So the Olympic flame trundles on through the country. Yesterday it passed through my home town, here in West Wales.It seems the country has gone mad. About 7,000 or so gathered to watch it pass, (from all accounts in a matter of minutes) quite a lot for a small town.For some people the recession does not seem to be happening, as this government slashes benefits, attacks the poor!
Sure there are tales of courage and fortitude, but overall I just don't get it. Crowds gather in excitement and delight wherever the torch appears, following the smell of spin and propoganda. It has an air of craziness about it, people whooping, people crying. Celebratng a torch that is on its way to London, where it will be used again as a symbol at the Olympics great spectacle of wealth.
I came home to my garden before the flame actually arrived ( heard the cries, of joy and hysteria) but what I saw in the town was blatant publicising for the Olympics main sponsors - Coke a Cola, B.T, Samsung and Lloyds/T.S. B Plc, McDonalds, the epitomy of junk and greedy captitalistic endeavor, their only common dominator is their thirst for profit. Corporate advertising latched on to a cavalcade of vehicles.
And coke, not really a healthy drink that I would associate with sport. As for the participation of Dow Chemicals..... the mind simply boggles, have people simply forgotten the Bhopal disaster that killed 15,000 people. And the people whoop and the people cheer.
The Olympics are going to cost an estimated £11billion - more than the Tory governments latest cut to the welfare budget. So lets celebrate our austerity.... hip hip hooray.
The relay is supposed to 'promote peace and make the world a better place' according to the International Olympic Committe President Jacques Rogge - but at such enormous cost. A true spirit of international co-operation would have seen us bailing out the Greeks, the originators of the Olympics, letting them host the games permanently and giving them our £15 billion.
And who invented the modern torch relay - the bloody Nazis.... Torches and flames had a strong link to Nazi ideology, they were used as a key part in Leni Reifenstahl's Nazi propoganda documentary Olympia.
They used the 1936 Olympics and the torch relay as a way of spreading their racist message of hate.
Today I feel this event is being used as a mass distractive action, to mask over the current problems we have in our country. I do not belittle peoples happiness, but think that it's all a bit of a con. At least some people will make something out of the games, by selling their torches on, with some perhaps being given back to charity.
In my garden it felt like I was living on another planet, as I heard the crowds roar, down the road from me. We have been experiencing some exceptionally good weather. But as the mass delusion rolls on I remain, deeply cynical. Will the flag waving, clapping and shedding a few tears of national pride continue, yes, many international groups are eagerly anticipating the event, but many people in London themselves are searching for ways to avoid the Olympics entirely, perhaps this hopeful distraction give us some kind of illusion that we can beat this austerity...... and its the Jubilee coming up soon too. No I'm not buying it, I simply don't believe the hype. But at least the Sun is shining.
' But it is in relation to individual human beings that Detachment is most necessary of all. The wise man spends his life running away. But luckily he can run away without moving a step. We are all - men and women alike - teased by the blue-bottle flies who want to lay their eggs. These are the people who have never learnt and never could learn the art of detachment. They are blue-bottle flies - as my sister Phillipa says - and they want to lay their eggs; and they can only lay their eggs in carrion. Not one of us has carried in him, carrion in her; and the buzzing blue-bottles, among our fellows, smell this afar off, and fly towards it, and would fain settle upon it and lay their eggs. Here indeed, here most of all is it necessary to excercise the very magic of Detachment, that magic that makes it possible for you to be in one place - like the man seated on the naked stone by the flowing water - and yet to be in the heart of the flaming sun and at the circumference of the divine ether. For if you fail to exercise the magic of Detachment upon the blue-bottle fly who infest your road they will really lay their eggs - the eggs of the maggots of civilisation - in your soul. And then you will believe in the justifiability of vivisection; in the sacrosanct importance of private property; in the virtue of patriotic war; in slaughter-houses, in brothels, in slavery, and in the great, noble scientific, gregarious, loving, human, undetached art of - Advertisement. Rouseau was right. It is only by detaching yourself from human civilisation that you can live a life worthy of a living soul.'
Quotation Reprinted from John Cowper Powys A Record of Achievement - Derek Langbridge The Library Association, 1966
It's Shell's AGM today and despite huge profits they've still not stumped up the money to clean up two major spills in the Niger Delta. The pollution has ruined the lives of the millions who live there. Here Omotola, an actressfrom the Niger Delta explain why Shell must own up, pay up, calling on Shell's chief executive , Peter Vosey to take resposibility for the pollution in the area. Then sign Amnesty International's petition, http://amn.st/LiosFv
' Can we go on bowing and curtseying to people who are just like ourselves? We begin to wish that the Zoo should be abolished. That the royal animals should be given the run of some wider pasturage - a royal Whipsnade. Will the British Empire survive and will Buckingham Palace look as solid in 2034 as it does now? Words are dangerous things remember. A republic might be bought into being by a poem.'
Down in Plymouth at moment for grans 100th Birthday..... her name is May, so a little poem. Am I the only one in this city at the moment, who is not overjoyed with olympic torches and stuff..... a mass delusion seems to be taking place. Have been called a killjoy 3 times this morning already. Hey ho.
Bright Clouds
Bright clouds of may Shade half the pond. Beyond, All but one bay Of emerald Tall reeds Like criss-cross bayonets Where once a bird called, Lies bright as the sun No one heeds. The light wind frets And drifts the scum Of may blosson. Till the northern callsAgain Naughts to be done By birds or men. Still the may falls.
Ah Mr Albert Camus, see him up there, he did not smoke because it was a luxury or even pleasurable he smoked because it was just part of something he did. The writer is almost as famous for his love of Gauloises as he is for his novels. For Camus, smoking was not just a mere pastime; it was an act rich in symbolic undertones. He believed it was a subtle manner of self-expression, akin to a silent proclamation of one's existence.
Drawing from his words, it seems Camus viewed smoking as a silent yet profound assertion of one's being, reminiscent of a solemn vow made to oneself amidst the enveloping silence of the night. It was as if each puff was a whispered secret, a quiet affirmation of his presence in a vast, indifferent universe. In a world that often seemed void of meaning, the act of smoking for Camus appeared to be a personal ritual, a small but significant way to ground oneself amidst existential chaos.
He even named his cat Cigarette, Absurdity as philosophy, this was his way. He describes his whole philosophy in an essay The Myth of Sisyphus http://www.vahidnab.com/sisyphus.pdf
Despite several attacks of tuberculosis with which he was first diagnosed aged 17, an illness that had little or no hope of cure at the time and living in poverty he kept on smoking. For him life itself and therefore humanity was irrational, he was labelled an existentailist but he rejected this..
Albert Camus was born on the 7th of November 1913, in extreme poverty, in Mondovi, French ruled Algeria, to an illiterate mother who was partially deaf, who lost his father in the horror that was World War 1, despite tremendous disadvantages by the age of 44 he was collecting the Nobel Prize for literature.
On all accounts he was of a sensitive nature, a seeker of maximum unity. An admirer of revolutionary syndicalism, anarchists, conscientious objectors, and all manner of rebels. Standing against totalitarianism in the form of Stalinism and fascism, and was never afraid to speak his truth.
In 1934 he joined the Communist Party, but his relationship with the party was difficult and would remain ambivialent throughout his life. In 1934 he married Simone Hie, a morphine addict and in 1938 he became a journalist, writing for an anti-colonialist newspaper after dropping out of the University of Algiers.
He moved to Paris in 1940, looking for work with the leftist press, married again, to a pianist and mathematician named Francine Faure, and had two twins Catherine and Jean in September 1945,and found himself a teaching post. In 1943 he joined Combat a clandestine resistance cell, working underground, helping with smuggling activities and acts of sabotage.
He became the editor of Combat'smagazine in 1943 where he deveoped his philosophies and strong moral convictions, and it was during this period that he published works that extended his ideas. He wrote ' This heart within me I can feel, and I judge that it exists. This world I can touch, and I likewise judge that it exists. There ends all my knowledge, and the rest is construction.'
He became associated with the French Anarchist movement, and wrote for several anarchist publications like Le Libertaire,La Revolucian Proletarienneand Solidaidad Obrera.His real concerns were for the plight of the ordinary man, not just in France or in Algeria, a search for solidarity, a humanity that does not divide.
His novels. The Ousider (1942) and his anti-fascist allegory, The Plague (1947) and The Fall (1947) to his essay on revolt, The Rebel thatserved as powerful moral and philosophical critiques ofsociety have become pivotal texts for me to reach over the years
Though people of the left accused him off drifting away, because he strongly critisized elements of communist doctrine, he remained a man of the left.In 1949 he founded The Group for International Liasons with the Revolutionary Union Movement,through which he wanted to show the world the more positive aspects of surrealism and existentialism.He labelled nihilism as the most disturbing problem of the twentieth century,
In his essay The Rebel he paints a terryfying picture of ' how metaphysical collapse often ends in total negation and the victory of nihilsm, characterised by a profound hatred, pathological destruction and incalculable death. Another theme that remained with him was his pacifism.
And whatever your opinion of the man he became obsessed with the human condition and its many forms.He accepted it's contradictions, and that's good enough for me, just because life defies logic, and is irrational, does not mean it is less valuable or means that it does not need to be defended.
Towards the end of his life, human rights in particular were what essentially preoccupied him, and when the United Nations welcomed fascist Spain as a member under Franco he resigned from his work for UNESCO. He worked with imprisoned Algerians, and it was his persistent efforts 'to illuminate the problem of the human conscience in our time' were one of the main reasons he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957,in 1957 was awarded the Nobel Prize of Literature.
On 4 January, 1960, this writer, intellectiual, and philosopher skidded of the road in an absurdist car accident.and was killed instantly, he was buried in the Loumarin, Vacluss, Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur, France.
At the time his philosophical writings, which continued the themes explored in his novels - the absurdity of the human condition and the necessity of rebelling against it, were not popular with critics, but his words and their power live on. Does the realization of the absurd reguire suicide? " No" Camus answered it requires revolt. " The struggle itself is enough to fill a man's heart." Long have I been an admirer of this man who was not afraid to preach justice, to reconsider his stance, to take candour and reflect, to be as honest as he thought best .After all there is no authority but yourself. This great man, this visionary of the absurdity of life, who expressed so articulately that human life is rendered ultimately meaningless by the fact of death, his themes of the alienated stranger, or outsider, the rebel in revolt, tempered by his own experience, showed to us the readers, the individuals paths where we can truly be free. He has undoubtedly become one of the most profoundly original thinkers of the modern age. For him the urge to revolt was one of the ' essential dimensions' of the human race, seen in man's continuous struggle against the conditions of his existence, through solidarity and our shared humanity. It was his persistent efforts 'to illuminate the problem of the human conscience in our time' that were one of the main reasons he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957, and I for one am very grateful to have discovered his enduring words, that continue to flow with inspiration.
So thanks Albert, whose ideas I have often found represented in the world around me, peppering them and illuminating them. He was also a goalkeeper of rare promisews a talented player who was often praised for his passion and courage. He was forced to give up football at the age of 17 after contracting tuberculosis. However, he remained a fan of the sport throughout his life. .
In the end he accepted lifes contradictions, he once remarked ' life is absurd and death renders it meaningless - for the individual. But mankind and its society are larger than one person'.
Right off to light myself a cigarette.
" Thus I draw from the absurd three consequences, which are my revolt, my freedom, and my passion" -
from, Albert Camus's famous celebrated essay The Myth of Sisyphus.
Today marks the anniversary of the Nabka ( Cataclysm). In human terms, on this day in 1948, saw the mass deportation of a million Palestinians from their cities and their villages, it saw the massacre of civilians, and the razing to the ground of hundreds of Palestinian villages.
Zionist forces used a terror campaign to expel 800, 000 Palestinians from their land. Today Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza strip, as well as pro-Palestinian supporters across the globe, will mark the 'catastrophe' and the inception of the State of Israel.Toaday is the Palestinians annual day of commemoration of this displacement. The vast majority of Palestinian refugees, both those outside the 1949 armistice lines at the wars' conclusion and those internally displaced, were barred by the newly declared state of Israel from their right to return to their homes or the reclaiming of their property, and in doing so Israel violated international law.
The Palestinian Authority has declared a general strike and mass rallies and marches are planned across the Palestinian Authority and in Arab cities in Israel. But today is also a day of celebation too in Gaza, because a deal has been reached where the hunger strike of thousands of Palestinian prisoners has ended, with Israeli authorities agreeing to concessions.With inmates currently being held under administrative detention being allowed for ther sentences to be renewable on the basis of new evidence. Also prisoners being held in solitary confienement will be allowed back to normal cells. So I guess a victory of sorts.
Unfortuantely there is no peace in stolen lands.... especially when people still cry for liberation and the right to return to their lands.
The above video is a story about a house and a woman - Sarah's mother died in 1998. Sara's father died soon after the Nabka, in 1952, leaving her mother to bring up eight young children. Aged 10 in 1948, Sara was the oldest daughter, so much of the upbrimnging of her brothers fell on her. Between 1967 and 1969, two of the brothers were arrested ad imprisoned. Sara's mother used to go daily to the main interrrogation center, the Moscobiyya, to ask about them. It was during one of these visits that sge got news that the Israeli army had surrounded the home. They were given 15 minutes to remove their belonging before the house was blown up. Then comes the most remarkable part- Sara's mother pitched a makeshift 'tent' on her land , and insisted on staying with her young children. Then stone by stone, she rebuilt her home. Of course the neighbours helped, also the children after school. But essentially it was her work, so onerous that her health was permanently affected. Other tragedies befall her but she remains firm in her faith in God and in the 'watan' (homeland), an inforgettable model to her children.
Sarah Oden speaks
"I am Sarah Ahmad Odeh. In 1948 I was about ten years old, and I remember how we left Lifta. In Lifta - the Jewish gangs began to attack the villages near Jerusalem, among them Lifta. They attacked us once, then a second time, but we didn't want to leave. Our home faced the Jaffa road, and all the firing was on it. So we left our house for a lower house, a little far from the Jews, and still the shooting followed us. My motheer was frightened for my brothers. She said to my father, 'Lets take them to a village near us so we shall be a little far from, the Jews'. He said, 'No, its impossible that I should leave my village. This is my village and my land. How can we leave?' She said, 'We wont take anything with us. Just the children. We'll take them away for a week until the shooting stops' - because all my brothers, all of us were young, and we were screaming. My father used to come and go through all the shooting, and he got wounded in his legs. He crawled on his hands and feet until he reached the house. He took us to another house. And still the shooting continued, night and day. Then they started to send shells, because our village, the old one, was on the road to Jaffa, and they took the Jaffa road and one side of Deir Yassin. They began to hit us with shells. And anyone who went outside of his house, they aimed at him and shot him. At that time they hit a Lifta coffee house and many people were killed. People wer maddened by the noise... so my mother convinced my father that we should leave for a week... ny father did not allow her even to take bread..."
This story and audio copyright Al Mahrig (the Levent) to contact Al Mashrig visit their website at http://almashriq.hiof.no/ Reproduced audio March 2011 by Lifta Society, http://www.liftasociety.org.all/ pictures blong to their rightful owners. Contact if you have any questions, or concerns.
Remember 64 years after the Nabka, Palestinians still have no state and no equality. Refugee camps still exist all over the world and a majority of Palestinians live in the diaspora. Against their will, the Nabka has divided the Palestinian people between Palestine and diaspora, between Gaza and the West Bank, between those who hold a refugee identification card and who don't. Still searching for dignity. Rememberance acts as resistance to a country that still tries to bury and hide history.
Dier Yassin.... ghosts of massacre
Al Nabka - A poem - Mary Pneuman
Dier Yassin
Almond and Cactus
Clinging roots of memory-
ghosts of massacre
Ein Karen
Almonds in green velvet
swelling pomegranete buds
grow more bitter now
Havara
Dreams of motherhood
lie still born at the checkpoint,
hope of Palestine
A letter from Thaer Halahleh, on day 75 of hunger strike against his detention without charge, to his two-year-old daughter Lamar, who he has never seen.
Translated by Jalal Najjar
"My Beloved Lamar, forgive me because the occupation took me away from you, and took away from me the pleasure of witnessing my first child that I have always prayed God to see, to kiss, to be happy with. It is not your fault, this is our destiny as Palestinian people to have our lives and the lives of our children taken away from us, to be apart from each other and to have a miserable life, nothing is complete in our lives because of this unjust occupation that is lurking on every corner of our lives turning it into eeriness, a continuous pursuit and torture. Despite that I was deprived from holding you and hearing your voice, from watching you grow up and move around in the house and in your be, and that I was deprived of my role as a human and a father with my daughter your existence has given me all the power and the hope, and when I saw your picture with your mother in the sit-in-tent, you were so calm staring in wonder at people, as if you were looking for your father, looking at my pictures that are hung inside the tent asking in silence why is my father not coming back, I felt that you are with me, in my sentiment and inside my mind, as if you are part of my heartbeats, steadfast and the blood that flows in my veins, opening all door for me spreading clear skies around me, and unleashing your free childish voice after this long silence".
" Lamar my love: I know that you are not to be blamed and that you don't yet understand why your father is going through this battle of the hunger strike for the 5th day, but when you grow up you will understand that the battle of freedom is the battle of going back to you, so that I can never be taken away from you again or to be deprived of your smile or seeing you, so that the occupier will never kidnap me again from you".
" When you grow up you will understand how injustice was brought upon your father and upon thousands of Palestinians whom the occupation has put in prisons and jail cells, shattering their lives and future for no guilt but their pursuit of freedom, dignity and independence, you will know that your father did not tolerate injustice and submission, that he will never accept insult and compromise, and that he is going through a hunger strike to protest against the Jewish state that wants to turn us into humiliated slaves without any rights or patriotic dignity."
"My beloved Lamar keep your head up always and be proud of your father, and thank everyone who supported me, who supported the prisoners in their struggle, and don't be afraid god is with us always, and god never lets people who have faith and patience, we are righteous, and right will always prevail against injustice and wrong doers".
"Lamar my love: that day will come, and I will make it up to you for everything, and tell you the whole story, and your days that will follow will be more beautiful, so let your days pass now and wear your prettiest clothes, run, and then run again in the gardens of your long life, go forward and forward, nothing is behind you but the past, and this is your voice I hear all the time as a melody of freedom".
Why the Palestinians decided to start the hunger strike.
Spoke to David Rupert yesterday, in fine form, we did a bit of reminising, he seemed overjoyed with the news of me becomming grandad..... we talked about how some things never change, he was in good spirits, roaring with laughter, he told me of certain things happening, though he swore me to secrecy......ideas were floated and walks were planned...... he's coming back to Aberteifi for visit... he swears that coke is quite a nice drink too, especially when the sun is out and once again told me he was not a poet, m'mmm nice that we can sometimes gently disagree..... we exchanged mutual respect , our iechyd dda's both of us looking forward to emerging possibilities and catching up. His voice still had me in stitches, shame our credit was low, today marks the occasion of the first session he did for the late great John Peel..... back in May, 1987, seems like only yesterday, we could have talked about that show for years..... so in honour of his music thought I'd post one of his great songs, a reason that John Peel once remarked ' if you don't understand it, more the reason to learn Welsh'. This year also marks 30 years since his bands first inauguration, so here's to Dave and the next 30 years or so.......
' We sang in Welsh with all the US/English influences because it had to be done. I didn't like the fact that Welsh music, was seen to be male voice choirs, folk music and all the cliches. I suppose that I wanted to modernise Welsh language culture. Welsh is a language with unlimited potential but I didn't appreciate a lot that was being manipulated in it. I tried to change things. Hundreds of people saw the point so I'm glad I bothered.' - David Rupert Edwards
CAN I GYMRU (geriau David R.Edwards/ Rhiannon Matthews
Gradd da yn y Gymraeg
Ar y Volvo bathodyn Tafod y Ddraig
Hoff o fynychu pwyllgorau blinedig
Am ddyfodol yr iaith yn enwedig,
Meistrioli iaith lleifrifol fel hobi
Platiau dwyiethog i helpu y gyrru
Agwedd cwbl addas
Ar gyfer cynllun cartre
Syth mas o set 'Dinas'.
Wastod yn mynd i Lydaw
Beth yn mynd i Ffrainc,
Wastod yn mynd i Wlad y Basg
Byth yn mynd i Sbaen.
Fin nos yn mynychu bwytai
Wedi dydd ar y prosessydd geiriau,
Mewn swydd sy'n talu'r morgais
I'ch gwyneb person cwbl cwrtais,
O'r ysgol feithrin i Brifysgol Cymru
Tocyn oes ar y tren grefi,
Byddai'n well da fi fod yn jynci
Na bod mor wyrdd a phoster Plaid Cymru.
Darnau gosod yr Wyl Gerdd Dant
A holl broblemau'r ddau o blant,
Gweri telyn Llinos Wyn,
A phroblem acne Llwarch Glyn,
Heb anghofio codi stwr
Am straen angeuol job y gwr-
Mae'n gorfod gweithio un tan tri
Yn gynhyrchydd BBC,
Llosgwch eich tafodau
Ar eich panedau piwritanaidd,
Collwch eich dynoliaeth
Mewn economeg academaidd.
Ewch cyfeillion sy'n enwogion
Gyd o'r Seri Rhyddion,
Trafodwch tapiau corau meibion
A'r eitemau sydd ar 'Hel Straeon'
Rhifau cynulleidfa'r oedfa
A pha liw lenni'r lolfa,
Tiwtoriad preifat i helpu'r plant
Neuadd Dewi Sant,
Digon o wyliau i gynnal lliw haul
Digon wrth Brydeinig i swnio fel Sig Heil (x2)
Meistroli iaith lleifrifol fel hobi
Dweud fod Cymru'n cael ei orthrymu,
Cawsoch radd da yn y Cymraeg (x4)
Ar y Volvo bathodyn Tafod Y Ddraig
Gradd da yn y Cymraeg (x3)
Cymraeg (x6)
Gradd da yn y Gymraeg
Ar y Volvo.
A good degree in Welsh
On the Volvo a Tafod Y Ddraig sticker,
Fond of attending tiresome committee meetings
About the future of the language in particular,
Mastering a minority language as a hobby
Bilingual plates to help the driving,
A perfectly appropriate attitude
For a home plan straight out of the 'Dinas' st.
Always going to Brittany,
Never going to France,
Always going to the Basque country
Never going to Spain.
At night going to restaurants
After a day on the word processor,
in a job that pays your mortgage
To your face a perfectly courteous person
From nursery scholl to the University of Wales
A lifetime ticket on the gravy train,
I would rather be a junkie
Than be as green as a Plaid Cymru poster.
The set texts of the Cerdd Dant Festival
And all the problems of the two children,
Llinos Wyn's harp lessons
And Llwyarch Clyn's acne problem.
Not forgetting to raise a fuss
About the deadly strain of the husband's job,
He has to work from one to three
As a BBC producer.
Burn your tongues
On your puritanical cups of tea
Lose your humanity
in academic economics.
Name your friends who are famous
All of them freemasons,
Discuss male voice choir tapes
And the items that are on 'Hel Straeon'
The numbers in the congregation
And what colour should the lounge curtains be,
Private tutors to help the children,
St. David's Hall.
Enough holidays to maintain a suntan.
Anti British enough to sound like Sieg Heil (x2)
Mastering a minority language as a hobby
Saying that Wales is being oppressed,
Even thouh your cars have Tafod Y Ddraig stickers
You had a good degree in Welsh (x4)
On the Volvo a Tafod Y Ddraig sticker,
Good degree in Welsh (x3)
Welsh (x6)
Good degree in Welsh
On the Volvo.
Oh another thing an exhibition Datblygyu Trideg celebrating the music of one of Wale's most popular and influental bands is currently on view at The Waffle Coffee Shop 63 Clive Road Cardiff. Link to their facebook page here http://www.facebook.com/Datblygu30
