Vittorio Arrigoni Remembered (4/2/75 -15/4/11)

 

Today I also remember Italian Vittorio Arrigoni,a dedicated peace activist, journalist and freedom fighter for Palestine. From  his arrival until his murder on the 15th of April 2011, Vittorio stayed in Gaza to work with the International Solidarity Movement there, where he attended regular demonstrations, helping both farmers and fishermen, also volunteering in hospitals and ambulances, and helped  document the countless Israeli crimes against humanity that he witnessed. Vittorio also stayed in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, which massacred hundreds of unarmed civilians. His daily dispatches during those three weeks, during which 1.400 Palestinians were killed, the vast majority civilians, were published in 2010 in a book titled Gaza:Stay Human, which was translated into English by Daniela Flippin with an introduction by Israel historian and dissident Ilan Pappe. 
Here was a man sadly killed by sectarian forces, his murder an outrage, one of of enormous tragedy. He lived and died expressing his solidarity with the Palestinians, this was a man who loved Gaza, it's land, it's sea and it's sky. A huge inspiration, brave and defiant.
He embodied  a certain spirit of the European anti-fascists of the 1930's and 1940's, who went to fight and die as partisans in Italy and Spain. In his own words he said " My granfathers fought and died struggling against an occupation, another occupation. It was the Nazi-Fascist one. For this reason, probably, in my DNA, there are particles that push me to struggle for human rights and freedom."
Long before   he had embraced the Palestinians cause he had been involved  in human rights issues.
Here was a man, that seemed to me to  define the spirit of humanity, who also  used to also  say "The winner is a dreamer who never gives up." He remains a hero to the people of Palestine.
I hope his great spirit is not forgotten.

" We must remain human, even in the most difficult times, because depite everything, there must allways be humanity within us. We have to bring it to others." - Vittorio Arrigoni

Vittorio Arrigoni - Staying Human

 

 

 

Hillsborough Disaster: 25 years on

It was on this day April 15, 1989 that 96 Liverpool supporters went to a game of football and never came back. The terrrible events of that day at Hillsborough remain as heartbreaking now as they were 25 years ago.
Today bells will ring 96 times around the city of Liverpool at 3.06, the moment the match was halted. A minutes silence will be observed.After all these, despite Prime Minister  David Cameron  finally aplogising for the cover up attempt by police, investigators and the media, many  people are still searching for answers. 25 years later there have still been no criminal charges against any individual or group on the supposed grounds of insufficient evidence.
On this anniversary, my thoughts go  out to the familis of the 96, Liverpool Football Club and the City of Liverpool.

Post from last year including Carol Ann Duffy Poem on the subject.

http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/poem-for-hillsborough-disaster-by-carol.html

Monarchy Monster

In response to the horrendous daily onslaughts of  yet another odious BBC report on Kate and Will and little georgy porgy. Enjoying another 'public funded holiday' while the rest of us suffer from cutbacks. To be honest I'd rather they stay down under, their welcome to them.

http://republic.org.uk

Nick Drake - Pink Moon

I saw it written and I saw it say
Pink moon is on it's way
And none of you stand so tall
Pink moon gonna get you all
It's a pink moon
Hey, it's a pink moon
It's a pink, pink, pink, pink, pink moon

I saw it written and I saw it say
Pink moon is on it's way
And none  of you stand so tall
Pink moon gonna get you all
It's a pink moon
Yeah, it's a pink moon

So later on  Tuesday morning, will be the first full moon after the vernal equinox, not sure if I will see anything over the skies of West Wales,  but will keep my eyes peeled. According to the Farmers Almanac http://www.almanac.com/content/full-pink-moon-aprils-moon-guide ' it is also known as the Sprouting Grass Moon, the Egg Moon and the Fish Moon.Tomorrow's is also a total lunar eclipse, giving it the additional name of ' Blood Red Moon'. The name Pink Moon derives from the Native American name for the full moon that takes place in April coming from the herb moss pink, or wild ground phlox, which is  one of the earliest flowers  to bloom in springtime. The native Americans used phrases and cycles of the moon, to keep track of the changing seasons. Pink Moon, so happens to be one of my favourite songs by the late great Nick Drake.
In some parts of the world now is the time to plant and in other parts of the world it is time to harvest those rewards. A time it is said when the Earth, Sun and Moon  will align. I am not one for prophesy, but there are those that say, that under a Pink Moon, it could be part of significant change in World history too. Personally I quite like  the influence of the old moon, but if we really want to grasp some change, I think  we as a people have a long way to go, but together we can keep pushing, for some real, significant social change.

Just Imagine New York as Gaza!

The Israeli-Palestinian war in 1948 took one area that had been a single, territorial, cultural, ecomomic unit and divided it into seperate areas. After the Israeli occupation  in 1967, there was freedom of movement among the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel, which as the occupation continued and people began to resist the occupation - became restricted.
Beginning in the 1990's, Israel  began to seal the borders in ways that were really hard for Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza. Imagine that overnight the mayor of New York declares  that people from Brooklyn can no longer enter Manhattan.People cut off, seperated from friends and loved ones. Imagine F16's roaring over your head, while you try to sleep. Imagine a daily life  under seige, under blockade, restriction of movement, no equal rights, access to clean water and saintation etc etc. This the daily ordeal of the People Of Gaza. Having endured one of the longest blockades in human history, resulting in suffering for the 1.7 million Palestinians living under siege in just 365 sq/km of land. Half of the population are under 18, and two/thirds are refugees.Subject  to attacks  by land, air and sea.
We must  continue to confont Israelis abuses  of the Palestinian's human and political rights, and challenge Israel's illegal seige, keeping pressure on our own Governments to take action on this issue, and  by supporting the many initiatives out there to help the dispirited people of Gaza.

' No man can put a chain about the ankles of his fellow man, without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck. The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous. Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that sociry is an organised conspracy to oppress. rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.

Whatever the future may have  in store for us, one thing is certain - this new revolution in human thought will never go backward. When a great truth once gets abroad in the world, no power on earth can imprison it or prescribe its limits, or suppress it. It is bound to go on till it becomes the thought of the world."

- Frederick Douglass ( 2/1818 -20/2/95, social reformer, escaped African-American Slave)

I Didn't Raise My Boy to be a Soldier - the first anti-war hit record

Released in 1915, I Didn't Raise My Son to be a Soldier, sung here by the Peerless Quartet, was the first commercially successful anti-ar record and featured prominenlty yn the American ant-war record and featured prominently in the American anti-war movement opposing US entry in the first world war. The warmongering ex-president Theodore Roosevelt objected to the song's message of peace and its early feminism: " Foolish people who applaud a song entitled "I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A soldier" are just the people who would also in their hearts aplaud a song entitled "I Didn't Raise my Girl To Be A mother."

Follow stop the War Coalition

http://www.stopwar.org.uk

Goodbye Sue Townsend (2/4/46 - 10/4/14)

Sue Townsend, passionate socialist,republican, humourist, and author died on Thursaday after a short illness. illness. She was best  known as the author of the succesful Adrian Mole series, which I thoroughly remember, enjoying at the time, when I too was a spotty teenager growing up in the early years of Thatcher's Britains.

She was a big fan of Aneurin Bevan, and used to be a staunch supporter of the Labour Party, but felt left down by them, especially under Tony Bliar during the Iraq war, a war that she opposed. She knew back then that the New Labour bubble was about to burst.
Her work and her life  was informed by her sense of where she came from. The daughter of a post man from Leicester, she left school at 15 working at a series of jobs including factory worker, shop assistant and youth worker, a secret voracious reader, it was with sadness that she was later to lose her sight, and be unable to read her beloved books.
She married a sheet-metal worker aged 18 and leaves behind four children. She had suffered a stroke at Christmas, which had affected her memory and made it " difficult to get the tongue around words." Back in 2009 she said, she would not  be goin on to 'make old bones.'
The world hs lost another fine writer, often  both poignant and funny, theres always a special sadness for writers, who have helped shape our youth. Sue Townsend R.I.P

" I am a passionate socialist, but, God, I can't stand them now. I support the memory and the history of the party and I consider that these lot are interlopers. . . I could  still cry to think about shock and awe, to watch it on television and think 'there are bombers and they're bombing children. That Blair could sit and watch that, with his kids, possibly. How  would he have explained it to his children?"

Killing Joke - Requiem (A Floating Leaf Always Reaches The Sea Dub Mix:- For David Cameron)

What is God's name?

Does she/he listen to music like this?

If David Cameron thinks he's doing God's work you have to wonder what he worships? That's if he worships any religious figure at all, I think he would get along with Mammon, though, the very personification of greed. Personally think David Cameron has been deluded for a long time now. I do know another thing, that in the wake of Maria Miller's resignation, there's a whole load of people out there, hoping and praying that David Cameron does the same. 'The Bible tells us to bear one another's burdens" he said yesterday, but  his weight on the world is surely to much for us to take, this country of ours shares many faiths and traditions, one thing that is definitely not making this country stronger is David Cameron's Tory Government. He certainly has not listened to the passages from a certain book about giving to the poor, god's apparent deep concern for the poor and social justice. 
So to put it quite simply.

Paul Robeson (9/4/29- 23/1/76) - The People of Wales still proudly remember you.

Keep hearing a lot of bad news today, but I am rminded today that the inevitable Paul Robeson was born today. Not only was he an exeptional athlete, cultural scholar, and actor and singer,  he was also a man dedicated to the causes of freedom and social justice, as a political activist he was hounded and persecuted in the U.S for his opinions. His name and historical contribution are still silenced in most textbooks in the U.S.A , where he was was caught up in the midst of the  McCarthy witchhunts.
Yet all around the world, especially here in Wales, his voice still carries much resonance, gives us some hope.
His first contact  with Wales came in 1928, when he was performing in 'Showboat' in the West End. Whilst in his hotel he was attracted  by the sound of singing from outside. The singing was coming from unemployed  miners who had  marched to London to draw attention to the hardship and suffering endured by thousands of mining families in South Wales. He went outside to meet them, listened to their plight, recognised a shared suffering, and a mutual bond was born. He was to visit Wales many times, between 1928 and 1939, performing at Neath, Swansea and Cardiff. In 1940 he starred in the film Proud Valley, set in South Wales, that captured the harsh realities of Welsh coal miners' lives.
Most famously in 1938, he sang and addressed a massed audience in the Pavillion, Mountain Ash, at the International Brigade Memorial Service, organised to commemorate the 33 Welshmen who had been killed in the Spanish Civil War.
He addressed the audience thus :-

' I am here because I know these brave fellows fought not only for me but for the freedom of the people of the whole world. I feel it is my duty to be here.'

Long may he remain an inspiration. His name remembered as one synonomous with equal rights, the search for justice, peace and solidarity,the unquavering thirst for freedom.

Paul Robeson - Land of My Fathers.

Paul Robeson sings for the workers at Sydney Opera House.

Paul Robeson - We are climbing Jacob's ladder. 

Plant Trees Not Bombs in Afghanistan

It was  the jolting vibrations
that shook our senses,
direction-less,
nonetheless directed by fellow humans.
Our eyes darted from mysterious fears
of losing one another.
"There's been an explosion. Don't come this way!",
torn by our outspoken wish to huddle together,
as if madness could be scattered
among the fragile shells of ourselves.
as if we could
dream the unknown away.

Read more and view photos  here:-

http://vcnv.org/voting-with-their-feet