Ken Loach wins Cannes Palm d''Or for his latest powerful film; I, Daniel Blake, about welfare struggle.

 

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He has championed the downtrodden and poor for 50 years, but now Bath film director Ken Loach has returned to make a modern-day version of his breakthrough film Cathy Come Home – a film about the poverty and humiliation inflicted upon them by the welfare state, which left much of the Cannes Film Festival in tears and won him the coveted  Cannes Palm d'Or Prize last night  in an awards ceremony in southern France.
Cathy Come Home shocked a blissfully-unknowing British society of 1966 to the descent of a wife from a normal family home to living on the streets and having her children taken away – all because her husband is injured at work and loses his job.
And now, 50 years on, the 79 year old Bath film director has returned and created something of a remake – but this time exposing the plight of a man left to the uncaring ravages of the benefits system, which looks set to generate the same shock from audiences across Britain.
. Accepting the festival's top prize, Loach attacked the "dangerous project of austerity,".At times of despair the far right take advantage,” the  film-maker said. “And some of us who are old remember what that was like. So we must give a message  of hope, we must say another world is possible," he said."The world we live in is at a dangerous point right now. We are in the grip of a dangerous project of austerity driven by ideas that we call neo-liberalism that have brought us to near catastrophe."
The powerful film  tells the story of  fifty-nine year old British carpenter Daniel Blake's Kafkaesque  journey to get benefits in Britain for the first time in his life after suffering a heart attack and being told by doctors he can no longer work.Turning to the welfare state for assistance, he is confronted with the tragic realities of a modern society bogged down by miles of cold and unfeeling red tape.
Daniel, is just a generous hard-working individual who has simply fallen on hard times,who  embodies the very reason social safety nets are created, yet the system engineered ostensibly to give a much-needed break to such decent men seems more intent on pounding its supposed beneficiaries into submission.This might be a piece of art, but this is a familiar tale to all those trapped in the benefit system , and caught in the barbed wire of bureacracy in Tory Britain.
Because Blake is denied illness benefit and is forced to apply for assistance for unemployment.
That in turn forces him to spend hours hunting for jobs which he has to turn down because he is too sick to work.The movie's writer Paul Laverty has said the research team was stunned at how people with mental health issues and disabilities were targeted by the welfare cuts.He said people interviewed within the Department for Work and Pensions told them "they were humiliated at how they were forced to treat the public. There is nothing accidental about it."
Exasperated at every turn by the almost laughable inefficiencies of a blindingly complicated network, Daniel is bounced from one broken program to the next. Whether they be for employment insurance or a job seeker’s allowance, there are always stupefying catches; ridiculous paperwork; and government employees who appear completely incapable of empathizing with the plight of the unfortunate waiting around the corner.
The actress who plays the young single mother, Katie -- Hayley Squires -- who Daniel's character befiends, recently slammed anti-welfare "propaganda" that she said has turned working class people against each other. "Normal people are led to believe that this amount of people are on benefits and are therefore scroungers, and this amount of people are going to work to pay so that they can scrounge." "They've left us to argue among ourselves so they can keep doing what they are doing."
For the Conservatives, the ideological destruction of peoples lives has always been their clear aim. For them austerity isn't a temporary economic measure, it's a permanent moral imperative. I look forward to the day, when we say enough is enough. In the meantime well done Ken for this award and for continuing to lend the poor and downtrodden a voice,telling real honest stories of lives ruined by a cruel system that  continues to unleash savage attacks on Britain's poor.I  hope that this film and its powerful indictment of life under Tory rule and the austerity myth and all it's savage impacts is seen by many and as the star of the film , stand up comic Dave Johns  recently tweeted, like Cathy Comes home, 50 years previously  "Let's hope it shames those that should be into change.".

Stjepan Filipović (27/1/13 -22/5/42) - " Death to fascism, freedom to the people ! "

(image: of Filipović with his arms in the air, moments before his death)

Today 22 May, 1942 - Stjepan Filipović, a Croatian Partisan during World War II, was hanged by the fascists. He is one of the heroes of anti-fascist struggle in Yugoslavia during World War 2.  He  had joined the workers movement  in 1937, becoming a member of  the Communist Worker’s Revolutionary Movement, and shortly thereafter was arrested for his political activity. He was imprisoned for one year, and upon his release was forced to leave Kragujevac. Soon after the German invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, Filipovic returned to Kragujevac and volunteered for active duty in the partisan struggle against the occupiers. He was posted to Valjevo where he was given responsibility for the organizing of arms and the gathering of new supporters to the cause. He rose quickly in the ranks of the partisan resistance and eventually became commander of his own battalion, the Tomnasko-Kolubarski detachment.
On February 24 1942 he was captured by Axis forces and given to the Germans, tortured in Loznica, then in Sabac. Before being taken to solitary confinement, he said "Comrades, hope for nothing. Be brave when they shoot you. Don't show them that our death is their victory."
As his executioners  put a rope around his neck, Filipović defiantly thrust his hands out and denounced the Germans and their Axis allies as murderers, shouting "Death to fascism, freedom to the people!" He urged the Yugoslav people to resist and implored them to never cease resisting.
He was declared a national hero of Yugoslavia in 1949. 

The picture of him raising his arms in resistance  just  before being hanged became ironic in post-war Yuhoslavia and became a symbol in the fight against fascism.In the city where Filipovic died, which is in present-day Serbia, there was a monumental statue  in his honor replicating that Y-shaped pose — an artistically classic look posed between death and victory.
Since the break up of Yugslavia he has been claimed by all sides - Valjevo monument -it's in Serbia remember -calls him Stevan Filipovic, which is the Serbian variant of his given name. But as Serbia is the heir to Yugoslavia he at least remains there  as a legitimate subject for a public memorial.
But has been targeted by fascist resentment since 1961 when it was  first erected, torn down in 1991, it's plinth sadly since then  desecrated by fascist scrawls .Reconstruction is  currently being planned by the Croatian Ministry of Culture.
With nationalism and intolerance creeping back into Croatian life it would be a shame that the memory of this anti-fascist hero was destroyed forever.We should continue to stand against the dark  forces of fascism, forces ever so real that will crop up in time of crisis and turmoil that must always be beaten back before these vile ideas take root.

The Tale of Elen of the Ways

                                              
                                                 St Helen of Caenarfon


The Roman road, Sarn Elen is named after Saint Elen ( angliscised to Helen)  whose feast day is celebrated today which connects her to Spring. Saint Elen  was a late  4th century founder of churches here in Wales. Her influence on  present day Wales still evident  by the existing roads  that bear her name,  ancient Roman roads throughout the British Isles – that we can all still walk along. Roman roads in Britain are often called Sarn Elen, but it is possible that the original Elen’s causeways belong to a much earlier period. Evidence of earlier paving is found under some of the roads, but the straightness of the Roman roads must sure have impressed the locals. The Celts associated straight paths with magic and the Otherworld, the paths that fairies took from one mound to another, the straight path of a magical spell, and the spirit flight of the shaman. It is significant that Elen is first beheld in a dream, then goes on to build a network of magical roads across Britain. Some associate these with ley lines, the ancient trackways that are said to join together ancient sites, such as tumuli, burial mounds, hillforts, stone circles and so on. It is possible that Elen is the guardian of these, or perhaps she is the guardian of the paths of dreams and visions.
She was the patron Saint of travel long before St. Christopher. On present day survey maps Sarn Elen is clearly posted. it is said that Elen is responsible for the building of  these roads which in an ancient Britain connected strongholds. Some of these roads are associated with ley (energy) lines.The Welsh revered Elen as Elen of the Roads who at Beltane (1st May) opened the season of travel.She is certainly a pre-Roman goddess, and possibly much older than the Celts. The first trackways across Britain are said to have been reindeer tracks; Elain is Welsh for deer, and it is possible that Elen is one of the horned goddesses portrayed in Celtic art, such as the two figures found at Lackford and Icklighmam.
Elen's story is told in The Dream of Macsen Wledig, one of the tales associated with the Mabinogion.Welsh mythology remembers her as the daughter of a chieftain of north Wales named Eudaf or Eudwy, who probably lived somewhere near the Roman base of Segontium now Caernarfon  in North Wales. and as the the wife of Macsen Wledig ( Magnus Maximus), the 4th-century  emperor  in Britain, Gaul and Spain who was killed in battle in 388 AD. 
She is remembered for having Macsen build roads across her country so that the soldiers could more easily defend it from attackers, thus earning her the name Elen Luyddog (Elen of the Hosts).
The Mabinogion  collection is drawn from Medeival  writings, although it is accepted that  most  of the tales were probably transmitted orally for centuries previous to their writing down. Nevertheless by the  twelfth century, Britain had been Christian for a long time while it is clear that while some characters have been diminished, while once they were gods or otherworldly heroes, they appear in the tales as ordinary humans. Some believe that Saint Elen or Helen is such a diminished goddess, and her tale does give us a few snippets which tend to support this idea. There is her mysterious appearance  in Macsen's dream , and the curious, almost ritualistic  surroundings in which she first appears. She sits upon a magical seat that grows bigger when Macsen joins Elen upon it. There is the emphasis  on her beauty and magnificance, which could indicate an otherworldly appearance. 
And then there is this business with the roads, which has led many modern pagans to proclaim her as goddess of roads, ley lines, shamanic journeying, a guardian of all who journey etc. In addition some modern pagan writers, in a bid to increase  the amount of information  we have on Elen, are assuming that she is identical with other goddesses such as Brighid or that she is the forerunner of such goddesses.
Through the ages Elen and Helen's  lives have been combined. In myth and legend Elen is representative of the land of Britain itself, Elen of the Ways istherefore  a rich combination  of legend, myth, history and imagination..

Transcension

( A flight of fancy? Maybe )

Tomorrow and eternity are one,
Whatever the situation,
Destiny rules by circumstance,
The pendulum of the clock ticks,
It is our battle to prepare.

Between earth and sky
Crimson petals fall,
Whispering their silence
Fall among stones freely,
Leaving fragments of emptiness.

Leaf shadows dance on the horizon
Slowly, fluttering,almost unsure,
Cascading in a whirl of wind
Mingling with the rain,
Falling lightly on the ground.

Fluffy clouds above
Build temples in the sky,
An ever mindful distraction
Far away floating,
Beyond Earth's fury.

Alpha tries to
Give Omega rest,
To cry no more
To be numb, immune,
Pulled all along by forces strong
Carried on the mirrors of time.

We spoke among prisms of silence
And words melted into air,
Our spirits glided outwards
Onwards into the beginning,
Searching the Cosmos
Following guiding stars.


Absorbing new life forces
The mind shines on,
Crazy diamonds, riding rays of light
No turning back
The soul moves on.

Beaming and glittering
Over a thousand peaks,
Memories forever planted
To haunt dreams of ceaseless time,
To hold us gently in transcension.

No to Governments plan to scrap the Human Rights Act

I have written of this before, but as the government yesterday again confirmed plans to scrap the Human Rights Act in the Queens speech it is to important a subject not to come back to. We should not allow politicians to take away our universal privileges for the benefit  of a chosen few and repeal legislation that has been crucial to lifes of so many ordinary people.The state has every interest in preventing light from being shone into dark corners.
The Human Rights Act was created to protect us all as individuals from abuses by the state and state bodies, allows UK nationals access to rights contained in the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) which allows us over 2,000 protections, ensuring all authorities treat people with fairness , dignity and respect, but gradually piece by piece the Tory's are trying to take away our basic freedoms and rights and want to overturn  these recognised principles that  we should all be proud of, but yet again they are attempting to steal them away,which  says so much about their mindset incidentally. They want to replace it with their own Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.They would weaken the rights of everyone, meaning less protection against powerful interests. It would also limit human rights to only cases  the Government considers "most serious!" Threatening the very concept of the universality of human rights.
However many remain fervent in their support for this Act because of its positive contribution to society and the message that it serves globally that we have enshrined an international human rights convention into UK law. The Human Rights Act is ours, scrapping it will take away the rights of everyone, and it is the most vulnerable that will suffer the most.
A useful reminder of whether the Act needs to change, or should remain is to look at the list of rights protected by the Act and ask yourself ,"Which one would I give away? Which one would I not want for myself or for members of my family?"the right to life? the right not to be tortured? the right to a fair trial? http:/legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/schedule/1  
Sometimes we can't appreciate the value of something until it is taken away.We have to stand up for the Act.
Please call on Justice Secretary Michael Gove to save the Human Rights Act

https://www.amnesty.org.uk/issues/Human-Rights-Act

Pablo Neruda (12/7/04 -23/9/73) - Epithalamium

Have been re-reading recently the magnificent Pablo Neruda's Captain's Verses. A writer who I have long admired whose work who continues to inspire. He led a life charged with poetic and political energy and activity, and is now regarded as one of the greatest major poets of the last century. His poems charged with sensuality and passion. Here is a link to a previous post of mine about this poet of love :- https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/pablo-neruda-july-12-1904-september-23.html  .
Here I offer his rather beautiful "Epithalamium " which I dedicate to my lovely partner Jane. The mighty furbster Hope you enjoy. 

Epithalamium

Do you remember when
in winter
we reached the island?
The sea raised toward us
a crown of cold.
On the walls the climbing vines
murmured letting
dark leaves fall
as we passed.
ou too were a little leaf
that trembled on my chest.
Life's wind put you there.
At first I dd not see you :  I did not know
that you were walking with me,
until your roots
pierced my chest,
joined the threads of my blood,
spoke through my mouth,
flourished with me.
Thus was your inadvetant presence,
invisible leaf or branch,
and suddenly my heart
was filled with fruits and sounds.
You occupied the house
that darkly awaited you
and then you lit the lamp.
Do you remember, my love,
our first steps on the island?
The gray stones knew us,
the rain squalls,
the shouts of the wind in the shadow.
But the fire was
our only friend,
next to it we hugged
the sweet winter love
with four arms.
The fire saw our naked kiss grow
until it touched hidden stars,
and it saw grief be born and die
like a broken sword
against invincible love.
Do you remember,
oh sleeper in my shadow,
how sleep would grow
in you,
from your bare breast
open with  its twin domes
toward the sea, toward the wind of the island,
and how I in your dream sailed
free, in the sea and in the wind
yet tied and sunken
in the blue volume of your sweetness?
Oh sweet, my sweet,
spring changed
the island's walls.
A flower appeared like a drop
of orange blood,
and then the colors discharged
all their pure weight.
The sea reconquered its transparency,
night in the sky
outlined its clusters
and now all things murmured
our name of love, stone by stone
they said our name and our kiss.
The  island  of stone and moss
echoes in the secret of its grottoes
like the song in your mouth
and the flower that war  born
between the crevices of the stone
with its secret syllable
spoke, as it passed, your name
of blazing plant
and the steep rock, raised
like the wall of the  world,
knew my song , well beloved,
because earth, time, sea, island,
life, tide,
the seed that half opens
its lips in the earth,
the devouring flower,
the movement of spring,
everything recognizes us.
Our love was born
outside the wall,
in the wind,
in the night,
in the earth,
and that's why the clay and the flower,
the mud and the roots
know your name,
and know that my mouth
joined yours
because we  were sown together in the earth
and we alone did not know it
and that we grow together
and flower together
and therefore
when we pass
your name is on the petals
of the rose that grows on the stone,
my name is in  the grottoes.
They know it all,
we have no secrets,
we have grown together
but we did not know it.
The sea knows our love, the stones
of the rocky height
that our kisses flowered
with infinite purity,
as in their crevices  a scarlet
mouth dawns:
just as our love and the kiss
that joins your mouth and mine
in an eternal flower.
My love,
sweet spring,
flower and sea, surround us.
We did not change it
for our winter,
when the wind,
began to decipher your name
that today at all hours it repeats,
when
the leaves did not know
that you were a leaf,
when
the roots
did not know that you were seeking me
in my breast.
Love, love,
spring
offers us the sky
but the dark earth
is our name,
our love belongs
to all time and the eath.
Loving each other, my arm
beneath your neck of sand,
we shall wait
as earth and time change
on the island,
as the leaves fall,
from the silent climbing vines,
as autumn departs
through the broken window.
But we
are going to wait for
our friend,
our red-eyed friend,
the fire,
when the wind again
shakes the frontiers of the island
and does not know the names
of everyone,
winter
will seek us, my love,
always
it will seek us, because we know it,
because we do not fear it,
because we have
with us
fire
forever,
we have
earth with us
forever,
spring with us
forever,
and when a leaf
falls
from the climbing vines,
you know, my love,
what name is written
on that leaf,
a name that is yours and mine,
our lve name, a single
being, the arrow
that pierced winter,
the invincible love,
the fire of the days,
a leaf
that dropped upon my breast,
a leaf from the tree
of life
that made a nest and sang,
that put out roots,
that gave flowers  and fruits.
And so you see, my love,
how I move
around the island,
around the world,
safe in the midst of spring,
crazy with the light in the cold,
walking tranquil in the fire,
lifting your petal
weight in my arms
as if I had never walked
except with you my heart,
as if I could not walk
except with you,
as if  I could not sing
except when you sing.

Reprinted from :-  The  Captain's  Verses
- Pablo Neruda; New Directions Press 1973,
Translated by Donald D. Walsh

Marking 68th anniversary of the Nakba :- Day of catastrophe.

Today marks the 68th anniversary of the occupation of Palestine, so on this day as Palestinian people enter the 68th  year of dispossession and exile, Palestinians, friends of Palestine and supporters of justice and liberation , commemorate the Nakba ( day of catastrrophe) and call for the right of return for Palestinian refugees and freedom for Palestine.
68 years after the Nakba in which over 800,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes and land and the state of Israel created on their land. Palestinians continue to struggle for their right tto return, for freedom from occupation and for justice.
Today also marks 68 years of land theft and bloodshed. It saw 531 villages being cleared , with massacres that led to 16,000 Palestinians being killed at the hands of Zionist para-military groups like Haganah, that later formed the core of the Israeli Defense Force, Ergun and the Stern Gang. Systematically removing the Palestinians from their land in an ethnic cleansing that continues to this day.
I will continue to side with the Palestinian who dares to dream of the day of return, when they can open up the locked doors of their stolen homes, are welcomed home, recognised  and encouraged by a world that acknowledges the injustice that has been inflicted upon them.
Today we will see the Palestinian people renew  their demands for return, to their cities, villages and lands that they were forced to leave in 1948. Many Palestinians still carry keys to the homes they or their ancestors were displaced from,all those years ago, a  continuing haunting memory of their existence.
For the past 68 years  Palestinians have resisted the Israeli Government's continued efforts to erase the memories of trauma and resistance that began with the Nakba and will remain rooted to their land. Beyond their suffering and Israels blockade of the West Bank and the open air prison we know as Gaza it does not stop their dream for their right to return and for having Jerusalem as their capital. 
Today we remember and recount the unique personal stories of those who lived through the Nakba  and acknowledge that today over 4 million registered Palestinians worldwide, the majority of them still living within 60 miles of the border of Israel and the West Bank and Gaza strip where their original homes are located. Israel refuses to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their homes or to pay them compensation as required by UN resolution 194  of 1948. Over 1.7 million Palestinians now live under occupation in the West Bank  imprisoned by an Israeli wall, and the over  2 million currently living under military siege in Gaza, denied a series of fundamental rights, that include the freedom to move, access to clean water, food, medicine and electricity.
Their catastrophe ongoing. But their will remains  unbroken, we stand with them today in solidarity,until they are allowed to move freely again in Palestine, until they are given back the dignity and respect and basic rights  that they deserve as human beings, hoping that this cycle of injustice can be ended,  it is not just about remembering , a day of mourning , it is acknowledging the Palestinians right to return,  maybe one day, one day the continued catastrophe will end.
Viva Palestina.

Hail Rebecca

The Rebecca riots  took place between 1839 and 1843, in the rural parts of Wales, here where I live in West Wales. Throughout Pembrokeshire, Cardiganshire and Carmarthenshire protests against the payment of tolls to use on the roads. 

On the 13th of May 1839, the first of the Rebecca riots took place at Efailwen near St Clears. The leader of the group of rioters was Thomas Rees (Twm Carnabwth) and he and the others dressed in women's clothes to march on Eifailwen tollgate. Apparently, the attack was unsuccessful because the men returned on 6 June, when they again destroyed the turnpike and this time burnt the tollhouse.

In the early 19th century many of the main roads in Wales were owned and operated by Turnpike Trusts. These trusts were supposed to maintain and even improve the condition of the roads and bridges through charging tolls to use them. In reality however, many of these trusts were operated by English businessmen whose main interest was in extracting as much money as they could from the locals. 

The farming community had suffered badly through poor harvests in the years preceding the protests and tolls were one of the biggest expense a local farmer faced. The charges levied to do even the simplest of things, such as taking animals and crops to market and bringing fertilisers back for the fields, threatened their livelihood and very existence.  The people finally decided enough was enough and took the law into their own hands; gangs were formed to destroy the tollgates.
During these protests, men disguised as women with blackened faces attacked the tollgates calling themselves "Rebecca and her daughter," probably referring to a passage from the Bible where Rebecca ( my sisters name incidentally) talks of the need to "possess the gates of those who hate them."
The tollgates were seen as symbols of oppression, and became the focus of discontent.But the protests weren’t purely about the tolls. For rural communities, mired in poverty, the gates were a symbol of gross inequality. Rents and church tithes were spiralling out of control, while the centuries-old Poor Law had paved the way for workhouses.The protesters also hated paying high taxes to the church and resented local magistrates that did nothing to help them. 

This movement sweeped my local countryside, a popular uprising off the oppressed peasantry. By day the countryside seemed quiet, but at night fantastically disguised horsemen careered along highways and through narrow lanes on their their rebellious quests.They developed uncanny skill in evading the police and the infantry, and although their mounts were unweildy farm horses they also succeeded in outwitting the dragoons, after all the rioters knew their territory much better and could spread false information about when they would strike next, often leading troops on a wild goose chase. 

Many of the protests tended to follow a ritual, whereby a ringleader (‘Rebecca’) would stumble towards a gate like a blind, elderly woman. The ‘daughters’ would then clear the path with an almighty racket. A local newspaper recalled the scene after a riot at Llandeilo: “pickaxes, hatchets, crowbars, and saws were set in operation and the gate was entirely demolished.'

They ceased as suddenly as they started, and for three and a half years my countryside was quiet and undisturbed. Then in the winter of 1842, they broke out again with greater violence, and this time continued throughout the following year.

On 19 Jun 1843 a crowd of around 4,500 Rebecca" rioters with blackened faces and dressed as women gathered and attacked the Carmarthen workhouse in Wales, and set about destroying it. It took the arrival of a unit of the British army to disperse them Other major tollgates destroyed included those at  Llanelli, Pontardulais, and Llangyfelach, and at the small village of Hendy near Swansea, a young woman named Sarah Williams, the tollhouse keeper was killed.

After months of disorder, the government concluded that the turnpike trusts should be merged and the hated  tolls reduced. Because of this it  took away many of the  major grievances of the protesters , and by 1845 my corner of West Wales was quiet again.

An inspiring uprising that had justice and reason on their side  and is still remembered  as one of the most  striking protest movements in modern Welsh history. That still strikes the imagination in our hearts, minds and deeds.

Further reading :- The Rebecca Riots- David Williams, University of Wales Press, 1986.

 

It be Friday the 13th

at least the sun is shining over here.

Civil disobedience

( a few thoughts that just drifted by)

Beyond voting,
And the convenience store of conscience,
We can slip outside the gates, 
With no room for control,
Disobey the rules, 
Follow another  path,
Sometimes things need to be bent,
For something else to to be put in place,
In compliance  we can be left  without grace,
With civil disobedience, we can break free,
Shake of their chains of obedience,
Do do not be afraid to stand apart.