Emiliano Zapata - Mexican Social Revolutionary (8/8/1879 - 10/4/1919)

Emiliano Zapata born on August 8, 1879, in Anencuila, Mexico, was a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution  of 1910 against the dictatorship  of Porfirio Diaz. He is considered to be one of the national heroes of Mexico. The son of a peasant of indigenous blood who trained and sold horses. At age seventeen  he was orphaned and was forced to raise his brothers and sisters.
He grew furious at the injustices suffered by his neighbors whose lives depended  upon the small pieces of  land they farmed. All the villagers lands were threatened, however by the corrupt government of Porfirio Diaz.
When a nearby hacienda owner stole land from the peasants. Zapata began battles to get the peasants land back to them.In 1897 he was arrested for taking part in a protest by the peasants, against the hacienda/plantations that had appropriated their lands and soon after was drafted into the army. He served six months, at which point he was discharged to a landowner to train horses in Mexico City.
Zapata became known as a man with a balanced judgement and humble values. He was partly influenced by an anarchist from Northern Mexico  named Ricardo Flores Magon. The influence on Magon on Zapata can be seen in the Zapatismo Plan de Ayala, but even more noticeably in the Zapatisto slogan 'Tierra y liberted' or 'land and liberty.' the title and maxim of Magon's most famous work. Zapata's introduction to anarchism came via a local schoolteacher by the name of Otilio Montana, who exposed Zapata to the works of Peter Kropotkin among others , while Zapata was at same time observing and beginning to participate in the struggles of the peasants in the land.
Zapata disliked the tyranny of a brutal central government that favoured the wealthy over the peasantry, an anarchist possibly, but Zapata was no Marxist, One famous attributed quote of his reads "One of the happiest days of my life was made when I made five or six hundred pesos from a crop of watermelons I raised all on my own,"
Zapata was, at his heart, a socialist who believed in fair access  to the means of production, which he believed would lead to prosperity for the community.Widely respected by his community, the village elected him to be their leader in 1909. By 1910, many of the common people were forced of their land . These injustices to his fellow Mexicans , forced Zapata to form a peasant army to fight for the rights and freedoms of the indigenous people. He joined fores with Francisco I. Madeiro however Zapata became disenchanted with Madero's lack of action toward land reform, as well as his lack of support for Zapata's 1911 Plan of Avala, which called for the return of lands to the indigenous peoples.
Zapata had a picturesque appearance,  big sombrero, with long  handlebar mustache, a pistol tucked into his belt, the quintessential Mexican Revolutionary, a  passionate man with strong ideals that he tried to put into practice.Personally incorruptible, he remained loyal through a decade of revolution to the cause of campesinos. In return the poor of Southern Mexico idolised him. When an old woman in an isolated village was asked what she thought of him, she answered, "us poor mountain Indians, go along hanging on tight to the tail of chief Zapata's horse."

After Victoriano Heurta overthrew Madero , Zapata joined forces with the legendary Pancho Villa, who was leading an army of Madero supporters in the North of the country.During the first weeks of 1910, Zapata continued to build his organization, training and equipping his men and consolidating his authority as their leader. The revolution took it bloody course with Villa fighting in the northern part of Mexico, while Zapata remained mainly south of Mexico City.

On 11 May  his peasant army began the Battle of Cuautla  and on  May 19, after a week of extremely fierce fighting with government troops, the Zapatistas took the town of Cuautla. Only forty-eight hours later, Francisco Madero and the Mexican government signed the Treaty of Crudad Juarez which ended the presidency of Porfirio Diaz and named Franisco Leon de la Barra, former ambassador to Washington , as interim president.

Madero was elected president in November 1911, and Zapata met with him again with no success.With help of a teacher  Otilio Montano, Zapata prepared the Plan of Avala, which  declared Madero incapable of fulfilling the plans of the revolution.They vowed to return stolen land to the people, by expropriating, with payment, a third of the area of the haciendas,those haciendas that refused to accept the plan would have their lands expropriated without compensation. The peasants rallied to Zapata's support.
With Zapata's Revolution an ongoing event, in 1913, General Vitoriano Heurta assassinated Madero who then took control of the country under a dictatorship. It there was anyone that Zapata   hated more than Diaz and Madero, it was Heurta, who had been responsible for many atrocities in southern Mexico while trying to end the rebellion. Zapata was not alone. In the north the legendary Pancho Villa, who has supported Madero, immediately took to the field against Heurta. He was joined by two newcomers to the Revolution, Venustiano Carranzo and Alvaro Obregon.
Together they made short work of Heurta, who resigned and fled in June of 1914 after repeated military losses to the "Big Four." Zapata did not recognise the authority that Carranza asserted as leader of the revolutionary movement, and continued his adherance to the Plan de Ayala. Zapata and Villa broke with Carranza, and Mexico descended into civil war. Zapata focussed his energies on rebuilding society in Morelos which he now controlled, instituting the land reforms of the Plan de Ayala. As Carranza consolidated his power and defeated Villa in 1915, Zapata initiated guerilla warfare against the Carrancistas, who in turn invaded Morelos, employing scorched earth tactics to oust the Zapatista rebels. Zapata once again retook Morelos in 1917, and held most of the state against Carranza's troops.
In this year Carranza's army defeated Villa though which left Zapata isolated. Carranza was elected president and threatened by Zapata's enormous popularity,  maliciously set about plants to get rid of Zapata once and for all. On April 10th, 1919 Zapata was led into a trap where 400 of his enemies lie in wait. Hidden snipers on surrounding rooftops opened fire, riddling him with bullets. His body was photographed and put on display so that there would be no doubt that he was dead to those that continued to support him, before being buried in Cuadutla. Zapata's assassination backfired on Carranza , who was forced to flee the capital the following year, with Zapata becoming the apostle of the revolution and a symbol of dispossessed peasants. Support among the people of Morelos grew and they continued to support the Zapatista forces, providing them with weapons, supplies and protection. To many Zapata still rides in the hills intent on finishing the job he began on November 28, 1911- the date of the Plan of Ayala..He also remains a symbol of freedom to the oppressed of the world. Zapata's influence  has endured , and continues to be one of the most inspirational figures of any social  justice movement, and his agrarian reform movement, remains important to many Mexicans today. where he is considered a folk hero and is revered as a revolutionary figure.celebrated for continuing his fight for land and liberty for the poor and oppressed
Zapata's motto; "It's better to die on your feet, than live on your knees," was a plea to dignity to ordinary citizens.Zapata’s influence has endured long after his death,  many of his generals and followers rose to power in 1920 and managed to institute many of the land reforms that Zapata had spent his life fighting for. Zapata remains a national hero and an icon of Mexican culture.

In 1994, a guerrilla group calling itself the Zapatista Army of National Liberation launched a peasant uprising in the southern state of Chiapas  fighting for the political rights for Mexico's native Indian population,the the Zapatistas take their name from Emiliano Zapata  Their most famous voice is Subcommander Marcos. The struggle continues.

Peoples history of the Mexican  Revolution ' La Revolucion  Mexicano 

John Frost : Radical Chartist Leader (25/5/1784 - 27/7/1877)

John Frost  radical Chartist leader was born in Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales  on this day  25^th May 1784, the son of John Frost and his wife, Sarah, landlady of the Royal Oak public house in Mill Street, Newport. His father died when John was very young and his mother remarried twice. Aged about sixteen, Frost was apprenticed to a tailor in Cardiff. In 1804, he was an assistant woollen draper in Bristol and the following year he worked in London as a merchant tailor. There he joined radical circles and sharpened his political education by reading Paine and Cobbett. On his return to Newport about 1806, he continued his business as a tailor and draper. On 24^th October 1812, Frost married Mary Geach (née Morgan), widow of a timber dealer, with whom he had eight children between 1815 and 1826.In 1821 Frost became involved in a legal dispute with Thomas Prothero, a Newport solicitor. The original problem concerned the will of John Frost's uncle, William Foster. Frost accused Prothero of being responsible for Foster's decision to exclude Frost from his will. When Frost included this in a letter, Prothero sued for libel and in March 1822, Frost was fined £1,000. Frost continued to accuse Prothero of malpractice and in February 1823, he was found guilty of libel again, and this time he was sent to prison for six months.
Frost was told he would serve a long prison sentence if he repeated his allegations against Thomas Prothero. Frost therefore decided to direct his anger against Prothero's close friend, Sir Charles Morgan, one of the major landowners in Newport. In 1830 he wrote a pamphlet, A Christmas Box for Sir Charles Morgan, where he accused the landowner of badly treating his tenants. In the pamphlet John Frost also advocated that universal suffrage and secret ballots was the only way to curb the power of people like Sir Charles Morgan.
Over the next five years Frost established himself as the leader of the supporters of universal suffrage in Newport. As a result of the Municipal Corporation Act, tradesman such as John Frost became more powerful in the running of towns. In 1835 Frost was elected as one of Newport's eighteen new councillors and was also appointed as a magistrate. The following year he was elected mayor. However, his aggressive behaviour upset a lot of people and Frost was replaced as mayor in 1837.
Frost became  an enthusiastic supporter of the People’s Charter, launched in 1837 to fulfil the aims of Chartism. A year later he was elected by his supporters to go to London and represent them at the National Convention organised by the Chartists as a sort of alternative Parliament  The Chartists wanted the vote for all men (though not for women) and a fairer electoral system. They also called for annual elections, the payment of MPs, and the introduction of a secret ballot. Working conditions in many coalfields and ironworks in South Wales were harsh, and there was often conflict between workers and employers. Across Britain men, women and children worked 14 hours a day for little reward. For a time workers looked to the Radicals in parliament, but the much talked about Reform Act Of 1832 only gave votes to the rich. John Frost said that the working man should 'look to no one but himself, for if he depends on those who are in superior situations, he will always be disappointed.' Chartism was about the working class looking to itself. Given these circumstances, it was no surprise that Chartism developed quickly. In the summer of 1838 a Working Men's Association was formed in Newport, Monmouthshire to publicise the People's Charter.

Following a split in the movement, Frost threw in his lot with the Physical Force Chartists, who advocated violent action to achieve reform. This outraged the Home Secretary Lord John Russell and in March 1839 Frost was sacked as a magistrate.
Around Britain, and especially in South Wales, discontent was smouldering  and in May 1838 eloquent speaker Henry Vincent was arrested for making inflammatory speeches. When he was tried on the 2nd August at Monmouth Assizes he was found guilty and sentenced to twelve months imprisonment. Vincent was denied writing materials and only allowed to read books on religion.
Chartists in Wales were furious and the decision was followed by several outbreaks of violence. Frost toured Wales making speeches urging people not to break the law. Frost's plan was to march on Newport where the Chartists planned to demand the release of Vincent.
The authorities in Newport heard rumours that the Chartists were armed and planned to seize Newport. Stories also began to circulate that if the Chartists were successful in Newport, it would encourage others all over Britain to follow their example. On 4 November 1839, 5,000 men roused with much anger  marched into Newport ,and attempted to take control of the town. They marched to  Westgate Hotel, where they had heard that after several more arrests, local authorities were temporarily holding several chartists, began chanting "surrender our prisoners". Troops protecting the hotel were then given the order to begin firing into the crowd, killing at least 22 people, and another fifty being wounded and resulted  in  the uprising being bought to an abrupt end. Among the injured was a Chartist named John Lovell, who was shot in the thigh and badly wounded. It would be the last large scale uprising in the history of  mainland Britain.

After the Chartist attack on the Westgate Hotel Frost and others involved in the march on Newport were arrested and charged with high treason. During Frost's trial  his popularity grew," His self-possession, dignity and respectability, reported during his trial at Monmouth impressed many people."
Several of the men, including John Frost, were found guilty and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered in what would be a traitor's death. The severity of the sentences shocked many people and protests meetings took place all over Britain.
Some Physical Force Chartists called for a military uprising but Feargus O'Connor refused to lead an insurrection.
The British Cabinet discussed the sentences and on 1st February the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, announced that instead of the men being executed they would be transported for life.
John Frost was sent to Tasmania where he worked for three years as a clerk and eight years as a school teacher. Chartists continued to campaign for the release of Frost. Thomas Duncombe pleaded Frost's case in the House of Commons but attempt to secure a pardon in 1846 was unsuccessful.
Duncombe refused to be defeated and in 1854 he persuaded the Prime Minister, Lord Aberdeen, to grant Frost a pardon but he stipulated that he must not enter British territory.
Frost and his daughter, Catherine, who had joined him in Tasmania, went to live in the United States. Frost toured the country lecturing on the unfairness of the British system of government.This campaign for his return  had kept running for 16 years, until he was an old man of 72 and he was finally granted a full pardon.
To the surprise of the authorities, he had not been forgotten and in 1856 several thousand people crowds turned out in Newport, London and elsewhere to see and hear this man of principle, and give him a hero's welcome. He told them that one day not only would they have the Charter but they would also have 'something more'--a better world where those who make the wealth would enjoy it to the full.
Frost retired to Stapleton near Bristol where he wrote articles for newspapers on subjects such as universal suffrage and prison reform. John Frost died at the  grand old age of ninety-three on 27th July, 1877.
John Frost Square, in Newport city centre, was named in his honour. A 1978  mural of the Newport rising in the square was shamefully  demolished in 2013 :- https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/destruction-of-chartist-mural.html
We should be grateful to John Frost, that almost all of the reforms for which he and the Chartists had campaigned had been enshrined in law. I believe it is important to respect and honour the legacy of the Chartists and John Frost and the sacrifices they made , as the struggles for democracy continue. Many people have been arguing that modern politics is broken, and now is a time for a  new People's charter. Generations later  the fight to defeat elite driven policies continues, for the many not the few. There is still so much to fight for.

Robert Owen ( 14/5/1771 - 17/11/1858) - Pioneering Welsh Social Reformer

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Robert Owen who was born on 14/5/1771 in Newtown, Powys ,was a Welsh manufacturer who turned  into a social reformer, and became one of the most influential advocates and founders of utopian socialism and the co-operative movement.
His father had a small business as  a saddler and iron-monger, his mother came from one of the prosperous farming families. A bright and capable child, Robert was schooled at Newtown and then, at the age of 10, was articled to a draper in the town. In due course he moved to London to continue his trade and establish himself in the world.
This he managed to do with some alacrity. A move to the sprawling, manufacturing metropolis of Manchester saw Robert Owen installed as manager  of a cotton mill employing 500 people. He also became a member of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, which discussed the ideas of reformers and philosophers of the Enlightenment, and it was here that his ideas on social reform began to take shape. 
After a visit to Glasgow he fell in love with Caroline Dales, the daughter of a New Lanark mills proprietor called David Dale who he was friendly with. With the financial support of several businessmen from Manchester, in 1810 Owen purchased Dale's four textile factories in New Lanark for £60,000.After his subsequent marriage with Miss Dale in September 1799, he set up home there. Encouraged by his previous success in the management in Manchester,  he had already formed the idea of conducting New Lanark on higher principles with  an interest in helping the poor and put his profits into a series of radical experiments, having been appalled  by the inhuman working and living conditions of his century. 

New Lanark was the springboard from which Owen’s Socialism was launched, and sweeping changes began to take place in and around the local community. For many years the poor had been living in filthy, cramped conditions, and Owen set about enlarging the houses of his workforce. Up until this time, local residents frequently dumped their waste in the streets, but Owen reorganised refuse collection and even built new streets. To ensure health, he urged his workers to appoint a visiting committee, which maintained the standards of cleanliness and domestic economy.

He set out to  make his new cotton factory,  a cooperative factory community that focused more on the  well- being of the community than on profits. Owen set out to make New Lanark an experiment in philanthropic management from the outset. He believed that a person's character is formed by the effects of their environment. Owen was convinced that if he created the right environment, he could produce rational, good and humane people. He argued that people were naturally good but they were corrupted by the harsh way they were treated For his mill, he set up an infant school, a day care center  for working mothers, providing education and health care to children starting when they were three. Children did not have to work in the mill until they were  10, which was revolutionary at the time. He also set up a cooperative shop that provided high quality goods at  reasonable costs for the mill workers and their families. Owen believed that education and safe cooperative work conditions would promote a happy, healthy and productive community of workers. This would not only be good for the business, but for the entire community. Owen was also a strong opponent of physical punishment in schools and factories and immediately banned its use in New Lanark.The Mill became a successful model that prominent social reformers and industrialists visited.

                                    

                                           New Lanark Mills

He also found time to campaign and lecture on his view of social reform, writing his personal manifesto, A New View of Society in 1812-13. In 1816, he wrote: "I know that society may be formed to exist without crime, without poverty, with health greatly improved, with little if any misery, and with intelligence and happiness increased a hundredfold."

Owen also toured the country making speeches on his experiments at New Lanark. He  published his speeches as pamphlets and sent free copies to influential people in Britain. In one two month period he spent £4,000 publicizing his activities. In his speeches, Owen argued that he was creating a "new moral world, a world from which the bitterness of divisive sectarian religion would be banished"

Owen was also a religious free thinker. He was critical of organised religion, such as the Church of England. He argued that religion tended to create prejudice in men, which was a barrier to peace and harmony.

“I was forced, through seeing the error of their foundation, to abandon all belief in every religion which had been taught to man. But my religious feelings were immediately replaced by the spirit of universal charity — not for a sect, or a party, or for a country or a colour — but for the human race, and with a real and ardent desire to do good.” Life of Robert Owen (1857)  his autobiography

Over the next few years Robert Owen developed political views that has resulted in him being described as the "father of socialism". In the Report to the County of Lanark (1821) suggested that in order to avoid fluctuations in the money supply as well as the payment of unjust wages, labour notes representing hours of work might become a superior form of exchange medium. This was the first time that Owen "proclaimed at length his belief that labour was the foundation of all value, a principle of immense importance to later socialist thought".

However in 1824,  he had become so disillusioned with Capitalism that he left for America. For five years, he attempted to establish a Socialist community at New Harmony in Indiana, but his efforts were in vain. He lost a fortune in the process.

When he returned  to England in 1829, Owen was surprised to discover that  a movement had sprung up in his name, the 'Owenites' who were engaged in laying foundations for the Co-operative Movement. "The New Society is to be based," explained the pioneers, " on the free association of producers in guilds and manufacturing societies strong enough to dispense  with employers and with  the exploitation of labour for private profit.

Max Beer, the author of A History of British Socialism (1919) has argued that the word "socialist" was used to describe Owen's followers: "Common to all Owenites was the criticism and disapproval of the capitalist or competitive system, as well as the sentiment that the United Kingdom was on the eve of adopting the new views. A boundless optimism prevaded the whole Owenite school, and it filled its adherents with the unshakable belief that the conversation of the nation to socialism was at hand, or but a question of a few years.

After many disputes with his partners, who were always more interested in profits than in Owen's version of ideal living, he resigned from New Lanark in 1828. Owen turned to the formation of co-operative villages, some of which were already being run on Owenite lines in Scotland, Ireland and Hampshire.Although these communities eventually failed, the communitarian tradition persisted in Victorian England and elsewhere. Following the failure of these co-operative villages he entered into the trade union field, and his road to the New Moral World he now saw through the organisation of the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union, which within a few weeks of its formation in 1834 had enrolled more than one million members. This too collapsed in 1834, following the deportation of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, and Owen continuously fought for their return to England.

During a visit to his hometown and birthplace  of Newtown, Wales on November 17th, 1858, he was suddenly taken ill. On his deathbed  he said: "I gave important truths to the world, and it was only for want of understanding that they were disregarded. I have been ahead of my time."

He subsequently died and was buried in a local church yard. The Co-operative Union placed a memorial tablet near his grave in 1902. In 1956 a memorial statue was erected with funds raised by the Labour and Co-operative Movement.
This visionary Welsh man's ideals  who pioneered the prioritisation of welfare over profit,  have continued to inspire many trade and cooperative movements ever since. Friedrich Engels described him as "a man of almost sublime, childlike character," who was, nevertheless, "one of the few born leaders of men." He added: Every social movement and real advance in England on behalf of the workers links with the name of Robert Owen."
Owenism  has since exerted a significant influence on various strands of British socialism, including Christian socialism, ethical socialism, guild socialism, Fabianism and  the socialist labour movement. Co-operative socialism was perceived by these organisations as a replacement for the unjust competitive capitalist system.

                                          Robert Owen, memorial statue, Newport, Powys.

Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues

Some musical  respite. "Subterranean Homesick Blues" is a song by Bob Dylan , originally released on the album  Bringing it all Back Home in March 1965.  Bob was a little ahead of the 'music video' trend when, on  this day May 8, 1965, he got the idea to make a short film of the song.He was filming what would become the documentary "Don't Look Back" when the idea hit him.
The short film that follows  features him standing in an alley next to London's Savoy Hotel , just accompanied by his friends Allen Ginsberg and Bob Neuwirth, flipping giant cue cards with the lyrics of the song on them.

The video, which many feel was one of the first "music videos," would become an iconic rock moment. The song sounded like nothing nobody had  heard before and  it utterly transformed Bob Dylan's career and the history of popular music along with it.
In 1963 Dylan had become one of  the leading figures in the folk revival, writing socially conscious anthems like "Blowin' in the Wind." As of his fourth album, Another Side of Bob Dylan, released in August 1964, he was becoming less interested in political material and more interested in songs with poetic, allusive imagery, but he was still playing them on an acoustic guitar or piano and his ever-present harmonica. In January 1965, however, Dylan went into the studio with a five-piece electric band -- two guitars, piano, bass, and drums . The first product of this effort was "Subterranean Homesick Blues," In four lengthy verses, with no real chorus (though the line "Look out, kid" appeared in the second part of every verse) and no mention of the title, Dylan delved into a free association of rhymes and catch phrases. This was Dylan’s first successful attempt to integrate the emotions of the Beat Generation which he had understood from Alan Ginsberg and others combining the thoughts of the moment with three minutes of everything that was happening in the world of the mid 1960s.
Like the Beat Generation poetry before it took a scatological approach to lyrics and rhyme, rejecting all that had gone before, linking the future to the past and back again, finding new models, new expressions, new ideas, even if no one knew what they meant.
The song contained depictions of a variety of characters including Johnny, "the man in the trench coat," "the man in the coon-skin cap in the big pen," Maggie, "girl by the whirlpool," and others, and, in the second parts of each verse, various pieces of cautionary advice for the kid, including everything from "Don't try No Doz" to "try to avoid the scandals." It wasn't a protest song in the way that some of Dylan's earlier songs had been, but the lyrics clearly expressed social discontent, with lines like "Twenty years of schoolin'/And they put you on the day shift." Dylan spat out the words in a staccato rhythm while the band rollicked along in a ramshackle manner.
The whole thing was oddly exhilarating, but "Subterranean Homesick Blues" was easily the strangest single Columbia Records had ever released. It was also a hit, at least a modest one, peaking just inside the Top 40, Dylan's first single to reach the charts. Rolling Stone magazine has it in the top 500 greatest songs of all time. A personal favourite of mine.
Here's Bob in London, 52 years ago today.

(As for those) in the basement
(Marijuana's) the medicine
(And those) on the pavement
(Burning down the false) government
The man in the trench coat
Badge out, laid off
Says he's got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off
Look out kid
It's something you did
(Jah) knows when
But you're doing' it again
You better duck down the alley way
Looking' for a new friend
The man in the coon-skin cap
In the big pen
Wants eleven dollar bills
You only got ten

Maggie comes fleet foot
Face full of black soot
Talking' that the heat put
Plants in the bed but
The phone's tapped anyway
Maggie says that many say
They must bust in early May
Orders from the D.A.
Look out kid
Don't matter what you did
Walk on your tip toes
Don't try "No Doze"
Better stay away from those
That carry around a fire hose
Keep a clean nose
Watch (those) plain clothes
You don't need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows

(You) get sick, (then) get well
Hang around an ink well
(Things fell), hard to tell
If anything is going' to sell
Try hard, get barred
Get back, write Braille
Get jailed, jump bail
(Don't stop, you don't) fail
Look out kid
You're going to get hit
By users, cheaters
Six-time losers
Hang around the theaters
Girl by the whirlpool
Looking' for a new fool
Don't follow leaders
Watch the parking' meters

Ah get born, keep warm
(Girls come) learn to dance
Get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a success
Please her (to please me)
Don't steal, don't (shop) lift
Twenty years of schooling'
And they put you on the day shift
Look out kid
They keep it all hid
(You come out from the dark zone)
Light yourself a (fire torch)
Wear (your) sandals
Try to avoid the scandals
Don't want to be a bum
(Get yourself a gun)
The pump don't work
'Cause the vandals took the handles

80th anniversary of the horror that was Guernica

                                  Pablo Picasso's Guernica

April 26 marks the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Guernica in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. During the afternoon and early evening of Monday, April 26th, 1937,  the German and Italian fascist air forces destroyed the Spanish town of Guernica in a raid lasting three hours. The war crime was 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, such , such horror.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 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. Many sought refuge abroad, as many as 3,800 Basque children were evacuated to England and Wales for the duration of the war. The British Government at the time callously refused to be responsible for the children, but  throughout the summer children were dispersed to camps throughout Britain. Eight of these colonies were here in Wales. They were received with a mixture of hostility and kindness, but they had all managed to escape the grips of Franco's fascist Spain.
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.
Picasso 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”
Picasso's picture still resonates with tragedy, capturing the full terror and horror of this terrible moment in history.The Reina Sofía Museum, in Madrid is marking the anniversary with an exhibition. called ' Pity and terror in Picasso.' The show which opened on  4 April which will run for five months  will examine the making of the black-and-white mural, as well as its critical reception at the Paris Exposition in 1937 and display at the Whitechapel Gallery in London in 1939. That same year, Picasso transferred Guernica to the care of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. It toured the US throughout the 1940s and then headed for Brazil, travelling there from 1953 to 1956.
The exhibition will explore the painting’s role in Spain’s post-war reconstruction and as an international image of peace as well as its influence on contemporary artists. Guernica returned to MoMA in 1957 and remained there for 24 years. The painter gave the museum clear instructions — the canvas belonged to the Spanish people and would only be given back “when they have recovered the freedoms that were taken away from them.”
Finally in 1981, the painting arrived in Spain, which was transitioning to democracy after the death of Franco, and went on display at the Prado museum after democracy was restored to the country. In 1992, it was transferred to the Reina Sofía museum.
At the United Nations last year, French Ambassador Francois Delattre compared the destruction in the Syrian city of Aleppo to Guernica.“Aleppo is to Syria what Guernica was to the Spanish war, a human tragedy, a black hole destroying all we believe in,” he said.
It is important and timely to reflect on this tragic occasion  in this context given the emphasis on bombing in the past couple of weeks: the bombing of Syria “in retaliation” for the use of chemical weapons; the Mother of All Bombs being dropped in Afghanistan; and the threats by North Korea to pre-emptively use nuclear bombs. In these strange and worrying political times we are going through,  the anniversary of Guernica is still very poignant.  Guernica must be remembered , for our time, and for future generations, a terrifying rendition of the slaughter of  innocents. Lest we forget.

Guernica - Norman Rosten  (1/1/15 -7/3/95)

In Guernica the dead children
Were laid out in order upon the sidewalk,
In their white starched dresses,
In their pitiful white dresses.
On their foreheads and breasts
Are the little holes where death came in
As thunder, while they were playing
Their important summer games.
Do not weep for them, madre.
They are gone forever, the little ones,
Straight to heaven to the saints,
and God will fill the bullet-holes with candy.

St George the Palestinian hero.

The above picture is from  the Ghinass children centre in Bethlehem depicting the dragon  as the Israelis  build their apartheid wall, with St George leading the Palestinians to slay it.

St George's Day , the national day of England whereupon true patriots celebrate their total ignorance of their origins and history  because St George was actually born in Cappadocia, part of modern day Turkey into a noble Christian family in the third century, around 270 CE, whilst Wikipedia has him born in Lydda, Syria Palaestina  (Lodd) – 23 April 280 CE. His mother was a Palestinian. She came from what was then the larger area of Palestine (Israel and the Occupied Territories today.) and she took George back to her homeland after the death of his father.
The Roman Empire had at the time spread all over this region. George joined the Roman army, becoming a fairly high-ranking officer. But he fell foul of the Emperor Dioletian, who, fearing a plot against his pagan second-in-command, embarked on a systematic terror against all Christian believers. George refused to bow to Diocletian and abandon his religion. Anticipating trouble, he gave his property to the poor and freed his slaves. He was imprisoned, tortured, and finally beheaded at Nicomedia, on April 23, 303AD.
His example, as a man of courage in defence of his religion and a helper of the poor, spread throughout the world. For the Palestinian St George is revered today, as a martyr  who fought against oppression, intolerance and injustice and stood up for his beliefs. Also known as 'Al  Khadr' (the Green) and is associated with fertility and growth.He is revered in Palestine as a hero , a fact that many right wing idiots in the UK fail to remember, demonising immigrants and multiculturalism while forgetting that St George is not actually English. Both muslims and christians in Palestine, today take part in celebrations in honour of him. Although St George lived four centuries before the birth of Islam, his wide appeal, beyond borders or races, has made him a figure sacred to Muslims and Christians alike.In Palestine he symbolises Christian Muslim unity and shared Arabic culture.There are still tens of thousands of his successors in Gaza and the West Bank - 100,000 at the last count and with its associations of courage, gallantry and honour, the Christian name, George, remains one of the most common in the Palestinian Territories.There are also  many churches in the West Bank and Israel that bear the name of St George - at al-Khadr, Lod and in the Galilee, for example.
Oh and St George also happens to be  the patron saint of Lithuania, Portugal, Aragon, Germany and Greece, as well as cities including Moscow, Istanbul, Genoa and Venice.The episode of St. George and the Dragon was clearly a legend  brought back with the Crusaders to Britain.There is so much information around about St. George it’s hard to tell fact from fiction but  it's  fair  to  say he  never visited  England  and  if  he was around today and tried to come to England to seek refuge he  would  probably  be  deported..