All born equal?

A woman named Kate Middleton gave birth to a baby boy this morning, her husband William was by her bedside. It's their third child. As the BBC continues  its sycophantic fawning and it takes over the news agenda to divert attention from Windrush and Syria. Here's a really positive way to respond to the Royal Baby news. Donate to the Child Poverty Action Group.
Here's a link :-
http://www.cpag.org.uk
Remember any other family living this kind of life  at taxpayers expenses would be hounded  by the  press  as benefit scroungers. No bunting for me, but congratulations to the parents, but as we continue to face misery under the reign of Theresa May  I can't though find much reason to get over excited . It just serves to remind us all of the appalling inequality that still exists in our country, which is at the core of existence of monarchy. Nothing  quite symbolises stagnation, immovable social barriers  quite like the royal family.
Amid growing austerity,  these occasions should remind  us too, that in 2018 modern Britain the aristocracy still own more than one third of the country continue to hold onto disproportionate power.  This baby will have every need  pandered too, servants to make sure it goes for nothing, while others are born into poverty, whose  mums cannot  afford food or heating.
Behind all the spin and the fairytale nonsense, we should recognise  the sad fact that the gloss of inherited privilege, still shines,  I look forward to the day when, we are all born equal. Should not every new baby born, be headline news.
The upcoming May 2018 wedding of Meghan and Harry should also be seen in this context Austerity Britain and universal credit  verses a pageant of the rich with expenditure being no object.
There's a petition  at the moment too asking that the BBC is fair balanced and proportionate, and avoids  wild speculation and inaccurate claims about the royals and public opinion
You could sign it here :- https://www.republic.org.uk/petition/bbc-coverage

Privilege Verses Poverty

So a child is born
the silver spoons are near
for him to be fed,
with all the vestiges of power
that he could ever possibly eat,
while media overdrive in frenzy
gather outside, a life of privilege awaits.

Meanwhile
the poorest among us
born in chains,
our voices go unanswered
and in refugee camps across the world
children choked in shadows of rubble and dust,
their future already denied
they are seemingly invisible.

Innocent children killed by drones
the press ignores their story
and people consigned to poverty and misery
by tory austerity and welfare reform
are expected to fawn
whilst queing at foodbanks
running on empty.

Daily we are manipulated
and the benefit claimants, disadvantaged,
and the underpaid workers
are told to go to hell,
Royal sprog does not have to worry though
in the 21st century it seems, we're still born unequal,
will be looked after by nannies, sent to public school
look forward to a lifetime of pampering and advantage,
and his grannies had a bloody pay rise too.

Survival

We wait because we have no choice
all of us will not come back from the abyss,
death from warfare, death from addiction.
disease, austerity, melancholic affliction.
most will encounter death in the flesh
strings of infinity, stretched out, as we coalecse.
             
For years now, we have
exchanged propaganda presents,
here, there, everywhere, we wait for return
as dusk dances upon the sky with starlight,
we remind ourselves that everything that lives
will one day eventually cease to exist.

Time gets swept away, conjuring questions
which way now, but elsewhere,.
some choose revelation, some simply forget
others hum notes, that cannot be heard,
by anyone, save the listeners
above and beyond.

The sweetness of the world
its bitter pill often too hard to taste,
tears shed in ditches, to the point of no return
life balances on a thread, wears no uniform,
ready to bleed, ready to burn
a future under a cremated sun.

Life is a segway of delicate navigation
often the scales, tip one way or another,
lets us fall, stay or drift far away
following contracts of internal emotion,
good and evil, light and darkness
passion, apathy, peace, war, love and hate.

As days are dark, and night grows blacker
terrible flashbacks pass through mind,
with no end in sight, souls find no rest
remain powerless as life disparages,
tentative moments, in the pace of uncertainty
in moment's quiet,we can try, find harmony.

Survivors accept things as they are
take steps away from the edge,
abandon division, ideological tides
discover beauty among the ruins,
find some force, to ignite every breath
fight for life,so that they can win.

In aftermath of Windrush Scandal its time for Amber Rudd and Theresa May to be deported from office.

                            The Empire Windrush arriving in Britain from Jamaica, 21 June 1948

After Theresa May was forced to make a grovelling apology to Caribbean leaders for Windrush scandal, after Caribbean migrants who arrived in Britain 50 years ago were threatened with deportation, because some of them may be living here 'illegally', and when over-zealous enforcement means that long-term legal residents live in fear and face deportation from the only home they have ever known, something is very wrong. This follows the case of Jamaica-born Albert Thompson. Who was told to present a British passport or pay £54,000 for NHS cancer treatment., and arrives shockingly during the signifiant anniversary of Enoch Powell's infamous ' Rivers of Blood speech..
Green MP Caroline Lucas was right to say that the Tory government “wants to create a hostile environment for migrants. This isn’t a design flaw, it’s central to their programme.”
We should remember the infamous words uttered by Theresa May as home secretary in 2012. “The aim is to create, here in Britain, a really hostile environment for illegal immigrants.”
Under  racist immigration  polices introduced by Theresa May then and 2014, many of the children of the Windrush migrants are now finding themselves hounded by the government.Further changes to already racist immigration laws in 2012 and 2014 mean migrants can now be forced to prove they have the right to be here. Employers, landlords and public services such as the NHS can demand to see paperwork for healthcare provision.. other  people facing deportation, others have been made homeless or fired from their jobs. And some others have been forced to pay thousands in legal fees in their battle to stay.
This "hostile" immigration policy devised by Theresa May during her time as Home Secretary has been  regarded as "almost like Nazi Germany" by some ministers, the former head of the civil service has said.Lord Kerslake claims that concerns were voiced within government after the policy was announced in 2014.

He added that the strategy was a "very contested piece of legislation" that some ministers were "deeply unhappy" with. "Now, I can't say, and shouldn't say, as the former head of the civil service, precisely who gave what advice to whom. But, what I can tell you, it was highly contested and there were some who saw it, I shan't name them, as almost reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the way it's working," he said. Asked if he was referring to people in the civil service, Lord Kerslake said: "No, some in the ministers were deeply unhappy."
Speaking on BBC 2's Newsnight, Lord Kerslake criticised the way the Windrush controversy was being handled, calling Amber Rudd's attempt to blame the situation on the civil service "completely ridiculous".“You cannot create a climate and then not expect it to have consequences,” he said.
Environment Secretary Michael Gove has refuted these comparisons.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he said: "I have never heard anyone make that comparison before Lord Kerslake did. "It is not for me to criticise a distinguished former public servant like Lord Kerslake, but I respectfully disagree."
Mr Gove went on to praise Home Secretary Amber Rudd's response to the Windrush scandal after many were wrongly threatened with deportation.
"I think the gracious way in which she apologised to those affected was a model of how a politician should react to a situation like this," he said.
Tory local government minister Sajid Javid added that  he was “deeply concerned” about the scandal.
Yet at the same time the  Tories have no sympathy for the thousands of people held at Britain’s borders in Calais, nor is there scandal for people or outrage for people currently cruelly being detained in immigration removal centres like Yarl’s Wood, Is is not shameful that such centres exist at all?
The Home Office vile policy to create a 'hostile environment' for migrants in the UK has rightly come under fire with the Windrush Scandal. We should now be calling on politicians, as well as journalists to sign up to principles for ethical reporting on migration. To recognise that migrants are #notillegalHUMAN. It is scandulous that any human being can be described as illegal.

Amber Rudd, the current Home Secretary has been using the language of individuals to take away from the structural racism that is behind the Home Office deportation system.
This needs to stop. All deportations are unjust.In order to make this happen we need politicians that can pledge to work towards these 10 principles for ethical reporting on migration, of which over 60 politicians and journalists have already signed up to. All deportations are unjust.
We should remind ourselves that  a lot of the government's  policies on immigration/ asylum/ right to stay  isn't driven by actual concrete consequences. It's driven by pandering to anti immigrant / racist views. Britain an only atone for damage caused  by adopting policies exactly opposite to those currently in place, welcoming the migrants who come to our country with open arms and not treat them as second-class citizens.
And in solidarity,it's time for Theresa May and Amber Rudd to be deported from office.

The Chittaqong uprising of 18 April 1930

The Chittagong Armory Raid, also known as the Chittaqong uprising was an attempt on 18 April 1930 to raid the armoury of police and auxillary forces from the Chittagong armoury in Bengal province of British India by armed revolutionaries for Indian independence from British colonial rule.
This elaborate plan was  conceived by a softly spoken local teacher by the  name of Surya Ben  who was popularly known as Masterda..In. 1916  when he was a B.A  student in Behrampore College he learned about the Indian freedom movement from one of his teachers. He was drawn to revolutionary ideals and joined a revolutionary organization called Anushilan Samity. movement. After completing his studies he returned to Chttagong in 1918 and joined as a teacher at National School. Nandakanan., At that time, the Indian National congress was the most prominent political party there.

   
                                                       Surya Sen

All of the leaders of the uprising, were participants in the congress led civil Disobedience movement launched in 1919. They were bitterly dissapointed by Gandhi's decision to call of the movement following the violence in Chauri Chaura in 1922.Apart from Surya Sen, Lokenath Bal, Ganesh Ghosh, Anant Singh, Ambika Chakravarti, Pritilata Waddedar, Tarakeswar Dastidar, Nirmal Sen and Kalpana Dutta are the names of other unsung heroes, involved in this  revolt..
The inspiration of the Chittagong raid  actually came from the 1916 Irish Easter uprising, which vexed the crown, and  in the case of the  Chittagong mission, there is one dimension which, in later decades and still today, is seen by many as the definitive moment when women left the traditional roles to play a part in defining an independent national identity.
Pritilata Waddedar, also from Chittagong, accompanied Sen during the 1930 mission and later, in 1932, led another raid on the Pahartali European Club, which reportedly had a sign at the entrance: “Dogs and Indians not allowed.” During this operation, Pritilata was surrounded and took a cyanide pill to kill herself, thus creating a defiant nationalistic image to be followed by women in future decades to break down restrictive social shackles.
The aims of  the Chittagong raid  were to seize enough  arms and ammunition which would be used in a great uprising, and show others that it was possible to challenge the armed might of the British Empire.
 After extensive planning and deliberation, and after  managing to  build up an army of teenage recruits. The plan was to assassinate  the members of the European Club – military and government officials who were responsible for siding with the British to maintain the Raj. The other objective  at the time was to make Chittagong independent.
At around 10 pm. around 100 of these recruits clad in khaki, marched in military order  in several groups. One of their batches raided the telephone exchanges and Telegraph offices and managed to cut off all communications between Calcutta and bacca.. The second severed rail connections at Nangalkot and Dham, which caused derailment of good trains and blockading of all railway traffic. At the same time leaflets were distributed all over the town explaining  the objective of the raid.. They also  hoisted the national flag on the premises of the armoury, and proclaimed a provisional Revolutionary Government  It was a symbolic blow on the British supremacy  at the time.
 After that they fled to the hills. They were pursued by the Police; and were  surrounded by the British Indian Army in the Jalalabad Hills, where they had took shelter on the afternoon of 22 April 1830.There was an encounter in which over 80 troops and 12 revolutionaries were killed in a gunfight. Surya Sen and some of his fellow revolutionaries were  successful in fleeing. The revolutionaries who were arrested in Chittagong were captured and trialed with  12 people being deported for life.
Stunned by Surya Sens actions, the British embarked on a series of brutal combing actions around the Muslim dominated villages where the revolutionaries were hiding. Despite repressive British actions, these villagers did not betray Surya and his band, instead they offered them food, work and shelter for three years.
In February 1933  Surya Sen was eventually arrested by the Police after being betrayed by one of his comrades, Netra Sen. He was brutally tortured by the British for days, his teeth knocked out, nails ripped, limbs  and joints broken, before he was dragged to the rope unconscious and, hanged, and given a burial at sea.

In his last letter, written to his friends Master-da exhorted us, 'Death is  knocking at my door.My mind is flying away towards eternity... At such a pleasant, at such s grave, at such a solemn moment, what shall I leave  behind you? Only one thing that is my dream, a golden dream, the dream  of Free India.  Never forget the 18th of April 1930, the day of the Eastern Rebellion in Chittagong..Write in red letters in the core of your hearts the names of the patriots who have sacrificed their lives at the altar of India's freedom.' 

This remarkable, anti-imperial revolt remains relatively little-known, if not quite forgotten, but  at the time managed to rattle an empire and two films have since been made about it. Ashutosh Gowariker's Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Se (2010), starring Abhishek Bachchan and Deepika Padukone, and Debabrata Pain's small-budget but award winning Chittagong (2012), featuring Manoj Bajpai and Vega Tamotia, both, unfortunately, flopped at the box-office. 

Earlier, Manini Chatterjee, the daughter-in-law of communist leader PC Joshi and Kalpana Datta (1913-95), wrote a gripping account Do and Die: The Chittagong Uprising 1930-34 (1999).

She was well placed to do so because her mother, Kalpana, had been one of the insurgents who took part in the uprising.
Surya Sen and many of  his comrades paid a heavy price, sacrificing  their life, for the cause of freedom even though their actions have got dispersed in the pages of history.

Palestinian Prisoners Day

Today marks Palestinian Prisoners Day, a day when the Palestinian people and supporters of justice and liberation for Palestine all over the world express  their support to Palestinian political prisoners of freedom.
In Palestine, political imprisonment is a central feature of Israeli Apartheid with over 20% of Palestinians facing imprisonment in their lifetime.
According to the Commission for Prisoners and Ex-Prisoner Affairs ;-
,http://www.addameer.org/news/joint-monthly-report-609-palestinians-arrested-during-month-march-2018  roughly 6,500 Palestinians are currently lanquishing in Israeli prisons and detention centers, including 350 children, 62 women (8 of whom are female child prisoners), 500 administrative detainees held without charge or trial. 1,800 prisoners who require medical care (700 of whom suffer from serious and chronic conditions), 6 parliamentarians, and 18 journalists. The youngest being a 12-year-old girl. All are treated with the same callousness regardless of age or gender, and UNICEF has said that Israel’s treatment of child detainees is in violation of international law and the Rights of the Child.
Since Israeli began its military occupation of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip in 1967, more than 800,000 Palestinians have been abducted and imprisoned by Israel.  This figure represents 20% of the total Palestinian population and 40% of the Palestinian male population. It also includes 10,000 women imprisoned since 1967 and more than 200 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons as a result of torture and lack of medical care. Furthermore, 8,000 Palestinian children have been arrested since 2000.
Under international law and conventions, including the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (the Third Geneva Convention), the Fourth Geneva Convention and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1966, Israel is legally bound to exercise its powers for the benefit of the occupied area and its people.
Palestinian Prisoner Day was founded to remind the world of the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners imprisoned in Israeli prisons or detention centers without charge or trial for extensive periods of time. The number of Palestinian detainess increases as Israeli occupying forces continue to wage campaigns of arbitrary arrests and detentions against thousands of Palestinian prisoners. Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails continue to be subject to wide-ranging violations of their rights
and dignity.
 The numbers of Palestinian women detained has also increased,. Investigations have revealed that prisoners are regularly subject to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, including poor detention conditions, in violation of Israel's obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law.
Out of the total number of detainees, 48 had spent more than 20 successive years in prison, 25 spent more than 25 years and 12 having spent more than 30 years.
The longest serving are Kareem Younis and Maher Younis, who have been in detention for 35 years, and Nael Barhoutti, who served 24 years in Israeli prisons and released during one of the prisoner exchange deals  but was later re-arrested to continue his previous life sentence and an additional 18 years.
These are some of the  reasons that I support Palestine  Prisoner Day  and continue  to support the international communities efforts to ensure the immediate and effective measures to ensure that Israel releases all unlawfully detaned prisoners, and ensures that conditions of arrest are consistent with international human rights and humanitarian law.

Take action 


http://samidoun.net/2012/04/palestinian-prisoners-day-take-action-to-call-for-freedom-for-palestinian-prisoners/


https://www.palestinecampaign.org/campaigns/childprisoners/

LOWKEY - McDONALD TRUMP

Lowkey fearless rapper with a purpose returns, and hits back at Donald Trump.

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Official Video for Lowkey - McDonald Trump

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.....

May must resign

A message from a friend. Please share

May I request that you rally together all MP's that opposed the insane bombing in Syria on the night of the 13th/14th April 2018, ie  SNP, Greens,and other voices of reason and logic etc, so that on Monday 16th April 2918, when the UK Parliament meets. a motion is presented, or if that is not possible a series of individual calls, for the Prime Minister and her Cabinet to resign.

A constitutional protocol or agreement was established  in response to the UK Parliament being deceived by Blair, using false intelligence, regarding weapons of mass destruction, into declaring a catastrophic war on Iraq. The agreement being that all Prime Minister's relinquish sole right to their previously held ability to use substantial armed force against another sovereign state without having to consult the UK Parliament first.

This agreement was not only broken by Prime Minister May and her Cabinet, when they ordered the UK military to take part in the attack on Syria without first consulting parliament. They also repeated a version of Blairs deception, by ignoring a basic civilized  rule of justice and failing to wait for any substantiated evidence to be collected, nothing analysed, before making inflammatory accusations regarding the alleged chemical attack in Douma. As such they acted as no more than a lynch mob when ordering air strikes that clearly risked a potential catastrophic confrontation with Russian forces, which the Russians had explicitly warned they would not tolerate.

As such May and her  Cabinet should be forced to resign, as they have perverted the constitution and are a clear risk to both the national security of the UK as well as the welfare and safety of its citizens.That the UK Government has chosen to bypass Parliament in this instance is simply not acceptable and makes a mockery of our so called democracy and the international rules of law which on an exceptional basis, allows to take measures in order to alleviate overwhelming humanitarian suffering. Why single out Syria, there are many other countries one could mention where thousands of people are routinely murdered.

The hypocrisy is amazing. Theresa May and  her toxic co must go.

No to bombing Syria

Currently the warmongerers are gathering, planning to bomb Syria, after a recent chemical attack,  Theresa May has put RAF bombers on standby to start airs strikes in Syria. Donald Trump has vowed to take action .The stakes are obviously extremely high, but opinion polls suggest public opinion is firmly against military action. Only 22% of respondents in a YouGov Poll said they would support airstrikes on Syria. More bombing would prolong the agony of the Syrian people and risk causing a catastrophic war with Russia.
I can understand the ongoing tragedy of the situation in Syria, and people who argue that non-intervention has a price as well as intervention, and that letting people get away with the use of chemial weapons will only encourage them to do it again. But the argument which takes us from those statements  to 'we must bomb Syrian military forces or fatalities' is seriously lacking in logic and reason, and simply attacking anyone who questions this and being a supporter of Russia is just nonsense. The gassing of civilians, if confirmed, must not go unpunished. But while retaliation may briefly relieve western guilt over the Syrian tragedy and boost Mr Trump’s self-image, it cannot be a substitute for a peaceful solution.
The conflict in Syria has a deep and complex history. An estimated 100,000 Syrian people have lost their lives, and nearly 2 million have been forced to leave their country, torn apart by civil war and competing global and regional powers. We know that innocent people, often women and children pay for war and aggression and there is  no end in sight. A US military strike will not end the violence. We must not forget that the UK and the USA has been bombing other countries for over a decade, the cost being massive regional instability, terrible loss of millions of innocent lives. Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results meets Albert Einsteins definition of madness. More likely, it will trigger a massive regional conflict, and  will destroy the infrastructure the Syrian people desperately need to stabilize and rebuild their country.
Dropping more bombs on this devastated country will only add to the nightmare already in existence. Military action action against Assad will  not make the situation better for the people of Syria, it will most probably make a perilous situation much worse.  We should do whatever is possible to urge our Government from leading us into another dangerous war. Air strikes in Syria could risk devastating consequences. War is an act of terrorism too, only on a bigger budget. Do we stoke and inflame an ongoing tragedy? There is a very real danger that the Middle East could face the catastrophe of a regional war, and that Trump, backed by May, could fan the flames. Where is their concern for the welfare of civilians when we see Israeli snipers targetting unarmed Palestinian civilians in Gaza?  Do we really need more blood on our hands? Not in my name.
Stop the illegal war demo has been called by the Stop the War coalition today at 5 PM Downing Street, there will also be protests across the country over the weekend and another demonstration called for Parliament Square Monday 5.30 pm.

Oppose Trump and May's Plans for Escalation in Syria

http://stopwar.eaction.org.uk/lobby/SyriaEscalation

"So we are going to "war" are we? And how do we get out of this war once we have started it? Any plans anyone? What if there's a giganti srew up, whih wars do tend to usually produce? What happens then?" - Robert Fisk

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/theresa-may-syria-war-uk-chemical-weapons-attack-iran-iraq-thatcher-russia-a8300881.html

Fighting Times

People in society currently pecked into pieces
Politicians creating wastelands for generations,
Taking from the poor and giving it all to the rich
Division not progress their ultimate pitch,
Poisoning minds, creating wars of attrition
Continuing to blind us with fear and confusion,
With twisted morality, sullied emotion
Forces of capitalism, driving us in one direction,
Planned poverty,leaving victims in its wake
Homelessness growing that the government make,
Food banks growing in this age of austerity
People daily waking up to distorted reality,
In Grenfell tower people died, government indignation negligible
No deaths in a Salisbury cafe, government reaction incredible,
Their systematically treating us with derision
With conscious games that simply imprison,
Daily now the balancing acts of life hard to handle
People broken, beaten, continue to be strangled,
Held captive by forces of misery and mockery
Time, to take a stand, make demands that set us free;
Break the bonds that bind us, the walls that hide us
Plant seeds of rebellion, rise back in disgust,
Growing stronger, lifting voices high
So loud they will be unable to drown our cry.
Together we are capable of inducing chain reactions
Generating effects that take away maddening distractions,
Leaving the present behind, that is ever so profound
Keep fighting for our lives, until the next round.

Poem can also be found here:-

https://iamnotasilentpoet.wordpress.com/2018/04/12/fighting-times-by-dave-rendle/

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peoples history of the Mexican  Revolution ' La Revolucion  Mexicano