Legendary Poet and Artist John Giorno dies at 82 (December 4, 1936 – October 11, 2019) : A Tribute to a Beautiful Spirit

John Giorno, legendary American poet,  LGBTQ+ activist, visual artist, and originator of Spoken Word and performance poetry, has died at the age of 82. Giorno’s death was confirmed on October 12 in an Instagram post from his friend  musician Lee Ranaldo,  who posted photos on Saturday in memory of the artist. He wrote, "Sad to note the passing today of dear friend John Giorno, such a sweet, beatific person.
 Born on December 4, 1936 in New York, NY, Giorno studied at Columbia University before briefly working as a stockbroker. When John Giorno was 14 he experienced what he called “a blissful feeling” towards poetry, which in life is what you are supposed to follow when you have these positive feelings, he said. Going down the poetic path John Giorno met Andy Warhol and the whole pop art scene in 1962  during an opening at Stable Gallery in New York. The two became close friends and occasional lovers, and Giorno was the star of Warhols movie Sleep (1963). In the film, which lasts for five hours, Giorno is depicted sleeping nude for the entire length of the movie.Shortly after the filming, Giorno and Warhal ended up parting their ways.They rarely saw each  other until 1987 (the year Warhol died) when they had a few encounters.

A Still from Sleep (1963)

After leaving Warhol, Giorno went on to become very influential in the underground arts scene of New York, and became  known as a leader in the development of poetry as a performance and entertainment medium. He did this through his own performances and also with his  non=profit Giorna Poetry Systems, which he founded in 1965, an artists' collective and record label that aimed to relay poetry to a wider audience using innovative means of communication which  subsequently led to  Dial-A-Poem which he created in 1968 that  extended poetry into the medium of mass communication, in which he sought to extend the frontiers of poetry and to free it from its elitist repertoire.
 The service allowed members of the public to call a number to call a number (+1 641-793-8122 ) — which is still active now — and hear a live recording of a poem from poets like Frank O'Hara, David Henderson, John Ashberry, Laurie Anderson, John Cage, Anne Waldman  and the likes of Brion Gysin and more. Giorno said that the idea of “Dial-a-Poem” came from a conversation he had with his friend, the great William S Burroughs, after a a call with him in the late 60s,  Among the dialable texts were poems by Allen Ginsberg, but also parts from Jim Carroll's Basketball Diaries or William S Burroughs' novel Naked Lunch, read by Frank Zappa. Among the texts was also an extract of a speech delivered by Bobby Seale, one of the founders of the Black Panther Party, and the poem Revolutionary Letters by Diane di Prima, which included a practical instruction of how to build a Molotov cocktail. As well as speeches and texts on civil rights and opposing the Vietnam War, Giorno Poetry Systems released over forty LPs and CDs of poets working with performance and music, numerous cassettes, poetry  videos and film.
Though too young to be part of the first wave of Beat poets, Giorno was a close friend and collaborator of William S Burroughs from the late 1960s onwards. He was with Burroughs the night Burroughs died in 1997. Giorno’s early poems  explored the use of found images, appropriated language, collage, and was introduced to sound poetry by Brion Gysin. When composing his  own poetry, Giorno  imagined an audience in front of him. "Spoken word " he wrote. " using breath and heat, pitch and volume, and the melodies inherent in the language, risking technology and music, and a deep connection with the audience, is the fulfillment of a poem. It's the entertainment industry ( you got to sweeten the deal) - transmitting an awareness of ordinary mind."
Giorno was a pioneer in shaking poetry free from the page, performing his work with verve and gusto, rather than just reading it aloud politely.Taking on issues of sexuality, death, psychedelic drugs, and his life in New York, Giorno’s text-based work and poetry often employs appropriation and performance to evoke memories and feelings of transcendence. His books included The American book of the Dead (1964),Balling Bhudda (1970), Cancer in My Left Ball (1973), and You Got to Burn to Shine: Selected Poetry and Prose  (1993).
His recorded albums and CDs numbered Biting off the Tongueof a Corpse (1975) and ( A Diamond Hidden in the Mouth of a Corpse ( 1985).
A pervading macabre sense of humour underlied his work and a strong outsider Queer sensibility.His confontational work and his energy has been an influence on other  performance poets since and rock bands have been quenched and influenced by his ideas.It was also William S Burroughs with whom Giorno toured through the United States in the 70s and 80s. Together, they entered the stages of rock-clubs and presented their texts as performances. Giorno  was to  develop an amplified, confrontational performance poetry that was highly influential on what became the Poetry Slam scene. "Poems are instruments of wisdom. It awakens something in one’s mind.”  he once said and when  he performed, people had an enormous emotional response, which Giorno felt was because his words allow them to see themselves. :
He had also been a long time practitioner of the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Bhuddism. In 1971, inspired by a post-LSD conversation with Allen Ginsberg, Giorno traveled to India to study Buddhism. There, he met HH Dudjom Rinpoche, the supreme leader of the progressive Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, and became a devoted student.
Strongly shaped by his political engagement. For example, he protested sgainst the Vietnam War and provided money from the Giorno Poetry Systems for lawyers or bail-outs for political activists.In 1984, under the impression of the AIDS crisis, Giorno founded the AIDS treatment project: He visited infected people in the hospital, handed out cash, but also took time for intensive dialogues. Starting with small amounts of money, the project soon expanded and, to this day, provides large amounts of money for the daily needs of people living with AIDS. In his poem "AIDS monologue", written in 1992, Giorno subsumes the spirit of the project in just one line: to treat a complete stranger as a lover or close friend.The Paris Review quotes Giorno saying, "My intention is to treat a complete stranger as a lover or a close friend; in the same spirit as in the golden age of promiscuity, we made fabulous love with beautiful strangers, and celebrated life with glorious substances. 'God please fuck my mind for good!' Now that their life is ravaged with AIDS, we offer love from the same root, in the form of boundless compassion."
In 2015 he was the subject of a major retrospective ‘I Love John Giorno’ byhis husband, the acclaimed Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone at Palais de Tokyo in Paris, and in various venues throughout Manhattan in 2017, in celebration of the poet’s 80th birthday. Giorno’s work  was included in the collections of prominent venues worldwide. At the time of his death, Giorno had been exhibiting new work at the Sperone Westwater gallery in New York City. The exhibition, titled “Do the Undone,” is due to be exhibited until October 26. The press release for the show refers to Giorno living and working out of his studio in the Bowery in Lower Manhattan for over 50 years.
His contributions are significant to many culturally defining moments: the Beat generation, Pop Art, Punk, the Pictures Generation, and the hip-hop era. Giorno's work was innovative and provocative in all respects. Friends, colleagues, and admirers have taken to social media to express their grief and to pay tribute to John Giorno, a rare a poet of spontaneity and vitality, who on all accounts had an astonishing presence  and a warm humanity, that saw in his time and brilliant life him at the crossroads between poetry, visual arts, music and performance, directing his work  toward a broad public, redefining the capabilities of poetry and linguistic form, releasing words of great imagination,  labors of love and passion, utilising intensely rhythmic and philosophical poetry.
It was some of these qualities that led the former singer for R.E.M Michael Stipe. to cast Giorno in We All Go Back to Where We Belong, a film he made for the band’s 2011 song of the same title. Shot in the spirit of Warhol’s screen tests — black-and-white, portrait-style — the film captures Giorno in close-up, a blank stare on his face, until the end, when he erupts in laughter.

REM - We All Go Back To Where We Belong , John, 2011

  

Here is a video from 2014 where he looked back at his first meetings with poetry, his great influences, the importance of performing without a book, and where poetry is headed in the future, and I will  end with a few of his amazing poems. A truly  remarkable individual, and iconoclast of our times.“Poetry never dies. You can’t kill poetry.” Rest in Power, beautiful spirit John Giorno.
' You Gotta Burn To Shine.'

John Giorno Interview : Poets are Mirrors of the Mind  

Life is a Killer

Everyone says
What they do
is right
and money is
a good
thing
it can be
wonderful.

Road
drinking
driving
around
drinking beer,
they need me
more than
I need them,
where are you guys from,
stumbling off
into the night
thinking
about it
stumbling off into the night
thinking about it.

When I was
15 years old
I knew everything
there was
to know,
and now that I'm old,
it was true.

I got dragged
along on
this one
by my foot,
if I wasn't so
tired
I would have
a good
time
If I Wasn't so tired
I'd have a good time
If I wasn't so tired I'd have
a good time.

Tossing
and turning,
cause there's
a nest
of wasps
coursing
through your
bloodstream
cause there's a nest of wasps
coursing through your bloodstream.

If you think
about it
how could
it have come
to this
if you think about it
how could it have come to this,
it's coming
down the road
the red
lights,
and it's
there
and it's there
and it's there
and it's there.

Try your
best
and think
you're good,
that's what
I want
being inside you
that's what i want
being inside you
that's what I want being besides you,
endless
thresholds,
and you hope
you're doing
it right.

How are you
feeling good
how are you
feeling
good
how are
you feeling
good
how are you feeling
good
how are you feeling good,
you need
national
attention.

Cause essentially
all you
ever accomplshed
was snort
some smack
and sit
on a zafu
watching
your breath.

How the hell
did I end
up doing
this
how the hell did
I end up doing this
for a job?

I can't say
I don't need
anybody
cause I need
the Bhuddas,
and there's nothing
I can say
about them.

Everyone is at
a complete
disadvantage,
you're being taken
to dinner
at La Coter Basque
and you're eating
9 lives
liver,
and drinking
wine,
the women
they are taking
prisoners.
I'm not going
nowhere, I ripped up
my suitcases
I ripped up my suitcases.

Crank me
up
and keep me
open
crank me up
and keep me open
and keep me open
crank me up and keep me open,
nothing
recedes
like success.

Whatever
happens
it will seem
the way
it seems
now,
it doesn't matter
what you
feel,
how perfectly
correct
or amazing
the clarity,
everything
you think
is deluded
everything you think
is deluded
everything you think is deluded,
life
is a killer.

Just Say No to Family Values

On a day when
you're walking
down the street
and you see
a hearse
with a coffin,
followed by
a flower car
and limos,
you know the day
is auspicious,
your plans are going to be
successful;
but on a day when
you see a bride and groom
and wedding party,
watch out,
be careful,
it might be a bad sign.

Just say no
to family values,
and don't quit
your day job.

Drugs
are sacred
substances,
and some drugs
are very sacred substances,
please praise them
for somewhat liberating
the mind.

Tobacco
is a sacred substance
to some,
and even though you've
stopped smoking,
show a little respect.

Alcohol
is totally great,
let us celebrate
the glorious qualities
of booze,
and I had
a good time
being with you.

Just
do it,
just don't
not do it,
just do it.

Christian
fundamentalists,
and fundamentalists
in general,
are viruses,
and they're killing us,
multiplying
and mutating,
and they destroying us,
now, you know,
you got to give
strong medicine
to combat
a virus.

Who's buying?
good acid,
I'm flying,
slipping
and sliding,
slurping
and slamming,
I'm sinking,
dipping
and dripping,
and squirting
inside you;
never
fast forward
a come shot;
milk, milk,
lemonade,
round the corner
where the chocolate's made;
I love to see
your face
when you're suffering.

Do it
with anybody
you want,
whatever
you want,
for as long as you want,
any place,
any place,
when it's possible,
and try to be
safe;
in a situation where
you must abandon
yourself
completely
beyond all concepts.

Twat throat
and cigarette dew,
that floor
would ruin
a sponge mop,
she's the queen
of great bliss;
light
in your heart,
flowing up
a crystal channel
into your eyes
and out
hooking
the world
with compassion.

Just
say
no
to family
values.

We don't have to say No
to family values,
cause we never
think about them;
just
do it,
just make
love
and compassion 

Thanks 4 Nothing 

I want to give my thanks to everyone for everything,
and as a token of my appreciation,
I want to offer back to you all my good and bad habits
as magnificent priceless jewels,
wish-fulfilling gems satisfying everything you need and want,
thank you, thank you, thank you,
thanks.

May every drug I ever took
come back and get you high,
may every glass of vodka and wine I've drunk
come back and make you feel really good,
numbing your nerve ends
allowing the natural clarity of your mind to flow free,
may all the suicides be songs of aspiration,
thanks that bad news is always true,
may all the chocolate I ever eaten
come back rushing through your bloodstream
and make you feel happy,
thanks for allowing me to be a poet
a noble effort, doomed, but the only choice.

I want to thank you for your kindness and praise,
thanks for celebrating me,
thanks for the resounding applause,
I want to thank you for taking everything for yourself
and giving nothing back,
you were always only self-serving,
thanks for exploiting my big ego
and making me a star for your own benefit,
thanks that you never paid me,
thanks for all the sleaze,
thanks for being mean and rude
and smiling at my face,
I am happy that you robbed me,
I am happy that you lied
I am happy that you helped me,
thanks, grazie, merci beaucoup.

May you smoke a joint with William,
and spend intimate time with his mind,
more profound than any book he wrote,
I give enormous thanks to all my lovers,
beautiful men with brilliant minds,
great artists,
Bob, Jasper, Ugo,
may they come here now
and make love to you,
and may my many other lovers
of totally great sex,
countless lovers
of boundless fabulous sex
countless lovers of boundless fabulous sex
countless lovers of boundless
fabulous sex
in the golden age
of promiscuity
may they all come here now,
and make love to you,
if you want,
may each of them
hold each of you in their arms
balling
to your hearts
delight.
balling to your hearts
delight
balling to
your hearts delight
balling to your hearts delight.

May all the people who are dead
Allen, Brion, Lita, Jack,
and I do not miss any of you
I don't miss any of them,
no nostalgia,
it was wonderful we loved each other
but I don't want any of them back,
now, if any of you
are attracted to any of them,
may they come back from the dead,
and do whatever is your pleasure,
may they multiply,
and be the slaves
of whomever wants them,
fulfilling your every wish and desire,
(but you won't want them as masters,
as they're demons),
may Andy come here
fall in love with you
and make each of you a superstar,
everyone can have
Andy.
everyone can
have Andy.
everyone can have Andy,
everyone can have an Andy.

Huge hugs to the friends who betrayed me,
every friend became an enemy,
sooner or later,
I am delighted you are vacuum cleaners
sucking everything into your dirt bags,
you are none other than a reflection of my mind.

Thanks for the depression problem
and feeling like suicide
everyday of my life,
and now that I'm seventy,
I am happily almost there.

Twenty billion years ago,
in the primordial wisdom soup
beyond comprehension and indescribable,
something without substance moved slightly,
and became something imperceptible,
moved again and became something invisible,
moved again and produced a particle and particles,
moved again and became a quark,
again and became quarks,
moved again and again and became protons and neutrons,
and the twelve dimensions of space,
tiny fire balls of primordial energy
bits tossed back and forth
in a game of catch between particles,
transmitting electromagnetic light
and going fast, 40 million times a second,
where the pebble hits the water,
that is where the trouble began,
something without substance became something with substance,
why did it happen?
because something substance less
had a feeling of missing out on something,
not
getting it
was not getting it
not getting it,
not getting it,
imperceptibly not having something
when there was nothing to have,
clinging to a notion of reality;
from the primordially endless potential,
to modern day reality,
twenty billion years later,
has produced me,
gave birth to me and my stupid grasping mind,
made me and you and my grasping mind.

May Rinpoche and all the great Tibetan teachers who loved me,
come back and love you more,
hold you in their wisdom hearts,
bathe you in all-pervasive compassion,
give you pith instructions,
and may you with the diligence of Olympic athletes
do meditation practice,
and may you with direct confidence
realize the true nature of mind.

America, thanks for the neglect,
I did it without you,
let us celebrate poetic justice,
you and I never were,
never tried to do anything,
and never succeeded,
I want to thank you for introducing me to
the face of the naked mind,
thanx 4 nothing.

The Death of William Burroughs

William died on August 2, 1997, Saturday at 6:01 in the
afternoon from complications from a massive heart attack
he'd had the day before. He was 83 years old. I was with
William Burroughs when he died, and it was one of the best
times I ever had with him.

Doing Tibetan Nyingma Buddhist meditation practices, I
absorbed William's consiousness into my heart. It seemed as
a bright white light, blinding but muted, empty. I was the
vehicle, his consciousness passing through me. A gentle
shooting star came in my heart and up the central channel,
and out the top of my head to a pure field of great clarity
and bliss. It was very powerful - William Burroughs resting
in great equanimity, and the vast empty expanse of
primordial wisdom mind.

I was staying in William's house, doing my meditation
practices for him, trying to maintain good conditions and
dissolve any obstacles that might be arising for him at that
very moment in the bardo. I was confident that William had
a high degree of realization, but he was not a completely
enlightened being. Lazy, alcoholic, junkie William. I didn't
not allow doubt to arise in my mind, even for an instant,
because it would allow doubt to arise in William's mind.
Now, I had to do it for him.

What went into William Burroughs 'coffin
with his dead body:

About ten in the morning on Tuesday, August 6, 1997,
James Grauerholz and Ira Silverberg came to William's
house to pick out the clothes for the funeral director to put
on William's corpse. His clothes were in a closet in my
room. And we picked the things to go into William's coffin
and grave, accompanying him on his journey in the
underworld.

His most favorite gun, a 38 special snub-nose, fully loaded
with five shots. He called it, 'The Snubby.' The gun was my
idea. 'This is very important!' William always said you can
never be too well armed in any situation. Of his more than
80 world-class guns, it was his favorite. He often wore it on
his belt during the day, and slept with it, fully loaded, on
his right side, under the bed sheet, every night for fifteen
years.

Grey fedora. He always wore a hat when he went out. We
wanted his consciousness to feel perfectly at ease, dead.

His favorite cane, a sword cane made of hickory with a
light rosewood finish.

Sport jacket, black with a dark green tint. We rummaged
through the closet and it was the best of his shabby clothes,
and smelling sweet of him.

Blue jeans, the least worn ones were the only ones clean.

Red bandana. He always kept one in his back pocket.

Jockey underwear and socks.

Black shoes. The ones he wore when he performed. I
thought the old brown ones, that he wore all the time,
because they were comfortable. James Grauerholz insisted,
'There's an old CIA slang that says getting a new
assignment is getting new shoes.'

White shirt. We had bought it in a men's shop in Beverly
Hills in 1981 on The Red Night Tour. It was his best shirt,
all the others were a bit ragged, and even though it had
become tight, he'd lost a lot of weight, and we thought it
would fit. James said," Don't they slit it down the back
anyway."

Necktie, blue, hand painted by William.

Moroccan vest, green velvet with gold brocade trim, given
him by Brion Gysin, twenty-five years before.

In his lapel button hole, the rosette of the French
government's Commandeur des Arts et Lettres, and the
rosette of the American Academy of Arts and Letters,
honors which William very much appreciated.

A gold coin in his pants pocket. A gold 19th Century Indian
head five dollar piece, symbolizing all wealth. William
would have enough money to buy his way in the
underworld.

His eyeglasses in his outside breast pocket.

A ball point pen, the kind he always used. 'He was a
writer!', and sometimes wrote long hand.

A joint of really good grass.

Heroin. Before the funeral service, Grant Hart slipped a
small white paper packet into William's pocket. 'Nobody's
going to bust him.' said Grant. William, bejeweled with all
his adornments, was traveling in the underworld.

I kissed him. An early LP album of us together, 1975, was
called Biting Off The Tongue Of A Corpse. I kissed him on
the lips, but I didn't do it... and I should have.


Everything gets lighter

Life is lots of presents,
and every single day you get
a big bunch of gifts
under a sparkling pine tree
hung with countless balls of colored lights;
piles of presents wrapped in fancy paper,
the red box with the green ribbon,
and the green box with the red ribbon,
and the blue one with silver,
and the white one with gold.

It's not
what happens,
it's how you
handle it.

You are in a water bubble human body,
on a private jet
in seemingly a god world,
a glass of champagne,
and a certain luminosity
and emptiness,
skin of air,
a flat sea of white clouds below
and the vast dome of blue sky above,
and your mind is an iron nail in-between.

It's not
what happens,
it's how you
handle it.

Dead cat bounce,
catch
the falling knife,
after endless shadow boxing
in your sleep,
fighting in your dreams
and knocking yourself out,
you realize everything is empty,
and appears as miraculous display,
all are in nature
the play of emptiness and clarity.

Everyone
gets
lighter
everyone
gets lighter
everyone gets
lighter
everyone gets lighter,
everyone is light.

Defend the Kurds and stop the Turkish military invasion of northern Syria!

 

This  week  there has been shock and anger as Donald Trump withdrew US troops from northern Syria and the support it was providing to the Kurds in northern Syria, who have been instrumental over the past four years in defeat of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or Daesh), but which are viewed with deep hostility by the government in Ankara. This has given the oppressive Tayip Erdogan  regime the green light to unleash a wave of barbaric bombings leaving innocent civilians dead.
Between 25 and 35 million Kurds inhabit a mountainous region straddling the borders of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Armenia. They make up the fourth-largest ethnic group in the Middle East, but they have never obtained a permanent nation state. Today, they form a distinctive community, united through race, culture and  language, even though they have no standard dialect. They also adhere to a number of different religions and creeds, although the majority are Sunni Muslims.
In the early 20th Century, many Kurds began to consider the creation of a homeland - generally referred to as "Kurdistan". After World War One and the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the victorious Western allies made provision for a Kurdish state in the 1920 Treaty of Sevres.
They lost out on their dreams of independent statehood in the remaking of the Middle East that followed the end of the first World War, when the Treaty of Lausanne, which set the boundaries of modern Turkey, made no provision for a Kurdish state and left Kurds with minority status in their respective countries. Over the next 80 years, any move by Kurds to set up an independent state was brutally quashed. The kurds one of the indigenous peoples of the Mesopotamian plains and the highlands were partitioned  between Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. These four states
were founded on the oppression of the kurds.
Decades later, having joined an uprising against the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, with the overt encouragement of the US, they saw their aspirations for freedom crushed as Saddam used helicopter gunships, with the tacit approval of US forces, to put down the rebellion. Thus Trump’s betrayal of his Kurdish allies follows a long and dishonourable pattern of western duplicity in the region.  Betrayal leaves a bitter taste as the Kurds are abandoned by western allies yet again. An old kurdish proverb reflects a history of dissapointments  ' we have no friends but the mountains' now is the time to show them this is not the case.

The key Kurdish actors in Syria are the People’s Protection Units or YPG, the dominant element in an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and the military wing of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD).

Over the course of eight years of civil war in Syria, Kurdish forces have captured tens of thousands of square miles of territory in the northeast of the country, close to the Turkish border.In so doing, they have established a de facto autonomous region, sometimes referred to as  'Rojava',  meaning “the land where the sun sets.” which is home to significant Kurdish, Arab and Assyrian populations. that has captured the imagination of people across the world, inspired by the achievements. of the  kurdish led movement in particular, the gains in womens liberation, LGBTQ liberation struggles, experiments in direct democracy  and campaigns for ecological justice.
The YPG has borne the brunt of the campaign against Islamic State in Syria. It played a major role in the August 2014 evacuation to safety of 50,000 Yezidis threatened by an Islamic State campaign regarded as genocidal by the United Nations, and in the recapture of Raqqa, the one-time capital of the Islamic State caliphate, in October 2017..In all, the YPG suffered losses of up to 11,000 fighters in the conflict. However, regardless of its role in the fight against Islamic State, for Turkey, the YPG is no more than an extension of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), which has fought a fierce campaign for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey since 1984.. Not for the first time, the  mad impetuous nature of US president Donald Trump’s foreign policy making has taken the world by surprise.

The ideological inspiration for the Rojava project is Abdullah Öcalan, the founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). For Öcalan, capitalism was an “inherent component” of the nation-state. What was needed, he argued, was “democracy without the state.”

Many Kurds in Rojava consider Abdullah Öcalan a national hero.Today, it is nearly impossible to drive down a street in the Kurdish parts of Syria without seeing Öcalan’s face smiling through a bushy mustache. He is stenciled on walls, plastered on billboards, and stuck on cellphone cases.
In 1980, Öcalan fled his home in Turkey for Syria. The Assad regime was repressing the rights of its Kurdish population, but it allowed Öcalan to form training camps on Syrian soil. From there, his guerrillas directed attacks against Syria’s enemy Turkey in pursuit of establishing an independent Kurdish t state. In 1997, the United States labeled the PKK  a terrorist organization, and the following year Hafez al-Assad kicked out Öcalan. With help from the CIA, Turkish intelligence captured him in Kenya in 1999.
 The Kurds are so serious about devolving power to the local level that Rojava’s charter requires each of its three regions to have its own flag. And within each region, local elected councils are in charge. They organize garbage collection, adjudicate disputes and manage public health and safety.
Confederalism sets the Kurds apart from almost every other government in the Middle East.
Across the region, power is concentrated at the top. Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, is an authoritarian leader who has ruthlessly crushed his opponents in the country’s eight year civil war, Egypt has a  military government. Saudi Arabia has a king. But Rojava would be an exceptional society almost anywhere.
Rojava’s charter guarantees freedom of expression and assembly and equality of all religious communities and languages. It mandates direct democracy, term limits and gender equality. Men and women share every position in government. Kurdish women have fought the Islamic State in Syria as soldiers in an all-female militia.
In a region where religion and politics are often intertwined, the Kurdish state is secular. Religious leaders cannot serve in politics. Rojava’s charter even affirms the right of all citizens to a healthy environment.
Surrounding countries,including Syria , also have constitutions with eloquent endorsements of political and human rights. In Rojava, however, the constitution is actually in effect. Syrian Kurds have realized the dream of the 2010-2011 pro-democracy uprisings across the Arab world,
Many internationalists  came to join the YPJ from around the world, and many were martyred. These include  comrades Heval Avsin ,Jac Holmes, Eric Scurfield, Heval Legerin  and eight Britons who  have died fighting with the YPG among them  the incredibly passionate  Anna Campbell  from Lewes , Sussex https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2018/03/anna-campbell-death-of-freedom-fighter.html

Anna Cambpell

 The withdrawal by Trump dishonours the memory of all who travelled to Syria to join anti-ISIS militias but lost  their lives. The democratic system founded by the peoples in north-eastern Syria is an oasis of freedom and democracy for all the Middle Eastern peoples, it is the breath of peace and fraternity. In this respect, Arabs, Turks, Persians, Azeris, Armenians, Syriacs and all peoples, and all faiths, should protect this oasis of freedom, as an attack against it would be an attack against all peoples’ desire for freedom and democracy.The Rojava project is now in imminent peril. Here is a link to an international call to defend Rojava .https://riseup4rojava.org/call-international-call-riseup-defend-rojava/

President Erdogan has been threatening a Turkish assault on the Kurdish-controlled territories for some time. Last December, Trump and Erdogan discussed the latter’s threat to launch a military operation. Any uncoordinated US withdrawal has the potential to lead to a military free-for-all in which SDF, Turkish and Syrian troops become involved with potentially disastrous humanitarian consequences. The attack by Turkey clearly threatens not only the SDF, which has made it clear that it will respond by whatever means are necessary, but also hundreds of thousands of Kurdish and other civilians..

The situation is further complicated by the fact that Kurdish forces are currently guarding 11,000 Islamic State prisoners, including some 2,000 foreign fighters. There are another 70,000 people in al-Hawl refugee camp, which has been described as an incubator for the re-emergence of Islamic State.

There are already thousands of people fleeing the area looking for a safe place to go. Many are  on the move for the third time in recent years after previously fleeing Aleppo and other Syrian cities ravaged and flattened from the unrelenting war. Turkish forces invaded Afrin in Syria in 2018, following the withdrawal of US troops, in operations that saw them accused of “indiscriminately shelling civilians” by international human rights groups.
The Turkey assault is facing international condemnation . The European Union has warned that Turkey' hostilities would " further undermine the stability of the whole region."Campaign Against Arms Trade’s (CAAT) Andrew Smith also warned that an invasion of northern Syria “could have devastating consequences.” He said: “By arming the Turkish military, the British government is making itself complicit in how those weapons are used.
“The UK must stop aiding Turkey’s human rights abuses with arms sales and political support.”
Since 2014, Britain has licensed £1.1 billion worth of weapons to be sold to Turkey.
Labour shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said: “As a matter of urgency, the government must demand firstly that Kurdish representatives are brought into the newly constituted Syrian constitutional reform committee.
“Secondly, Turkey must not increase its military presence in northern Syria or its support for Syrian militias operating on its behalf.
“Thirdly, there must be no attempt by Turkey to use this announcement as a green light to return non-Kurdish Syrian refugees into northern Syria in an effort to change the region’s ethnic composition.”
These actions of the US and Turkey will spark a new humanitarian disaster in a country that is already  on its knees.
 On Thursday, thirteen of the biggest UK unions urged Prime Minister Boris Johnson to condemn Turkey’s invasion of Syria – and act to avert ethnic cleansing and potential genocide.
Together with Thompson’s Solicitors, they have demanded that Johnson uses the UK’s influence to prevent a humanitarian disaster and potential genocide as a result of the Turkish invasion of north and east Syria.
The unions include Unite, GMB, CWU, ASLEF, TSSA, USDAW, BFAWU, PCS, NEU, RMT, Prospect, EIS and GFTU.
They warned that President Trump’s ‘appalling’ abandonment of the fragile region will see Turkey seek its own military and strategic advantage which will undoubtedly lead to ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Kurds as well as a resurgence of ISIS in the region.
The unions say that the UK must show its clear and utter condemnation of Turkey’s invasion, calling for a no fly zone and international force deployment. The UK right now must immediately distance itself from Washingtons  forein policy madness and Ankara's antipathy and hostility towards the kurds What a travesty this whole torrid episode is, and what a tragedy for the kurds.
 The people of Rojava have called for the diplomatic isolation of the Turkish state, and also for  the institution of a no-fly zone above Northern and Eastern Syria and solidarity from all those that ally themselves with the struggle for freedom and equality. As Internationalists (both inside and outside North-East Syria) we must meet their call for help in whatever way we can. Here’s what you can do to defend democracy:
 Boycott goods and services provided by the Turkish state and the companies which supply it. Find out who is arming them and make the business of supporting fascism all the more difficult for them. Contact trade unions that represent the people that work for these companies, urge them to follow in the footsteps of the Scottish Rolls Royce workers that defied Pinochet, and prevent the manufacturing and selling of weapons to the fascist Turkish state:

Airbus – Unite the Union
AXA – Unite the Union
BAE Systems – IndustriALL Global Union
Jaguar-LandRover – GMB Union
Rolls Royce – Unite the Union

 
Here is a link to 15 aid organisations calling for aid and for attacks on civilians to stop. https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/15-aid-agencies-warn-humanitarian-crisis-north-east-syria-civilians-risk
Don't be like shameful Donald Trump, please let the Syrians and the Kurds  know they haven't been a abandoned and help provide medical relief and support. Solidarity should be shown at this grave moment in time and we should raise our  collective voices against this attack on the kurdish people, because if left unchallenged this  crisis is only going to grow and the human cost will rise quickly and horrifically.
Misty Buswell, Middle East policy director at the International Rescue Committee (IRC), expressed deep concern about the impact Turkey's assault will have "on civilians, including our own staff members and their families, and the destabilizing effect this will have on a population that has already borne the brunt of the eight-year-long conflict in Syria."
"Many of these people have already been displaced multiple times and suffered horribly under the brutal rule of ISIS," said Buswell, "only to be facing yet another crisis."
Here is a link to an emergency appeal to do what you can to help.To give you an idea of what emergency supplies cost  a mobile medical pack for an aid worker is £135 . A basic hygeine pack for people fleeing is just £10. Give whatever you can.

https://donate.doctorsoftheworld.org.uk/page/49938/donate/1?utm_medium=email&utm_source=engagingnetworks&utm_campaign=utm_email&utm_content=October+11+2019+-+W19IEB002B+14:18:10&ea.url.id=4157940&forwarded=true y

Kurds and their friends in Kurdistan,and all around the world are currently mobilising and taking to the streets in protest at the Turkish incursion into  northern Syria.  Please consider joining emergency rallies  to stop the Turkish invasion,

SATURDAY, 12th October, 12 noon – 4pm

CARDIFF, Nye Bevan statue (Queen Street)

Cardiff and Wales will be joining a Global Day Of Action against the Turkish Occupation and ethnic cleansing of Kurds in North-East Syria. They will be be meeting at noon at the Nye Bevan statue (Queen Street) to hand out leaflets and stand in solidarity with the Kurds and all the people of North-East Syria.

Details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/986407898366569/?ti=icl

SATURDAY, 12th October, 1.30pm – 3.30pm

GLASGOW, Buchanan Street, G1 2

Demo in Solidarity with the Kurds Against Turkish Invasion

Details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/2342112042552723/?ti=wa

SUNDAY, 13th October, 1 – 4pm

LONDON, BBC Portland Place

Date: Sunday 13th October 2019 Place: BBC Portland Place Time: 13.00

Join to demonstrate in solidarity with Kurds and all the people of North-East Syria!

Details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/2607334165980151/ 

To keep up to date please  follow:

RiseUp4Rojava,https://riseup4rojava.org/
Kongra Star Diplomacy,https://twitter.com/starrcongress/status/1181648990334590977
Kurdistan Students Union-UK,https://twitter.com/kurdishstudents?lang=en  https://en-gb.facebook.com/KurdishStudentsUK/
Kurdistan Solidarity Network https://kurdishsolidaritynetwork.wordpress.com/on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/KurdistanSolNet/ & Twitter.https://twitter.com/kurdistansolnet?lang=en
and the Kurdish Solidarity Campaign  https://twitter.com/kurdscampaign?lang=en
https://en-gb.facebook.com/kurdistansolidaritycampaign/

Finally here is a link to  two a petitions you could sign.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/276661
https://www.change.org/p/theresa-may-mp-stop-turkey-defend-the-kurds-no-fly-zone-halt-eu-arms-sales-to-turkey

I would encourage all to express their solidarity directly to the kurdish people  in defence of their human rights by raising awarenress of the atrocities committed  by Erdogens government. Our solidarity can defeat tyranny.
Long live kurdistan
Biji Rojava! Biji SDF! Biji Karkerên!

World Mental Health Day :Suicide Isn't Painless

Today, most of us are aware,  we are currently in the grips of a mental health crisis. An epidemic. killing indiscriminately, especially the young .One in four people in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year. Today is World Mental Health Day, which occurs annually on October 10 and aims to educate and raise awareness of mental health issues.
We should not  forget that mental illness doesn't discriminate, touching the lives of people in every corner of society - from the homeless and unemployed to builders and doctors, reality stars and footballers. and within the monopoly-capitalist nations, mental-health disorders are the leading cause of life expectancy decline behind cardiovascular disease and cancer. In the European Union, 27.0 percent of the adult population between the ages of eighteen and sixty-five are said to have experienced mental-health complications.
 Recent estimates by the World Health Organization suggest that more than three hundred million people suffer from depression worldwide. And it is important to note that most of the medications currently available  fail to manage symptoms at all.
Approximately eight hundred thousand individuals commit suicide globally each year. In the UK in 2018, there were 6,507 deaths by suicide (a rate of 11.2 deaths per 100,000 people).
Suicide and suicide attempts can have lasting effects on individuals and their social networks and communities. The causes of suicide are many, and it is important to understand the psychological processes that underlie suicidal thoughts, and the factors that can lead to feelings of hopelessness or despair. 
In recognition of this, the 2019 theme for World Mental Health Day (as set by the World Federation for Mental Health) is “Mental Health Promotion and Suicide Prevention”.
Suicide behaviours are complex, there is no single explanation of why people die by suicide. Social, psychological, and cultural factors can all interact to lead a person to suicidal thoughts or behaviour. For many people, an attempt may occur after a long period of suicidal thoughts or feelings, while in other cases, it may be more impulsive.
 Despite some excellent media guidelines produced by Samaritans and Mind, journalists often still revert to outdated language and stereotypes when reporting suicide. There is a difficult balance between reporting known facts and introducing elements of the story into the public domain which may encourage others to emulate what they have read, as is described in the Werther effect - so called because of the spate of imitational suicides that were said to have taken place after the publication of Goethe’s novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. Research carried out across the world over the last five decades shows that when specific methods of suicide are reported – details of types and amounts of pills, for example – it can lead to vulnerable people copying them.
Young people in particular are more influenced by what they see and hear in the media than other age groups and are more susceptible to what is often referred to as suicide contagion.
We should not describe a suicide as ‘easy’, ‘painless’, ‘quick’ or ‘effective’, and we should remember to look at the long-term consequences of suicide attempts, not forgetting the significant life-long pain for those left behind when someone does take their own life.
It is also important to bear in mind that reports of celebrity deaths carry greater risk of encouraging others to take their own lives, due to the increased likelihood of over-identification by vulnerable people. A recent study, which examined news reports covering the suicide of US actor Robin Williams, identified a 10% increase in people taking their own lives in the months following his death. This emphasises the responsibility that we all have when it comes to talking about suicide.
We often read speculation about the cause of suicide, linking a death to a previous event such as the loss of a job, the break-up of a relationship or bullying. It is impossible to say with any certainty why someone takes their own life. As Samaritans state: ‘there is no simple explanation for why someone chooses to die by suicide, and it is rarely due to one particular factor.’
Suicide is often the culmination of a complex set of factors,The aim today for this Mental Health Foundation is simple - to send out a message of hope, #YouBelongHere. Hope is like oxygen for our mental health. It is the vital ingredient in supporting people to hold on
 In support of  World Mental Health Day, the green ribbon, an international symbol of mental health The Mental Health Foundation  simultaneously organised projections of the green ribbon onto the  buildings across Britain  in Glasgow, and Edinburgh’s St Andrews House. There was also up to 100 mental health advocates and people affected by suicide gathered in Trafalgar Square London, to form a human green ribbon.
 

Let us today think of people suffering untold mental anguish leading them to take this step. and the relatives and friends  who are bereaved  their lives often left in tatters. The  mind is a very delicate place, It's good to talk or to be listened to.

Mark Rowland, Chief Executive of the Mental Health Foundation said:

 "We should not be so scared of suicide that we can't talk about it. Suicide is a devastating and gut-wrenching tragedy that ends a life and shatters countless others. But we also know that we can all help prevent such deaths, as individuals and as a society. We are not powerless. Far better to say something that feels awkward than to stay silent, whether you're worried about another person or needing help yourself. Sometimes we need to talk about suicide." 

I will  end by saying that the alleviation of mental distress is only possible in a society without exploitation and oppression. All members of society are affected by the inhumane nature of capitalism, and for many who suffer  it is the consequence of  concrete inequalities and hardships  that are a direct product of our economic system . As the basis on which society’s superstructural formation is erected, capitalism is a major determinant of poor mental health leading to discontent and alienation. As the Marxist professor of social work and social policy Iain Ferguson has argued,

“it is the economic and political system under which we live—capitalism—which is responsible for the enormously high levels of mental-health problems which we see in the world today.”

But, slowly and determinedly, the fight is being to end this  led most explicitly by the most oppressed and exploited. So lets keep fighting and  spreading awareness, and be kind to the people that are around  us, but for fucks sake don't just tell anyone to simply cheer up. Much love.

Need to talk?  
 
Samaritans – offers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week support service

116 123

Shout Crisis Text Line

85258

C.A.L.M. 

Available helpline (5pm – midnight) and webchat to support men


Papyrus – (dedicated service for young people up to the age of 35)

0800 068 4141

Support After Suicide Partnership offers practical and emotional support on their website for people bereaved and affected by suicide.

In Autumn : Some Praise for George Eliot (22/11/1819 - 22/12/1880 )

Mary Anne (Sometimes Marian) Evans  who  was better known by her pen name George Eliot.was born at Chilvers Coton, Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England. An acclaimed English novelist, philosopher and poet, who as a woman  was ahead of her time,in the way she  defied the sexual, religious and social rules of her day.
The daughter of an estate manager known for his conscientious work habits and staunchly conservative political views.Not much is said about George Eliot's mother except that she died when Mary was 17 years old. This caused Mary  to leave Mrs. Wallington's School at Nuneaton where she had attended from 1832 to 1835. She left to help care for her father and keep the house. It seems her mother's death was sudden but there is no available cause of death listed.  Recognized at an early age for her intelligence, Evans gained access to the estate’s library. At school, as an adolescent, she was allowed considerable freedom in what she read; she devoured books, including Sir Walter Scott’s novels.
Evans was strongly touched by Evangelicalism in her later teenage years, and devoted several years to taking religion and religious study seriously. During that time, she disapproved of frivolities such as the theater and novels. However, her theological ardor eventually cooled and she found herself reading all of Byron, Shelley, Coleridge, Southey and, especially, Wordsworth, among others.
In 1841, she and her father moved to a house near Coventry where Mary Anne  came under different intellectual influences. There was clearly something in the social air as well, including no doubt the impact of the Chartist movement and the depression of 1841-1842, that made her susceptible to new ideas, among them those advanced by Charles and Caroline Bray, who became her close friends. Charles Bray was a ribbon manufacturer and a free thinker. He was an acquaintance of, among other figures, Robert Owen, the utopian socialist, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American philosopher, to both of whom he introduced Mary Anne, who had by now stopped attending church. She “was quickly brought,” as biographer Gordon S. Haight writes, “from provincial isolation into touch with the world of ideas.”
 Formidably knowledgeable across a range of subjects: Mary Anne was able to speak several languages including German, Hebrew, and Greek, she translated two books into English that were central to the rejection of Christianity by the intellectual avant-garde: David Friedrich Strauss' Life of Jesus (1846) and Ludwig Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity (1854). These translations lead to Eliot's atheism and her eventual renunciation of the Christian faith, that  led her tp  to develop a sense of secular humanism, which is the belief that humanity is capable of morality and self-fulfillment without belief in God.
After her fathers death in 1849 when she was 30 she travelled extensively abroad  in Switzerland, Germany, Italy and France. After settling in London  in 1850, from 1851 to 1854 she  served as a writer and editor of the left wing journal  Westminster Review. In London she met she met George Henry Lewes, a journalist and advanced thinker. Lewes was separated from his wife, who had had two sons by another man, but had been unable to obtain a divorce. In a step daring for Victorian times, Mary Ann Evans began living openly with Lewes in 1854, in a union they both considered as sacred as a legal marriage and one that lasted until his death in 1878. The fact that they publicly acknowledged their relationship rather than hiding it brought them disapproval from the rest of society. Her brother Isaac ceased contact with her.
Many people over time  have made comments about George Eliot' appearance. She did not adhere to what consensus society considered beautiful, but beauty is after all skin deep, but what Eliot was gifted  with was a radiant, luminous intelligence,, and emphatic tenderness  that more than outshone many others on the planet, that did not prevent many  admiring her'and before her immensely happy, 23 year liaison  with George Henry Lewes, she had attracted the attentions, of several personable and  distinguished men.
With Lewes’s encouragement, Mary Ann Evans wrote her first fictional work, “The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton,” for Blackwood’s Magazine in 1857, when she was 37, it was followed by two more stories published under the pseudonym George Elliot,  partly in order to avoid her work being judged in relation to her scandalous domestic situation., and  "George” because it was Lewes’s name and “Eliot” because, she said, it was good mouth-filling, easily pronounced word.” It also  gave Eliot a shield against a society that despised her decision to question the church, speak her mind and live, for 25 years, with a married man.
At the age of thirty-nine she used her memories of Warwickshire to write her first long novel, Adam Bede (1859), it  caused such a sensation on its publication in February 1859 and, tired of the intense speculation surrounding the author’s identity, she revealed her real name in June of the same year. It established her as the foremost woman novelist in her day. Then came The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), and Romola (1863). Her masterpiece and one of the greatest English novels, Middlemarch, was published in 1871. Her last work was Daniel Deronda (1876).
From the outset of her career as a novelist, she was convinced that a writer's first obligation was a moral one and she would use her words  to write with a politically astute pen, and understood and wrote about the daily life of people at all levels of English society with great empathy and passion.
From Adam Bede to The Mill on the Floss and Silas Marner, Eliot presented the cases of social outsiders and small-town persecution. Felix Holt, the Radical and The Legend of Jubal were overtly political, and political crisis is at the heart of Middlemarch, in which she presents the stories of a number of denizens of a small English town on the eve of the Reform Bill of 1832; the novel is notable for its deep psychological insight and sophisticated character portraits, the roots of this realist philosophy in her review of John Ruskin's Modern Painters in Westminster Review in 1856. Readers in the Victorian era particularly praised her books for their depictions of rural society, for which she drew on her own early experiences, and she shared with Wordsworth the belief that there was much interest and importance in the mundane details of ordinary country lives.
In her own works she emphasized two major doctrines - that of renunciation and that of retribution. She chose the novel as the best medium for moral teaching because it was the popular literary type of the age. Her moral principles were not those of any particular religious creed, but were the universal ideals of reason, love of mankind, and renunciation of mean and selfish aims. She said that the “inspiring principle” that gave her courage to write was that of “so presenting our human life as to help my readers in getting a clearer conception and a more active admiration of those vital elements which bind men together and give a higher worthiness to their existence”. She took satisfaction in having produced work that would “gladden and chasten human hearts”
What is important to remember is Eliot wrote with neither an exclusively male nor an exclusively female sensibility, but from a well-rounded human perspective. She mixed with some of the greatest intellectuals of her day, including Charles Darwin, Karl Marx and Charles Dickens. Proselytizing  however was not her thing though, because she knew that her scandalous liaison with Lewes could only make her discussion of controversial matters a liability, but  she thought of herself as an a activist, "teaching the world through books." Thinking that she could more forcefully present her views by maintaining the persona of a neutral observer in her fiction, she objected to the role of political activist, who presents ideas in her own person. Finally, as a shy woman who cared only for her husband and her writing, who was often ill, and who hated publicity, she had neither the taste nor energy for public life, but who can fail to admire her rebellion against Victorian conventions  by living with a married man in spite knowing it would cause a scandal.
And despite causing both scandal and outrage  in Victorian English society, love for her work would eventually overwhelm many of the prejudices that she encountered. From being an outcast, she  even enjoyed royal approval. Queen Victoria was an avid reader of all her work, and by the time of her death , she had become the richest and most successful, self-made women in the country with her celebrated across the world.
After Lewes’s death in 1878, George Eliot found comfort with and married John Walter Cross on 16th May 1880. He was forty; she was sixty-one, and this again opened her to gossip because of the age difference, but this legal marriage helped at least to reconcile her with her brother. They moved to Chelsea but George Eliot fell ill with a throat infection. She was already suffering with kidney disease and she died on 22nd December 1880.
Before her death, she had been recognized by her contemporaries as the greatest living writer of English fiction and her thoughts, writings and books  have since become  renowned for their psychological insight and realism, touching boldly on timeless issues such as gender, justice, love, morality. politics and religion. None of her characters are perfect, and come with flaws as do most people.
Due to her unconventional lifestyle and atheist principles, she was refused  internment at Westminster Abbey. Instead, she was buried in the area reserved for religious dissenters or agnostics  alongside her beloved George Lewes at Highgate Cemetery. In 1980, 100 years after her  death, a plaque was erected in Poets' Corner in recognition of George Eliot's literary achievements and lasting reputation.
She lives on through her written works , and to quote George Eliot herself :"Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them"
I will end with the  following lovely quote written  in a  letter written to her teacher Maria  Lewis  in  October, 1841,  in which she reflects on autumn :

 "Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love — that makes life and nature harmonize. The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one’s very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.

Paradigm Shift

( Facebook status turned into poem)

Another world is possible
Beyond days of sleeping
Unsolved dreams can become a reality
Fulcrums of necessity
Flaming passion
Burning with fire
Released by comrades
Into the timeless bones of the universe.

Enjoying freedom
Wings of liberty
Unleashing stardust
Sweetness that contains mercy
Not bound by cages or prison walls
Through solidarity all made stronger
Breaking borders, spreading internationalism
Transforming with arms unrestrained.

The love we share
Can be a mover against injustice
Adjusting and shaping
Making waves that carry all
A communal roar spreading light
Against chains of command
Reinforcing pride with  eyes glistening
Still gripping to the rays filled with hope

Postscript, 7/10/ 19 above  poem  can also be found here
https://iamnotasilentpoet.wordpress.com/2019/10/07/paradigm-shift-by-dave-rendle/

They Shall Not Pass - The Battle for Cable Street.

On this day  on October 4, 1936, Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists attempted to march through East London. They were met by over 100,000 local residents and workers who fought with the fascists and the police  in order to protect their community, which forced the march to be abandoned.  The people of the East End inflicted a massive defeat on Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists that could never be forgotten.
During this time Britain was facing very serious economic problems,  with a climate of mass unemployment and economic depression, and far right forces were intent on using this in order to exploit division and stir up hate. Oswald Mosley, a former member of Parliament known for his public speaking skills, founded the BUF in 1932, and within two years membership had grown to 50,000. Mosley's  fascists held vile anti-semitic views and tried to blame Jews for the cause of the country's problems. Throughout the mid 1930s, the BUF moved closer towards Hitler’s form of fascism with Mosley himself saying that “fascism can and will win in Britain”. The British fascists took on a more vehemently anti-Semitic stance, describing Jews as “rats and vermin from whitechapel” and tried to blame Jews for the cause of the country's problems. Mosley’s blackshirts had been harassing the sizeable Jewish population in the East End all through the 1930s. By 1936 anti-semitic assaults by fascists were growing and windows of Jewish-owned businesses were routinely smashed. Hurrah for the Blackshirts!’  The notorious Daily Mail headline is just one chilling indication of the very real threat Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists posed in the mid 1930s.

 
On Sunday Oct. 4, 1936, Mosley planned to lead his Blackshirt supporters on a march through the East End, following months of BUF meetings and leafleting in the area designed to intimidate Jewish people and break up the East End’s community solidarity. Political leaders in the East End petitioned the Home Secretary Sir John Simon to ban the march; however, their request was denied. On 2nd October, the Jewish People’s Council presented a second petition with 100,000 signatures to request that the march be banned on the grounds that the “avowed object of the Fascist movement in Great Britain is the incitement of malice and hatred against sections of the population.” Despite these efforts, the British government allowed the march to proceed as planned and assigned 7,000 members of the police force to accompany it.
They were not to be welcomed, instead they were met by protestors, waving banners with slogans such as 'They shall not Pass'( no pasaron, famous republican slogan from the Spanish Civil War) , 'No Nazis here' and 'East End Unite.'  A mighty force had assembled prepared to defend their streets and neighbourhoods and their right to live in them.
Even though uniformed policemen on horseback were employed to allow Mosley's  march to pass through, anti-fascists blocked the route by barricading the street with rows of domestic furniture and the police were attacked with eggs, rotten fruit and the contents of peoples chamber pots. Local kids rolled marbles under police horses hooves. A mighty battle ensued, leaving many arrested and injured. 
Cable Street  is rightly remembered because it saw thousands of people, from many walks of life, women, children, local jews, Irish groups, communists, socialists, anarchists standing firm as one in an incredible display of unity who worked together to prevent Mosley's fascists from marching through a Jewish area in London.Together, they won a famous victory and put the skids under Britain’s first fascist mass movement.The  fascists did not get to march and they did not pass, and were left in humiliation so today we look back on this living history in celebration and pride.
Significantly, for some people that were involved in the protest, Cable Street was the road to Spain, and many would go on to volunteer as soldiers for the Republicans there, this year also marks the 80th anniversary founding of the International Brigades. The legend that was Cable Street became the lasting inspiration for the continuing British fight against the fascism that was spreading all across Europe and would eventually engulf the planet in a terrible world war, the event also  launched movements for tenant rights, against economic injustice, and in defense of immigrants.
 In 1979, artist Dave Binnington started painting a large mural commemorating the battle on the side wall of St George's Town Hall.  In 1982, the still uncompleted mural was vandalised with right-wing slogans, after which Binnington abandoned the project in disgust.  It was subsequently finished by Paul Butler, Ray Walker and Desmond Rochfort, and officially unveiled in 1983.  It has subsequently been vandalised, and repainted, several times. The mural depicts the events  of a very physical confrontation  between police and protestors  iin stunning detail, anti-fascist protestors proudly carrying banners, punches bing thrown, a barricade of furniture and an overturned vehicle across Cable Street manned by residents of all ages and ethnic backgrounds, a chamber pot being thrown under the hooves of horses being ridden  by baton-wielding police, and fascist  with a startling resemblance  to Adolf Hitler, looking very alarmed in just his underwear and socks.  

 
 There is much to learn from the Battle of Cable Street about the power that individuals and groups wield in the face of intolerant policies and behaviours when they unite against racism and discrimination. Hopefully by engaging with this history, we can think critically about the choices made by the East End community and its allies in 1936 and then consider choices available to us as agents of change in the face of prejudice and discrimination in our society  and communities today.
We might like to think those days are behind us, but anti-semitism, racism and intolerance  is on the rise. The far-right, and the forces of fascism are growing throughout Europe.  See for instance the likes of Tommy Robinson and his acolytes. And following the divisive and anti-immigrant rhetoric surrounding Brexit  there have been  reports of a fuel in the rise of racist hate crimes. The foul winds that blew across Cable Street ago still exist today, we must remain vigilant to this.
And, to be sure, the terms of the demonisation of Muslims today mirror the terms of the demonisation of Jews in the 1930s – i.e. they’re not like us; their culture and religion is primitive and barbaric; they refuse to assimilate; they’re not loyal to this country or its values; they’re a threat, dirty, backward; they are children of a lesser God. More sinister, still, is the way the normalisation of anti-Muslim bigotry has found its way to the top of the Tory Party, with Boris Johnson’s carefully calibrated attack on the small minority of women within the Muslim community who wear the burqa/nikab. Johnson knew precisely what he was doing. Moreover, the fact that this particular demand came soon after the former foreign secretary and now very unpopular prime minister enjoyed a face to face meeting with Trump’s erstwhile white nationalist brain, Steve Bannon, not a point we can afford to skate over either. As we again face racism, violence, and division today, waves of intolerance we must  never forget  the battle of Cable Street and remember the community solidarity that turned Mosley and his mob of fascists away. Teach your kids about it. 
Today and tomorrow we must still rally around the cry of No Pasaran - They shall not pass

Video Ghosts of Cable Street, set to the music of Men they couldn't hang

Cable Street - The Young 'Uns

On the fourth of October 1936
I was only a lad of sixteen.
But I stood beside men
Who were threescore and ten
And every age in between.

We were dockers and teachers,
Busmen, engineers,
And those with no jobs to do.
We were women and children
Equal in union — atheists, Christians, and Jews.

And we had so much to lose.

For with Hitler in Germany, Franco in Spain,
We knew what fascism meant.
So when Mosley came trouncing,
Denouncing the Jews,
To the East End of London we went.

For I’d met refugees, who had fled o’er the seas,
Germans, Italians, and Jews.
And I knew their despair
For what they’d seen there
And I couldn’t let them be abused.

We had so much to lose.

Now 3,000 fascists — their uniforms black —
Had set out to march on that day.
And 6,000 policemen
Intended to greet them
By making clear the way.

But we were there ready —
Our nerves they were steady —
One hundred thousand en masse.
And we planted our feet along Cable Street
And we sang: They shall not pass!

We sang: They shall not pass!

Then all us young lads,
We were sent to the side streets
To stop the police breaking through.
And with swift hands we made strong barricades
Out of anything we could use.

And they came to charge us,
But they couldn’t barge us,
With fists, batons, and hooves.
With as good as we got, we withstood the lot,
For we would not be moved.

We would not be moved.

And, yes, there was violence.
And, yes, there was blood.
And I saw things a lad shouldn’t see.
But I’ll not regret the day I stood
And London stood with me.

And when the news spread the day had been won
And Mosley was limping away —
There were shouts, there were cheers,
There were songs, there were tears,
And I hear them all to this day.

And we all swore then we’d stand up again
For as long as our legs could
And that when we were gone,
Our daughters and sons
Would stand where we stood.

Was the first time I’d heard two tiny words
Said by every woman and man.
Now I say them still
And I always will:
¡NO PASARÁN!

Lyrics and music  by Sean Conney

Cheryl Ann Jones (23/ 1/ 60 ) - Resetting the mould.

( Debut poem from my cousin from Cross Keys for National Poetry Day)

Cheryl Ann Jones  - Resetting the  mould.

The picture is motionless yet zesty
A diffusion of tranquillity and energy,
Nature coinciding with anthropogenic degradation
Amid endemic stemming of apathy and denial.

Preservation retarded by human avarice
Poisonous propellant of profit over planet,
Consumerist culture incite resource deficit
Global bruising, incontrovertibly transparent.

As fates pendulum, fretfully ticks
The looming equation irresolute and wavering,
Fragmented groups impede progression
Obstructing the pivotal sequence of recovery.

The bridge of transition
Cries out for construction,
Infectious momentum quells ominous foreboding.
Conceptual framework firmly embraced.

The picture now a magnetic jigsaw
Stray pieces conjoined and locked,
Strength and unity precede division.
The glorified dream, tomorrow's reality.

Burger King milkshake tweet banned for encouraging anti-social behaviour

 

A Burger King tweet advertising milkshakes has been banned by watchdogs for ‘irresponsibly’ promoting its milkshakes in the wake of protesters throwing drinks over right-wing campaigners. The fast food chain was found to have broken advertising rules over a tweet sent on 18 May,a day after a Brexit Party rally in Edinburgh, a Burger King tweet read: "Dear people of Scotland. We're selling milkshakes all weekend. Have fun. Love BK. #justsaying"

Police had encouraged (and succeeded) in having a McDonald's location in Edinburgh, Scottland ban the sale of milkshakes in an attempt to stop potential customers from buying milkshakes and hurling them at Farage who was in Edinburgh for a rally. In true rival fashion, Burger King tongue-in-cheek subtweeted McDonald's in the since-deleted post above.
Milkshaking  right wing  political candidates had become popular in May this year, during  the heat of European election campaigning and the height of Brexit discussions. Far right figure Tommy Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, had been twice drenched by milkshakes in the preceding days as he campaigned in the north-west of England. In one incident, Mr Robinson appeared to throw punches at a man who had thrown milkshake over him during a heated exchange in Warrington.. and UKIP candidate Carl Benjamin, was at a public meeting in Cornwall on May 10 when a protester also tried to throw a drink over him. 48 hours after the tweet, on May 20, a man in Newcastle threw a £5.25 banana and salted caramel over Farage.

 
The post drew 24 complaints from members of the public in all, alarmed that the message would spark a wave of copycat offences, despite a follow-up message from Burger King which read: “We'd never endorse violence - or wasting our delicious milkshakes. So enjoy the weekend and please drink responsibly people.”

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said  'Although we acknowledged that the tweet may have been intended as a humorous response to the suspension of milkshake sales by the advertiser's competitor, in the context in which it appeared we considered it would be understood as suggesting that Burger King milkshakes could be used instead by people to 'milkshake' Nigel Farage.

'We considered the ad therefore condoned the previous anti-social behaviour and encouraged further instances. We therefore concluded that the ad was irresponsible.'

The ASA added: 'We told Burger King to ensure that its future marketing communications did not condone or encourage anti-social behaviour.'

A Burger King spokesman said: 'Our tweet regarding the situation in Edinburgh was intended to be a tongue-in-cheek reaction to the situation. It appears some have misinterpreted this as an endorsement of violence, which we absolutely reject. 'At Burger King, we totally believe in individuals' right to freedom of expression and would never do anything that conflicts with this. We'd never endorse violence or wasting our delicious milkshakes. On a personal note  I think the milkshaking victims involved all truly got their just desserts.

Elie Wiesel (September 30, 1928–July 2, 2016 ) - An eternal beacon for humanity

Elie Wiesel a survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, a Nobel laureate, and the most powerful witness for the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, was born and grew up  in the small town of Sighet in Transylvania, where people of different languages and religions had lived side by side for centuries, sometimes peacefully, sometimes in bitter conflict. The region was long claimed by both Hungary and Romania. In the 20th century, it changed hands repeatedly, a hostage to the fortunes of war. Although the village changed hands from Romania to Hungary, the Wiesel family believed they were safe from the persecutions suffered by Jews in Germany and Poland.

The secure world of Wiesel’s childhood ended abruptly with the arrival of the Nazis in Sighet in 1944. The Jewish inhabitants of the village were deported en masse to concentration camps in Poland. The 15-year-old boy was separated from his mother and sister immediately on arrival in Auschwitz. He never saw them again. He managed to remain with his father for the next year as they were worked almost to death, starved, beaten, and shuttled from camp to camp on foot, or in open cattle cars, in driving snow, without food, proper shoes, or clothing. In the last months of the war, Wiesel’s father succumbed to dysentery, starvation, exhaustion and exposure. 

After the war he found asylum in France, where he learned for the first time  that his two older sisters had surived the war. Wiesel  mastered the French language and studied philosophy at the Sorbonne, He became a professional journalist writing for newspapers in both France and Israel.For ten years, he observed a self-imposed vow of silence and wrote nothing about his wartime experience. In 1955, at the urging of the Catholic writer Francois Mauriac, he set down his memories in Yiddish, in a  900-page work entitled Un die welt hot geshvign (And the world kept silent).  It was published in French in 1958 as “La Nuit” and two years later in English as “Night.”

Wiesel’s text was stark and often painfully simple: “Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.”
The book sparked discussion of the Holocaust, an event that had been the topic of relatively few books up to that point. If nothing else, it made its readers ask one unavoidable question: Why?
To Wiesel, the role of the artist was to remember and to recreate, not to imagine, since reality was far more shocking than anything that could be imagined.
Wiesel himself said: “I wanted to show the end, the finality of the event. Everything came to an end — history, literature, religion, God. There was nothing left. And yet we begin again with ‘Night.’”

In 1956 while in New York reporting  on the United Nations, Elie Wiesel was struck by a taxi cab. His injuries confined him to a wheelchair for almost a year. Unable to renew the French document which had allowed him to travel as a “stateless” person, Wiesel applied successfully for American citizenship. Once he recovered, he remained in New York and became a feature writer for the Yiddish-language newspaper, The Jewish Daily Forward (Der forverts). Wiesel went on to author  over 60 books, most of them memoirs and novels, but also essays and plays. Most of Wiesel’s novels, essays, and plays explore the subject that haunted him, the events that he described as “history’s worst crime.”

As these and other books brought Wiesel to the attention of readers and critics, he became a spokesman for human rights wherever they were threatened, and used his fame to plead for justice for oppressed peoples, speaking out on behalf of the victims of genocide and oppression all over the world, defending the cause of Soviet Jews, Nicaragua’s Miskito Indians, Argentina’s Desaparecidos, Cambodian refugees, the Kurds,, of apartheid in South Africa, and victims of war, famine and genocide from Rwanda, Biafra, Bosnia, Kosovo to Darfur.

In 1976, Elie Wiesel was named Andrew Mellon Professor of Humanities at Boston University. He also taught at the City University of New York and was a visiting scholar at Yale University. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter appointed Elie Wiesel Chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. Wiesel was a driving force behind the establishment of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. His words, “For the dead and the living, we must bear witness,” are engraved in stone at the entrance to the museum. In 1985 he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, and in 1986, the Nobel Prize for Peace, In his Nobel citation, Wiesel was described as a messenger to mankind. “His message is one of peace, atonement, and human dignity,” the citation reads. “His belief that the forces fighting evil in the world can be victorious is a hard-won belief.” Wiesel lived up to that moniker with exquisite eloquence on December 10 that year, exactly ninety years after Alfred Nobel died, as he took the stage at Norway’s Oslo City Hall and delivered a spectacular speech on justice, oppression, and our individual responsibility in our shared freedom.  “Sometimes we must interfere,” Wiesel said in his Nobel acceptance speech. “When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Whenever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that must—at that moment—become the center of the universe.”

You can listen and read the full acceptance speech here https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1986/wiesel/facts/ 
Elie Wiesel and his wife, Marion Wiesel, (the former Marion Erster Rose), a Holocaust survivor; established the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity soon after he was awarded the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize. The foundation’s mission, rooted in the memory of the Holocaust, is to combat indifference, intolerance, and injustice through international dialogue and youth-focused programs that promote acceptance, understanding, and equality. The international conferences of the Elie Wiesel Foundation, which focus on themes of peace, education, health, the environment, and terrorism, bring together Nobel laureates and world leaders to discuss social problems and develop suggestions for change.

His advocacy against genocide left him vulnerable to criticism from extremists and once to physical assault. In 2007, he was attacked in a San Francisco hotel elevator by a Holocaust denier named Eric Hunt, who had followed Wiesel across the country. Wiesel was not injured. Although he became known to millions for his human rights activism, he by no means abandoned the art of fiction. His later novels included A Mad Desire to Dance (2009) and The Sonderberg Case (2010), a tale set in contemporary New York City, with a cast of characters including Holocaust survivors, Germans, American emigrants to Israel and New York literati. Wiesel and his wife, made their home in New York City. He died at home in Manhattan, at the age of 87.

As a writer, a peace activist, and always most important to him, a teacher, Wiesel embodied, perhaps more than any of his contemporaries, the words “bearing witness.” He dedicated his life advocating for peace, humanity, truth, and helping other survivors emerge stronger after the devastation they experienced,  and he not only shaped how the world remembers the Holocaust, but how the memory of atrocity can help prevent future tragedies. Defining someone’s suffering as an interruption removes their value and denies their humanity. Wiesel warned of the lure of this indifferent mindset. He explained that the temptation of inaction and apathy allows us to focus solely on our own desires and goals. Empathy and engagement with people is what makes us human and Wiesel showed us that by embracing indifference we would betray our humanity. 

In a time when the world seems like a darker place, it is important to remember those who speak up for justice, hope and humanity. Elie Wiesel, was one of them. Not only was he an influential voice reminding humanity of the damage it can inflict on itself, Wiesel also stood for action. For hope, courage, determination and the power of individuals to stand against injustice and violence, and to build a better future. He  has inspired generations to social action. He celebrated the power of law to change people's lives when he accepted the 2012 William O. Douglas Award. "This is what we must do -- not to sleep well when people suffer anywhere in the world," Professor Wiesel told the audience of more than 1,000. "Not to sleep well when someone's persecuted. Not to sleep well when people are hungry all over here or there. Not to sleep well when there are people sick and nobody is there to help them. Not to sleep well when anyone somewhere needs you. You don't sleep well. And for this... we are very grateful to you."

  Here are few more of his most powerful messages, still as relevant as ever, standing as an eternal beacon for humanity.

 "We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

 
"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference."

  “No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.”

 "One person of integrity can make a difference."

 "Once you bring life into the world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing the world."

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”

" Hope is like peace. It is not a gift from God. It is a gift only we can give one another."

  “No human being is illegal.”