the highly Communist Republican forces. 

Whatever the reason, Britain officially did not lend any support to either side of the conflict, and at the time callously refused to be responsible for the refugee children, known as Basque refugees, though some were from non-Basque regions)  but  throughout the summer children were dispersed to camps throughout Britain for the duration of the war. 

Nearly 4,000 Basque children arrived in the UK in 1937, fleeing from the terrors Franco's fascist Spain.. Over 200 were accommodated at colonies in Caerleon, Swansea, Brechfa and Old Colwyn, and they were warmly welcomed by Welsh people who considered that Welsh miners and the Basques were fighting the same enemy - fascism.

Meanwhile, many members of the public had a completely different response – on either side. The British Union of Fascists (BUF) was very active in Britain at the time, many Catholic intellectuals supported the pro-Catholic ‘Nationalist’ forces, and some Britons even travelled to Spain to support Franco’s forces.  

But far more would travel to Spain to fight for the Republican cause; around 5,000 men made the illegal journey to fight in the International Brigades,  many travelling under false names, and did not list their political affiliations for fear of being captured and singled out because of them. The average age of volunteers was twenty-nine, although the most common age was twenty-three. 

Volunteers came from overwhelmingly working class backgrounds, with large numbers hailing from cities such as London, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow. Only a small number of them were unemployed, with large numbers involved in industrial occupations such as labouring, construction, shipbuilding and mining.  

Members of the British Battalion taken by Walter Reuter at Ulldemolins on May 18th, 1938.

Many of these volunteers had been previously involved in fighting the British Union of Fascists at their meetings and marches, such as in Cable Street in October 1936, realizing that direct action in confronting fascism was a highly effective strategy which also revealed its true nature clearly to the public. 

One of the volunteers from the Young Communist League, Wally Togwell, who was a waiter from St. Pancras said: “Wherever the fascists were, our group of the YCL was there also. I was thrown out of the Albert Hall, I took part in anti-Mosley demos at Olympia and Hyde Park, I was at Cable Street helping to erect barricades.” 

 Joseph Garber, a cabinet-maker’s apprentice from Bethnal Green in London, and also a member of the Young Communist League, said: “I decided to go to Spain especially after the Cable Street battles when we stopped the Blackshirts getting through.”  

George Green, a member of the Communist Party who later died in action, wrote the following to his Mother from Barcelona: “Mother dear, we’re not militarists, nor adventurers nor professional soldiers. But a few days ago on the hills the other side of the Ebro, I’ve seen a few unemployed lads from the Clyde, and frightened clerks from Willesden stand up (without fortified positions) against an artillery barrage that professional soldiers could not stand up to. And they did it because to hold the line here and now means that we can prevent this battle being fought again on Hampstead Heath or the hills of Derbyshire.”   

It is clear that politics was a major factor in those who chose to join the International Brigades, and although not everyone was a member of the Communist Party or Young Communist League, such as Winston Churchill’s nephew Esmond Romilly, it was still a left-leaning understanding of the real threat of fascism which fuelled them in their journey.

 A journey that soon became harder to take when in February 1937 volunteering for the Brigades was made illegal following the implementation of the Foreign Enlistment Act and the extension of the Non-Intervention Agreement, which both Britain and France had agreed to alongside over 20 European countries in the early days of the war.

It was this very act of non-intervention which made the International Brigades so vital, as the Spanish Government was denied the support from those counties, while the Nationalists had the full support of both Hitler in Germany and Mussolini in Italy. This was bolstered even further by American multi-nationals who supplied Franco with large quantities of oil and vehicles. 

The balance of forces was clearly against Spain, and without the arms embargo of Britain and France, the Spanish Republic likely would have won. But this did not stop the British people from joining the International Brigades, with many travelling from Victoria Station in London dressed as weekend tourists, travelling to Newhaven before catching a boat to Dieppe, France, then a train to Paris, then to Nimes before getting off at Arles. They would then split into pairs, boarding a coach to Perpignan, before being issued with special shoes and climbing the Pyrenees mountains into Spain. 

All this complicated subterfuge to avoid detection purely because the Non-Intervention Agreement had made it illegal for them, while both Italy and Germany could openly send men into Spain.  After the journey alone, to dismiss the volunteers as adventurists or as an act of youthful folly, would be incorrect. These were people dedicated to the cause, who had to attend interviews and medical examinations before being accepted. Where military experience was first and foremost, but with political understanding and dedication coming a close second.  

One of the most well known volunteers from the Young Communist League was John Cornford, a young poet and student from Cambridge who happened to be the great-grandson of Charles Darwin, and who was the first Englishman to enlist against Franco. 

Just prior to his first Christmas at the front, Cornford wrote home to his girlfriend, Margot Heinemann, saying: “No wars are nice and even revolutionary war is ugly enough. But I’m becoming a good soldier, longish endurance and a capacity for living in the present and enjoying all that can be enjoyed. There’s a tough time ahead but I’ve plenty of strength for it. Well, one day the war will end — I’d give it till June or July and then if I’m alive I’m coming back to you. I think about you often, but there’s nothing I can do but say again, be happy, darling. And I’ll see you again one day.” 

One of the best known poems to emerge from the Spanish Civil War is John Cornford’s love poem to his sweetheart Margot Heinemann (1913-1992). The couple,  met at Cambridge University where they both joined the Communist Party. 

Called simply “Poem” when it was published posthumously in 1937, it is now more commonly titled “To Margot Heinemann”.  Cornford was killed at Lopera, near Córdoba, on 28 December 1936, the day after his 21st birthday. He was fighting with the English-speaking company of La Marseillaise Battalion. Before joining the International Brigades he had served with the semi-Trotskyist POUM militia on the Aragon front – hence the reference to Huesca in his poem. 

Also sometimes known by its first line, ‘Heart of the heartless world’ (paraphrasing Karl Marx), the poem is considered by many to be one of the finest love poems of the 20th century, and the reader’s knowledge of the writer’s fate makes its intimate tenderness and confessional tone all the more poignant.  

 Heart of the heartless world, 

 Dear heart, the thought of you  

Is the pain at my side,  

The shadow that chills my view.   

The wind rises in the evening, 

Reminds that autumn is near.  

I am afraid to lose you,  

I am afraid of my fear.  

On the last mile to Huesca, 

The last fence for our pride,  

Think so kindly, dear 

that I Sense you at my side.   

And if bad luck 

should lay my strength  

Into the shallow grave  

Remember all the good you can:  

Don’t forget my love.

John Cornford (27 December 1915 – 28 December 1936).

About 300 people volunteered from Wales against the tyranny of fascism, with 35 of whom not returning home but the important historical truth is the international flavour of those who volunteered to fight in this brutal war. A great idealistic cause of the first half of the twentieth century, that has been of great interest to me over the years. Two local people from my neck of the woods went to serve Arthur Morris and a Percy Jones. More information here http://irelandscw.com/docs-WelshMorris , I have yet to see a monument erected to them I believe perhaps one day their should be one.

Alongside the war millions of workers collectivised the land and took over industry to pursue their vision of a new society. Fighting valiantly against the reactionary medieval ideology that was Francoism, they tried to stop fascism in their tracks. Their number was severely outnumbered by Franco's forces.
For many it was not just a war to defeat the fascists it was the beginning of a new society ,completely. A revolution in fact, unfortunately revolutions do not succeed when the people are divided.  Their are many lessons to be learnt from this struggle, a struggle that continues to do this day.
The Spanish Civil War was a symbol become reality, it was forged on the class struggle, also the struggle of the artists against tyranny( did not the fascists brutally murder   the  poet Lorca).
It caught the poet's imagination too. Many subsequently joining the International Brigade. Many were determined to fight for Spain, to the international cause of solidarity. Unfortunately as the war progressed many became confused and disillusioned by certain divisions that had begun to set in. Communists  became more intent on destroying Anarchists and Trotskyists instead of standing together against the fascists. A problem that continues to this day with members of the left fighting one another instead of our common enemies. We have a lot of lessons to learn. Complex ideas were fiercely fought but all who stood up against fascism were heroic and worthy of respect, their cause in my opinion just , a flame that will never die, sharing principles of brotherhood of man  and a sense of justice, driven by  political and humanitarian convictions.
It was a  war, that was fought on the most part by ordinary people, for the people. Many courageous brigadiers died, and their were many tales of atrocities and heroism on this cultural battlefield where opposing notions were violently played out. Sincerely and bravely translating their faith into works, ready to endure death in their passionate unswaying convictions.
The Welsh volunteers in particular raised the morale of their comrades, by their unity, their strength, their tenacity and in particular their singing, with the miners amongst them put to good use with their tunnelling skills.

British volunteers continued to be involved in many of the major battles, right up until the last desperate Republican assault across the River Ebro in July 1938. Their casualties in Spain were high, with as many as 626 killed, many others suffering life-changing injuries, and a fair few ending up in fascist prison camps until just after the war. 

The people’s forces fought heroically against big odds. One day after the fascist generals’ revolt began, Deputy of the Spanish Communist Party Dolores Ibárruri coined the famous slogan, “no pasaran!” (They shall not pass!) which inspired the anti-fascist resistance in Spain and around the world.

 

One of the most memorable series of battles involved Franco’s Siege of Madrid, which began November 8, 1936 but lasted until March 28, 1939 due to the stout defence of the city. Soon after the siege began, a new Republican government was installed which armed the trade unionists with rifles (unfortunately a number were not in good working order). 

After Franco initially failed to take Madrid his forces and Italian forces encircled the city, during which time the heavily outnumbered Republican forces scored victories at the battles of Jarama  https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2024/02/remembering-battle-of-jarama-and-fight.html and Guadalajara in Feburary and March 1937. The Republican forces also captured large quantities of badly-needed materials and equipment. As the siege continued, the main problem for the people’s forces within the city was that they had no aircraft to defend against air attacks. 

The last of the brigaders were withdrawn at the end of 1938 and returned to Britain in December after a farewell parade in Barcelona. In the presence of many thousands of tearful, but cheering, Spaniards, Dolores Ibárruri  addressed them:  “Comrades of the International Brigades! Political reasons, reasons of state, the good of that same cause for which you offered your blood with limitless generosity, send some of you back to your countries and some to forced exile. You can go with pride. You are history. You are legend. You are the heroic example of the solidarity and the universality of democracy… We will not forget you; and, when the olive tree of peace puts forth its leaves, entwined with the laurels of the Spanish Republic’s victory, come back! Come back to us and here you will find a homeland.”   

Upon their return to Britain they were greeted with massive celebrations and an emotional welcome at Victoria Station in London, before returning back to their families and friends, and to their somewhat normal working lives for a brief period of time until the outbreak of WWII. 

During the war itself, 100,000 persons were executed by the Nationalists; after the war ended in spring 1939, another 50,000 were put to death. Martial law remained in place in Franco's Spain until 1948, and former Republicans were subjected to various forms of discrimination and punishment. 

The fighting and persecution resulted in several million Spaniards being displaced. Many fled areas of violence for safe refuge elsewhere. Only a few countries, such as Mexico and the Dominican Republic, opened their doors to Spanish refugees. 

By 1938, in Spain there were 300,000 fighters killed on both sides, with another 200,000 civilians dead in the crossfire, 100,000 executed, 250,000 people imprisoned, many towns destroyed .

The war ended in March 1939 when Franco's forces finally captured Madrid. The policy of "non-intervention" by the British and other western capitalist governments, effectively smothering the Republic to death, contributed to its ultimate defeat in April 1939 and further laid the foundations for the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe just 5 months later.

Though the siege of Madrid lasted two and a half years, today the city bears few visible scars. As the bomb craters were filled in, a silence fell over the cowed populace. A silence that until recently has largely remained unbroken. And yet, out on the edges of the city where the battle raged the fiercest, it’s still possible to find grim reminders of a time when Spain was irreconcilably divided.

Nationalist troops arrive in Madrid,

When the Spanish Civil War ended in 1939, with Franco's victory, some 500,000 Spanish Republicans escaped to France, where many were placed in internment camps in the south, such as Gurs, St. Cyprien, and Les Milles. Following the German defeat of France in spring 1940, Nazi authorities conscripted Spanish Republicans for forced labor and deported more than 30,000 to Germany, where about half of them ended up in concentration camps. Some 7,000 of these became prisoners in Mauthausen; more than half of them died in the camp.

By April 1939, all of Spain was under fascist control and Franco declared a victory .Solidifying his power with a brutal dictatorship by oppressing and systematically killing any political opposition. Over half a million people were killed in the war, and in the next few years many tens of thousands more were executed, not forgetting all those who died from malnutrition, starvation, and war-engendered disease. 

Although the Republic fell and victory did not come to Spain, it influenced the knowledge and opinion of the British public, created thousands of new activists, drawing them into the anti-fascist struggle, and contributed massively to the long term defeat of fascism later on in 1945.

Perversely after the Second World War after both Hitler and Mussolini were defeated, Franco was allowed to continue his totalitarian role in Spain, and for years to come his brutal force held sway and continued to destroy lives, dissent was brutally suppressed with many thousands of voices silenced , and  forced into exile.

General Franco's military regime remained in power until his death in 1975 depriving  Spain of freedom for several decades afterwards, and former Republicans were subjected to various forms of discrimination and punishment. Victory for the Francoist side brought economic and political isolation for Spain until the 1950s and the denial of basic rights until the late 1970s. Only in recent years have relatives of the executed started to learn where their loved ones are buried.

Many, many people died in their struggle for a better world, we must never forget, no pasaran, another world is not only possible it is inevitable, we must remain in solidarity with all those who believe in freedom, and social justice. Around the world today you can find monuments and memorials dedicated to the memory of the volunteers who gave their lives for liberty in the face of fascism. There are hundreds of them in Britain alone (www.international-brigades.org.uk/memorials), the most prominent being on the South Bank of London across from Westminster.  

The majority of battlefield monuments erected in Spain during the war were completely destroyed by fascist forces, and many of them around the world today continue to be graffitied upon and damaged. But there is one not so prominent which was found laying in the undergrowth of the remote mountainside of the Sierra Pandols in Catalonia, discovered in spring 2000 having been undisturbed for more than 60 years. It was a makeshift pyramid of three cement blocks laying on top of one another, hurriedly built by Percy Ludwick, a British military engineer, during the intense heat and brutal fighting of August 1938.   

The Sierra Pandols memorial,  has the names of thirty Britons, Canadians and Americans from the 15th International Brigade crudely inscribed upon it, all of whom gave their lives fighting in battles along the Ebro. Among the names are that of Labour Party councillor and Olympic Gold Medallist Lewis Clive, and Young Communist League & Communist Party members David Guest, Harry Dobson, Morris Miller, and Wally Tapsell who, like all those from Britain who died in the Spanish Civil War, have no known graves.

Following the death of Franco   on November 201975, a new democratic government replaced the old regime, and as a gesture of gratitude to the international volunteers who had come to Spain, sixty years after the outbreak of the war, the Spanish Government offered citizenship to the surviving members of the Brigades.

The  legacy of the Spanish civil war  still haunts the Spanish state, where democratic regression and repression of dissidence —especially in Catalonia— remain all too real.

While the spectre of fascism also still haunts and universal equality has sill not been achieved.
We should not forget the international brigades who preceded us, and we must continue to resist oppressive forces, with our shout of no pasaran.

A  Selection of Spanish Civil  War Songs

The following are a selection of poems that emerged from this conflict. Powerful and still inspiring.

For the Fallen -W.B. Keal

Brave sons of liberty, fallen in battle,
Fallen that we, their successors, might live,
Bravely they faced the machine-gunner's rattle,
Giving so bravely all they'd to give.

Hurriedly, carelessly, rudely, we buried them,
Buried them quickly, beneath the brown soil.
Hurriedly, quickly, we gave them our blessing,
Then we returned to our heart-breaking toil.

Theirs was no splendour, the fallen in action;
Theirs was no pomp, neither glory nor show,
They were the cream of the Communist fraction
We are the reapers, but they went to sow.

Shall we forget them who never forget us,
Defending the workers, while fighting in Spain?
Shall we stay passive while Fascism threatens us?
Shall their great effort be made all in vain?

Never forget them, the lessons they taught us,
Think of their travail, their suffering, pain!
Raise the Red Standard and help support us,
Lest we see in England what happened in Spain.

To the Mothers of the Dead Militia - Pablo Neruda

They have not died!
they stand upright in the midst of the gunpowder,
they live, burning as brands there.

In the copper-coloured prairie
their pure shadows have come together
like a curtain of armoured wind,
a barrier colour of fury
like that same invisible beast of sky.

Mothers, they are standing amidst the corn
as tall as the profundity of noon
that possesses the giant plains.

They area peal of sombre voices
calling for victory through the shapes of murdered steel.

Sisters as close as
the dust fallen,
hearts that have been broken
keep faith in your dead -
they are not roots only
beneath stones dyed in blood,
not only poor fallen bones
at work now in the finality of earth,
for their mouths are shaping the dry powder ready for action,
they attack in waves of iron,
in their clenched fists lies death's own contradiction.

See, from so many bodies an invincible life rises!
mothers, sons, banners,
in one single being as living as life;
one face made of all the slain eyes is guard in the darkness
with a sword that is strengthened and tempered with human
   hope.

Cast aside your mourning veils, join all of your tears
tillt hey transmute into metal-
so that we may strike day and night,
so that we may hammer day and night,
so that we may spit both day and night,
till the portals of hatred be overthrown.

I have not forgotten your tragedies
and your sons, they are known to me,
and if I have pride in their deaths
in their lives, too, I have pride.
Their smiles
are like flashes in the murk of the workshops,
and in the underground
every day their feet ring by mine.
I have seen
amongst the oranges of Levante
and the fishing-nets of the south,
in the ink of the printshops
and the masonry of the buildings,
I have seen
the flame of their hearts fashioned out of fire and valour.

And, as in your hearts, mothers,
in mine there is so much of death and mourning
that it seems like a forest flooded
with the blood that quenched their smiles;
to it come the furious snows of sleeplessness,
the wrenching solitude of the days.

But beyond your curse on the hyenas
out of Africa, blood-parched, baying their foul cries,
beyond wrath and contempt, beyond tears,
Others, trans pierced by anguish and death,
look into the heart of the new day that is dawning
and know that your dead smile up at you from the earth,
raising their clenched fists above the corn, there, look, they are
    standing!

Translated  from the Spanish by  Nancy Cunard. 

T.E. Nicholas -  In Remembrance of a Son of Wales ( Who Fell in Spain)

Amid the roar of guns that split the air,
   Faint moaning reached him from a tortured field;
He followed to a city passing fair,
   His soul aflame, his flesh a living shield.
There death-charged missiles blazed a trail of woe,
   Leaving each shattered hearth a vain defence
While flocks of iron eagles, swooping low,
   Clawed out the life of cradled innocence.
Far from the hills he loved, he faced the night,
   Bearing, for freedom's sake, an alien yoke;
He fell exalting brotherhood and right,
   His bleeding visage scorched by fire and smoke;
E'en as the sweetest note is born of pain,
So shall the song of songs be born in Spain.

Guernica - A.S Knowland

Irun-Badajoz-Malaga-and then Guernica

So that the swastika and the eagle
might spring from the blood-red soil,
bombs were sown into the earth at Geurnica,
whose only harvest was a calculated slaughter,
Lest freedom should wave between the grasses
and the corn its proud emblem, or love
be allowed to tread its native fields,
Fascism was sent to destroy the innocent,
and, goose-stepping to the exaggerated waving
of the two-faced flag, to save Spain.

But though the soil be saturated with blood
as a very efficient fertilzer, the furrow
of the ghastly Fasces shall remain barren.
The planted swastika, he eagle grafted
on natural stock shall wither and remain sere;
for no uniformed force shall marshall the sap
thrilling to thrust buds into blossoms, or quicken
the dead ends of the blighted branches;
but the soli shall be set against an alien crop
and the seed be blasted in the planting

But strength lies in the strength of the roots.
They shall not pass to ruin Spain!

LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION - Gonzalez Tunon

The bullfighters are monarchists,
The monks are preachers of fascism.
And the miners of the Asturias?
Long live the revolution!

My grandfather came from Mieres;
His wife from Pola de Siero.
The capital city of my blood
Must surely be called Oviedo!

The Moors are outside Oviedo.
Oviedo they'll never take
Though they'll kill all the Spaniards and threaten
Their wives with murder and rape!

The Regulars are bathing
In the Covadonga flood.
The lords swim at Majorca,
While the miners swim in blood.

In October there are no fiestas
Except those of the season.
But October only means to us
'LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION!'

translated from the Spanish by A.L. Lloyd

The Hero- Richard Church

I could tell you of a young man
Blown with heroism into Spain.
He had a knapsack of philosophy,
And as he went he scattered the small grain
Of his few songs under the dangerous sky.

A girl, grown fond, thought him too young to die.
She put the memory of their secret joy
Behind her heart, and turned to public deeds,
Neglecting the earth he trod, and his scattered seeds.

But soon she was brought to child-bed, with a boy
Smiling up at her as his father had smiled.
And thankfully she saw that his plump back
Carried no philosophic haversack.
She saw, but only for his mother's breast
That being so, she found she could forgive
The man who died so that a dream might live,
And faith with prudence remain unreconciled.

POEMS REPRINTED FROM
EXCELLENT ANTHOLOGY :-
The penguin Book of
Spanish Civil War Verse
Edited by Valentine Cunningham
1980

( their are so many lovely poems in this collection,
essential reading for anyone interested in this period)

There have been many , many books written on the Spanish Civil War, here are some I would strongly
recommend for further perusal.

Antony Beevor, The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006  

Julián Casanova, A Short Histoy of the Spanish Civil War, I.B. Tauris, 2012  

Ronald Fraser, Blood of Spain: Experience of the Civil War, Viking, 1979  

Helen Graham, The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2005  

Paul Peston, The Spanish Civil War, Harper Perennial, 2006

The Spanish Civil War - Hugh Thomas ( Penguin) 1983.

They shall not Pass ( the Spanish people at war 1936-9) -Richard Kirch (wayland publications 1974).

Lessons of the Spanish Revolution -Vernon Richards (freedom press 1972).

Miners against fascism -Wales and the Spanish Civil War - Hywel Francis
( Lawrence and Wishart )1984.

Fleeing Franco How Wales Gave Shelter to Refugee Children from the Basque Country During the Spanish Civil War - Hywel Davies (University of Wales press ).

We Live -Lewis Jones ( library of Wales).