Remembering Rosa Luxemburg

The 15th of January marks the anniversary of Rosa Luxemburg,Marxist theorist, agitator, internationalist, philosopher, economist being shot and  murdered when her body was thrown into the Landwehr Canal in Berlin, by right wing troops  opposed to the revolutionary movement that swept through Germany in the wake of the First World War. Long has she continued to inspire..
Rosa Luxemburg was born on March 5, 1871, in the city of Zamosc, Poland, then under control of czarist Russia. Her father, Eliasz Luxemburg, was a prosperous timber trader, who had inherited his business from his father, Abraham. of Polish Jewish descent who became a naturalized German citizen. Rosa’s mother was Lina Loewenstein, the daughter of a traditional rabbi and sister of a Reform rabbi. Rosa, who grew up speaking German, Polish and Yiddish, was the youngest of the couple’s five children. As a young child, she suffered from a hip ailment, which left her permanently afflicted with a limp.
During Poland’s 1863 uprising against Russian rule, Eliasz supplied the independence movement with weapons, so that for several years after the revolt’s failure, he had to remain in hiding from czarist authorities. In 1873, the family moved with him to Warsaw, where Rosa attended the gymnasium.
Even during high school, Rosa was drawn to politics, becoming active in the Proletariat party, a forerunner to the Polish Socialist party. After several of her comrades in the party were arrested and executed, she decided to pursue her higher education in Switzerland.
Luxemburg began at the University of Zurich as a student of zoology but ended up focusing on economics, philosophy and law. Throughout her political career, Luxemburg consistently opposed Polish nationalism, believing that socialist action had to take place on the international level, and that a separate revolution in Poland would be self-defeating.
Similarly, she was opposed to Jewish nationalism or separatism. Though she was sensitive to the problem of anti-Semitism, she was sure it would disappear with the overthrow of capitalism. since 1899,she became an important figure in the world socialist movement, and became involved in the international organisation of workers overcoming physical infirmity and the prejudice she faced as a Jew to become an active revolutionary whose philosophy enriched every corner of an incredibly productive and creative life.
After finishing her studies, Luxemburg moved to Germany, gaining citizenship via a marriage of convenience and  became a member of the Social Democrat Party of Germany (SPD), becoming a  leader  of the radical wing of the Party , however  she broke with the SPD  after it supported the imperialist drive towards war, she believed in the build up to the First World War that ' workers blood should not be shed in defence of the capitalist system'.
Though Luxemburg was militant about the idea of proletarian revolution, she was anti-militarist. She believed in democracy and was an outspoken opponent of the Bolsheviks’ belief that a small cadre of bureaucrats should made political decisions on behalf of the proletariat: Revolution had to be political as well as economic, she felt.
Because of  her socialist agitation during this terrible war , she was imprisoned for it's duration, but after Germany's defeat she was released, and with her friend Karl Liebnecht,  formed the anti war Spartacist league, and  she assumed the leadership of the radical independent socialists. Her will and her desire was to see an end to all exploitation and oppression.
Her faith was a socialist idea  that  combined the powerful passion of both mind and heart. She devoted herself to the cause of revolution,and its preparation. She lived and breathed its fire, with selflessness and devotion, in every waking moment she dedicated herself to its cause.  Standing bravely up for freedom with a  strong powerful intellect. An individualist, she formulated her own ideas, using her own words to energise and radicalise the people and bring about a socialist revolution.  She argued that " The mass strike is the first natural, impulsive form of every great revolutionary struggle of the proletariat and the more highly developed the antagonism is between capital and labour, the more effective and decisive must mass strikes become. The chief form of bourgeois revolutions, the fight at the barricades, the open conflict with the armed poor of the state, is in the revolution today only the culminating point, only a moment on the process of the proletarian mass struggle."
She followed no leader, was no ones puppet and when  she criticised Lenin,  it was in relation to dictatorial aspects. She said " Terror has not crushed us. How can you put your trust in terror."
She quoted Leon Trotsky saying "As Marxists we have never been idol worshippers of formal democracy." She went on "All that really means is: We have always distinquished the social kernal of social inequality and lack of freedom hidden under the sweet shell of formal equality and freedom - not in order to reject the latter but to spur the working class into being satisfied with the shell, but rather, by conquering political power, to create a socialist democracy to replace bourgeois democracy - not to eliminate democracy altogether....... but socialist democracy is not something which begins only in the promised land, after the foundations of socialist economy are created, it does not come as some sort of Christmas present for the worthy people who, in the interim, have loyally supported a handful of socialist dictators. Socialist democracy begins simultaneously with the beginnings of the destruction of class rule and the construction of socialism. It begins at the very moment of the seizure of power by the Socialist party. It is the same thing as the dictatorship of the proletariat. Yes, dictatorship! But this dictatorship consists in the manner of applying democracy, not in its elimination, but in energetic, resolute attacks upon the well-entrenched rights and economic relationships of bourgeois society, without which a socialist transformation cannot be accomplished. But this dictatorship must be the work of the class and not of a little leading minority in the name of the class - that is, it must proceed step by step out of the active participation of the masses, it must be under their direct influence, subjected to the control of complete public activity; it must arise out of the political training of the mass of the people."
Possibly her  believe in democracy is what failed her philosophically, nevertheless the questions she posed still worth looking at today. She also wrote " the revolution is the sole form of war, and this is also its most vital law - in which the final victory can be prepared only by a sense of defeat.".
She had determination by the buckets and a steely willful commitment.She herself took part  in  revolutionary events , recognising the need of a revolutionary party, which could unite and give a lead in a revolutionary situation, seeing  socialism as a movement of the proletarian masses that should emphasise unity and equality rather than highlight the oppression of any particular group, with an undogmatic commitment to an unfinished notion of freedom that still appeals to many people today.
In November 1918 after four years of war, German society crumbled both at the front at home, and a revolutionary fervour swept the land, the working class took to the streets in a series of strikes and the navy mutinied., though critical with some demands of the revolutionary movement, Rosa threw in her lot with her comrades, believing that she could not simply wait on the sidelines. Subsequently on the night of January 15, 1919 she  and  Liebnecht were abducted, tortured in the luxury Hotel Eden, and then driven seperately to the nearby Tiergarten Park and murdered, Liebknecht was delivered to the  city morgue while Lixemburg was dumped into a canal. They were both 47.
Her body was only recovered five months later after the winter ice had thawed. She was buried next to Liebknecht in the Friedrichstelde Cemetery.
Famously on the evening of her murder almost certainly knowing that her fate was sealed she wrote.
'"The leadership has failed. Even o, the leadership can and must be recreated from the masses and out of the masses. The masses are the decicive element, they are the rock on which the final victors of the revolution will be built. Order reigns in Berlin! Your 'order' is built on sand. Tomorrow the revolution will already raise  itself with a rattle and announce with fanfare, to tour terror; I was, I am, I shall be!"
Today her ideas can be pressed into many meanings. There is a feminist Rosa, an anarchist Rosa, then there is a red Rosa, but she remains an icon in the truest sense of the word.She has become part of Germany's cultural memory, immortalised in art, poetry, an award winning biopic , a musical and a graphic novel. And in her own words too, a well as being a brilliant Marxist theorist. Luxemburg was a prolific writer of letters, and her emotive lyrical writing has seen her emerge as a literary figure in her own right.Here's to Red Rosa, lets hope her spirit is not forgotten. Peace, bread, roses,Her revolutionary socialist politics endure because the struggle against barbarism remain as relevant as ever.
Here is poem written by Bertolt Brecht in 1920 about Rosa.

About the drowned girl - Bertolt Brecht

As she drowned, she swam downwards and was borne,
From the smaller streams to the larger rivers,
In wonder the opal of the heavens shone,
As  if wishing to placate the body that was hers.

Catching hold of her were the seaweed , the algae,
Slowly she became heavy as downwards she went,
Cool fish swam around her legs, freely,
Animals and plants weight to her body lent.

Dark light smoke in the evenings the heavens grew,
But early in the morning the stars dangled, there was light,
So that for her, there remained too,
Morning and evening, day and night.

Her cold body rotted in the waters there,
Slowly, step by step, god too forgot,
First her face, then her hands, and finally her hair
She became carrion of which the rivers have a lot.

 
Luxemburg and Liebknecht are commemorated  every tear on the sexond Sunday of January when red flowers are scattered on their graves.

She was also much admired by Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893 -1978), a muicologit, composer, poet and novelist, who gained little recognition for her poetry during her own lifetime, who once joked, ' I intend to be a posthumous poet!
Like Rosa Luxemburg, she was appalled by the militarim of the First World War. Here is her tribute to Rosa Luxemburg , first published in her 1925 collection The Espalier.

I Bring Her a Flower

Sweet faith
Such looks of quiet hath
That those on whom she’s smiled
Lie down to sleep as easy as a child.

No night,
However dark, can fright
Them, no, nor day
To come, however bleak and fell, dismay.

But sound
Sleep they in prison-bound
As when at liberty
And if they wake, they wake in charity;

Like her,
Who rousing at the jar
Of weary foot in the rain
Pitied the wakeful sentry for his pain.

(1925)

Further Reading

Rosa Luxemburg: A reapraisal - Lelio Besco
Andre Deutsch, 1975.

Rosa Luxemburg: A life
- Elizvieta Ettinga , Beacon Press 1987.

The letters of Rosa Luxemburg, Verso

The essential Rosa Luxemburg :Reform or Revolution and the Mass Strike

Red Rosa;a Graphic  biography of Rosa Luxemburg - Kate Evans. Verso


"either capitalism will continue, with fresh wars and a rapid plunge intp chaos and anarchy, or else capitalist exploitation will be abolished." Rosa Luxemburg 14/12/18 Rote Fahne

"Revolutionary idealism .... can be maintained over any period of time only through the intensely active life of the masses themselves under conditions of unlimited freedom." Rosa Luxemburg

" Being human means throwing  your whole life on the scales of destiny when need be."Rosa Luxemburg

Tomorrows Waiting Room

Among the implaceable infinitude'
flowing  thoughts  uncompromising
to swiftly past grey faces laughing,
lingering thoughts never fading
following earth, moon and sky
watching trees grow, love blossom;
in the treasure trove of lifes duration
we are all floating numbers on the dice,
so touch the flames, and feel your fingers burn
every space contains echoes that implode,
between the contours of life
that will never be  recaptured,
though the cuckoo keeps on calling
nothing stays the same;
tears will form ripples
flooding over points of view
nature  releases shades of answer
in the blurry mists of time,
expanding spirits onwards
new dawns approaching,
rivulets of imagination  unfolding
after rain or shine, nettles will always sting.

Thomas Paine (9/2/1737 -8/6/1809) - Common Sense

Thomas Paine was an English/American political activist, author and political theorist and revolutionary who emigrated to America in 1774. On  January 10 1776, his pamphlet Common Sense  was published for the first time ( though anonymously,because of its treasonous content.). Here he delivered his uncompronising message to the common people, which set the seeds for the American  Revolution.In this important document, he passionately urged the American to create a new form of government - a modern republic, based entirely on popular consent. He believed all men were born equal, so saw no need for Kings and Queens, he also distinguished  between governments and society, at the root of all governments is evil but the root of society lay good. The pamphlet called for the end of British tyranny in the American colonies and a break with a country ruled by kings. Common Sense made its appearance at a crucial moment as the debate for American independence reached a tipping point.
He became a champion of equality and liberty and went on to support struggles in Britain and France, going on to critisise organised religion and the role of the Church. Inspired by Paine, radicalism reached a new audience in the early 1790s, a mass expansion into 'members unlimited' which soon prompted the moderate reformers, the patrician 'Friends of the People', to draw away and apart from the democratic radicals, the plebeian 'Friends of Liberty'.
In Common Sense Paine came  forth with a document so powerful that the Revolution became inevitable. It was sold and distributed widely and read aloud at taverns and meeting places. In proportion to the population of the colonies at that time (2.5 million), it had the largest sale and circulation of any book published in American history. As of 2006, it remains the all-time best selling American title, and is still  in print today.With the publication of this pamphlet, Paine not only galvanized Americans, bu  gave them a voice. His pamphlet changed the American outlook on the war. Although Paine denounced the many British injustices in the pamphlet, the English constitution was the issue that he primarily wrote about in Common Sense. This was not enough on its own to bring about the radical thoughts to the people, so he continued to argue that the people ought to blame the King. Paine stated, “it is simple common sense to break away from such a corrupt and brutal government,” which gives support to his claims that the only solution left is that of independence.
Returning to Europe in 1787, and in response to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, he published his most famous work, The Rights of Man, 1791-2, which advocated the constitutional guarantee of the civil rights of individuals. Paine fled to France and was briefly elected to the French National Convention. Imprisoned for opposing the execution of Louis XVI in 1793, he returned to America in 1802. His promotion of the concept of human rights influenced the American Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.
Sadly  Paine  died in miserable circumstances in New York in 1809, having spent his last years in America often depressed, drunk and diseased. Ten years later  William Cobbett dug up the bones and brought them to England - they have since disappeared - for a national memorial which, alas, has never materialised.

Extracts :-

Of the Origin and Design of Government in General. With Concise Remarks on the English Constitution.

' Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; wheras they are not  only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil, in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, our calamities are heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other law giver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part  of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least.'

Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession

' MANKIND being originally equals in the order of creation, the equality could only be destroyed by some subsequent circumstance, the distinctions of rich and poor may in a great measure be accounted for, and that without having recourse to the harsh ill-sounding names of oppression and avarice. Oppression is often the consequence, but seldom or never the Means of riches, and tho' avarice will preserve a man from being necessitiously poor, it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy.
But there is another and great distinction for which  no truly natural or religious reason can be assigned, and that is the distinction of men into kings and subjects. Male and female are the distinctions of nature, good and bad the distinctions of Heaven; but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth inquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to mankind.'

On the legitimacy of the English Monarchy

'  England, since the conquest, has known some few good monarchs, but groaned beneath as much larger number of bad ones, yet no man in his senses can say that their claim under William the Conqueror is a very honorable one. A French bastard, landing with an armed banditti, and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original. It certainly hath no divinity in it. However, it is needless to spend much time in exposing the folly of hereditary right, if there are any so weak as to believe it, let them promiscuously worship the ass and lion, and welcome. I shall neither copy their humility, nor disturb their devotion.'

On the Cause of Revolution

'  O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia, and Africa, have long expelled her.—Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.'

 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/147

End The Hostile Environment.

Doing my best to reboot after Christmas, still adjusting , feeling rather exhausted at moment, please be patient, normal service hopefully will be resumed shortly, as forces of division reappear ,the atmosphere still unconfortable, on the steps of uncertainty.
Some thoughts  though  as right wing elements like Tommy Robinson acolyte James Goddard make a nuisance of themselves outside Westminster,  and  "UK Yellow Vests," who have started donning high-vis jackets at their standard anti-immigration protests around the country hoping to gain some form of  credibility by aligning themselves with a mass movement that has nothing to do with  them.
Let's remember they are they aren't the Gilet Jaunes (Yellow Vest) movement of  France, who over the last 2 months has  grown from being an anti-tax protest to a generalised revolt against Macron and in some places, capitalism itself. They are though the same  bunch of yellow vest fascists. who  last Saturday saw  them attacking  striking transport workers  from the RMT union , who had been campaigning over cuts to safety-important train guard roles, attacked for being leftist and part of the organised working class. An Asian picket was abused and called a sex offender, paedophile and nonce.One fascist took a video in a vest with Tommy Robinson news written on it, there were people there wearing DFLA and EDL t-shirts, and ex-BNP Liverpool 2012 mayoral candidate Mike Whitby was there abusing pickets.
We have to continue to oppose the far right and fascists in Britain in their attempts to claim the mantle of the "yellow vest " movement here in Britain to stir up racism and Islamphobia, with their racist and divisive policies that combined  with bizarre conspiracy theories and language , that  is so far removed from what has so far been shown in France.
All this happening  at a time when  we have the Tories and the right wing  media  ratcheting up racist scapegoating of refugees and migrants, trying to whip a frenzy about scores of people crossing the Channel and coming to Britain. This hostility is part of the wider hostile environment  against migrants and refugees fleeing poverty and war.  Punitive immigration policies that  mean families are routinely torn apart for not having enough money, and people are criminalized simply for seeking safety, or a better life. In Britain alone, over 30,000 people are locked up in immigration detention centres each year.
We should reflect on the fact  that many of these people left their homes because of reasons outside their control, whether that was conflict, poverty, economic injustice or climate change. The UN’s Refugee Agency estimates that 20 people are forced to flee their homes every second. With global inequality at unprecedented levels,  modern borders have become a form of global apartheid: segregating who can and can’t access resources and opportunity, in Britain there is even an explicit policy aiming to create a ‘hostile environment’ for migrants – launched by the current prime minister, Theresa May, when she was Home Secretary.
Bank managers, NHS staff and landlords are routinely required to perform the role of immigration officers, monitoring people’s immigration status, as borders increasingly become part of everyday life and the government forces undocumented migrants further underground.
The related policy of mass deportation means even those who make it  are often sent back to the very violence and hardship they fled from in the first place. Deadly deportation schemes means people are returned to countries where they risk persecution, torture and even death.  No borders are necessary. Refugees and migrants welcome.  Time  now to untangle these forces  of division and unreason, keep saying no and not giving in  to racist rhetoric, end this hostile envronment now.

Theresa May admits she still hasn't seen 'I, Daniel Blake' after backlash

Theresa May has admitted she cares so much that she has not been bothered to watch the film ' I, Daniel Blake'.
This comes after Tory deputy chairman  James Cleverly was accused of lacking "any sort of humility" over online comments he made about the film.  He faced a barrage of criticism on social media after saying Ken Loach's Bafta  winning drama was  "not a documentary " and  " a work of fiction."
The MP for Braintree later posted a lengthy rebuttal, saying that the welfare system is "far from perfect" the film is a "political polemic" that is unfair on Job Centrre  workers.
The twitter row erupted as it emerged thre next pase of the Governments  flagship welfare  reform will be overhauled following widespread criticism of its planned roll out.
The BBC'S Andrew Marr mistakenly referred to the film as "I, Daniel Craig" but quickly corrected himsef, asking May if she had seen the film when it was broadcast.
She said " I didn't, no. "
He went on to ask her  why she was delaying Universal Credit roll out. May replied. "Throughout the introduction of Universal Credit, we've been very clear that we would roll it out as a steady process, learn as we were going along.
"We've done that. We've made changes to Universal Credit as we've been going along. We'll be saying more about the future in the coming weeks."
But she insisted it would be rolled out by 2020 as originally intended.
The film focused on the Kafkaesque ordeals of a 59-year old widowed carpenter who puts up with  health allowance benefits after suffering a heart attack, and  is an indictment of an entire social system in which Britain’s most vulnerable are being thrown overboard by a cold and cost-conscious bureaucracy that received its marching orders from the combined forces of New Labour and the Tories.
Daniel Blake  has worked as a joiner most of his life in Newcastle. Now, for the first time ever, he needs help from the State. He crosses paths with single mother Katie and her two young children, Daisy and Dylan. Katie’s only chance to escape a one-roomed homeless hostel in London has been to accept a flat in a city she doesn’t know, some 300 miles away.
Daniel and Katie find themselves in no-man’s land, caught on the barbed wire of welfare bureaucracy as played out against the rhetoric of ‘striver and skiver’ in modern-day Britain.
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."
The actress who played  the young single mother, Katie -- Hayley Squires,  who Daniel's character befriends, when the film originally came out  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."
 I, Daniel Blake represents clearly our  Governments utter betrayal of people in need, who just want some  simple sustenance in order to survive, it exposes what is happening in job centres up and down the country. Sadly the Conservatives ideological destruction of our society continues, people on a daily basis  are being screwed by the Tories, in complete denial of peoples need for dignity and respect..I look forward to the day, when we say enough is enough. Sadly as Universal Credit is rolled out there will be many more Daniel Blakes among us, unless this cruel policy is stopped and scrapped and we get the bloody Tory's out.  Otherwise the human cost will be one of further misery and pain for many of the most vulnerable across the land, claimants pushed to the edge because of Theresa May and the Tory's conscious cruelty.

How We Can Win - Slovo (featuring John Rees)

Stirring stuff here from Dave Randall and Slovo, featuring John Rees,  proclaiming the importance of our movement, well worth a listen. A great way to set the intention for the new year.

John Rees is a writer, broadcaster and activist, and is one of the organisers of the People’s Assembly.

He is  also co-founder of the Stop the War Coalition.

"There wont be a rehearsal. We have one chance to bring down this corrupt Tory Government and that chance is now"!!

If you export armaments. Don't complain about importing refugees!

Following Home Secretary   publicly casting doubts on whether migrants were "genuine" asylum seekers, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn warned the government to treat refugees crossing the English channel in a "humanitarian" way, reminding us that the  refugees are "the product of wars, they are the product of human rights abuses,they are the product of environmental disasters.
Lets not forget the UK nearly doubled the value of arms sales to countries on the government’s list of human rights abusers in the past year, these arms sales don’t just provide dictatorships and human rights abusers with the means to kill, they also give them a huge degree of political support.
Migrants are escaping countries where our Government is complicit  in dropping bombs, selling arms, supporting dictators or otherwise contributing to instability and repression. If we're serious about supporting refugees, we need to be serious about ending the wars and policies that create them. We need to take responsibility for our part in causing the tremendous problems driving people from their homes, and the continuous flow of arms from the UK to the Middle East and North Africa that keeps on fuelling the chaos in this region.
The majority of people arriving in the UK come from the war-torn countries of Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, where European and broader western interventions and policies, including the arms trade, have added to violence and chaos. Arms exports to the Middle East and North Africa in the last decade, are fuelling war (Yemen, Syria), armed conflicts (Iraq, Turkey, Libya) and human rights violations (Egypt, Saudi Arabia),maaassive increase in weapons to Israel to keep ethnic cleansing the Palestinian population and murder their protestors.The UK Government is quietly fuelling conflict and exacerbating  humanitarian crises potentially in breach of both domestic and international laws on the sales of arms.These laws prohibit arms deals where there is a clear risk that they might be used to commit war crimes or human rights abuses.So many rogue regimes snd militia armed to the teeth by UK arms companies. Then we have the cheek to complain when the victims of these horrors try and escae the hell thesse weapons hep bring about.
We need to change course and put the lives and fundamental rights of refugees first.Reducing conflict and its crushing human consequences would be a good step forward  and putting more energy into resolving conflicts than is currently being poured into fighting them with bombs that fuel and escalate the problems. We also need a new arms policy that curbs shipments to human rights abusers and war zones — not through lip service, but by stopping sales completely, including the establishment of an embargo on arms sales to the Middle East and North Africa. Heartless Sajid Javid the son of a refugee needs reminding  that his Governments policies are helping create instability across the globe, and simply put if you keep bombing refugees countries, they will keep arriving on our shores, he and his Tory chums  would do well  if they stopped pouring gas on the fires.

Carpe Diem

Flwyddyn newydd da/ Happy new year

How do you  measure time
Greenwich Meantime? Business World?
Or Solstices, equinoxes, nature drifting, space time continual?
If you travel far enough in space for long enough
You will come back younger than world population,
Time equals personal perception that is always on the run
Sit down watch a good movie, see how world  passes quickly.
Sit with nothing to do, see the arms on the clock move very slowly.
Has the last year been a dream? When does dreaming switch to reality?
Ah the kindness that delivers, after the off-licence has shut
Soon the present will once again become the past,
Heading towards meltdown, oh no it's not that bad
Remember that life ebbs away ever so fast,
In synthesis of reality, hear the ticking of clocks
Everyday is precious in the cacaphony of existence,
As time moves on, a new year arrives
All of us the same, brittle as sand,
Keep defying the walls that divide
Racism, bigotry, fascism and greed,
Bury yesterdays despair, no point holding on to
Move forwards into paths unknown,
Sketch a future where we all co-exist
Seize the day, carpe diem,
Embrace all life's pleasures
Love and resistance,
Smoke pipes of peace
Let kindness blossom.

The tradition of the Mari Llwyd / Y Fari Lwyd

The tradition of Y Fari Lwyd   which translates to Grey Mary or Grey Mare in English is one of the strangest and most ancient of a number of customs in which people in Wales have used to mark the passing of the darkest days of midwinter.  It certainly has pre-Christian origins and is said to bring luck.Though the tradition's exact origins are murky, the image of a white horse has been a powerful symbol in the United Kingdom for at least 3,000 years. In Celtic Britain, the horse was seen as a symbol of power and fertility and prowess on the battlefield. In Celtic mythology, animals who had the ability to cross between this world and the underworld (the Celtic Annwn) are traditionally white or grey coloured. Arawn, the King of Annwn’s dogs, is white with red ears and he rides on a large grey horse.

The first written record of Mari Lwyd dates back to 1800, in J. Evans’ book ‘A Tour through Part of North Wales’.Traditionally a New Year’s Eve luck bringing ritual Y Fari Lwyd consists of making a horse figure from a horse's skull,( though a genuine horse’s skull is gold dust these days ) with two black cloth ears sometimes sewn onto the cloth, making it look extra horrible, and the eye sockets are often filled with green bottle-ends, or other colored material decorative false ears and eyes attached.They adorn it with colorful reins, bells and ribbons and the equine image of death has an especially ghostly appearance thanks to the white sheet draped over the person carrying it.The lower jaw is sometimes spring-loaded, so that Mari's operator can snap it at passers by or householders. 

The Fari Lwyd and her group go from house to house and pub to pub and try to gain access by performing a series of verses, or ‘pwnco’ in Welsh. The inhabitants would reply with their own verses in a battle to outwit Mari and her gang and prevent her from entering.

Wel, dyma ni'n dwad

Gyfelillion diniwad

I' mofyn am gennad - i ganu 

(Translation: Behold here we come, simple friends, to ask for permission to sing.)

Rhowch glywed, wyr doethion 

Pa faint ycho ddynion, 

A pheth yn wych union - 

yw'ch enwau? 

(Translation: Let us hear, wise men, how many of you there are, and what exactly are your names?)

Eventually she will be let in, as this confers luck on the household for the coming year and scares out anything unwanted from the previous year. Once inside, more songs are sung and the group is given drinks and food.

The Mari party consists of commedia del’arte characters. The Merryman plays the fiddle; The Leader, plus top hat, holds the Mari’s reins; The Sergeant keeps the peace. Pwnsh a Siwan (Punch and Judy) are played by two male characters. 

When the house was entered, Y Fari paid special attention to the female occupants. This was done by neighing at the women as well as biting and nudging them. The Merryman played his fiddle while Punch and Judy began their show. 

Judy entered with her broom to clean the hearth. She was then knocked to the floor by Punch who ran around attempting to kiss the women of the household. Punch was then chased through the house by Judy and hit with her broom. 

Having sung and danced, the party would sit to eat food and drink ale. On their departure, the Mari Lwyd wished the household a Happy New Year.

Dymunwn ich lawenydd

I gynnal blwyddyn newydd 

Tra paro'r gwr i dincian cloch

Well, well y boch chwi beunydd 

(Translation: We wish you joy to live a new year; as long as the man tinkles his bell, may you improve daily.)

The practice of disguising the characters was to preserve anonymity and to distance them from everyday life. This tradition of blackening or colouring the face to take on another ‘character’ can be found in most indigenous cultures and in Britain in the older Morris sides.

The tradition has similarities to other hooded animal customs in Britain, such as the ‘Hoodening’ in Kent, the ‘Broad’ in the Cotswolds and ‘The Old Tup’ in Derbyshire, which involved a group of poor people trying to find food and money in the harsh depths of the winter. 

Although the custom was given various names, it was best known as the Mari Lwyd; however, the etymology of this term remains the subject of academic debate. 

The folklorist Iorwerth C. Peate believed that the term meant “Holy Mary” and thus was a reference to Mary, mother of Jesus, while fellow folklorist E. C. Cawte thought it more likely that the term had originally meant “Grey Mare”, thus referring to the heads’ equine appearance.

In other instances, the Mari Lwyd custom is given different names, with it being recorded as y Wasail “The Wassail” in parts of Carmarthenshire.  In the first half of the 19th century it was recorded in Pembrokeshire under the name of y March “The Horse” and y Gynfas-farch “The Canvas Horse”

The industrial revolution and the rise of fire-and-brimstone chapel preaching had a serious effect on the Mari Lwyd. The parties had gained a bad reputation for drunkenness and vandalism as they roamed the villages. Many a sermon was preached against the continuance of such a pagan and barbaric practice, and the participants were urged to do something useful instead, such as taking part in eisteddfodau. Enter Nefydd, the Rev. William Roberts (1813-1872), a Denbighshire man who became a Blaenau Gwent Baptist minister. He hated the Mari Lwyd. He wrote a book entitled The Religion Of The Dark Ages, gave a detailed account of the Mari and transcribed 20 verses, so his congregation could recognise it. He campaigned with great fervour: “We must try and get the young people of our time more to interest themselves more in intellectual and substantial things such as reading and composing poetry, essays, singing etc, as is encouraged and practised in our Eisteddfodau… I wish of this folly, and of all similar follies, that they find no place anywhere apart from the museum of the historian and the antiquary.”

Christmas carols began to be sung at the doors  instead and the battle of insults and verse dissapeared, and in some areas the Welsh language gave way to English. By the 1960's  the custom of the Mari had almost died out. Only a few Mari processions were left by this time  including in Pencoed near Bridgend and Pentyrch near Cardiff. 

But the Welsh population hungrily seized on the fragments of the Mari’s tradition, and – thanks to Nefydd – we can now study the Mari verses in all their true splendour, and thankfully there has been a growing interest in Y Fari Lwyd in recent years, which has seen a resurgence in groups performing this tradition across Wales, Maris can now be spotted from Holywell in Flintshire to Pembrokeshire  involving bardic battles, revelry and much drinking. I do like a good revival, especially of something as unique and unusual as this.The strength of the Mari tradition can be measured at the National Eisteddfod, which takes place in August. At one Eisteddfod, 30 Maris turned up. Wonderful stuff long may this tradition continue to grow.

https://hellohistoria.blogspot.com/2020/12/a-horse-skull-draped-with-ribbons-mari.html?m=1

The tradition of the Mari Llwyd  - BBC Cymru

A short history

Happy Birthday Warrior Poet Patti Smith

The legendary influential singer songwriter punk poet laureatte Patti Smith  turns 72 today. Smith was born in Chicago in om 30/12/1946, and was raised in New Jersey to former Jazz singer Beverly and mechanist Grand Smith. Even as a child, Smith felt that she was born to do great things despite her physical reality as an unpopular young girl who was not especially talented in school. Her vivid young imagination helped her through a difficult childhood. She was bullied by other kids due to her sickly appearance and poor background. The vague sense that she would grow up into something amazing was what kept her going, in spite of the odds.
After graduating high school in 1964, Smith immediately went to work in a factory, a short experience she hated so much that she titled the song about her time there as ‘Piss Factory’, which was her first single alongside the song ‘Hey Joe’. Putting meaningless drudgery behind her, Smith then decided to pursue art, and was set on becoming an art teacher until she was rejected for her refusal to abide by traditions.

Piss Factory - Patti Smith

Determined as ever, Smith then moved to New York in 1967 and worked in bookstores, where she began writing poetry.Patti Smith has been influenced by artists as diverse as Arthur Rimbaud, Antonin Artaud and William Blake, Jimi Hendrix,Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. As a high school student she was interested in jazz and poetry, and her early creative works were poems. Drawn to the act of performing her work, she read her poems with a guitarist, eventually adding an entire band. Spurred by her love for music dating back to her youth, Smith would eventually team up with her friends, playwright Sam Sheppard, Robert Mapplethorpe the photographer and writer/composer Lenny Kaye to read poetry, which soon would lead to her musical future.
Smith first published her poems in 1972, the same year she co-wrote a play, Cowboy Mouth, with Sam Shepard. Since then she has published a number of collections of verse, including Babel (1978), Early Work, 1970–1979 (1994), The Coral Sea (1996), and Patti Smith Complete: Lyrics, Reflections & Notes for the Future (1998).   Spurred by her love for music dating back to her youth, Smith would eventually team up with her friends, playwright Sam Sheppard, Robert Mapplethorpe the photographer and writer/composer Lenny Kaye to read poetry, which soon would lead to her musical future.
Smith’s 1975 debut album ‘Horses’ is still her most popular work of art to this day, and is one of the most acclaimed debut albums of all time. It was a wild commercial success at the start and loved by the critics too, who praised Smith’s amateur-yet-passionate vocals, combined  with an an explosive mix of androgyny , rebellion ,and relentless energy long have I thought of her as incendiary. At the time, Smith had feared that Rock and Roll was dying, and so she wished to help shake things up and inject some new life in a way that only she could.

Gloria - Patti Smith

Re-billing her act as the Patti Smith Group to give due credit to her band, ahe released her second album Radio Etthiopia in 1976. The Patti Smith Group then acieved a commercial breakthrough with Easter in 1978.All seminal pieces of art in my humble opinion, that I treasure.

Patti Smith - Dancing Barefoot

In 1979 she fell off the punk rock scene radar completely, for her own choice. She married, she moved to Detroit and she had two children with the former MC5 guitarist Fred Smith. But such an artist as Patti Smith couldn’t live without it for long, so she came back with Dream of Life in 1988. The new album featured her husband and it included People Have the Power, another successful single.

Patti Smith - People have the power

Patti only started touring again after a series of tragedies in her life. Some friends of hers, her husband and her brother died over a short period of time and she decided to keep making music to honour them. She moved back to New York around 1994 and she started touring with Bob Dylan in 1995 and released a new album in 1996, Gone Again.
Her work a fusion of rock and poetry,  she writes in a stream-of-consciousness style, often meditating on questions of mortality and faith. Of her 2008 Auguries of Innocence, critic Donna Seaman wrote that Smith “presents lithe works unsettling in their spiritual inquiry, archetypal imagery, and dissonant juxtapositions.” Being a social activist most of her life, she’s always focused her poetic vision on topics that concern the world., believing  that poetry, music, and art should be used as a link to expose what’s going on with the world. But that’s not enough. It must work as inspiration to make people aware and push them to act.Patti Smith,  is not only the rock icon of a whole generation but also a committed artist visionary  in every possible manner, whose spirit has nurtured generations. Smith holds to a deeply romantic belief that the true artist is an outsider and a visionary, someone who is able ‘to see what others could not’, as she puts it in her memoir Just Kids (2010). She believes in the power of art and the mythology of rock and roll, believes in poetry and music as means of transcendence. She believes that poetry makes things happen. ‘i haven’t fucked much with the past,’ she declares in the prose poem ‘Babelogue’, ‘but i’ve fucked plenty with the future.’ She is, above all, a believer. all this has all earned her a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 2005, and in 2007 she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On November 17, 2010, she won the National Book Award for her memoir Just Kids.

Feedback and Poetry - Patti Smith



She still remains a pivotal figure in the New York arts scene and probably her most prolific and deepest works were created in the last 20 years. Perhaps experience and the multiple tragedies she’s experienced throughout her life made her more acute to understand the human experience better. There are many forms of magic Smith just a particle.With her powerful voice she has left her mark in music history and culture forever. My love for Patti Smith’s music, has been one of  joyous liberation , intoxication and education.So happy birthday to this warrior poet,  still fighting for beauty truth and  and justice. Long may she continue to inspire.

Patti Smith - Because the night

Patti Smith: Poem about Arthur Rimbaud
clip from Stephen Sebring's 2008 film documentary
"Patti Smith- Dream of Life.

Patti Smith  Interview - Poems are like Prayers