Today, May 15th marks 65 years since the Nakba (day of Catastrophe) the dispossession, forced exile and ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians from their land before and during the creation of the State of Israel.
Sixty five years later, Palestinians still face an ongoing Nakba as Israel continues to deny the right of return of displaced Palestinians and to illegally colonize Palestinian lands. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have now lived under a brutal Israeli military occupation for nearly 46 years in the aftermath of the 1967 war, and Palestines in Israel live under apartheid where more than 50 laws enshrine their status as second-class citizens based on their ethnic and religious identity. More details here:-
an organisation which aims to promote awareness of the Nakba in Israel, has put together an activity creating a large scale map of the Palestinian villages destroyed by Israel. Participants are given cards that represent each of the villages destroyed, which are then returned to their correct location on a map. Participants can personalise their cards or decorate the map using chalk, coloured stones,stickers, ribbons etc. You can find more information here:- http://zochrot.org/en/content/were-map
Destruction of Palestinian homes
Palestinians protest near Ofra prison of the Occupation demanding freedom for Palestinian prisoners. May 15 - 2012
Even the word 'Nakba' was banned by the Israeli Minister of Education in 2009, and was removed from school textbooks. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayah said at the time that the word was tantamount to spreading propoganda against Israel. But the word Nakba is the term that about a fifth of Israel's population, the Palestinians use to describe this day.
This is the Palestines history, it is essential we should be allowed to talked about. It is it not wrong to question, when other regimes oppress, we question them too, we have a duty to critisize and condemn, when fundamental freedoms and rights are violated. Any state that acts aggressively is open to criticism. All human beings are entitled to human rights.
Today refugees are still waiting to have their homes and lands returned to them, after all these years, of living in camps, being displaced. Under daily occupation they are forced to daily endure the humiliation, demonisations, metered out to them Today illegal settlers and settlements still removing people from their homes, with seperation walls, humiliation and discrimination.Today the Palestinians world is still being stolen, as occupiers daily steal all that they possess, the tears of yesterday forge today's resistance.Israel to this day have refused to recognise the Palestinians right of return as expressed in the UN General Resolution 194, Article 11, Information here:-. http://www.al-awda.org/facts.html
This is why I do not forget them and why many others like Stephen Hawkings last week are responding to the Palestinians calls for Boycott and disinvestment, questioning Israels continuing suffocation and elimination of the Palestinians society and culture.The Palestinians struggle for self determination has become one of the great international moral issues of our time. That is why it is important not to forget, and to realise too that Israels current policies make sure that for many Palestinians that the Nakba is still a living experience.
Many Palestinians still have a key on a chain around their necks. These are the keys to homes in Palestine which they were forced to abandon in 1948, 1987, or at any time since.
This is a narration without an end, untill opression is vanished, human rights restored, Gaza and the West Bank reunited, after 65 years of forced exile, return is their destiny.
A Tribute to the Depopulated Villages
and towns in the Nakba
A very IMPORTANT Map showing the massive destruction of Palestinian villages and Cities
from one of Palestines most beloved poets,a favourite of mine here he speaks of those who know and seek love, to still be able to to spread love.In exile his politics rooted in his beloved Palestine.
Yesterday I saw you at the harbour; You were a lonely voyager, without provisions. I ran to you like an orphan Asking the wisdom of our fathers: " Why does the green orange grove - Dragged in prison and port, And in spite of its travels, In spite of the scent of salt and longing- Why does it always remain green?" And I wrote in my diary: "I love the orange, but hate the harbour." I stood at the harbour, And watched the world with eyes of winter. Only the orange peel is ours, Behind me was the desert. I saw you on briar-covered mountains: You were a sheperdess without sheep, Pursued among the ruins. You were my garden When I was away from home. I would knock on the door, my heart, For on my heart The doors and windows, cement and stones are laid.
I have seen you in wells of water And in granaries, broken. I have seen you in nightclubs waiting on tables. I have seen you in rays of tears and wounds. You are a pure breath of life; You are the voice of my lips; You are water ... You are fire. I have seen you at the mouth of the cave, Drying your orphan rags on a rope. I have seen you in stores and streets, In stables and sunsets. I have seen you in songs of orphans and wretches. I have seen you in salt and sand. Your beauty was of earth, children and jasmine. I vow To weave a veil from my eyelashes And embroider it with verses for your eyes And with a name, which, When watered with a heart That was melted with your love, Would make trees grow green again. I will write a sentence dearer than martyrs and kisses: "Palestine she was and still is!"
One stormy night I opened the window And saw a mutilated moon. I told the night: Rejoice Beyond the fences of darkness! I have an appointment with light and words. You are my virginal garden As long as our songs Are swords when we draw them. You are faithful as the seed As long as our songs Nourish the land... You are a palm tree in the mind, Felled by neither wind nor woodsman's axe. Your braids have been spared By beasts of desert and woods.
But I am the exile Seal me with your eyes Take me wherever you are - Take me whatever you are. Restore to me the color of face And the warmth of body. Thelight of heart and eye, The salt of bread and rhythym, The taste of earth... the motherland. Shield me with your eyes. Take me as a relic from the mansion of sorrow; Take me as a verse from my tragedy; Take me as a toy, a brick from the house So that our children will remember to return.
Her eyes are Palestinian, Her name is Palestinian, Her dreams and sorrows, Palestinian Her veil, her feet and body, Her words and silence are Palestinian; Her birth and her death
From Splinters of Bone: Translated from the Arabic by B.Mm. Bennani, New York: The Greenfield Review Press, 1974
Cameron has learned to mimic emotions he was expected to show in certain situations. An estimated 4% of the population are sociopaths like Cameron - that's 272 million people.
Sociopathy, otherwise known as ant-social personality disorder, is defined as 'a pervasive pattern of disregarding the feelings of others' which begins in childhood and continues into adulthood.
Sociopaths usually have a lack of conscience and may also have a history of impulsive behaviour. But because they're highly intelligent, entertaining and charming, they blend into society. The truth is it's just an act. He peddles the concept of us all being in it together, but this is just a lie.
Parliament appeals to sociopaths, the ability to disconnect from the reality of the very lives of the people they represent, the whole tory ideology one of enriching the rich, depriving all else, lacking in humanity and empathy.
Their are those who suggest that David Cameron suffrers from slight and extremely well concealed intellectual and social insecurity.
Certain countries and nations have sociopathic tendencies too but that is another story. If anyone is familiar with any of my previous postings, you will probably guess who I am referring to.
Is Cameron a sociopath I will let you judge for yourself. In the meantime here are
13 Rules for Dealing with Sociopaths in Everyday life.
( Dedicated to poet Gary Snyder on his birthday, and all who oppose violations of human rights -by all sides in war. )
Peace,
shines on top of mountains,
in the ocean of universes,
and its moonit clouds,
in every soul, distant stars.
Near moments to come,
the futures past,
peace is a promise or secret,
that is forever kept,
comes from within,
we are all in reach of its scent.
Sends messages of determination,
from hungry hearts that demand attention,
in every seed and flower grows,
comforts sleepers, in times of darkness,
on horizons that stretch forever,
on the windows edge, the gutters rose.
Sings from the rain, as freedom is sired,
in the flame wind of breath,
lets together ride it's waves,
let it chase our shadows,
unite the human race,
against darkness, against intolerance,
against tides that do not turn.
The Violin (little of the Bandits Soul) - Magritte
I
In the realm of violin
consider the temerity of blue,
the way the sky in an azure poem
has to aspire to the condition
of music to gve enchantment
II
to the dull & torpid ear
that listens for the music of the spheres
of the wooden firmament
and will not hear the echo
of the transparency of its dream
III
of its own dying fall
down the equally crystalline
condition of the years
into the crimson of the season
of sonority;
IV
in the realm of Autumn, consider the horror
of the jagged sound, the language
gone awry to describe the good death,
the white cry
that verbalises the colors of distance.
On this day in 1981, a 27 year old elected member of the British House of Parliament, starved to death in a prison in Northern Ireland, after 66 days on hunger strike. Bobby Sands was the first of ten men to die, all of them jailed members of Irish Republican organisations. Seven were from the I.R.A and three from I.N.L.A ( The Irish National Liberation Army).
Bobby Sands was born into a working class Roman Catholic family in 1954. A figure of contention to this day, to some a hero of the people, to others a perpetrator and supporter of terrorism and violence.
Let us remember though that Ireland was very different then,to what it is today. Growing up Bobby Sands was forced to make a choice between a status quo under which he saw his community persecuted, intimidated, and forced out of their homes by loyalist mobs. Like many young people of the time, he chose the path of resistance and joined the I.R.A. Often when a community is under a cloud of oppression,it's citizens sometimes do not passively accept their lot, but choose to fight back.
At the time native Irish people in Northern Ireland were deprived of basic civil rights, could not participate in elections, unless they owned a home. Daily many young men like Bobby Sands were harassed and persecuted, under a continual state of siege. Such was the climate and circumstances of the times that led Bobby Sands to later write ' I have seen to many homes wrecked, fathers and sons arrested, friends murdered. Too much shooting and blood, most of it on our own people. I joined the I.R.A.
In 1973 when he was 17 he was sentenced to five years imprisonment and released in 1976. In 1976 he was rearrested and charged with the involvement in the bombing of a furniture company. He was never actually convicted of this charge, the presidary judge stated that there was no evidence to support the assertion that Sands had taken part in the bombing. After the bombing, Sands and at least 5 others were alleged to have been involved in a gun battle with the Royal Ulster Constabulary, although he was not convicted due to lack of evidence. Later on the revolvers used in the attack was found in a car in which Sands had been travelling.In 1977 prosecutors charged him with possession of the revolver from which bullets were fired at the R.U.C after the bombing.
After his trial and conviction he was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment within H.M Prison Maze, also known as Long Kesh in the notorious H. Blocks.
Aerial Picture of Long Kesh Prison, showing the H.Blocks.
In prison he was beaten regularly and was often in solitary confinement. The conditions he and fellow prisoners were held in were brutal and barbaric. Here he joined other prisoners in the blanket protests, which ran from March 1978 until March 1981, here they engaged in a slop out protest, which had begun when the prison authorities in an attempt to break their will refused the prisoners access to toilets and washing facilities, and forced the prisoners to live in filthy conditions.
During this period Sands immersed himself in books and the politics of liberation, and became an advocate for prisoners rights, calling for reform.
Beginning on the first of March 1981, Sands led nine other republican prisoners in the H.Block section of the Maze Prison on a hunger strike that would last until death. They had 5 demands.
1. The right not to wear a prison uniform.
2. The right not to do prison work.
3. The right of free association and to organise educational and recreational pursuits.
4. The right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week.
5. Full restoration of remission lost through protest.
The Citizen - Richard Hamilton
The British Government under Margaret Thatcher failed to meet these demands, and were increasingly at loggerheads with thousands of people who supported their struggle, and the growing international condemnation of the British Governments unwillingness to compromise.
On April 9th , 1981, Sands was elected as an Anti H-Block/ Armagh Political Prisoner M.P for Ennniskillen, later immortalised in the Christy Moore Song ' The Peoples Own M.P'.
Christy Moore - The People'sOwn M.P
His death 25 days later saw an eruption of anger on the streets of Belfast, with over 100,000 people lining the strreets to attend his funeral. Unfortunately he was not to be the last to die. By August 1981, another nine men had died, they were :- Francis Hughes, Raymond Mc Creesh, Patsy O'Hara, JoeMcDonnel, Martin Hurson, Kevin Lynch, Kieran Doherty, Thomas McElwee and Michael Devine.
After these tragic events the Maze became an important platform for the peace process, when both Republican and Loyalist prisoners got behind calls for ceasefires and political negotiations. For many this history still carries much powerful emotion.
Bobby Sands Funeral Cortege
On Saturday 3 October 1981 the prisoners finally ended their hunger strike, after a marathon 267 days.
Although Margaret Thatcher claimed victory, her government conceded most of the hunger strikers demands shortly after the protests had ended. Even Thatcher, was moved to say later that ' it was possible to admire the courage of Sands and other strikers who died.' Nelson Mandela too said he was 'directly influenced by Sands bravery, streets were named after him across the globe and songs and poems were written in dedication to him.
Whilst in prison Sands became a writer both of journalism and poetry - being published in the Irish Republican newspaper 'An Phoblact,' under the pen name 'Macella' his sisters name. These writings in minute handwriting, were smuggled out and still ring clearly today, asserting the spirit of freedom and injustice, that had been his inspiration.
I include a few of them below.
The Rhythm of Time
There's an inner thing in every man
Do you know this thing my friend?
It has witnessed the blows of a million years.
And will do so to the end
It was born when time did not exist
And it grew up out of life
It cut down evil;s strangling vines
Like a smashing searing knife.
It lit fires when fires were not,
And burnt the mind of man,
Tempering leadened hearts to steel,
From the time that time began.
It wept by the waters of Babylon,
And when all men were at a loss,
It screeched in writhing agony,
And it hung bleeding from the Cross.
It died in Rome by lion and sword.
And in defiant cruel array,
When the deathly word was 'Spartacus'
Along with the Appian Way.
It marched with the Wat the Tyler's poor.
And frightened lord and king.
And it was emblazoned in their deatlhy stare.
As e'er a living thing.
It smiled in holy innocence.
Before conquistadors of old.
So meek and tame and unaware.
Of the deathly power of gold.
It burst through pitiful Paris streets.
And stormed the old Bastille.
And marched upon the serpent's head.
And crushed it 'neath its heel.
It died in blood in Buffalo Plains.
And starved by moons of rain.
It's heart was buried in Wounded knee.
But it will come to rise again.
It screamed aloud by Kerry lakes.
As it was knell upon the ground.
And it died in great defiance.
As they coldly shot it down.
It lies in the hearts of heroes dead.
It screams in tyrants eyes.
It has reached the peak of mountain high.
It comes searing 'cross the skies.
It lights the dark of this prison cell.
It thunders forth its might.
It is the undauntable thought,my friend.
That thought that says 'I'm right'.
Stars of Freedom
The stars of freedom light the skies.
Uncrowned queens of yesteryear.
They were born 'mid shades of royal hue'.
From mystic wombs they did appear.
Silver gems that pierce the dark.
Heavenly virgins in disguise.
That stir the heart with love and flame.
And light great flames in all men's eyes.
Oh! Star of beauty in nightly hue.
You have inspired bondsmen to kings.
And lit the ways of despairing folk.
From dreams to living things.
In the seas of time you float serene.
Oh! silver stars of nations born.
And you draw a tear to free man's eye.
Through dungeon bars forlorn.
Oh! star of Erin, queen of tears.
Black clouds have beset thy birth.
And your people die like morning stars.
That your light may grace the earth.
But this Celtic star will be born.
And ne'er by mystic means.
But by a nation sired in freedom's light.
And not in ancient dreams.
Modern Times
It is said we live in modern times.
In the civilised year of 'seventy nine.
But when I look around, all I see.
Is modern torture, pain and hypocrisy.
In modern times little children die.
They starve to death, but who dares ask why?
And little girls without attire.
Run screaming, napalmed, through the nights afire.
In the gutter lies the black man, dead.
And where the oil flows blackest, the street runs red.
And there was he who was born and came to be.
But lived and died without liberty.
As the bureaucrats, spectators and presidents alike.
Pin on their dirty, stinking, happy smiles tonight.
The lonely prisoner will cry out from within this tomb.
And tomorrow's wretch will leave it's mother's womb!
Bobby Sands also famously wrote the lyrics to this song, immortalised by Christy Moore.
Christy Moore - Back home in Derry
Long after Bobby Sands death and that of his fellow hunger strikers, their are echoes of their stance today, in the recent struggles of Palestinian prisoners who have used the same tactic in protest against their illegal detention by Israel in acts of non violent resistance, and the prisoners who are currently engaged in their own hunger strike in Guantanamo.
I hope that it is possible that they do not follow in the footsteps of Bobby Sands and his comrades, with the conclusion of their actions ending tragically with loss of lives.
Further Reading:-
Writings from Prison - Bobby Sands (1998)
Prison Poems - Bobby Sands (1981)
Nothing but an unfinished Song - The Life and times of Bobby Sands -Denis O'Hearn
I would also recommend the powerful 2008 film 'Hunger' by Steve McQueen which dramatises events in the Maze Prison, in the period leading up to the hunger strike and Sand's death.
Word of the day - salience.
Salience means importance. Your birthday will always be a date that jumps out at you with a lot of salience importance.
Origin:
mid 16th century (as a heraldic term)
Salience comes from the Latin salient, meaning 'to leap.'
from the verb salire.
The noun dates from the early 19th century.
Something with salience leaps our at you because it is unique or special in some way.
This could be an issue - how the hell have UKIP got so many bloody votes, or why is the N.H.S being dismantled!
It jumps out at you as remarkable or special,
it's characterized by a quality of salience.
Synonyms:
sallency, strikingness
Adjective:
prominent, conspicuous, or striking; a salient feeling.
Types:
conspicuousness
the state of being conspicuous
profile, visibility
degree of exposure to public notice
low profile
a stater of low visibility in which public notice is avoided
Type of :
prominence
the state of being prominent: widely known or eminent.
Given the salience of this, it is of some importance to teach ourselves to make distictions.
For many years now, Pete Seeger has communicated, entertained, campaigned, torn down barriers , torn down wwalls. A fearless, tireless campaigner for social justice, peace and freedom. From the Civil Rights movement, anti McCarthyism to resistance to fascism and the wars in Vietnam, the Middle Age , and the freedom of the Palestinian people to the Occupy movements, Pete Seeger has stood proudly in solidarity with them all. 94 today still active, still keeping the fires burning.
Happy Birthday Pete, an inspiration for us all.
How Can I keep From Singing
My life flows in endless song
Above earth's lamentations,
I hear the real, though far-off hymn
That hails a new creation.
Through all the tumult and the strife
I hear its music ringing
It sounds an echoe in my soul
How can I keep from singing?
While through the tempest loudly roars.
I hear the truth, it liveth.
And though theough the darkness 'round me close,
Songs in the night it giveth.
No storm can shake my inmost calm,
While to that rock I'm clinging.
Since love is lord of heaven and earth
How can I keep from singing?
When tyrants tremble sick with fear
And hear their death knell ringing.
When friends rejoice both far and near
How can I keep from singing?
In prison cell and dungeon vile
Our thoughts to them are winging.
When friends by shame are undefiled
How can I keep from singing.
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