I believe in the many not the few
for all brothers and sisters to live in love
beyond rising tides of hate and envy
a world being painted darker still
by forces of fascism and intolerance
as we stand on the precipice
of a rumbling volcano
that heeds not the plea of humanity,
we are akin now to a flock of sheep
heading forth to danger
without a shepherd to guide
but with careful navigation
beyond the ignorance of our ways
we can find safer pastures to graze
follow peaceful rivers - unafraid,
forces of negation do not dissapear
if we simply ignore them
torrents of poisonous tongue
keep releasing deep from bedrock
swastika eyes now roaming the land
lets keep growing with compassion
in unison expel streams of division.
Detail from SS , Heritage Mural, designed and painted by Frank Creber and his sons
The Great London Dock Strike is widely acknowledged as a key event in the development of the modern trade union and labour movement in this country. Following on from earlier strikes by match girls and gas workers, the dock strike signalled a remarkable new era of leadership and organisation in the working classes, contributing to, among other things, the formation of the Labour Party in 1900.
The lives of the dockers and many others in the dock side communities at the time were marked by crushing poverty, disease, squalor and horrendous living and working conditions. This against a background of growing trade unionism among unskilled workers, who had become increasingly dissatisfied with their lot.
On August 12, 1889, at .7.30am, Will Thorne, fresh from his part in negotiating a deal to bring in the eight hour day for gas workers across the capital, following a strike at the Beckton Gasworks, spoke at the South Dock gates of the West India Docks in a meeting organised by Will Harris who worked on the tugs at the Albert Docks.Working class Socialist leader Ben Tillett, a docker himself, joined Thorne on the platform and appealed for the men to form a union and then refuse to go to work unless they had a very modest increase in pay of 1d (one old penny, colloquially called the Dockers tanner) to something approaching enough for a docker and his family to live on, and assurance that no man would be taken on for less than 4 hours a day.
As was the tradition of the period, and for many years afterwards, the dockers agreed to the resolutions by a show of hands, which on this occasion was unanimous. When Ben Tillett took these demands to the dock directors they refused to listen, he returned to tell the men the strike had begun.
Despite the obvious hardships ahead there was enthusiasm. The following day a small strike broke out in the South West India Dock in response to Tillet's statement and it would spread spontaneously and rapidly across the whole of London's docks.
As part of the strike, mass meetings were held at Tower Hill, pickets were established at the dock gates and marches were organised through the City of London. On the whole, the strike remained peaceful, as a result the dock workers gained much support and sympathy from the public.
The employees were intent to starve the strikers out and although the port was at a standstill and their companies losing money they believed that giving into the dockers demands would set a dangerous precedent, but crucially, financial help to the strikers and their families arrived from the Australian Labour , who sent over £30,000 to help the dockers to continue the struggle, alongside organisations such as the Salvation Army and the Labour Church who also raised money in support, Also landlords wgo tried to collect their rents fasced resistance, rent strikes were organised, with one banner reading :"As we are on strike landlords need not call." There was also a remarkable degree of solidarity between different faiths during the strike, in London's east end the Jewish community led a solidarity march with the dockers, a large proportion of whom were Irish Catholics, and together with the Salvation Army provided soup kitchens for the dockers' families and children. The Irish dockers would get their opportunity to return the gesture of solidarity in the battle of Cable Street nearly half a century later, when in 1936, the ' Blackshirt fascists; targeted the local Jewish community in Stepney.
Anyway without this aid and support, perhaps the strike might not in the end have been won, but after five weeks on the 14th September 1889, the strike leaders, negotiated an end to the strike with the dock managers with the employees accepting defeat and granting all the dockers main demands, after they had been met by the powers of mass organisation, discipline and resilience that had been ably demonstrated.
After this successful strike, the dockers formed a new General Labourers' Union, which in due course this union became one of the founders of the Transport and General Worker's Union..Ben Tillet was elected General Secretary and Tom Mann became the union's first President. In London alone, 20,000 men joined this new union. Tillett and Mann wrote a pamphlet together called the New Unionism, where they outlined their socialist views and explained how their idea was a "cooperative commonwealth."
This victory was a turning point, which saw workers across the country, particularly the unskilled workers, gaining a new confidence to organise themselves and carry out collective action.Over the next few years a large number of these unskilled workers joined trade unions, and between 1892 and 1899 membership of trade unions increased from 1,500,000 to over 200,000
Here is a list of the top 20 weapons dealers in the world. These are their names and where they are
based (though they sell their weapons all over the world):
Lockheed Martin, United States
Boeing, United States
BAE Systems, United Kingdom — and subsidiary: BAE Systems Inc., United States
Raytheon, United States
Northrop Grumman, United States
General Dynamics, United States
Airbus Group, Trans-European
United Technologies Corp., United States — and subsidiary: Pratt & Whitney, United States
Finmeccanica, Italy
L-3 Communications, United States
Almaz-Antey, Russia
Thales, France
Huntington Ingalls Industries, United States
United Aircraft Corp., Russia
United Shipbuilding Corp. Russia
Rolls-Royce, United Kingdom
SAFRAN, France
Honeywell International, United States
Textron, United States
DCNS, France
You may notice that none of these companies is located in the parts
of the world afflicted by warfare, while half of them are in the United
States, seven in Europe and three in Russia.
Militarism, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. eloquently asserted in 1967,
is one of our society’s “Triple Evils,” along with racism and economic
exploitation. Now is the time to stop the War machine. We must find ways to maintain world peace. War is not an option. Weapons sales are a major detriment to these ends. War profiteering was, once deemed reprehensible. It has been in great measure normalized. Humanity as a whole I believe should seek ways to render it unacceptable and impossible to engage in.
It is time to divest from weapons companies and invest in ethical, life-affirming solutions.We can only achieve a more peaceful world if we reduce the power of those who profit from war, that fuel conflicts in Yemen, Syria etc, with devastating effect.
According to Campaign Against the Arms Trade, Britain alone has licenced 34, billion worth of aircraft and weapons since the bombing campaign against Yemen started in 2015, which as a result is responsible for the Saudi-led coalition air attack on Yemen which struck a school bus of children heading through a busy market last week, killing more than 40 people, mostly children , and injuring about 60. At the same time the UK imports Israeli military hardware and components, that has been field tested on innocent Palestinian civilians. Let us not forget that in modern armed conflicts nearly 90% of casualties are civilians with about 40% of those being children. It is estimated that 2000 children are killed or maimed in wars each and every day. It is no accident that the massive rise in casualty figures coincides with the arms trade, that also helps prop up regimes with atrocious human rights records across our planet. Meanwhile every year DSEI the world's biggest arms fair rolls into East London, with attendees from some of the biggest arms companies in the world and many of the most oppressive dictatorships. The war machine only runs on autopilot to the extent we let it. Put people before war and profit, heddwch/peace. Two useful links https://www.caat.org.uk/
The film Hiroshima-Nagasaki 1945 was created in 1968 from Japanese footage that the US Defense Department had kept hidden for over 20 years. The filmmaker Erik Barnouw offered his 16 minute film to all the US main channels. None of them showed it. Why is obvious when looking at this three minute excerpt.
The atom bombs dropped by the US on those Japanese cities served no military purpose, as the Japanese were already suing for peace. President Truman, who ordered the bombs to be dropped, lied to the American people when he said that the atom bombs had saved lives and there were few civilian deaths, The two atomic bombs killed and maimed hundreds and thousands of people.and the effects are still being felt today.
Seeing the barbarous effect of these weapons, did our political and military leaders decide to rid the world of them. Far from it.Today's nuclear weapons make the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs look like water pistols in comparison, and there are enough of them to destroy not just cities but the whole world.
And who has most of these weapons of mass destruction? The only country to ever use them - the United States.
73 years after they were used, it's time to finally bring an end to the era of nuclear weapons.The lingering humanitarian aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki should remind us all of what is at stake and galvanise our action.
Completely ridding the world of nuclear weapons is a humanitarian and moral imperative and it is the only way forward,Governments must be urged to pursue negotiations to prohibit the use of and completly eliminate nuclear weapons through a legally binding international agreement.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is a coalition of non-governmental organisations in one hundred countries promoting adherence to and implementation of the United Nation nuclear weapon ban treaty. This landmark global agreement was adopted in New York on 7 July 2017.
More information below.
On this day August 8th 1955 at 11.02 a.m.,a second atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese port city of Nagasaki.The bomb which used plutonium 239, was dropped by parachute at 1102 by an American B29 bomber. called the Fat Man.
Unlike Hiroshima, Nagasaki lied in a series of narrow valleys bordered by mountains in the east and the west. The bomb exploded above the ground and directly beneath it was a suburb of schools, factories and private houses.
Among the 270,000 people present when this criminal act occurred were 2,500 labour conscripts from Korea and 350 prisoners-of-war. Nagasaki was completely destroyed. About 73,884 people were killed and 74,909 injured, with the affected survivors suffering the same long-term catastrophic results of radiation and mental trauma as at Hiroshima.
Exposing the true extent of human barbarism for years to come, never again should this ever happen.Let us commit ourselves to making sure Nagasaki is the last place on earth to suffer nuclear devastation..
On August 10th a day after this attack Yosuke Yamahata a Japanese army photographer began photographing the devastation and hibakusha survivors. Over a period of about twelve hours he took around a hundred exposures; by late afternoon, he had taken his final photographs near a first aid station north of the city. In a single day, he had completed the only extensive photographic record of the immediate aftermath of the atomic bombing of either Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
Yamahata’s photographs were published in the Mainichi Shinbun issue of August 21 and in 1952, his photographs of Nagasaki appeared in the September 29 issue of Life. The same year, they appeared in the book Kiroku-shashin: Genbaku no Nagasaki.
Yamahata became a casualty himself in 1965 and on his 49th birthday and the twenieth anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima he died of terminal cancer, probably caused by the effects of radiation, received at Nagasaki.
Today his images, still resonate with the truth, and the shocking tragedy of this atrocity.
Hibakusha is a term widely used in Japan, that refers to the victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it translates as 'explosion effected Survivor of Light.'. These survivors speak of the deep, unabating grief they felt in the days, months and decades since the attack They have described the shame of being a survivor , many were unable to marry, find jobs, or live any sort of normal life.
They have said that many Hibakusha never speak of the day, instead choosing to suffer in silence. They told what it was like to be suddenly alone in middle age, to lose their parents, spouses, children, and livelihoods in a single instant. In memory of them, we should make sure that the misery and devastation caused by nuclear weapons is never forgotten.
Even if Japan was not fully innocent, the people of Japan did not deserve to pay the price for their nations wrongdoing, and there was absolutely no moral justification in obliterating these two cities and killing its inhabitants in what was clearly a crime against humanity and murder on an epic scale. Hiroshima and Nagasaki held no strategic importance. Japan were an enemy on the brink of failure an members of the country's top leadership were involved in peace negotiations. Many believe that these two atrocities were a result of geopolitical posturing at its most barbaric, announcing in a catastrophic display of military capability, of inhumane intention showing America's willingness to use doomsday weapons on civilian populations.The bombings serving as warnings and the first act of the Cold War against its imperialist rival Russia. A message to the Russians of the power of destruction and technological military capability that the US had managed to develop.
The bombs dropped were of a indiscriminate and cruel character beyond comparison with weapons and projectiles of the past. Lets not forget that in our our current dangerous times, many world leaders remain recklessly committed to their nuclear arsenals. There are an estimated 16,000 nuclear weapons in the world at the present time with over 90% held by USA and Russia, but also by the UK, France, India, Pakistan, Israel and lately North Korea. This is more than enough to wipe out most of the human race and most other life.
For Nagasaki Day let us echo the call of the Hibakusha, and press our leaders to take the actions necessary to ensure these immoral, illegal weapons are never used again.
Robert Oppenheimer -
Now I become death , the destroyer of worlds
Further reading:-
Nagasaki Journey; The Photographs of Yosuke Yamahata.
On a quiet Sunday afternoon in Gibraltar on March 6, 1988 ,undercover British agents executed 3 members of an unarmed Provisional IRA unit, Sean Savage, Dan McCann and Mairéad Farrell shot.at close range as they lay wounded on the ground.
Their deaths were controversial as several eye witnesses confirmed that they were all were unarmed and with their hands up,The three were
believed at the time to be mounting a bombing attack on British military personnel
in Gibraltar.
What is undeniable is that just before four that afternoon – just two
or three minutes after SAS soldiers took control from the Gibraltar
authorities – all three IRA Activists were brought down in a hail of 29
bullets, 16 pumped into Savage alone. A police siren sounded, and two
soldiers leaped over a barrier as Farrell and McCann lay dying in the
road leading to the Spanish border. A few seconds later and another
volley of shots brought down Savage as he headed up an alleyway back
towards the town.
The gunning down of three unarmed IRA Activists on the streets of
Gibraltar by the SAS has continued to haunt the British government. The
March 1988 executions led to a cycle of death in the north of Ireland,
re-opened claims that the government operated a ‘shoot-to kill’ policy
and, yet again, called into question the reputation of British justice.
The British media at the time with the exception of Thames TVs Death on the Rock", repeated the British Army propoganda that the three were armed and the local eyewitness were lying. At the inquest into the deaths held in Gibraltar the jury returned a verdict of lawful killing by a 9–2 majority. The coroner in summing up of the evidence to the jury told them to avoid an open verdict. The 9-2 verdict is the smallest majority allowed. Paddy McGrory, lawyer for Amnesty International, believed that it had been a "perverse verdict," and that it had gone against the weight of the evidence.
The relatives of McCann, Savage and Farrell were dissatisfied with the response to their case in the British legal system, so they took their case to the European Court of Human Rights in 1995. The court found that the three had been unlawfully killed
By a 10–9 majority it ruled that the human rights of the 'Gibraltar
Three' had been infringed in breach of Article 2 – right to life, of the
European Convention on Human Rights and criticised the authorities for lack of appropriate care in the control and organisation of the arrest operation. For many it was cold state-sanctioned murder, at point blank range.
When the bodies came through Dublin Airport, all the
staff stopped with their heads bowed and prayed as a mark of respect.
There was also shock at the time as to how a woman like Mairead could have become involved with the IRA. To Mairead, however her membership was a logical decision made as a result of a political analysis drawn from both political experience and a study of Irish history,
Mairead was born in Belfast on the 3rd August 1957, the second youngest of six children and the only girl. She was twelve when the British Army took over the streets of Belfast in 1969. This subsequently led to her being politicized.
" It was relavent of growing up in the Falls, we had to pass the Brits during the curfews you could only get out for a certain number of hours. We were all victims of the British occupation really you just accepted that you would be involved to defend your country. " She joined the IRA and said later, "A lot of 17 to 19 year olds were involved, maybe looking back I was very young then but I was politically aware I know rhat now because my views haven't changed if anything I have become stronger, more committed. "
In 1976 she was arrested after taking part in the IRA's campaign. She was convicted of possesion of explosives and membership of the IRA and sentenced to fourteen and a half years imprisonment. Mairead was sentenced at a crucial turning point in British policy and was to become the leader of the women in Armagh jail when the republican struggle was focussed on the prisoners.
When Mairead entered Armagh in April 1976 she was the first woman republican prisoner to be sentenced under the new regulations and was refused special category status. She was isolated from the Republican organization in Armagh and only able to talk to the other fifty or so republican women for ten minutes after Mass on Sundays. She began a “no work protest” against the loss of special category status, “I knew now the battle would begin - the real battle - that the struggle would be a long and lonely one for us all
As other newly sentenced women entered Armagh they joined Mairead in protests. Mairead became Commanding Officer. ‘There was no kudos in it, I had to take decisions that would effect all the prisoners. There were times I felt very alone, even though I knew I had the support of the others at all times.’
The dirty protest that began on 7th February 1980 was forced on Mairead and her comrades. The Republican women were able to wear their own clothes; they were all dressed in black skirts and white blouses at a ceremony to honour Delaney. A week later, to crush this example of organised solidarity, a squad of 60 male and female warders surrounded the women at lunch time. Tim Pat Coogan stated that the women “were kicked and punched until order was restored’ Their cells were searched and wrecked by the warders and after the women were returned to their cells, “Men in riot gear armed with batons appeared in the cells again. The girls (sic) were beaten and carried down the stairs to the guard room to receive their punishment. The toilets were locked and they were confined to their cells for 24 hours.’
Mairead described the events to her parents: We were not allowed exercise nor out to the toilet or to get washed. We were locked up for 24 hours and allowed nothing to eat or drink. Male officers are still on the wing, they have not left and are running the wing got something to eat still not allowed use of toilet facilities. We have been forced into a position of “Dirt Strike’ as our pots are overflowing with urine and excrement. We emptied them out of the spy holes into the wing. The male officers nailed them closed.” Then later: ‘Male officers are still running the wing Lynn O’Connell was beaten twice, the second time was the worst. The officers jumped her as she was going out to the yard her face is badly swollen and cut.’
In early April 1980 Mairead wrote to her relatives, “The stench of urine and excrement clings to the cells and our bodies. No longer can we empty the pots out the window as the male screws have boarded them up regardless of day or night, the cells are dark for 23 hours a day we lie in these celIs’ The protest lasted 13 months. It was to Mairead the most frightening time of her imprisonment. Women were locked in pairs in cells measuring 3m x 2m (9ft x 6ft). During this time, Mairead told Tim Pat Coogan, “We are in a war situation. We have been treated in a special way and tried in special courts because of the war and because of our political activities. We want to be regarded as prisoners of war.
On 1st December 1980, Mairead, Mary Doyle and Mairead Nugent went on hunger strike in united action with the men in the Long Kesh ‘H Blocks. Afterwards she recalled how important was the support received from outside and also how she hated the distress caused to her parents. She continued on hunger strike until 19th December when it seemed the N.I.O. had agreed to the prisoners’ demands. This agreement was then retracted.
The Dirty Protest was called off in January 1981 in preparation for the second hunger strike in the H Blocks on 1st March 1981. A difficult decision not to join this was made by the women prisoners. It was the worst time for them as the women waited for news of the deaths, “I know it will be more difficult this time to win anything. It will take longer for the pressure to build up.” At the end of the interview Mairead said, “I am a volunteer in the Irish Republican Army and a political prisoner in Armagh jail. I am prepared to fight to the death, if necessary, to win the recognition that I am a political prisoner and not a criminal.’
In December 1982 strip searching was introduced at Armagh. The women republican prisoners refused to undergo these searches that were made before women were allowed out of the prison. Her last inter-prison visit to see her fiancee in Long Kesh was in October 1982 and she did not see him again until her release four years later. The remand prisoners suffered most from strip searching as they were searched before and after court hearings and were subject to regular beatings. The women republican prisoners ended their resistance to strip searching because of the fear of increasingly serious assaults. Mairead was strip searched on her release from Maghaberry Prison, “I felt it was the final insult. It’s designed as psychological torture, as a way of intimidating us.” Looking back on years in prison she saw them as teaching her the real values in life and making her more committed to her political beliefs.
During her last years of imprisonment, Mairead took Open University courses in Politics and Economics, and gained a place at Queen’s University on her release. She worked with the Strip Searching Campaign, speaking at meetings all over Ireland. She then reported back to the IRA. Just before her death she said, “You have to be realistic, you realise that ultimately you’re either going to be dead or end up in jail.”
“Everybody keeps telling me I’m a feminist. I just know I’m me and I think I’m as good as anyone else and that particularly goes for any man. I’m a socialist, definitely, and I’m a republican. I believe in a united Ireland; a united socialist Ireland, definitely socialist. Capitalism provided no answer at all for our people and I think that’s the Brit’s main interest in Ireland. Once we remove the British that isn’t it, that’s only the beginning.”
When their bodies came through Dublin Airport, in the aftermath of the shooting all the
staff stopped with their heads bowed and prayed as a mark of respect, following these events violenc would escalate in
the Belfast area and resulted in at least six further deaths. At the funeral of the 'Gibraltar Three' on 16 March 1988, three mourners were killed in a gun and grenade attack by loyalist paramilitary Michael Stone in the Milltown Cemetery attack.
After Mairéad''s death it would lead to this hauntingly beautiful tribute “The Ballad of Mairéad Farrell”, by Seanchai and The Unity Squad, with vocals by Rachel Fitzgerald. In
2008 Sinn Féin asked to hold an International Women's Day event in the
Long Gallery at Stormont commemorating Farrell. The Assembly Commission
which runs the Stormont estate ruled that it could not go ahead. Heroine or villainess, she remains an interesting human being. To the people of Falls Road she was a patriot. To the British she was a
terrorist. To her family she was a victim of Irish history and a product of her environment.This elegy, this song and this history to this day has a sort of tragic, beautiful complexity to it.
Do not stand at my grave and weep I am not there I do not sleep Do not stand at my grave and cry while Ireland lives I do not die A woman's place is not at home The fight for freedom it still goes on I took up my gun until freedoms day I pledged to fight for the IRA
In Armagh jail i served my time Strip searches were a british crime Degraded me yet they could not see I'd suffer this to see Ireland free Gibraltar Rock was the place I died McCann and Savage were by my side I heard the order so loud and true Of thatchers voice said "SHOOT TO KILL"
So do not stand at my grave and weep I am not there i do not sleep Do not stand at my grave and cry While Ireland lives I do not die While Ireland lives I do not die
Sadako and the Crane statue (Hiroshima Memorial Peace Park, Japan)
73 years ago, on 6th August 1945, at 8:15 AM the
United States dropped an atomic bomb called “Little Boy” on Hiroshima,
which is estimated to have killed 100,000 to 180,000 people out of a
population of 350,000. Three days later, a second atomic bomb was
dropped on the city of Nagasaki, killing between 50,000 and 100,000
people.an atomic bomb was detonated over
Hiroshima. Today, 73 years later, the world commemorates the lives that
were lost and the unacceptable devastation caused to people and planet.
A survivor of the Hiroshima bombing gave this harrowing account:
"Through a darkness like the bottom of Hell I could hear the voices of
the other students calling for their mothers. I could barely sense the
fact that the students seemed to be running away from that place. (...)
At the base of the bridge, inside a big cistern that had been dug out
there, was a mother weeping and holding above her head a naked baby that
was burned bright red all over its body, and another mother was crying
and sobbing as she gave her burned breast to her baby. In the cistern
the students stood with only their heads above the water and their two
hands, which they clasped as they imploringly cried and screamed,
calling their parents. But every single person who passed was wounded,
all of them, and there was no one to turn to for help. The singed hair
on people's heads was frizzled up and whitish, and covered with dust -
from their appearance you couldn't believe that they were human
creatures of this world".
In the current dangerous times today we must redouble our efforts to ensure that such an atrocity does not happen ever again. It should be unthinkable that the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki should ever be repeated, on this poignant anniversary, we must reaffirm our determination to campaign for a world without nuclear weapons
For years the American government refused to release images
and photographs, such was the sheer horror that they did not want the
world to Know. Those who did not get incarcented on the spot, were to be
traumatised for the rest of their lives. Hibakusha is a term widely used in Japan, that refers to
the victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it
translates as 'explosion effected/ Survivor of the Light. This post is
dedicated to them , we should make sure that the devastation caused by nuclear weapons is never forotten.
Please sign following petition :- https://cnduk.org/actions/time-stop-trident/ Hiroshima; An Acrostic Poem
Horror was dropped on August 6, 1945
Incinerating thousands of innocents
Reason evaporated after deadly poison shed
One bomb released left devastaion
Senseless slaughter, the scorched sin of humanity
Haunting vapors of pitiful sorrow
Insanity blossoming with black rain
Murderous atoms shattered spirits
American weapon of evil, B-29 Enola Gay
Apologies for language above but in recent weeks we've seen the biggest far right demonstrations on the streets of the UK in decades, in support of one Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon ( who goes by the name "Tommy Robinson ") With support and funding from the "alt-right" in the United States and the ethno- nationalist Generation Identity movement, whose leaders have been prevented from entering the UK,"Robinson" is reaching millions in the UK through social media with his vitriolic Islamophobic and anti-migrant message. And the Tories not only emulate their policies, from the hostile environment to go home vans -they'e actually meeting with "Alt-right " leaders like Steve Bannon. This far-right strategist actually called Lennon the "backbone" of Britain and is no no doubt hoping to make him a core part of his new 'movement, using him as a front man to increase divisions and stoke anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim anger across Europe.
Lennon has recently been released from prison, he and his allies claim him as a free speech martyr, some supporters chracterise him as a journalist exposing crime, but his social media broadcasts rely on information from the local and national "mainstream" media and tend to cover cases that have already been prosecuted. Lennon having previously broadcast his activities on Twitter, but was permanently banned from the platform earlier this year.He co-founded the EDL (English Defence League) in 2009 and has been arrested numerous times for acts of violence, as well as being jailed for mortgage fraud in 2014.
Earlier this year the former head of national counter-terrorism policing hit out at Lennon's "dangerous disinformation and propoganda" Mark Rowley said that Lennon attacks the whole religion of Islam by conflating acts of terrorism with the faith often citing spurious claims, which inevitably stir up tensions"
"Such figures represented no more than the extreme margins of the communities they claim to speak for, yet they have been given prominence and a platform to espouse their dangerous disinformation and propoganda," he added.
Lennon remains an Islamaphobe with a history of violence and someone who uses intimidation against his opponents. His tactics reveal or expose nothing the courts and legal system have not already exposed. Lest we forget he remains silent about serious sexual abusers within the English Defence League while ranting against muslims.
It's time we woke up to the real Tommy Robinson and his allies, because the fascists are marching again, the fascists are targetting again, the fascists are growing again, and the prospects of fascist politics spreading further their nasty brand of hate is a very real nightmare scenario indeed, its time to confine them again to history's dustbin, so their dangerous ideas never again see the light of day. No pasaran. They shall not pass.
The following poem by Theodore Roethke seems even more powerful to me today than when I first read it. Throughout his adult life this brilliant Pulitzer award winning poet suffered from manic depression, which actually fueled his writing and actually made him more productive. But combined with a lack of self-esteem and a tendency to turn more and more to drink, plus lots of other factors in his life it would contribute to several notable nervous breakdowns over the years.
Although it speaks of depression In a Dark Time also speaks of a self-discovery, a reawakening. Often we lose ourselves in our despair and abandon all hope, but the loss of the most important things in life can also act as catalysts that give way to insights that have the ability to enrich our future lives. Sometimes in such moments of despair, it is only then that we can discover our true selves, and as time tests us, we can find out who we are and what we truly believe. And although the poem comes with no happy ending, and he is not out of the darkness, he is nevertheless still searching, not quite given up on hope. Sadly on this day, which adds more poignancy, whilst taking a dip in a friend's swimming pool, Theodore had a heart attack and died. He was just 55 years old.
This poem however is one of those poems I like to keep close to in difficult times, in it he manages to create something powerful that connects readers to their own self-doubts and struggles of finding ones way again. Remember those dark periods most of us experience, they actually can serve a purpose, transforming, releasing compassionate hearts, readying for the blaze of light. ' In a dark time, the eye begins to see.' In a Dark Time - Theodore Roethke
In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood--
A lord of nature weeping to a tree.
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.
What's madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.
That place among the rocks--is it a cave,
Or a winding path? The edge is what I have.
A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
And in broad day the midnight come again!
A man goes far to find out what he is--
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.
Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.
The sentencing by an Israeli court of 36 year old Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour to
a five month jail sentence for incitement is an unjust criminalization
of free expression.
Tatour, a Palestinian citizen of Israel from the village
Al-Reineh near Nazareth, has been writing poetry since she was 7, She is also a
photographer, who has has toured villages in present-day Israel that were
depopulated of their original Palestinian inhabitants during the Nakba,
As well as capturing images of these villages, she has set out to tell
stories about the people who lived in them.
Her photographs have been displayed in a number of exhibitions. She also directed a short documentary about the ethnically cleansed village of Damoun. The Latest Invasion, her first collection of poems, was published in 2010. Her second collection, The Atlantic Canary Tales, addressing women’s issues was due to be published in December 2015, but her arrest at her family home in the early hours of October 11,
2015 prevented that. In addition, Tatour has written another book about her detention waiting for publication.She had already spent almost
three years in jail or under house arrest since her initial arrest in
October 2015, and was convictrd on
May 3, 2018 on charges of incitement to violence and support for
terrorist organizations for three posts on social media.
The main clause of her indictment was based on a poem that she had
allegedly posted on YouTube under the title: “Qawem ya sha’abi,
qawemhum” (Resist my people, resist them). There is nothing actually
illegal in the poem not even according to Israel’s laws. Although the
poem urges resistance to Israel, it does not call for
specific acts of violence. Rather, it draws attention to violent attacks
on Palestinians by Israelis. But the context matters too, and
the poem came out against a backdrop of Palestinian youths clashing with
the occupation forces. And the images of these, according to the
Israeli prosecution and media, are of “Palestinians engaged in terrorist
activity”! At trial, the prosecutor attempted to prove that Tatour
was not a legitimate poet, and engaged in debate over the translation of several passages of the poem from Arabic to Hebrew. The other two posts were also targeted in
part for their use of particular words, specifically “intifada” and
“shahid,” the Arabic word for martyr. With regard to both posts, the
court relied on a narrow translation of these words to justify linking
them to terrorism, neglecting their broader meaning and usage in
relation to Palestinian solidarity and resistance. At the July 31
sentencing hearing, Tatour was sentenced to
five months in prison (of a possible eight years), three months of
which will be reduced due to time in prison already served. Dareen joins over 400 Palestinians who have been punished
and targeted for their posts on social media. Palestinians often found
guilty because they simply do not like their oppressors.
In a brief statement sent to Jewish Voice for Peace on 11 July of last year Tatour explained the effect that her
imprisonment has had on her work.
“The poem, if it remains on paper, only adds to its writer’s worries
and fatigue. The worst thing that can happen to an artist in general,
and a poet in particular, is to be imprisoned in the democratic era in
which we live for expressing their opinion,” Tatour writes.
“Imprisonment is tantamount to cutting the cords of feelings and
emotions whose letters connect between what they are writing and the
people,” she adds, “and if this communication is cut there is no value
to all to what is written by this poet, no matter how outstanding their
style. Actually there is no value and meaning to the human existence of
the individual in this democracy and basically no value to this
democracy.”
“My freedom, after nine months of harsh detention and exile, is a
guarantee to the endurance of freedom for every poet, writer and artist,
wherever they are,” she added..
Award-winning poet, songwriter, and novelist, Naomi Shihab Nye, referred to the way
Tatour’s use of the word “resistance” has been criminalized: “The word
“resist” – when it is resisting oppression and inequality – will always
be a gleaming, beautiful, positive word. In fact, it needs to be said
more often.” Here, the poet Tariq al Haydar translates Tatour’s words into English:
Resist, my My people, Resist them
Resist, my people, resist them.
In Jerualem, I dread my wounds and breathed my sorrows
And carried the soul in my palm
For an Arab Palestine.
I will not succumb to the "peaceful solution,"
Never lower my flags
Until I evict them from my land
I cast them aside for a coming time
Resist , my people, resist them.
Resist the settler's robbery
And follow the caravan of martyrs.
Shred the digraceful contitution
Which imposed degradation and humiliation
And deterred us from restoring justice.
They burned blameles children;
As for Hadil, they niped her in public,
Killed her in broad daylight.
Resist, my people, resist them,
Resist the colonialist's onlaught.
Pay no mind to his agents among us
Who chain us with peaeful illusion.
Do not fear doubtful tonques;
The truth in your heart i stronger,
As long a you resist in a land
That has lived through raids and victory.
So ali called from his grave:
Resist, my rebellious people.
Write me as prose on the agarwoood;
My remain have you as a response.
Resist, my people, resist them.
Resist, my people resist them.https://arablit.org/2016/04/27/the-poem-for-which-dareen-tatours-under-house-arrest-resist-my-people-resist-them/ Gaby Lasky, Tatour’s lawyer, argued that prosecutors had
relied on a police officer’s misleading and inaccurate translation of
the Arabic poem.
Literary expert Prof. Nissim Calderon testified on Tatour’s behalf
that poets should have a special privilege to speak freely, even when
advocating violence, and argued that canonical Israeli Hebrew poets had
written much worse verse.
The defense also argued that Israeli Police statistics show that
Jewish Israelis who post explicit calls for violence against Arabs and
Palestinians on social media – including the phrase “death to Arabs” –
are not similarly arrested and tried.
“There is serious discrimination here,” Lasky said. “If she was Jewish, there would be no case.”
The verdict will have a chilling effect on freedom of speech, Lasky
added, and will cause writers to censor themselves. “This decision
establishes a clear precedent that criminalizes poetry.”
“The poem was written from the victim’s perspective. It deals with
resistance against violence and occupation and does not call for
violence itself,” said Dr. Yoni Mendel, an expert in Arabic and a
researcher at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute who also testified at
Tatour’s trial.
“The phrase ‘follow the caravan of martyrs,’ which was the basis for
the prosecution’s case, was translated to Hebrew as ‘follow the caravan
of shahidim,’” Mendel said, “as if it were a call for violence against
innocent people. But in fact, the only two shahidim mentioned in the
poem are the children Muhammad Abu Khdeir and Ali Dawabshe, who are both
Palestinians murdered by Jewish extremists – the farthest that could be
from Palestinians killed while trying to harm Israelis.”Tatour belongs to the Palestinian community that remained within the
new state of Israel following the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Palestinian
citizens of Israel now number some 1.6 million, making up some
20 percent of Israel's population.In 1948, almost 700,000
Palestinians were forcibly expelled by Zionist militias. An estimated
five million Palestinians are refugees today, prevented from returning
to their homes in present-day Israel.
Despite holding Israeli
citizenship, Palestinians in Israel lived under a military
administration between 1948 and 1967 and faced curfews, severe
restrictions on free speech and political rights, and persecution in
front of military courts.
The recent passage of the "nation state" law earlier this month has caused outrage
for enshrining Israel's Jewish identity in the Basic Law - Israel's
equivalent of a constitution - a move critics have slammed as further
cementing a two-tier ethnic system in Israeli law.
But many
Palestinian citizens of Israel have been unsurprised by the new law,
pointing to pre-existing discrimination both on the ground and in law,
effectively making them second-class citizens when compared to their
Jewish peers.Writing poetry should not be considered a crime, Dareen
just used her freedom of expresion and her pen to write about the
plight of her people and the injustice they daily feel and encounter, I
don't feel that this warrants any form of punishment. She comes from a
long tradition of poets in Palestinian society who try to evoke and
communicate and reveal their sense of anger and sorrow. Poets who carry
the additional role of being spokespersons, who try to
articulate the struggles, desires, and political views of the people. The targetting of this young woman, and the incredible assault the State of Israel launched on her personal freedom, has become a symbol for the Israili authorities campaign against freedom of speech and artistic expression, alarming many in Israel and all over the world. Repeated unequivoca calls by the wrters association PEN international for her release were ignored. An international petition by Jewish Voice for Peace drew support from many writers and intellectuals but was also ignored.The two-and-a-half-year legal and literary saga, which has garnered
international attention, has become a battleground for debates over free
speech, discrimination and relations between Israel’s Jewish majority
and its Arab minority.
“I never expected justice from the Israeli courts,” Tatour said in
response to the verdict. “I knew that I would be convicted of the
accusations… I will… keep writing.” Here is her response to the BBC World Service just hours before her sentence https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06g60kc .At the moment Tatour's lawyers plan to appeal the verdict. I would urge voices of good conscience and fellow poets to support Dareen's continuing plight, and join the call to free her,and take a stand for justice and support the cultural boycott of Israel. A state that imprisons poets for expressing their realities is one that must face rejection and isolation, it is deeply unsettling that under Israel's laws Arab artists cannot give words to their feelings, outrage and grief which sees poets forbidden from speaking critically. Dareen Tatour’s case is a prominent example of Israel’s systematic
suppression of Palestinian culture, art and freedom of political
expression. In recent years, these have included the banning of public
readings of Palestinian poetry,, closing down of plays as well as the
detention of artists. The writer Ahmad Qatamesh, who has been declared a
prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, has been jailed in
eight of the last 25 years.https://www.facebook.com/FreeDareenTatour/Dareen has written a poem since being inside prison
I interrogated my soul during moments of doubt and distraction: “What of your crime?” Its meaning escapes me now. I said the thing and revealed my thoughts; I wrote about the current injustice, wishes in ink, a poem I wrote… The charge has worn my body, from my toes to the top of my head, for I am a poet in prison, a poet in the land of art. I am accused of words, my pen the instrument. Ink— blood of the heart— bears witness and reads the charges. Listen, my destiny, my life, to what the judge said: A poem stands accused, my poem morphs into a crime. In the land of freedom, the artist’s fate is prison.
- Excerpt from A Poet Behind Bars by Dareen Tatour, translated into English by Tariq al Haydar
