Remembering Deir Yassin

 

As the Israeli election takes place on April 9, 2019  the Palestnian people will  mark the 71st year since since two extremist, underground, paramilitary groups, the Irgun (National Military Organisation) and the Lehi (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel, also known as the Stern Gang), both of which were aligned with the right-wing Zionist movement; they have been described as “Jewish terrorist” groups attacked in the early hours of the morning Deir Yassin, a village at the western entrance of Jerusalem containing 750 Palestinian residents. By the time  the villagers realized the intensity of the terrorist attack, hundreds were already dead, the Zionist militia  murdered over 250 - 360 Palestinian villagers in cold blood wounding  many others. Many of the bodies were tossed  in the village well,  and 159 captured women and children  were paraded  through the Jewish sectors of Jerusalem.
Two days after the massacre, Jacques de Reynier, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation in Palestine, visited Deir Yassin. In his personal memoirs, published in 1950, he recalled seeing the bodies of over 200 dead men, women and children: “[One body was] a woman who must have been eight months pregnant, hit in the stomach, with powder burns on her dress indicating she’d been shot point-blank.”

On 14 April, Assistant Inspector-General Richard Catling of the British Palestine Police, conducted interviews with female survivors of the massacre taking refuge in the nearby Palestinian town of Silwan. In a subsequent report he concluded that there was “no doubt” that the Jewish groups had committed numerous sexual atrocities against the villagers.

“Many young schoolgirls were raped and later slaughtered. Old women were also molested. One story is current concerning a case in which a young girl was literally torn in two. Many infants were also butchered and killed. I also saw one old woman who gave her age as one hundred and four who had been severely beaten about the head with rifle butts.”

What happened in Deir Yassin prepared the ground for the ethnic cleansing of 70% of the Palestinian people. The same ethnic cleansing that occurred then is unfortunately going on today. In 1948 they used direct massacres, but today they use airstrikes in Gaza and shoot innocent young Palestinians in the West Bank. Yassin was not an isolated incident; such a heartbreaking tragedy was flagrantly carried out in conjunction with “Plan Dalet.” Based on a policy of ethnic cleansing and terror, “Plan Dalet” was implemented by the Haganah to force Palestinians to flee their homes and to destroy their villages with the deliberate intent of establishing the State of Israel on Palestinian soil.
The massacre took place against the backdrop of the bitter conflict that preceded the end of the British Mandate in Palestine. Just months before, in November 1947, the UN had proposed the division of Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state, with Jerusalem administrated independently of either side by an international body. The Arabs rejected the UN proposal and the conflict became even more intense.
The village  lay outside of the area assigned by the United Nations to the 'Jewish State'. It had a peaceful reputation, the Deir Yassin villagers had signed a non aggression pact with the leaders of the adjacent Jewish Quarter, Giv'at Shaul and had even refused military personnel from the Arab Liberation Army from using the village as a base.An Israeli psychiatric hospital now lies on the ruins of Deir Yassin, the remainder of which was bulldozed in the 1980s to make way for new settlements  and incorporated as a neighbourhood of Jerusalem. These streets shamefully carry the names of the Irgun militiamen who carried out the massacre.A year later the settlement  Kafar Shaul was founded on this site. In the 1980's the remains of Dier Yassin wwere bulldozed to make room for new settlements. The streets of these new neighbourhoods were named after members of the Irgun family.For Palestinians and their supporters, the massacre is a symbol. that marks  their deep sense  of dispossession.News of the indiscriminate killings sparked terror among Palestinians, causing many to flee from their towns and villages in the face of Jewish advances.It is remembered as the pivotal onset of the 1948 Nabka. Deir Yassin is the "other shoe that fell," sparking over 750,000 to flee from their homes, 80 percent of the population at that time, from their homes so that Israel, a colonialist settler state, could be created on their land.Over two million scattered in a far-flung diaspora today, in what remains at the heart of the Israel/Palestine conflict.
The massacre at Deir Yassin is what many historians and commentators have described as a relentless effort to destroy Palestine as a nation, acting as a reminder of the inhumanity and brutality at the heart of the ongoing occupation and refugee crisis.in what many historians and commentators have described as a relentless effort to destroy Palestine as a nation. Seventy one years it still remains an important reminder of Israel’s systematic measures of displacement, destruction, dispossession, and dehumanization.In keeping with Simon Wiesenthal's observation that "Hope lives when people remember," the suffering of the Jews has been rightly acknowledged and memorialised. But there are few memorials for Palestinians who died in 1948 and since. Their history, in which the massacre at Deir Yassin is a very significant event, has been largely buried and forgotten. And yet, like the descendants of the victims in Armenia (1915-17), in the Soviet Union (1929-53), in Nazi Germany (1933-45), in China (1949-52, 1957-60, and 1966-76), and in Cambodia (1975-79), the descendants of Palestinians want the world to remember what they suffered, what they lost and why they died. The calculated efforts by Israel to completely erase the history, narrative and physical presence of the Palestinian people will not be simply ignored or forgotten. It also serves to ask ourselves the question what  turns a victim into an abuser,a bully that keeps blaming its victims? And over the years we've been taught many things, that invasion was not invasion, occupation was not occupation, apartheid was not apartheid,ethnic cleansing was not ethnic cleansing,and that land theft was not land theft and Palestine was not Palestine.
But many years later the Palestinian peoples collective voice can still be heard from the refugee camps of Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, to the towns of the West Bank and Gaza, to the ghettos inside the Israeli green line. This determination and resilience has earned them respect and support of an increasing number of people around the world. Despite the humiliation and pain of their  occupation, you can't kill their  indomitable spirit and struggle.

 Phil Monsour featuring Rafeef Ziadah - Ghosts of Deir Yassin

  The writing on the hands are the names of the original villages in Palestine that these people were ethnically cleansed

Ghosts of Deir Yassin
They pretend that it’s forgotten
But somewhere small flowers grow
On the weathered stones of destroyed homes
Somewhere the light’s still in the window
You see that we are rising our day is surely coming
No longer in the shadows
Of the ghosts of Deir Yassin
They change the names on the signs
But it’s in our hearts these words are written
Of the children who don’t know their homes
They will walk the streets from which they are forbidden
You see that we are rising our day is surely coming
No longer in the shadows
Of the ghosts of Deir Yassin

Six years after Margaret Thatcher's death, time to bury her legacy once for all

 

Six years after Margaret Thtacher's death Grantham’s most infamous daughter many of us are still unable to forgive her for the devastation she wrought to our communities, the damage  she caused to our industries, our whole way of life. She fought against the miners, not giving a hoot, or  an inch of compromise, then   put her sights on our welfare state, whilst leaving an entire generation to be thrown on the scrapheap.
Her whole twisted ideology  was to try and tear up the post 1945 consensus and privatise our public services, sell of our nationalised industries, whilst smashing up Trade Union rights, embarking on a systematic  path of of destruction. Carving up the land, shifting  the balance of social economic wealth between the rich and poor, very much  detrimental  to the latter.
Being kind, she was just a sower of destruction,  not  an ounce of compassion within her, a creator of mass unemployment too, a fosterer of division with her cruel policies. A liar too, about Hillsborough, who also bombed retreating ships.While systematically eroding the notion of a welfare state that cares for people from cradle to grave, Thatcher boosted the coercive power of the state. This was most obvious in the Miners’ Strike, during which she characterised the miners as ‘the enemy within’ and sanctioned massive police brutality against pit communities, and an approach to Northern Ireland which demonised resistance to the British imperialist state and bolstered discrimination against Catholics. She also let Republican prisoners starve to death in northern Ireland’s jails,
Thatcher left behind a record of cruelty and ruthlessness not only in Britain but also in such far-flung places as El Salvador, Grenada, Argentina, South Africa. In these places and more she unleashed British military power against peoples fighting for justice and dignity, or she backed the violence of the U.S. government in doing the same. Thatcher forged a close political and military alliance with the U.S. under presidents Reagan and Bush Sr, and while she shafting all and sundry she still managed to be friends with right wing dictators like Pinochet and P.W Botha.
I can never forgive her. She remains one of the most divisive figures to have emerged, responsible froo creating misery ad suffering to millions, while selling of what belonged to the people.
She is still hated and always will be, despite her pulse stopping, her  awful legacy lives  on, in the toxicity that is carried on by Theresa May's rotten tory party, still here spreading the same stinking doctrine. The scars and pain she caused remain as the rich get richer and the poor, poorer.
The witch might be dead, but the stench of Thatcherism still unfortunately, fills the air, her dark legacy still daily spread,  her political heirs are trying to extend the damage she did in ways she only dreamed of with the same destructive policies impacting on the lives of millions of working class and poor people.It is surely time I think, that we bury her awful legacy, once and for all.

Hubert Humphrey once said  that “the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”

IMMORTAL: Mourning, Martyrs & Murals: an anthology.

 

This beautiful book arrived in the post this morning, which is dedicated to to  YPJ volunteer Anna Campbell  who was killed during the assault on Afrin  by Turkish forces  in March last year. It is also in memory of other international volunteers who have been killed fighting alongside the YPG.
In April 2017, Anna Campbell made the journey to Rojava the Kurdish region of Syria, to join the Kurdish struggle against fascism. She was inspired by the revolution because of the politics of direct democracy, feminism and environmentalism and fought with the YPJ (Women’s Protection Units), Women’s liberation, direct democracy and the environment are central to the Kurdish movement and echoed Anna’s own politics. Eleven months later in March 2018, she was killed alongside Sara Merdin and Serhilden by Turkish Forces while defending Afrin,  resisting the illegal invasion by the Turkish state which has cost hundreds of innocent lives. Their bodies were never recovered. Here is a link to a post I wrote at the time of her death. https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2018/03/anna-campbell-death-of-freedom-fighter.html A year later, several hundred people protested and blocked roads Bristol in her memory and in solidarity with the progressive revolution in Rojava, northern Syria.

To commemorate the first year after Anna, Sara and Serhilden’s deaths,  IMMORTAL: Mourning, Martyrs & Murals: an anthology, is a powerful collection of prose, poetry, photos and art that is both a moving tribute to Anna and a message that speaks to anyone suffering from the grief of losing a friend or family member too early. Throughout the demo, the chant “Anna is with us. We fight on” rang through the crowd. And this sentiment is echoed throughout the book. One of the first pieces in the book states:
But we are here because we are determined to make sure that her legacy is one of taking action. It is not enough to believe in an ideal. Everyone is responsible for taking action. You have to build the world you want to live in and fight to defend it.
It concludes: The fire within her that moved her to go and fight has now been lit within all of us and while it burns she will live on with it.

The Following originally published by Freedom News.

Anna’s loved ones have collaborated on this project as a counter-move to the pervading media narrative. The book battles with the emotions and experiences of those trying to move forward through grief in the midst of media hysteria and political turmoil. It explores the anger, pain, and guilt faced by those left behind; and scrutinises the meaning of comradeship, friendship, and family.
Whilst instigated by comrades of Anna’s, this book includes texts and images relating to Haukur Hilmarsson. Haukur, an Icelandic revolutionary, was killed in Afrin just one month before Anna in February 2018. Opening the book out to contributions relating to Haukur intends to illustrate the connections beyond family and friendship found through the shared experience of traumatic bereavement; it’s about mutuality and commonality found in the threads of everyday struggle.

We will never forget those who struggled until the last moment to defend people, their land and their ideas

The publication was printed by Calverts Printers Cooperative, meaning each book is of a high quality and made from ethically sourced materials. Being a cooperative, the workers are paid a fair wage for their labour.
Buy IMMORTAL: Mourning, Martyrs & Murals: an anthology here.
Preview the project here.

They still need to make a lot of money back to cover their costs, so please support this  important book and help keep the fire of Anna Campbell alive, who ignited in us an inspiration for a better world for generations to come. We may be worlds apart, but its our responsibility to  keep fighting for human rights. The struggle continues! Support the Kurdistan Solidarity Campaign.

World of echo ( dedicated to Arthur Russell 21/5/51- 4/3/92)

Spent the morning revisiting the work of Arthur Russell 
inspired me to write the following words.

World of echo

It should not be a crime to be sad
eternities music at least releases a smile,
deep but unbroken, love returns
moving round in everlasting circles,
catching our revolving reflections.

Melancholia always has a place
flickering in the day with grace,
making noises of sustainment
generating light to break the pain,
before escape becomes infinite.

Alpha is past, Omega is future
lovers breeze continues to serenade,
garnered from a myriad of stars
to kiss and awaken sources within,
a world of echo will keep on calling.

Sparks of Memory.

Memories of the past, in times of strife
The breath of Nye Bevan bought alive,
The ghost of Dic Penderyn, the hosts of Rebecca
In a pitch black night, fiercely unbroken,
The faithful still gathering that storms cannot fade
History remembered, struggle as hope,
Stitches of time, clothed in rebellious man
Dreams bought alive, surviving clear and true,
In books of precious thought, giving hope in darkness
Ideological treasures for eternity, to set minds free,
Sparks of imagination, withstanding the tests of time
Beams of reason,glowing like tempests on the eternal sea.

Anne Waldman (2/4/45) - Poet of Consciousness

Internationally recognised  and acclaimed poet Anne Waldman is 74 years young today. A prominent figure in the beat poetry generation. She has been an active member  of the 'Outrider' experimental poetry community, a culture she has helped create  and nurture for over four decades as writer, editor, teacher, performer, feminist magpie scholar, infrastructure curator,  and cultural/ political activist of immense passion.
Born in Millville, New Jersey, Waldman only lived in New Jersey very briefly She grew up  on Macdougal Street in the heart of Greenwich Village where she still lives, on Beat Poetry and jazz, influences that have strongly persisted in her work, along with the second generation of the New York School. Her practice of Tibetan Buddhism has also deeply influenced her work.
The Late Allen Ginsberg, with whom she co-founded the Jack Kerouac School of Diembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, called her his 'spiritual wife.'
In 1976, Waldman and Ginsberg were featured in Bob Dylan's film, Renaldo and Clara. They worked on the film while traveling through New England and Canada with the Rolling Thunder Revue, a concert tour that made impromptu stops, entertaining enthusiastic crowds with poetry and music. Waldman, Ginsberg, and Dylan were joined on these caravans by musicians such as Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Eric Anderson, and Joe Cocker. Waldman reveled in the experience, and she often thought of recreating the poetry caravan.
Waldman married Reed Bye in 1980, and their son, Edwin Ambrose Bye was born on October 21, 1980. The birth of her son proved to be an "inspiring turning point" for Waldman, and she became interested in and committed to the survival of the planet. Her child, she said, became her teacher. Waldman and Ambrose Bye perform frequently, and the two have created Fast Speaking Music and have produced multiple albums together.
For nearly half a century she has channelled her passions and experiences into poetry, urging us toward civic and political responsibility, long has she been committed to the survival of the planet, working actively for social change, and was arrested in the 1970s with Daniel Ellsberg & Allen Ginsberg protesting the site of Rocky Flats which was bringing plutonium onto property 10 miles from Boulder for the manufacture of “triggers” for nuclear warheads.  She has been a vocal proponent for feminist, environmental, and human rights causes; an active participant in Poets Against the War; and she has helped organize protests in New York and Washington, D.C.
She is recipient  of the Shelley Memorial Award from  the Poetry Society of America and is the author of over 40 books of poetry. She is also editor of The Beat Book (Shambhala Publications) and co-editor of The Angel Hair Anthology (Granary Books), Civil Disobediences: Poetics and Politics in Action (Coffee House) and Beats at Naropa (Coffee House, 2009), with previously unpublished work by Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Diane diPrima, Joanne Kyger and William Burroughs, among others.
Her latest book that came out last year was Trickster Feminism an edgy, visionary collection that meditates on gender, existence, passion and activism, uniting  feminist history, Buddhist lore, contemporary politics, quantum physics, and more in a text of protest and upheaval.
She sees her poetry performances as  'a ritualised event in time'. She is conceptual, visionary, prophetic, and living icon for future generations, carrying on the Beat tradition. Long may she continue to inspire, hold on to her premise of imaginative consciousness, remaining vibrant and unpredictable.Her powerful genuine poetry to be felt. Happy birthday Anne Waldman.

Fossil Fuel - Anne Waldman and Ambrose Bye

The Lie

Art begins with a lie
     The seperation is you plus me plus what we make
           Look intolightbulb blink, sun's in your eye

I want a rare sky
     vantage point free from misconception
    Art begins with a lie

Nothing to lose, spontaneous rise
     of reflection, paint the picture
          of a lightbulb, or eye the sun

How to fuel the world, then die
     Distance yourself from artfulness
         How? Art begins with a lie

The audience wants to cry
   when the actors are real & passionate
       Look into footlight, then feed back to eye

You fluctuate in an artful body
    You try to imitate the world's glory
        Art begins with a lie
             That's the story, sharp speck in the eye.

From: Helping the Dreamer:Selected Poems, 1966-1988

Holy 21st Century 

Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
Holy! Holy! Holy!
Is the composite world holy? Holy phonemes holy neurons!
Holy the 5 senses! Holy the aggregates of being!
Holy impermanence! Holy the inter-connectedness of all beings!
Karma of atrocities holy and un-holy!
Is 21st century endless continuation of 20th century war holy?
Environmental degradation continuation
Of 20th century environmental degradation holy?
Every Woman’s a holy dakini! Matriot acts holy!
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
Holy! Holy! Holy!
Body parts blown over the charnel ground holy!
Eyes ears nose hands mouth holy!
Manipulated Bible holy? Koran holy? Anarchist tracts holy? Fatwas holy?
Geneva Convention holy? Holy Contract with America,
come on citizens, is that holy?
Star Wars’ “Rods from Hod” holy? Daisy cutters holy?
Thermobaric version of the Hellfire Missile that can turn corners
and blast into caves holy?
Allen’s Ginsberg’s “Mysterious rivers of tears under the sheets” holy!
Holy Kerouac’s “tender reward!”
Holy Baghdad! Holy Dharamsala! Holy Columbine!
Holy Kabul! Holy Israel/Palestine! Holy Bosnia! Holy Rwanda!
Holy Manahatta Isle! Holy Trade Center! Holy East Timor!
Holy Justice! Holy forgiveness! Holy Truth! Holy Accountability!
Baghram holy? Guantánamo holy? Abu Ghraib unholy!
All hooded torture un-holy! All bodily sadistic harm un-holy!
All the hate un-holy! Big lies unholy! All the rape un-holy!
Unholy! Unholy! Unholy! Unholy! Unholy! Unholy!
Holy rap! Holy hip hop! Holy klezmer! Holy Afro-pop!
Holy jazz! Holy gamelan!
Holy pneumatic drills boring into the depths of Brooklyn!
Holy old slave graves!
False the military recruitment centers
Knocking on tenement doors get a fresh martyr for!
Holy Creeley! Holy Lucia Berlin! Holy Jackson MacLow!
Holy Brakhage! Holy Carl Rakosi! Holy Philip Lamantia!
Holy Steve Lacy, blowing his saxophone in heaven!
Cloning holy? Stem cells holy?
Amphetamine holy? Un-holy the polarized universe!
Holy the unfettered Universe!
Holy Negative Capability! Holy No Ideas But In Things!
Holy Projective Verse! Holy Modal Structures!
Banish grief & greed
o compassionate green-skinned savioress of the Mind
HOLY OM TARA HOLY TUTTH TARA HOLY TURE SOHA

Anne Waldman - Battery

Here she reads her poem "Battery" as part of Dear Poet, the Academy of American Poets educational project for National Poetry Month 2017

Anne Waldman - Reading from Manatee/Humanity

Anne Waldman: Poetry in Performance

Join her here and listen to some of here shamanic and subversive poems
at a reading at Eastern Illinois University 2009.

Support the Kurdish Hunger Strikers

There will be a major march next  Sunday in solidarity with Kurdish  hunger strikers.
https://www.facebook.com/events/837556986578942/

Imam Sis  a well known activist in Newport, South Wales . currently living at the Kurdish Community Centre, who has lived in the UK for 14 years after coming to the UK as a political refugee. He has now exceeded 100 days of hunger strike, aince 17 December 2018, the longest in British history, and is surviving on only vitamin tablets, salty water, and a glass of lemonade a day. Read his article in the Independent  http://bit.do/eM8is

" As a Kurd, my commitment to a world of justice, equality and demoracy forced me to leave Turkey and beome a politial refugee in  the United Kingdom fifteen years ago. I have been living in Newport, Wales since 2014, where I am actively involved in struggles for coexistane and equality."

Imam Sis  on hunger strike since 17 December, 2018

7,000 more Kurds are now on indefinite hunger strike in the prisons of Turkey, in Kurdistan, Europe and North America demanding that Turkey abide by the European Convention of Human Rights ( to which it is a signatory) and allow imprisoned  Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan , access to lawyers and family visits.

Jailed by Turkey since 1999, Ocalan is the recognised leader of the Kurdish liberation movement. Since 2011, his lawyers have been unable to met with him.The isolation of  Abdullah Ocalan is contrary to Turkey’s own constitution and to international human rights law.Solitary confinement is commonly regarded as a form of torture, one that Öcalan has had to endure since his arrest in 1999. Ocalan’s ideas have inspired a major movement for grassroots, multi-ethnic secular democracy, and the respect in which he is held makes him key to a peaceful settlement for the Kurds in Turkey – an ideal for which he has strived repeatedly over the last two decades. Despite his continuing imprisonment he has made the whole world acknowledge the Kurds, with hundreds of thousands of people from various countries around the world  speaking about Ocalan’s ideas..

  Abdullah Ocalan

Ocalan is in his 20th year of imprisonment by Turkey and is being denied access to his family and to his lawyers. Ocalan’s importance, together with the lack of international action, has forced the Kurds to take the desperate step of mass indefinite hunger strikes. Leyla Guven, a democratically elected member of Turkey’s parliament for the left-wing, Kurdish-led People’s Democratic party (HDP), launched an indefinite hunger strike on November 7 from Amed Prison, where she was held jailed by Turkey’s regime. She has been joined by over 250 other political prisoners in Turkish jails and also by Kurdish activists around the world, including 14 at the seat of the European parliament in Strasbourg.

Leyla Guven

The Council of Europe, of which Turkey is a member, regards Isolation as a torture and a crime against humanity, but they need to act on their words. The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture has yet to meet their criteria or serve their duties. This all proves that even today, Kurds are still not only denied their ethnic status, but also counted as not being worthwhile humans and all fundamental human rights are denied. The European Court of Human Rights must take action against Turkey on many counts, and the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture must fulfil its role and visit Ocalan in prison. At the same time, the EU and UK must end their friendly engagement with Turkey, and European countries, including the UK, must stop selling Turkey weapons that will be used to suppress dissidents and minorities at home and attack Kurdish areas across the border.

Earlier this month Wales became the first parliament in the world to declare solidarity with the demands  of hunger strikers passing a Plaid Cymru motion https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-47646773?fbclid=IwAR2sNgZdwbxhI4kxcGRKURneJMdhdxnQY0xOgUNTdyJU-MsQ3aD8gyPG0lI

This  weekend Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbot meet with friends of Imam Sis and members of  the  Kurdish  community and speaking at a rally in Newport, Mr Corbyn highlighted the calls for lawyers to be allowed to visit Mr Ocalan- a key demand  of Kurdisg hunger strikers. Read more here https://freedomforocalan.org/jeremy-corbyn-calls-for-lawyers-to-be-allowed-to-visit-ocalan/?fbclid=IwAR0kJP11-rWBZJxTfmbWV-gG5rC7e5GCwAS-YmaHRBUzYEwRCSHV3DLDEHQ

Ask your MP to sign this EDM, https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/52440/hunger-strike-by-leyla-g%C3%BCven-mp; to raise the issue of Ocalan’s illegal isolation publicly wherever possible; to demand that the Foreign Minister puts pressure on Turkey to comply with its obligations to end the isolation of Ocalan and to restart the peace talks; and to demand that the UK stops selling Turkey weapons. It is the Foreign Minister, Jeremy Hunt, who is the UK representative on the Council of Europe, so they should specifically ask him to get the European institutions to back their words with actions and make Turkey comply with their own constitution and European human rights conventions.

The Human Rights of the Kurdish people in all nations they reside,should be respected and they are also entitled to preserve their language and cultural heritage which would be possible through autonomy. We should continue to demand that the Turkish government  be responsive to prisoners on hunger strike in Turkey demands.
It is important that the international community stands in support of theKurdish hunger strikers and their campaign for rights, equality and an end to Turkish repression.The ending of the isolation of Abdullah Öcalan is necessary not only for a resolution to the ‘Kurdish Question,’ for peace in the Middle-East, but for the whole world. For solutions to large challenges that we will all face this century, Abdullah Öcalan’s safety and ideas are of critical importance.
Your voice will make a difference.Please sign the  following change.org petition calling on the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture to visit Ocalan,

 https://www.change.org/p/european-committee-for-the-prevention-of-torture-cpt-we-want-cpt-to-visit-mr-ocalan-at-imrali-prison

Palestinians mass at Gaza border to mark protest anniversary

Thousands of Palestinians  have been rallying  at the Gaza-Israel border today to mark the first anniversary of the weekly 'Great March of Return' protests, facing off against Israeli forces massed across the perimeter.
The protests call for the lifting of a security blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt, and for Palestinians to have the right to return to land from which their families fled or were forced to flee during Israel’s founding in 1948.
 The Gaza Health Ministry said two Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli forces near the border fence, during clashes that began on Friday. About 200 Gazans have been killed by Israeli troops since the protests started, according to Palestinian Health Ministry figures.
Gaza's Health Ministry said Saturday ten people have sustained injuries from live fire coming from Israeli troops, who also fired tear gas as dozens of protesters approached the fence.
The territory's Hamas rulers are trying to restrain the rallies.The militant group hopes a calmer demonstration would allow for the implementation an Egyptian-brokered agreement with Israel to ease the economic blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip since 2007. But warnings to stay far back from the heavily fortified fence were not being heeded by all."We will move towards the borders even if we die," said Yusef Ziyada, 21, his face painted in the colours of the Palestinian flag.
"We are not leaving. We are returning to our land."
March 30 also marks “Land Day”, that Palestinians  worldwide have commemorated Land Day since 1976, when Israeli security forces shot dead six Arab citizens of Israel killed by Israeli security forces during demonstrations over government land confiscations in northern Israel in 1976.
The main Land Day march in Israel is planned for Saturday afternoon in the northern city of Sakhnin, with additional marches and demonstrations expected across the country, as well as in the West Bank and Gaza.
More than 2 million Palestinians are packed into the Gaza Strip, a narrow coastal enclave where poverty and unemployment rates are high. The blockade is cited by humanitarian agencies as a key reason for impoverishment in Gaza. Lat year alone , about 200 Palestinians, including children, journalists, and the disabled, were killed  at the border, most by Israeli  live ammunition; 23,000 have been injured. 
Israel’s use of lethal force has drawn censure from the United Nations and rights groups. U.N. investigators said last week that Israeli forces may be guilty of war crimes for using excessive force.
The protests mark nearly  twelve years of a blockade that has made Gaza into what is often called the world's largest open air prison. They also come to invoke UN Resolution 194 their right to return in peace to their homes, from which they were expelled in 1948, when Israel was created.
 The Palestinians have no choice but to protest, their spirit not broken, despite their suffering they continue to carry on undaunted. Lets continue to gie them the solidarity and respect they deserve.

Show your solidarity with Palestinian resistance Stop Arming Israel

Incredible dancers in the UK perform Dabke, the dance of Palestinian resistance, in solidarity with the Palestinians on the frontline of the Great Return March. In the face of Israel's military attacks funded by complicit companies like HSBC, the Palestinian people continue to resist and fight for their fundamental rights. Tell HSBC to end its complicity in Israeli war crimes: https://bit.ly/2GQnrtB And take to the streets this Saturday in solidarity with the Palestinian people, one year since the start of the Great Return March: https://bit.ly/2TYR2rJ
On March 30, 2018  evoking memories of the South African apartheid regime’s massacre of peaceful protesters in Sharpeville in 1960, Israel’s military committed a new massacre against Palestinian civilians as they were peacefully commemorating Palestinian Land Day, calling for an end to Israel’s brutal blockade of Gaza and asserting the UN-stipulated right of return for Palestinian refugees.

The Israeli military killed  at least 17 and injuring 1,400. Almost half of these were children. While Israel routinely carries out mass killings of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza strip, the massacre nonetheless stands out as a particularly flagrant attack on non-violent demonstrators with no conceivable pretext. 

Last month, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry (COI) published a damning indictment of Israeli forces' conduct in suppressing the protests. According to the COI, Israeli soldiers have been deliberately shooting civilians, killing and maiming protesters - including children, as well as journalists and medics. The COI's findings were welcomed by human rights groups who last year unsuccessfully challenged the army's rules of engagement and its shooting policy in Israel's Supreme Court.
Land Day has been commemorated by Palestinians every year since 30 March 1976, when Israeli military forces killed six Palestinian youth in mass peaceful protests in the Galilee against Israel’s large scale policy of confiscating their ancestral land to create exclusionary Jewish-only colonial settlements.
The Palestinians call for Israeli authorities to lift their 11 year illegal blockade on Gaza and allow Paletinian refugees  to return to their villages and  towns has still not been met.These demands are supported by international law as well as nearly every country in the world – with the marked exception of Canada, the USA, and Israel. In addition, the organizers of the march, which was supported by a wide cross-section of Palestinian political organizations, repeatedly insisted upon the non-violent nature of the march – claims supported by the observations of human rights workers
People of conscience across the world  must continue to pressure   international banks and investment funds, like HSBC  to end their complicity in Israel’s human rights violations,  support and show solidarity with  the Palestinian struggle, and demand that Palestinians’ fundamental rights to exist, resist , freedom , justice and return are respected.
If you're not around London, take action in your communities. Full list of events across the country here.

So Long Scott Walker ( January 9, 1943 – March 22, 2019)

Pop music legend and avant-garde icon, 60's pop crooner, visionary  Scott Walker has died at the age of 76. The news was announced by his label, 4AD on Monday morning. “For half a century, the genius of the man born Noel Scott Engel has enriched the lives of thousands”, reads a statement posted to the label’s website. “He has produced works that dare to explore human vulnerability and the godless darkness encircling it.” The cause of death it seems was cancer.
 Radiohead’s Thom Yorke yesterday said the “kind, gentle outsider” would be much missed.
The poet Ian McMillan described his “unforgettable” voice as being like “a cathedral lit by a sunset”.
Walker was best-known for his work with blue-eyed soul trio The Walker Brothers in the 1960s, but it was his late-career trilogy of challenging art-rock albums that defined his reputation as one of avant-garde music's most electrifying auteurs.
Walker was born Noel Scott Engel in Ohio on Jan. 9, 1943 and rose to fame in the United Kingdom as part of The Walker Brothers.Who were pretty much the '60s equivalent of a boy band, and for a while  were bigger than The Beatles. (The group's members were unrelated, and none were born with the name Walker.) With the help of Scott Walker's booming baritone, the act topped the British charts  with covers of "Make It Easy On Yourself" (1965) and "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine (Anymore)" originally recorded by Frankie Valli.(1966), but the trio never achieved the superstardom in the United States that they enjoyed overseas.
Hating the pace and hollowness of pop-star life, so much that he called time on the band at their peak, having tried to escape it all by using drugs, holing himself up in a monastery and attempting suicide. 
Scott said: “It was a very bad period. I thought everyone was trying to destroy my life. I had this idea that the press were people who misquoted me, fans were the ones who would not stop ringing my phone, smashing my door and making me move flats.”
Scott relied on Valium and sleeping pills to cope with his paranoia. He dabbled with cocaine and tried marijuana but abandoned it because it hurt his throat.
In August 1966 he tried to kill himself, but was saved when the obsessive fans outside his apartment that he had been so desperate to escape alerted the authorities. He later reflected: “Pressure wasn’t the only reason.“Nobody has the right reasons. I don’t remember a thing.”
Later that year he escaped to Quarr Abbey, on the Isle of Wight. He intended to spend ten days taking part in Gregorian chanting. But even a monastery provided no escape.
 He said: “We had obsessive fans and they discovered the monastery and they were ringing the bell the whole time.“We were plagued, and eventually I had to leave.”
The Walker Brothers split in 1967 but Scott went on to sell millions of records as a solo act, even though the BBC banned his first single, Jackie, for its references to drugs and “phoney virgins”.
Scott went solo  releasing the first of four eponymously titled solo albums: Scott, Scott 2, Scott 3 and Scott 4 — the latter released under his birth name.These records  are rightly considered today to be masterpieces,  that turned him ino a different sort of star—a cult icon revered by people who crave lyrics of profound literacy and powerful, complicated emotions, as he took on darker and more experimental tones as Scott’s interests in Jacques Brel, European art and cinema, formative drone music, Gregorian chanting and themes of death, decadence and European culture and history grew.

By 1969’s ‘Scott 4’, his first entirely self-penned album and released under his birth name, he was playing chess with Death himself on the Bergman inspired ‘The Seventh Seal’ and dedicating a track to the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. Though he was popular enough to be granted his own TV show Scott by this point, the album was a commercial disappointment, but is now considered his masterstroke, cited as a major influence on David Bowie , Radiohead, Nick Cabe among others.

Failing to chart 'Scott 4' sent Scott spiralling into booze and depression. On the orders of his record company he returned to making more commercial records but became more disillusioned with the music industry. He said: “I was acting in bad faith for many years during that time. I was trying to hang on. I should have stopped. I should have said, ‘OK, forget it’ and walked away. “I started going downhill, imbibing a little too much of everything.“I think I did temporarily go crazy, because I don’t remember the period at all very well.”
 A loner, Scott insisted he was not a recluse, but a solitary type, saying: “I like people but sometimes I can’t wait to get away and be on my own again.”
In the late Seventies The Walker Brothers reformed and put out three more albums. But it was not long before Scott disappeared into obscurity again after apparently becoming enraged by an out-of-tune trumpet while performing with his band on a cabaret tour in Birmingham. He never sang live again.
He released several albums, written by others, which failed to chart and which he described as “middle-of-the-road dross”. Much of the next few years was “sat in pubs watching guys play darts”.

Walker returned to other writers' songs for an eight-year stretch, resulting in four forgettable cover albums. But in 1978, Walker penned four of the songs on the regrouped Walker Brothers' final album, Night Flights, a noisy, avant take on the disco sound of the day. One of his credits on the album, an eerie track called "The Electrician," distinctly foreshadowed where Walker would wander on future recordings.
It was another eight years before Walker emerged again,interest in Walker’s output was renewed thanks to the Julian Cope-curated compilation Fire Escape in the Sky: The Godlike Genius of Scott Walker, released in 1981. Three years later, Walker returned with Climate of the Hunter, an avant-garde collection of fragmented and trance-like compositions lacking either titles or easily identifiable melodies.Though the album was again a commercial dud, Climate of the Hunter set the stage for Walker’s immense talents to be fully appreciated.
This album featured an assortment of studio musicians who — according to Walker in the documentary Scott Walker: 30 Century Man — recorded their parts without knowing the melodies, to ensure that there was "no chance of everyone swinging together." Unlike most of Walker's recordings from the previous 15 years, Hunter was critically acclaimed.
It would 11 more years before Walker completed his metamorphosis from pop crooner to avant-garde godfather. That would come on 1995's Tilt, a work of art that features bleak, atmospheric orchestrations, with touches of minimalist experimental music and industrial music. Tying it all together was Walker's inimitable voice, which he pushed to awkward, operatic heights. Tilt was a harrowing listen, but its uncompromising singularity attracted experimental music fans of all types.
Again, it would be 11 years before Walker would release new music when 2006's The Drift was released on 4AD, Walker again sent shockwaves through the avant-garde community. While Tilt was, in part, adored for its misdirection, The Drift was celebrated for its execution. As the second part of Walker's late-career trilogy, it took his ornate orchestration to new depths; every second of its nearly 70-minute runtime felt intentional and intricate.
 Scott, who never listened to his own records, explained that he “needed an undercurrent of violence and that came into my head” and added: “There’s darkness in everything I do.”
Even Scott believed his penultimate album, 2012’s Bish Bosch, was not one to listen to for hours on end. “No! No! You’ll end up dead if you do that,” he told one reviewer.
Walker then surprised many fans with Soused, a collaboration with experimental doom-metal droners Sunn O))), in 2014. Consisting of five songs, each circa ten minutes in length. Each consisting of Walker’s abstract, Beckett-like incantations. Each consisting of sweeping monolithic guitar drones. Truly incredible channeling stuff,peerlessly deep and complex . 
In his final years he produced Pulp’s final album, We Love Life, in 2001, was celebrated with a Proms concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 2017 and, last year, composed the score for the Brady Corbet-directed film Vox Lux, a musical drama starring Natalie Portman.
Much of his time, though, was spent out of the public gaze with long-term partner Beverly or doting on his granddaughter Emmi-Lee. He lived in Chiswick, West London, until his death.
He said: “I’m an outsider, for sure. That suits me fine. Solitude is like a drug for me. I crave it.” Speaking to The Guardian in 2018, Walker predicted that even his most far-afield work would eventually find an appreciative audience. "I'll be six feet under — but they will."
An absolute Musical genius, enigmatic, existential and intellectual. From teen idol  to avantgarde recluse , no one quite had  a career like him. The music world  currently mourns this uniquely challenging artist, whose seismic influence on popular culture will long be felt. So long Scott Walker.Rest in Peace.

 The Sun Ain't Gnna Shine Anymore - Walker Brothers

Make it wasy on yourself - Walker Brothers
 

Scott Walker - Jackie

 Scott Walker - Get Behind Me

Scott Walker - Dimple

 Scott Walker and  Sunn O))) - Lullaby