The Death of James Connolly (5 June 1868 – 12 May 1916)

 

James Connolly was an Irish republican and socialist leader. He was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World  and founder of the Irish Socialist Republican Party. For a man so linked to Irish history, Connolly was actually  born in  the Cowgate Area of Edinburgh, Scotland. The area he lived in was  nicknamed ' Little Ireland' and was one of the city's slum areas. He subsequently spoke with a Scottish accent throughout his life. His parents  were originally from County Monaghan and their life in Edinburgh was hard. He left school for working life at the age of 11, but became one of  the leading revolutionary theorists of his day.
James Connolly joined the British Military at age 14 to escape his extreme poverty. Seven years later at the age of 21, Connolly left military life and eventually settled in Dublin in 1896. In 1903 Connolly emigrated to the United States, living for a brief period in Troy New York with a relative, and worked for an insurance firm as a salesman. But by 1905 he left Troy to persue his ideals of organizing a militant working class movement and soon joined the newly formed IWW ( Industrial Workers of the World ) as a member and full-time organizer.
Connolly came back  to Ireland at the invitation of a small socialist group. Here he soon made his mark as a talented organiser, speaker and writer. It was James Connolly above all who was responsible for the alignment between working class organisations and the goal of irish independence.Connolly wrote brilliantly on the necessity of socialism to the cause of Irish independence, as well as all manners of topics relevant to the world socialist movement. He believed it was the working class who could shake the foundations of the British empire, for the benefit of all the oppressed of the world.
James Connoly addressed meetings in north Wales, after which the celebrated Welsh socialist and local  Independent Labour Party leader Silyn Roberts recalled :
"Gyda Larkib ym 1911 y cyfarum ag ef ac y dysfgais ei edmygud a'i garu. Un o drysorau gwerthfawrocaf fy llufrgell yw copi o'i gyfrol Labour in Irish history, a roddwyd i mi ganddo a Larkin i gofio am eu hymweliad a Chymru".
 "I met him with Larkin in 1911, and learnt to admire him and love him. One of the greatest treasures in my library is a copu of his volume Labour in Irish history, which he and Larkin gabe me as a momento of their visit to Wales", With James Larkin, he was centrally involved in  the Dublin lock-out of 1913, that paralyzed commerce and transport for many weeks. During the general strike Connolly organized the Irish Citizen Army amongst striking workers, in a self defense response to wide spread beatings of striking workers by the Irish police and British military. The Irish Citizen Army became the nucleus of the Dublin Division of the Army of the Republic during the 1916 Easter Rebellion against British rule of Ireland.
With the outbreak of war, Connolly became increasingly committed to formenting an insurrection against British rule in Ireland; he had gradually changed from labour organiser and agitator into military commandant and theorist. In mid-January 1916 he reached agreement with the Irish Republican Brotherhood Military Council to co-operate in an insurrection the following Easter. He joined the Council, and on the day before the Rising its members appointed him vice-president of the Irish Republic and Commandant-General, Dublin Division, Irish Army.
Connolly proved himself to be the most effective and inspirational of the rebel leaders during the insurrection. On Easter Monday, 24th April, he led the Headquarters Battalion from Liberty Hall to the General Post Office and commanded military operations there throughout the week – supervising the construction of defences, determining and adjusting strategy, summoning reinforcements and deciding on the disposition of his forces. That only nine volunteers in the post office garrison died during the fighting is testimony to his talents. He himself took constant risks with his own safety but even after being severely wounded on 27th April, he remained, as Patrick Pearse said, "still the guiding brain of our resistance".
At noon on Saturday 29th April Connolly supported the majority view of the leaders that they should surrender as he 'could not bear to see his brave boys burnt to death'. His expectation was that the Risin's organisers would  be shot and the rest set free. Under military escort, Connolly was carried to the Red Cross Hospital at Dublin Castle where hours later he signed Pearse's surrender order on behalf f the Irish Citizen Army. He was court-martialled there, propped up in his bed, on 9th May. At  his trial he read the following brief hand -written statement which said :
 “Believing that the British Government has no right in Ireland, never had any right in Ireland, and never can have any right in Ireland, the presence, in any one generation of Irishmen, of even a respectable minority, ready to die to affirm that truth, makes the Government forever a usurpation and a crime against human progress. I personally thank God that I have lived to see the day when thousands of Irishmen and boys, and hundreds of women and girls, were ready to affirm that truth, and to attest to it with their lives if need be.”
As spring was turning to summer, a city still coming to terms with the death and destruction of the Easter Rising was being forced to accept yet more blood-letting. Despite his severe wounds, on 12 May 1916 he was transported by military ambulance to Kilmainham Gaol, carried to a prison courtyard on a stretcher, tied to a chair and executed by the British military by firing squad to the outrage of many people in Ireland and across the world. It certainly significantly contributed to the mood of bitterness in Ireland. His body (along with those of the other rebels) was put in a mass grave without a coffin. The executions of the rebels deeply angered the majority of the Irish population, most of whom had shown no support during the rebellion. It was Connolly's execution, however, that caused the most controversy. Historians have pointed to the manner of execution of Connolly and similar rebels, along with their actions, as being factors that caused public awareness of their desires and goals and gathered support for the movements that they had died fighting for. It was the death of their leaders, and particularly of Connolly, that sparked the flame of Irish republicanism across this island, launched a mass rebellion, and ultimately led to the creation of an Irish republic. Of all the executions carried out during the 1916 Easter Rising, none raised as much public anger then or since as the execution of James Connolly
Though considered by many historians to be an " Irish Nationalist ", Connolly did not believe in ignoring class divisions in the name of nationalism. That Ireland could not be free until the working class of Ireland was free.
In the aftermath of his death Kerry journalist Liam MacGabhann penned The Poem of James Connolly in 1933. MacGabhann, who was born on Valentia Island in 1908, wrote the stirring piece from the view of a soldier in the firing party ordered to shoot Connolly.
In 1916 a Welsh regiment on its way to the Western Front was diverted to Ireland as backup for troops trying to crush the rebellion in Dublin. MacGabhann heard a story about a young soldier, a son of a Welsh miner, who was part of that regiment and was included in the firing squad for Connollys execution and felt utter guilt and shame because of it.
In the aftermath of the ghastly deed this unnamed Welsh solider  tracked down Connolly’s widow and children to ask for their forgiveness. as she later recalled, he told Lily:
" I am a miner. My father was a miner, and my grandfather was a miner -they were both very busy in the tade union. How can I go back home? They would know about James Connolly even if I didn't. I haven't been  home onleave. I can't go home. I'd let something slip, and they'd know I'd killed James Connolly.Oh,why was I chosen tokill a man like that?"
Lily replied : James Connolly has already forgiven you. He realised yu were being forced, he realised you were only a working class boy".
MacGabhann took this anonymous Welsh soldier as the voice for his poem who reflects on his participation in the execution of Connolly with heavy regret.
 
The Poem of James Connolly -  Liam MacGabhann 

The man was all shot through that came today
 Into the barrack square;
 A soldier I – I am not proud to say
 We killed him there;
 They brought him from the prison hospital;
 To see him in that chair
 I thought his smile would far more quickly call
 A man to prayer.
 Maybe we cannot understand this thing
 That makes these rebels die;
 And yet all things love freedom – and the Spring
 Clear in the sky;
 I think I would not do this deed again
 For all that I hold by;
 Gaze down my rifle at his breast – but then
 A soldier I.
 They say that he was kindly – different too,
 Apart from all the rest;
 A lover of the poor; and all shot through,
 His wounds ill drest,
 He came before us, faced us like a man,
 He knew a deeper pain
 Than blows or bullets – ere the world began;
 Died he in vain?
 Ready – present; And he just smiling – God!
 I felt my rifle shake
 His wounds were opened out and round that chair
 Was one red lake;
 I swear his lips said ‘Fire!’ when all was still
 Before my rifle spat
 That cursed lead – and I was picked to kill
 A man like that!

Today, James Connolly is regarded as one of Ireland's greatest heroes. He was a revolutionary socialist and militant unionist who dedicated his life not just to the cause of Irish liberation, but also to international socialism. He inspired not only the republican and socialist tradition in Ireland but anti-colonial & anti-imperialist movements around the world. In the history of the international working class movement we should remember James Connolly as a hero and martyr who acted on his beliefs.
Today, a statue of James Connolly stands in pride of place at the centre of Dublin. A brass engraving of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic also sits at pride of place in the window of the General Post Office headquarters, where Connolly made his stand for the liberty of his nation and the working class during four fateful days in April 1916. .
I will end with  this final quote from him :-
"A revolution will only be achieved when the ordinary people of the world, us, the working class, get up off our knees and take back what is rightfully ours."

 Andy Irvine - Where is our James Connolly

Word of the day - Palpable

Palpable is a word often used to describe things that usually can't be handled, such as emotions or sensations. You probably wont see palpable being used to describe,  say an egg or a doorknob or a motorcycle. Palpable is usually reserved for situations in which something becomes invisible becomes so intense that it feels as though it has substance or weight. When the towers came down, the sense of sadness, it was palpable. Loneliness, longing and loss can be palpable too, and currently because of the coronavirus we are facing it has created a real  atmosphere of palpable fear and worry that is currently being felt globally. 
We feel that the world has changed , and it has. The loss of normalcy, the fear of economic toll, the loss of connection.This is hitting us all and we are all grieving. Collectively, we are simply  not used to this kind of collective grief in the air. Personally I feel a palpable rage at this present time.

Palpable 

adj:- capable of being perceived,
especially capable of being handled or touched or felt.

( of a feeling or atmosphere) so intense as to seem almost tangible.

" a barely palpable dust"

"felt sudden anger in a palpable wave."

" the air was warm and close - palpable as cotton"

"a palpable lie"

" Popular opinions, on subjects not palpable to sense, are often true , but seldom or never the whole truth " - John Stuart Mill

I personally have a palpable distrust for politicians, who  often release words of palpable nonsense. Take our Prime minister Boris Johnson for instance  who  publicly thanked Britain’s beloved National Health Service for successfully treating him for Covid-19 over a seven-day period in early April. “It’s hard to find words to express my debt,” the prime minister said, naming several nurses, and thanking two in particular for standing by his bedside for 48 hours when “things could’ve gone either way.”
Johnson’s speech, which he might have hoped would be lauded for its graciousness, served instead as a reminder that the NHS is a success despite him. When the first cases of Covid-19 in the U.K. were confirmed in late January, Johnson’s Conservative Party government claimed that it was prepared for any eventuality.
That turns out to have been a lie. The government’s failure to provide sufficient protective gear, which has so far contributed to the deaths of at least 114 health care workers in Britain, was  preventable. Moreover, two separate investigations have now revealed high-level attempts to cover it up.
Recently the  BBC’s Panorama showed that the British government’s pandemic stockpile lacked key equipment, such as gowns, visors, swabs, and body bags. The government was of course aware of this deficit and yet, even after the pandemic hit the country’s shores, U.K. leaders refused multiple opportunities to bulk-buy PPE. When the lack of supplies became obvious to the public, the government tried to hide the problem by inflating PPE numbers, counting one pair of gloves as two items of PPE.
Another investigation, by the Sunday Times, a decidedly right-leaning newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch that has previously swooned over Johnson, calling him a “rockstar,” showed just how casually the prime minister confronted the pandemic. Johnson had skipped five high-level emergency meetings to discuss the virus, the newspaper reported. He insisted, in a manner reminiscent of U.S. President Donald Trump, that briefing reports be as short as possible. He went on holiday to a country estate, refused to work weekends, and attended a fundraising ball.
After his thank-you speech, Johnson retired to Chequers, the lavish 16^th century, 1,500-acre manor house used by British prime ministers, where he was photographed strolling the grounds with his pregnant fiancée and their Jack Russell terrier. The world was in the grip of an unprecedented crisis, but the U.K. was without a leader.
Johnson’s NHS caregivers, meanwhile, returned to work immediately, and every day, reports stream in of front-line health workers like them who are forced to combat the highly contagious virus in clinical waste bags and plastic aprons. They were asking schools to donate science goggles. They were adapting snorkels as respirator masks. When UNISON, the U.K.’s largest public services union, opened a PPE alert hotline, it was flooded with calls from health care workers who talked about having to buy their own equipment.
Of the health care providers who have died so far, one, Abdul Mabud Chowdhury, a consultant urologist in London, had written a Facebook post appealing to Johnson to protect him and his co-workers. “I hope we are by default entitled to get this minimal support,” he wrote on March 18, five days before he was hospitalized. Johnson is responsible for his death, and for the death of every other health care worker in the country.
 Johnson also after recovering from Covid-19 and the birth of his son said  he "bitterly" regrets the Covid-19 crisis in care homes and expressed frustration about problems supplying personal protective equipment. He will  be making a statement on the route out of lockdown at 7pm conveniently following from the 75th anniversary of VE day. But quick fixes and crowd pleasing politics will not save us in an emergency. We should not forget that the Tories have been in government for ten years prior to the pandemic and had  consistently run down the NHS and the Public Health Service. They were willing to contemplate millions of deaths in order to achieve 'herd immunity' and their focus was more on Brexit than any wish to save lives.
The late great Aneurin Bevan once said that he could not get the hate for the Tories out of his heart and that he thought that they were lower than vermin, I am quite clear now as to why he held that view. The Tories initially opposed the establishment of the NHS and every time they have been in power  have sought to undermine it, in their recent current response to our needs they have given massive contracts to the likes of SERCO to provide public health services, a company renowned for failing at all other services provided to the public sector.
There is a palpable sense that people are increasingly hungry for new political approaches. We now have at least the time to pause and reflect upon the palpable sense of urgency in changing some fundamentals about our society. This crisis is a wake up call to us all. The virus has no respect for borders, and demonstrates fundamentally, that we live in an interconnected world, that we need nations to work together in times of crisis, and above all we need serious, sensible politicians of good intent at the helm. 
There will certainly be a palpable sense of relief when this crisis is over, hopefully united by a common purpose, newer approaches and new behaviors and  a  renewed sense of community that will hopefully not see us going back to our old ways, and when we eventually come out of this catastrophe , people must remember the shocking behaviour of Boris Johnson. As we eventually reconnect let us all  continue to feel the palpable waves of love,

Fear the Reaper

The days are getting longer now
For Mr death this means more business,
He respects no borders, or governmental orders
Religious faith or political affiliation,
Brings a dark plague on all our houses
Daily stalks, until  he makes that final call,
By the light of a barking dog
Never gets thrown off course,
The exterminating angel
Sits at the end of our beds,
Diligently slips through praying fingers
Cancels out all dreams and hopes,
Mercilessly zapping both the young and old
The meek and the mild, the quiet and bold,
The fierce ones, the angry and defiant
Free or in isolation, abandoned or in confinement,
No one goes gently, there are no happy endings
Will catch you, trap you and take you away,
The truth is, there's no escaping his power
One day we will take the fragile flight into light,
Nothing though is ever lost or completely erased
Haunting the world,we leave memories and shadows,
The world is like a raging sea, and we are all drowning
Seeds of grief always flowering, fertilising the earth.

http://pendemic.ie/fear-the-reaper-a-poem-by-dave-rendle/

Anniversary of Kent State University Massacre

On this day May 4, 1970, members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd of unarmed anti-war protestors at Kent State University in Ohio, killing four students and wounding nine others peacefully protesting against  President Richard Nixon's bombing of  Cambodia as  part of the Vietnam War.
On April 30, 1970, President Richard Nixon gave a nationalised, televised address and said “attacks are being launched this week to clean out major sanctuaries on the Cambodian-Vietnam border.” The announcement came 10 days after Nixon announced the withdrawal of 150,000 troops from Vietnam, and controversially, the president made his decision without notifying his Secretary of State William Rogers or Defense Secretary Melvin Laird. .

The decision sparked unrest at college campuses nationally,  including Kent State, which had a small, militant chapter of Students for a Democratic Society.In Kent, there was a violent confrontation between protestors and local  police  on Friday, May 1. Bonfires were built downtown, bottles were thrown at police cars, and rocks were thrown through glass windows.
The mayor of Kent  Leroy Satrom "heard rumors of a radical plot, declared a state of emergency, and telephoned the governor in Columbus for assistance." Bars were closed, and those in the street were tear-gassed by riot police. On May 2, the mayor made the decision to call in the National Guard to help keep the peace after hearing about threats to local businesses and rumors of radical protestors trying to destroy the city. That evening, there was a large demonstration happening on campus, and the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) building was set on fire. Another demonstration on campus occurred on May 3, where tear gas was fired. As part of the protest, they buried a copy of the Constitution, a symbol of their outrage that Congress had never formally declared war on Vietnam or Cambodia.
 Though resentful of the heavy handedness used by law enforcement the night before, many Kent students assist with the downtowb cleanup. Some view Kent Mayor Leroy Satrom’s declaration of a state of emergency  exaggerated. With no way to dispel circulating rumours about radicals intent on destroying the town, all students are forced to obey a  day long curfew though plans are in motion for a second student protest that evening. With Nuxon calling them "Bums", the students show the world they deserve respect and cannot be silenced.

The new presence of 1,000 National Guard soldiers on campus is an unwelcome attempt at intimidation, as is Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes’s  inflammatary speech in which he declared that the protesters were "worse than the brown shirts and the communist element and also the night riders and the vigilantes .. the worst type of people that we harbor in America. I think that we're up against the strongest, well-trained, militant, revolutionary group that has ever assembled in America." The authorities purposely lumped  all student protestors together with radicals.

On Monday, May 4, 1970 feeling like Kent State had become a war zone, some 2,000 antagonized students gather to protest both the National Guard and Vietnam War, as well as Nixon’s Cambodia invasion. But with the guard in control of the campus, the university announced the rally was prohibited. The students gathered anyway, facing off across a hilly green against a phalanx of guard soldiers.
Initially peaceful, the rally quickly turns  violent and then deadly shortly after noon, when protestors, hit with tear gas, are set upon by 77 Guards marching at them with fixed bayonets. Twenty-eight of the Guards suddenly, with no warning, open fire into the crowd of innocent, unarmed students protesting against an  immoral, unjust  war. unleashing 60-70 rounds in 13 horrific seconds, leaving  4 students dead, and wounding  9 others . One individual  Dean Kahler, was shot in the back and left permanently paralyzed from the waist down. in what came to be known as the Kent State Massacre.

The victims were  Jeffrey Miller and Sandra Scheuer, both 20, and Allison Krause and William Schroeder, both 19.

John Paul Filo's Pulitzer Prize-winning photo below  of the incident is considered one of the historically most significant images of the era. It hauntingly shows Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling over the body of one of the victims, Jeffrey Miller.

.
The students shot on May 4, all white, became martyrs; most people have forgotten that less than two weeks later, Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green, two students in Missisippi  were killed by police officers in the wake of a false rumor about the death of a civil rights leader. And while Kent State stands out as an exception , National Guardsmen killing white college students ,  over the years, state authorities have killed far more African-American protesters than whites.

The Scranton Commission  in October 1970 found that “The indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students and the deaths that followed were unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable,"and that  the shootings at Kent State were unjustified,  and excessive as there had been no order to fire and the danger the Guardsmen faced did not call for lethal force. It was welcomed at the time but would not bring back the lives of the four murdered students , nor were these facts enough to convict the  Guardsmen. For the supporters of those murdered, this acquittal stifled justice.
The killings shocked the nation and  the incident had a great impact on the political atmosphere both in the U.S. and internationally, becomng a benchmark in American history, radicalizing the opposition to the military engagement in the Vietnam conflict. Following the event, about 8 million students took part in a national student  strike, closing down hundreds of universities and schools across the  United States. and within five days a protest of 100,000 in Washington DC which saw significant rioting forcing Nixon to flee the city to Camp David.  Nixon's speechwriter later said that "The mobs were smashing windows, slashing tires, dragging parked cars into intersections, even throwing bedsprings off overpasses into the traffic down below. This was the quote, student protest. That's not student protest, that’s civil war."  Back in Kent the state prosecuted 24 students and one member of staff although charges were eventually dropped.

The various protests drew to an end as President Richard Nixon, who served from 1969-1974, began to withdraw U.S. soldiers from North and South Vietnam. With the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in 1973, which basically ended U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, the protests drew to a formal close. Still, the Kent State Shootings continue to reverberate through U.S. society and culture.The anniversary of the shootings, is  a time to reflect on the willingness of the state to use force to crush dissent..The tragedy inspired Neil Young to write the  following epic social commentary "Ohio" for his band Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

World Press Freedom Day 2020

 

Today World Press Freedom Day  provides an opportunity for people around the world to celebrate the fundamental human right to freedom of expression.  Every day, journalists around the world face the threat of intimidation, censorship, imprisonment and violence, including torture, for their efforts to report on human rights violations.
The press acts as a medium of communication between the government and the people. The free press has a huge responsibility of reporting the truth and shaping people's opinions. Hence to mark the importance of the press, World Press Freedom Day is celebrated every year.
World Press Freedom Day popularly known as World Press Day is one of the calendar events planned, organised and promoted by the United Nations, observed annually on May 3.
The day is celebrated to raise awareness regarding the importance of freedom of the press. The day is reflection among media professionals about issues of press freedom and professional ethics.

"A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad." - Albert Camus

May 3 the World Press Freedom Day is a day of support for media and the reporters right to hold the powerful to account, It is also a day of remembrance for those journalists who lost their lives in the pursuit of a story. As per UNESCO, on May 3, national and local celebrations for World Press Freedom Day will take place around the world, which includes online debates and workshops.
As we all know that the entire world is going through COVID-19 pandemic, this year the theme of world press freedom day 2020 is Journalism without Fear or Favour. The UN Secretary-General António Guterres, in a statement, gave a message to the entire world, saying-

"As the [COVID-19] pandemic spreads, it has also given rise to a second pandemic of misinformation, from harmful health advice to wild conspiracy theories. The press provides the antidote: verified, scientific, fact-based news and analysis". -UN Secretary-General António Guterres

World Press Freedom Day was first proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in December 1993, following the recommendation of UNESCO's General Conference. Since then, 3 May, is celebrated as World Press Freedom Day.
World Press Freedom Day acts as a reminder to governments of the need to respect their commitment to press freedom. That the importance of a free press in a functioning and safe society and serves to commemorate the journalists who have lost their lives in support of free press. In a time when media coverage is prone to fear-mongering and sensationalism, taking the time to appreciate and seek out journalism with integrity has never been more important. Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right  as stated in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Apart from the theme of world press freedom day in 2020 Journalism without Fear or Favour, there are also certain sub-themes this year which include.

1. Safety of Women and Men Journalists and Media Workers

2.Independent and Professional Journalism free from Political and Commercial Influence

3. Gender Equality in All Aspect of the Media

The day May 3 also marks the anniversary of Windhoek Declaration.A statement of press freedom principles put together by African journalists in 1991 to promote an independent and pluralistic African press.
 Media Worldwide is facing crises on multiple fronts, exacerbated by the COVID19 pandemic. Reporters without Borders released its 2020 World Press Freedom Index on April 21st, noting that the Coronavirus is being used by authoritarian governments to implement “shock doctrine” measures that would be impossible in normal times.
The index shows a “clear correlation between suppression of media freedom in response to the Coronavirus pandemic, and a country’s ranking in the Index.” Of the 180 countries and territories in the index, Iran (ranked at 173) censored their Coronavirus outbreaks extensively. Iraq, at 162, punished Reuters for an article that questioned official pandemic figures, and Hungary (ranked at 89) has just passed a coercive Coronavirus Law.
The long-term risks of suppressing press freedoms have been exposed by the pandemic. As the death toll mounts amidst an economic crisis of unprecedented proportions, promoting transparent reporting is a global necessity. Yet, several countries stand accused of acting too late in warning the world about the timing and extent of the threat.
The World Press Freedom Index illustrates the oppression of journalists from North to South and a pandemic in its own right seems to have fomented.

There are currently 231 journalists imprisoned around the world, and since the start of the year, at least 10 have been murdered because of their activities as journalists.Iin Myanmar, Voice of Myanmar’s editor was arrested recently and charged with terrorism for interviewing a representative of the Arakan Army, a rebel group fighting for regional autonomy.
Even the president of the world’s most powerful democracy has described the press as “the enemy of the people.”
Ultimately, the freedom of the press can only be guaranteed by a coordinated global effort, public awareness and a focus on the long-term advantages of a more critical world.
 In the midst of the rising pandemic of misinformation - may today remind us of how vital press freedom is in ensuring that people have access to verified, fact-based, and unbiased info, both on or offline.

Also to mark World Press Freedom Day , the One Free Press coalition that  stands up for journalists under attack for pursuing the truth worldwide. 

 https://www.onefreepresscoalition.com/ 

has called for the immediate release of all imprisoned journalists amid increasing threats to press freedom worldwide during the coronavirus pandemic.

Each month, the coalition, which comprises prominent news organisations and publishers, brings to the public's attention the 10 "most urgent" cases of journalists whose freedoms are being suppressed or whose cases are seeking justice.

Throughout the years, the campaign has highlighted the plight of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist who was killed inside the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul in 2018, as well as Mahmoud Hussein, an Al Jazeera journalist who has been held without any formal charges in Egypt since December 2016.
At least half of the journalists on the latest list published on May 1 are currently behind bars and at heightened risk of exposure to the coronavirus.
Here is a link to the full list https://www.onefreepresscoalition.com/list

Finally on this occasion, I would once again like to draw attention to the case of Julian Assange, a journalist persecuted for doing his job, who has become a symbol of the right to information in the eyes of a growing international public opinion.
In April 2019, shortly after his arrest at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, the United States, seeking his extradition, announced 18 charges against him, including 17 related to espionage for which he would face up to 170 years in prison.
Attacking a journalist by equating his work with espionage is a real threat to press freedom. For if Assange is extradited, he will be convicted and with him the right of investigative journalists to publish freely.
Julian Assange’s health is currently very weakened as a result of the  deleterious effects of prolonged psychological torture on him: cognitive and neurological deficiencies, altered thought processes, permanent anxiety, agitation, lack of concentration and coordination, insomnia, accompanied by feelings of total arbitrariness, loss of control and powerlessness, despair with an acute risk of suicide.
However, on Monday 27 April 2020, supported by the prosecution because of the current health situation, the lawyers defending Julian Assange finally obtained from the Westminster Magistrates Court an adjournment of the second part of his previously announced extradition trial for 18 May. The parties will meet again on 4 May to agree on a new date, either in July or November.
This postponement is good news for the preparation of the defense, but it should not, however, be allowed to prolong Julian Assange’s imprisonment any further, since he has not committed or been prosecuted for any crime, if it had to be reminded again, and is therefore imprisoned in London only pending these proceedings, his life being more than ever at risk in the high-security prison of Belmarsh, which is hit by the covid-19 epidemic.This situation further stimulates the determination to have him released immediately.
On this World Press Freedom Day, lets express our  support for Julian Assange and join the call for his immediate release, because.one of the hallmarks of repression anywhere is a sustained attack on journalism.

 "Freedom of the Press, if it means anything at all, means the freedom to criticize and oppose." - George Orwell.

Remembering Afro Beat Legend Tony Oladipo Allen (12 August 1940 – 30 April 2020)

 

Remembering  pioneering Nigerian drumming legend  and composer Tony Oladipo Allen who has died in Paris, aged 79.The news was first broken by Sahara Reporters, though a cause of death is not yet publicly known. Early reports, since confirmed by his manager, Eric Trosset, said that Allen died suddenly in Paris on Thursday (April 30).
“We don’t know the exact cause of death,” Trosset said, adding that it was not linked to the coronavirus. “He was in great shape, it was quite sudden. I spoke to him at 1pm then two hours later he was sick and taken to Pompidou hospital, where he died.”
Born in Lagos in 1940, he taught himself how to play the drums at 18-years-old and learned his technique by listening to American jazz drummers Art Blakely and Max Roach. He developed his own unique style  and in the early 1960s he became a regular on the Lagos club circuit which was dominated by the West African highlife sound.

It was during this period he first met Fela Ransome Kuti, https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2017/10/fela-kuti-15-october-1938-2-august-1997_16.html who was developing a highlife band called the Koola Lobitos. By 1968/69 that band had evolved into Fela’s groundbreaking Afrika 70, led by Allen on drums with Lekan Animashaun on baritone saxophone and Tunde Williams on trumpet.

Fela and the Afrika 70 had developed a new sound called “Afrobeat” with strong jazz roots, African highlife based on the signature syncopated funk drumming Allen perfected over arguably Fela’s most prolific artistic period.Allen’s distinctive drumming sound can be heard on hits like “Colonial Mentality”, “Zombie” and “Gentleman” among others.

 Allen was able to play four different beats with each of his limbs, and his distinctive drum pattern is what made his music so unique. His work came to define the rhythmic foundations of Afrobeat as musical director of Africa '70, the band of Fela Kuti. Fela once said that "without Tony Allen, there would be no Afrobeat." This statement has never been in doubt

But while this period was artistically fulfilling for both Fela and Allen, it was also one of much turmoil and upheaval as the increasingly political lyrics of many of these songs meant Fela and the band become a target of the military government of the day. Police raids at the band’s Lagos nightclub, The Shrine, became a regular, disruptive feature even as their hits grew in popularity.

Regarded as one of the greatest drummers of all time, Allen was able to play four different beats with each of his limbs, and his distinctive drum pattern is what made his music so unique. His work came to define the rhythmic foundations of Afrobeat as musical director of Africa '70, the band of Fela Kuti.  Allen in a blazing run would  go on to record 30 albums with Fela through the 1970s, while also leading his own records such as 1975's Jealousy, 1977's Progress and 1979's No Accommodation For ,that  revolutionized African music in the 1970s—and the music of other continents for decades to come.

Allen taught himself how to play the drums at 18-years-old and learned his technique by listening to American jazz drummers Art Blakely and Max Roach. Allen was able to play four different beats with each of his limbs, and his distinctive drum pattern is what makes his music so unique. Defined as a combination of West African musical style with American funk and jazz influences, Allen pioneered the Afrobeat genre. Additionally, many fellow musicians have paid their respects for Allen, as he was a significant influence on their music. Brian Eno described Allen as “perhaps the greatest drummer who has ever lived.” calling him “one of the great musicians of the 20th, ,and the 21st, actually.”
This trailblazing musician, also experimented with other musical styles, bringing his innovative flair to several projects in the latter half of his career. He was an artist who boasted unique versatility. He developed a hybrid sound known as "afrofunk" in his early post-Fela years, and later dabbled in electronica and dub. He went on to produce rock-inflected tracks with the likes of Damon Albarn and Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Most recently, he collaborated with the late South African jazz legend Hugh Masekala on their joint album Rejoice. An album that captured Allen’s unusual integration of rhythms across the history of the African Diaspora—from pre-industrial villages to post-industrial studios, from Lagos dancehalls to New York jazz clubs.

No matter how far beyond Afrobeat he explored, Allen managed to put his one-of-a-kind musical stamp on every record he blessed with his drums.The artist's musical contribution is far-reaching. Allen's career spanned over six decades, throughout which he continued to deliver innovative productions, ensuring that his music will live well into the future. Following Fela Kuti's death in 1997, Tony Allen began to delve more and more into other genres of music, collaborating with groups and musicians of diverse musical influence. He had begun to delve into dub, electronica, and more, however his reputation as an Afrobeat pioneer still preceded him. A longtime fan of Afrobeat, in 2006 singer Damon Albarn enlisted Allen for his supergroup, The Good, the Bad & the Queen, also featuring Clash's Paul Simonon on the bass guitar. Together, the newly formed band released their self-titled debut album in 2007 and another in 2018. Allen's contribution added to the band's, polyrhythmic appeal, proving that Allen, even in his later years, was never scared to experiment.

 In 2008, Tony Allen, Damon Albarn and Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers came together to form yet another supergroup, named Rocket Juice and the Moon. They began working on their first project in the same year, however due to various other projects by the band members recording was repeatedly delayed. They ended up dropping their self-titled debut album in 2012, 18 tracks with Damon on guitar, keys, and vocals, Allen on drums, Flea on bass, and a host of guest musicians including Erykah Badu, Thundercat, Ghanaian rapper M.anifest, and Ghanaian rapper M3nsa. It's a mighty fine stew indeed.

In 2017, Allen released the EP A Tribute to Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. He paid homage to the groundbreaking American jazz drummer, who he named as one of his earliest musical influences. He delivered a more classic jazz performance in the style of his hero on the track "Moanin'—further highlighting his undeniable range.

 
At the time of writing, the cause of death is unknown. While tributes have been pouring in, Gorillaz have released ‘How Far?’ which came in collaboration with Allen and Skepta. “The track was written and recorded with Skepta in London just before lockdown and is being shared immediately as a tribute to the spirit of a great man, Tony Allen,” Gorillaz said in a statement.

Rest in peace Tony Allen , whose influence  will continue be  felt around the world, on every continent and in nearly every genre of popular music. Even in normal circumstances finding time to mourn can be difficult; and as we ride out this sombre melancholy we’re collectively in with COVID-19, moments of brevity and joy are more important than ever. Tony Allen’s music was joy packaged up and conveyed to us through his drumming. It’s warming to know that until the end, Allen was heavily invested in championing the next generation: “I never get satisfied and I’m still learning from others. The musical world is very spiritual, and I don’t think there’s an end to it. As musicians, it’s our mission to keep going.”

The Beginning of Bop - Jack Kerouac (March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969),

Jack Kerouac, wrote articles for the American magazine Escapade from  1959 until 1967. Commencing with the essay The Beginning of Bop in the April edition. Kerouac was inspired by and promoted jazz in his writing. He breathed jazz in prose and poetry. Allen Ginsberg called his writing  “spontaneous bop prosody.” The Beats wanted to take the attitudes and lifestyles of jazz greats, like John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker and Lester Young, and enshrine the ways of these “secret heroes” into a unique style of poetry and prose. This use of music became integral to the Beats, especially in the work of the two most recognized figures within the Beat Generation, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. For them jazz became the musical accompaniment to and embodiment of their lifestyle during the late 1940's and early 1950's; it  created a feeling in the Beats of a new reality, one that they strove to recreate in their writings.
Beginning with Kerouac's career-making second novel, On the Road, jazz became a vital element in his fictional milieu but, more important, the essential influence on his writing. Called upon to explain the sources of his dynamic prose style, Kerouac wrote an essay titled "Essentials of Spontaneous Prose," which made explicit his links to the jazz musicians he had been exposed to since his arrival in New York. He likened his creative process to "blowing (as per jazz musician) on the subject of image," and equated his use of "the vigorous dash separating rhetorical breathing" to a "jazz musician drawing breath between outblown phrases." His new mantra: "Tap from yourself the song of yourself, blow!—now!—your way is your only way." Kerouac's principles of spontaneous prose and its explicit links to the improvisatory ethos of jazz became the foundation of Beat Generation literary theory.
Both Kerouac and Ginsberg spent time in New York during the post-war 1940's, when the bop revolution was at its peak; to them bop signified a complete departure from the popular, commercialized music of the 1930's. Bop, with its emphasis on extended improvisation that its small-band format allowed, and largely owing to the virtuoso soloists at the time such as Parker and Gillespie, represented individuality, spontaneity, and emotional intensity that was "pure" in a way the commercial music of the 1930's and 1940's was not.
As Ann Charters wrote in Kerouac: A Biography he “identified more with musical geniuses like Bud Powell, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Gerry Mulligan and Thelonious Monk than he did with any established literary scene . . . Bop was to Kerouac a new art form that had broken through to eloquence. His own method of spontaneous composition was meant to do the same thing with words that he heard bop musicians doing with their instruments. When Miles Davis played, Kerouac heard his trumpet sounding long sentences like Marcel Proust.”
 The Beginning of Bop, is rated by many as very good writing, up with his best. it certainly reveals his astounding knowledge of the musical genre.In his essay Kerouac argues that the irreverence and ironic detachment of these pioneering African American musicians—their recognition of "the goof of life," as he put it—made them "not only misplaced in a white nation but mis-noticed for who they were."
Kerouac also once wrote , "It's not the words that count but the rush of what is said" He wrote with a language that picks at a reader's subconscious and resonates in bursts of images on the imagination. I feel Jazz does this to me too, in these unsettling times the spontaneous voice of Kerouac and the  pulsating rhythms of Jazz both bring much comfort, so here I present to you words that combine both, I hope that you enjoy.

The Beginning of Bop - Jack Kerouac 

     BOP BEGAN WITH JAZZ but one afternoon somewhere on a sidewalk maybe 1939, 1940 Dizzy Gillespie or Charlie Parker or Thelonious Monk was walking down past a men’s clothing store on 42nd street or south main in L.A. when from a loudspeaker they heard a wild and possible mistake in jazz that could have only been heard inside their own imaginary head, and that is a new art.Bop.The name derives from an accident, America was named after an Italian explorer not after an Indian king. Lionel Hampton had made a record called "Hey Ba Ba Re Bop" and everybody yelled it and it was when Lionel would jump in the audience and would wail the saxophone with sweat clasp jumping fools in the aisles while the drummer vastly booming and belaboring on the stage as the whole theater rocked. Sung by Helen Humes it was a popular record and sold many copies around 1945 or ‘46. First everyone looked around and then it happened- bop happened. The Bird flew in- minds went in- on the streets thousands of new type hep cats in red shirts and some goatees and strange queer looking cowboys from the west with boots and belts  and the girls began to disappear from the street-you no longer saw as in the 30’s the wrangler walking with his doll in the honkey tonk, now he was alone, rrebop, bop, came into being because the girls were leaving the guys and going off to be middle class models ,Dizzy or Charlie or Thelonious was walking down the street, heard a noise, a sound – half LesterYoung, half raw rainy fog, that has that chest shivering excitement of shack, or track, or empty lot; a sudden vast tiger head on the wood fence rainy no school Saturday morning dump yards – “Hey” and rushed off dancing.

    On the piano that night Thelonious introduced a wooden off key note to everybody’s warm up notes. Minton’s playhouse, evening starts, jam hours later, 10 pm, colored bar and hotel next door. One or two white visitors: some from Columbia, some from Nowhere-some from ships- some from Army Navy Airforce Marines- some from Europe-The  strange note makes the trumpeter of the band
lift an eyebrow. Dizzy is surprised for the first time that day. He puts the trumpet to lips and blows a wet blur-
  “Hee hee hah” laughs Charlie Parker, bending down to slap his ankle. He puts his alto to his mouth and says “Didn’t I tell you?”- with jazz of notes. . .Talking eloquent like great poets of foreign languages singing in foreign countries with lyres by seas and no one understands because the language isn’t alive in the land yet-.Bop is the language from America’s inevitable Africa. Going sounded like gong. Africa is the name of the flew in kick beat off to one side, the sudden squeak uninhibited that screams
muffled at any moment from dizzy Gillespie’s trumpet - do anything you want - drawing the tune  aside along another improvisation. .. . 

. . . . ..bridge with a reach out tear of claws,  why be subtle and false?

The band of 10 pm Minton’s swings into action. Bird Parker who is only 18 years old has a crew cut of Africa looks impossible has perfect eyes and composures of the king when suddenly you stop and look at him in the subway and you can’t believe that bop is here to stay- that it is real. And that negroes in America are just like us. We must look at them understanding the exact racial counterpart of what the man is- andfigure it with histories and lost kings of immemorial tribes and jungle and Fellaheen town and otherwise of the sad mutts sleeping on old porches and big eating bird woods. When just 90 years ago, old roost come running calling “Ma” through the fence, he had just deserted the confederate army and was running home for pone-- and flies on watermelon porches and educated judges in horn rimmed glasses reading the Amsterdam news.

       The  band realized the goof of life that had made them be not only be misplaced in the white nation but misnoticed for what they really were. And the goof they felt stirring and springing in their bellies suddenly Dizzy spats his lips tight drawn together and drives a high screeching fantastic clear note that has everybody in the joint look up - Bird, lips hanging dull to hear is turning slowly in a circle waiting for Dizz to swim through the tune in a tone complicated wave of his own grim like factories and atonal at any minute and the logic of the man, the sock in his belly is sweet
the rock zonga monga bang-In white creamed afternoons of blue, Bird had leaned back dreamily in eternity as Dizzy outlined to him the importance of becoming Mohammedans in order to give a solid basis of race to their ceremony.“Make that rug swing mother. When you say race, bow your head and close your eyes. And give them a religion no Uncle Tom Baptist. Make them wear as of skull caps of respectable minarets in actual New York picking hashi dates from their teeth- Give them new names with zonga sounds- Make it weird-
      Thelonious, he was so weird. He wandered the twilight streets of Harlem in winter with no hat on his hair, sweating, blowing fog- In his head he heard it all ringing. Often he heard whole choruses by Lester.There was a strange English kid hanging around Minton’s who would stumble along the sidewalk hearing Lester in his head too - hours of hundreds of developing choruses in regular beat all day so in the subway none could crash against inalterable choruses and implacable bars- he erected in minds foundation jazz.

     The tune they were playing was All the Things You Are. . .they slowed it down and dragged behind it a half tempo dinosaur proportions- changed the placing of the note in the middle of the harmony to an outer more precarious position where also, its sense of not belonging was enhanced by the general atonality produced with everyone exteriorizing the tunes harmony, the clonk of the millennial piano like anvils in Petrograd.-“Blow” said Dizz and Charlie Parker came in for a solo with a squeaky innocent cry. Monk punched, anguished, nub fingers crawling at the keyboard to tear up foundations and guts of jazz from the big masterbox to make Charlie Parker hear his cry and sigh- ,to jar the orchestra into vibrations- He stared down wild eyed at his keys like a matador at the bull’s head. Groan. Drunken figures shaded in the weaving background, tottering-the boys didn’t care. On cold corners, they stood three backs to one another facing all the winds, bent- lips don’t care - miserable, cold, and broke- waiting like witchdoctors- saying “Everything belongs to me because I am poor.”Like twelfth century monks high in winter belfries of the Gothic organ they wild eyed were listening to their own wild sound which was heralding in a new age of music that would eventually require symphonies, schools, centuries of technique, declines and falls of master ripe styles- the Dixieland of Louie Armstrong 16 and new Orleans and the big pop’s forest Jim in the white shirt wailing at a big scarred bass in raunchy nongry New Orleans on South Rampart Street famous for parades and old Perdido Street- horses steaming turds near breweries and saloons,-soon enough it would leap and fill the gay Twenties like champagne in a glass, pop!- And crawl up to the Thirties  with tired Rudy Vallees lamenting with Louie who had laughed in the Twenties Transoceanic Jazz, sick and tired early Ethel Mermans, and old beat bed springs creaking in that stormy weather blues when people would lay in bed all day and moaned and had it good- The world of the United States was tired of being poor and low and gloomy in a line. Swing erupted as the depression began to crack,it was the year marijuana was made illegal, 1937. Young teenagers took to the first restraint, the second, the third, some still wondered in hobo trains (lost boys of the Thirties numbered in the hundreds of thousands, Salvation Armies put up full houses every night and some were ten years old)- teenagers alienated from their parents who had suddenly returned to work and for good to get rid of that damn old mud of the river- and tear the vine off the porch- and paint the porch white- cut the trees down - castrate the hedges- burn the leaves- build a wire fence- get up an antennae-,

listen- the alienated teenager in the 20th century finally ripe, gone wild, modern to be rich
and prosperous, no more just around the corner- became the hep cat, the jitterbug and smoked the new law weed.World War 11 gave everybody two pats of butter in the morning on a service tray, including your sister. Up from tired degrading swing, wondering what had happened between 1937 and 1945 and because the army had worked it, canned it, played it to the boys in north Africa, enraged it in the piccadilly bars and the Andrew Sisters put the corn in the can- swing with its heroes died- and Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk who were hustled through the chow lines-came back remembering old goofs- and tried it again- Zop! Dizzy screamed,Charlie squealed,

Monk crashed, the drummer kicked ,dropped a bomb- the bass question mark plunked- and off they whaled on Salt Peanuts jumping like mad monkeys in the grey new air. “Hey Porkpie, Porkpie, Hey Porkpie!
      "Skidilibree-la-bee you,-oo.-e bop she bam, ske too ria- Parasakiliaoolza - menooorriastibatiolyait-oon ya koo." They came to their own they jumped they had jazz and took it in their hands and saw its histories, vicissitudes, and developments and turned it to their weighty use and heavily carried it clanking like posts across the enormity of a new world philosophy and a new strange and crazy grace came over them , fell from the air free, they saw pity in the old heaven, hell in their hearts,Billy Holiday had rocks in her heart, Lester droopy pork pie had hung his horn and blew bop lazy ideas inside jazz that everybody was dreaming. (Miles Davis leaning against the piano fingering his trumpet with his cigarette hand working making raw iron sound like wood speaking in long sentences like Marcel Proust) -“Hey Jim," and the stud come swinging down the street and says he’s real bent and he is down and he has a twisted face, he works, he wails, he bops, he bangs, this man  who was sent stoned and stabbed is now down, bent and stretched- out-he is home at last, his music is here to stay, his  history has washed over us, his imperialistic kingdoms are coming.

ESCAPADE . APRIL 1959, VOL 111, # 9

As a companion piece here is Kerouac's ' History of Bop' 

Workers Memorial Day

.Every year more people are killed at work than in wars. Most don't die of mystery ailments, or in "tragic accidents", They die because an employer decided their safety just wasn't important. An international day of rememberance and action for workers killed, disabled, injured or made unwell by their work is marked today. First declared by the AFL-CIO in 1970, commemorates those workers.Everyone deserves to come home at the end of the work day. It is officially recognised by the UK government and is supported in 19 countries worldwide.Workers Memorial Day reminds us of those who didn't, and encourages us to take steps to make sure there's less of them in the future, while raising awareness to help ensure these tragedies are not repeated.The day provides a focus for us all to remember those who have been killed at work, to provide support and comfort to their families and to commit to striving for healthier , safer and fair work for all helping to ensure workers are not denied the basic human right of returning home to loved ones after their day's work is done.
April 28th is also the same date that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was established in 1971. OSHA states that the day "is a day to to honor those workers who have died on the job to acknowledge the grevious suffering expeienced by families and communities, and to recommit ourselves to the fight for safe and healthy workplaces for all workers. Every death is a death to many, today also serves as a focus for people to come together in solidarity."
Safety is a huge issue for working people right now, especially for all the essential workers who are working harder than ever to provide us with critical goods and services during this pandemic. Every day we’re hearing reports about workers like nurses, firefighters, grocery clerks, and food processors who are contracting COVID-19 at work. And too may are dying deaths that could’ve been prevented if they had been provided the proper Personal Protective Equipment.
Never has Workers Memorial Day carried greater poignancy than in 2020 as key workers are on the front line keeping the whole of society going while a coronavirus pandemic is raging. Every day recently we are told about selfless NHS staff who have died, and the media is full of reports about PPE. The current pandemic has changed many people’s outlook. Day in and day out, worried NHS and care workers are going into work in a state of fear and anxiety as they find that PPE is either not there or running low. Health workers are going to work to treat and care for sick patients, with the knowledge that they or colleagues could get sick and die simply by doing their job.
The health workers who have died should be praised for their bravery and remembered as heroes. However, their deaths were not all inevitable. In many cases, the lack of appropriate PPE has been repeatedly raised by health workers – again, around the world. Key workers must now receive the proper pay and terms and conditions that they need and deserve and that have been withheld from them for so long. It’s also important to recognise the dedicated workers at home and across the world who are right now standing between the most vulnerable in our community to shield and protect them from the worst of this appalling virus.
Earlier today people around the world  marked this day with a minute’s silence at 11am this morning in their homes as a mark of respect.People are also being encouraged to light a candle tonight to remember those who have fallen – and to show our support to the essential workers  and the efforts being made to keep them safe at work during this unprecedented and challenging time. On Workers’ Memorial Day let’s honour the dead and wholeheartedly commit ourselves to fight like hell for the living.

Mary Wollstonecraft ( 27/4/1759 -10/9/1797) - Radical Advocater for Women's Rights.

Mary Wollstonecraft , the Anglo-Irish , feminist, intellectual  novelist. educator, political radical and advocate for women's rights, was born  on this day  1759 in Primrose Street, Spitalfields, London, the second of seven children.of.Elizabeth Dixon and Edward John Wollstonecraft.
At the time of her birth, Wollstonecraft's family was fairly prosperous: her paternal grandfather owned a successful Spitalfields silk weaving business and her mother's father was a wine merchant in Ireland, but her father gradually squandered it on speculative projects. Consequently, the family became financially unstable and they were frequently forced to move during Wollstonecraft’s youth. As a child, she regularly defended her mother from one of her  fathers drunken rages, an abusive man who wasted away a small fortune in gambling and alcohol. Wollstonecraft was deeply affected by the tyrannical nature of her abusive father who completely subjugated and emotionally destroyed his wife. During her teenage years, Wollstonecraft used to sleep outside of her mother’s bedroom to protect her from Edward’s beatings.
 Because of this situation, Wollstonecraft left home at 17, quickly learning how to survive through adaptability and independence, educating  herself through books and her own observations. At the age of nineteen Mary went out to earn her own livelihood. Mary's mother died in 1782. In 1783, she helped her sister Eliza escape a miserable marriage by hiding her from a brutal husband until a legal separation was arranged. With her sister and  best friend Fanny Blood, Wollstonecraft founded a girls’ school in London They first set their sights on Islington, then moved to Newington Green, where Mary met the moral and political thinker, the Reverend Richard Price, head of Newington's thriving Dissenting community, and heard him preach.Rational Dissenters believed in the primacy of reason in tandem with scripture instead of tradition and what they believed to be superstition, Many Dissenters were committed to very radical opinions for their time. They argued for the separation of church and state. the rejection of church hierarchies and even the denial of original sin. This was a crucial encounter for Mary. Several years later, she was to rise to his defence in a Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790), and it was through her connections to members of this community that she was to gain an introduction to her future publisher, friend, and one might even say, patron, Joseph Johnson.in 1784. During its brief life, the school developed a prestigious reputation and served as a starting point for Wollstonecraft’s radical ideas about the necessary equality of female and male education.Wollstonecraft’s teaching experience is reflected in her pamphlet, Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787).
 Far from providing her with a reliable income and some stability, the school was to be a source of endless worries and a financial drain. Only Joseph Johnson's advance on her first book, Thoughts on the Education of Daughters: with Reflections on Female Conduct in the more important Duties of Life (1787) helped ease her considerable financial difficulties. Following the death of her friend Fanny Blood in 1785 and the collapse of the school, Wollstonecraft began employment as a governess in Ireland. However she soon learned that she was not suited for this type of domestic work and returned to London, becoming a translator for a publishing firm and later an advisor to Joseph Johnson, who  held weekly dinners, and it was here Wollstonecraft met several of the age’s greatest radical philosophers, including William Blake,  https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2017/09/william-blake-radical-visionary.htmlThomas Paine, https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2019/01/thomas-paine-2911737-861809-common-sense.html and  William Godwin.who she later married. thus, began Wollstonecraft’s activism, as a writer on the obstacles to women’s equality in late eighteenth-century Europe.  She lived at 49 George Street, Blackfriars, London and worked as a reviewer for Johnson’s “Analytical Review”. She meets influential people at this time such as the artist and writer Henry Fuseli, the writer Anna Laetitia Barbauld and the political reformer Thomas Holcroft.
 In May 1789 the Analytical Review begins publication and during the year prints Wollstonecraft’s first novel,” Mary: A Fiction”,  which was inspired by the death of Fanny Blood. her children’s book “Original Stories from Real Life” and her translation of “Of the Importance of Religious Opinions” by Jacques Necker.
Mary Wollstonecraft’s anthology, “The Female Reader” is published by Johnson in 1789 under the pseudonym of Mr Cresswick. At the same time she begins to be romantically attached with Henry Fuseli. Mary’s translations of Christian Gotthilf Salzmann’s “Elements of Morality” and “Young Grandison” by Maria Geertruida van de Werken de Cambon are published by Johnson. in 1790. The former is illustrated by William Blake .
In November she publishes “A Vindication of the Rights of Man” anonymously at first and then under her own name on 18th December as she was upset by the attacks on her friend Richard Price by Edmund Burke,and his  conservative critique of the French Revolution in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)  Her work was overshadowed by another response to Burke, Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, which followed several months later. In Rights of Men Wollstonecraft presented her vision of a society, based upon equality of opportunity, in which talent—not the wrongful privileges of gentility—would be the requisite for success. Paine and Wollstonecraft were accused in the press of seeking to "poison and inflame the minds of the lower class of his Majesty's subjects to violate their subordination."
A Vindication of the Rights of Man laid the groundwork for her 1792 treatise, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. In this visionary courageous discourse.Wollstonecraft abhorred the prevailing notions that women were nothing but adornments to their husbands and caretakers of the household. Wollstonecraft  attacked the educational restrictions that kept women in a state of "ignorance and slavish dependence." She was especially critical of a society that encouraged women to be "docile and attentive to their looks to the exclusion of all else." Wollstonecraft described marriage as "legal prostitution" and added that women "may be convenient slaves, but slavery will have its constant effect, degrading the master and the abject dependent." She added: " I do not wish them (women) to have power over men; but over themselves".
The ideas in Wollstonecraft's book were truly revolutionary and caused tremendous controversy. One critic described Wollstonecraft as a "hyena in petticoats". Mary Wollstonecraft argued that to obtain social equality society must rid itself of the monarchy as well as the church and military hierarchies. society bred “gentle domestic brutes,” resulting in this societal construction of “motherhood.” The solution, she claimed, is educational reform. Her proposed reform included giving women access to the same educational opportunities as men—the main doctrines of the later women’s movement.the faculties of reason and rationality are present in all human beings and that women must be allowed to contribute equally to society. If women were not afforded this opportunity, social and intellectual progress would come to a halt. 
To understand the radical nature of Wollstonecraft’s work we must understand how desperately subjugated women were in the past. The recognition of equality among genders was  a relatively new political goal. For most of history, women were considered by many key thinkers to be irrational and intellectually hollow beings who merely existed for beauty and procreation. The subjection of women was considered to be justified due to women’s apparent lack of rationality and their physical and emotional frailty, and hers was the first book to present women’s rights as an issue of universal human rights.

Mary and her radical friends welcomed the French Revolution. In November, 1789, Richard Price preached a sermon praising the revolution. Price argued that British people, like the French, had the right to remove a bad king from the throne. "I see the ardour for liberty catching and spreading; a general amendment beginning in human affairs; the dominion of kings changed for the dominion of laws, and the dominion of priest giving way to the dominion of reason and conscience." 
In 179I she first meets William Godwin, one of the forefathers of the anarchist movement.incidentally at a dinner in November held by Johnson where Thomas Paine was speaking. Godwin was disappointed with Mary as she spent to whole time criticising Paine.While she'd already taken a sour view of the human condition, Godin  had a more hopeful one. He called her negative, she called his optimism negative, but the two radical 18th century geniuses had glimpsed one another, and for years gravitated towards one another.
 At this time Mary had become  infatuated with the artist Henry Fuseli despite the fact that he was already married. She was excited by his genius and actually proposed a platonic arrangement where she would live with Fuseli and his wife and travel to France. Fuseli’s wife was understandably upset and the artist ended their relationship the following year.
Mary decided to leave the country and  while everyone was fleeing the revolution in 1792 she set out for Paris to see it for herself. The French Revolution had begun with thousands of women unhappy over the price and scarcity  of bread. These women grew into a mighty force to be reckoned with , turning into a tide against royal rule in  France, forcing the king to submit to the will of the people and proving that the royals were not invulnerable.
There, as a witness of Robespierre's Reign of Terror, Mary collected materials for An Historical and Moral View of the Origins and Progress of the French Revolution: and the effect it has Produced in Europe (vol I, 1794),.The book sharply criticized the violence evident even in the early stages of the French Revolution and the killing of so many moderate Girondist revolutionaries like Olympe de Gouges  and Manon Roland on the guillotine in 1793.

,Mary met Captain Gilbert Imlay, an American timber-merchant, the author of The Western Territory of North America (1792). She agreed to become his common law wife and at Le Havre in May 1794, she bore him a daughter, Fanny. In November 1795, after a four months' visit to Scandinavia as his "wife,".Imlay deserted Mary which left her so emotionally unstable. that she tried to drown herself from Putney Bridge, but was saved, .
 Mary eventually recovered her courage, and reconciled  herself with life  with the help of William Godwin. who shared many of her ideas and  like her was a forward looking free thinker, who said that  their friendship  melted into love and she went to live with him in Somers-town  Although both Godwin and Mary abhorred marriage as a form of tyranny, they eventually married on 29 March 1797. By all accounts, theirs was a happy and stable, though brief, relationship, that was unique for the time because they lived independently of one another, each engaged in their own literary occupations, seldom meeting, unless they walked together, till dinner time, each day. In August, her second daughter Mary who later became  the poet  Percy Bysshe Shelley's wife https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2017/08/percy-bysshe-shelley-august-4-1792-july.html who in 1816, published her own masterpiece, Frankenstein  was born, and although the delivery seemed to go well initially, tragically the placenta broke apart during the birth and became infected; puerperal (childbed) fever was a common and often fatal occurrence in the eighteenth century. After several days of agony, Wollstonecraft died of septicaemia on 10 September.. having survived so many difficult situations, she died when she had so much to live for. Godwin was devastated: he wrote to his friend Thomas Holcroft, "I firmly believe there does not exist her equal in the world. I know from experience we were formed to make each other happy. I have not the least expectation that I can now ever know happiness again. "   
 Following her death, Godwin published all of her writings, including the letters she had written to Gilbert Imlay. While he intended them as a tribute, the general reception of these works proved to be quite opposite. Wollstonecraft faced a plethora of criticisms, as people attacked her “unusual” lifestyle consisting of free will, independence, sex, and suicide attempts. For over a century Wollstonecraft’s work and reputation was sadly diminished, deemed crazy, socially unacceptable, and immoral.
It was not until the modern feminist movement  fortunately resurrected her works that she became a popular and influential figure. Although  her life was  short and tumultuous, she reminded us that the foundation of morality in all human beings, male or female, is their common possession of the faculty of reason. It's this  insistence on reason , in these alienating times that we should be reading and listening to more than ever, She also pushed for the rights of all those she thought were victims of a society that assigned people their roles according to the artificial distinctions of class, age, and gender. and the core of her  literary career was to envision a social and political order in which women were treated as rational, autonomous beings capable of independence and virtue. 
Wollstonecraft was initially buried in the Old Saint Pancras Churchyard in London.Godwin was buried with her in 1836, but in 1851 their remains were moved to St. Peter's Churchyard, Bournemouth, Dorset, England.. Mary Wollstonecraft's legacy is secure, as an exceptional thinker and advocate, the foremother of feminism, a key Enlightenment thinker, and an early human rights champion. whose groundbreaking  contributions  leave her as an  important influence on modern feminist theory. Although  of course, it took more than a century before society began to put her views into effect, her prodigious works  and her messages of equality still continue to inspire. Let us  raise a fitting statue in her honour.

https://www.change.org/p/sadiq-khan-a-statue-for-feminist-icon-mary-wollstonecraft-whereswolly-vindicationformary

 "The mind will ever be unstable that has only prejudices to rest on, and the current will run with destructive fury when there are no barriers to break its force." -  Mary Wollstonecraft  


Further Reading :-

Charlotte Gordon  - Romantic Outlaws :The Extraordinaey lives of   Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley : Windmill Books


Todd, Janet, 2000, Mary Wollstonecraft: a revolutionary life, London: Weidenfel and Nicholson.

Tomalin, Claire, 1992, The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft, revised edition, London: Penguin Books.

 Taylor, Barbara, 1983, Eve and The New Jerusalem: Socialism and Feminism in the Nineteenth Century, London: Virago Press.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/wollstonecraft-mary/1792/vindication-rights-woman/index.htm

Don't Inject Disinfectant!

 Doctors, epidemiologists and others reacted with alarm after US President Donald Trump stunned and horrified the world as he went of script on Thursday and suggested that injecting disinfectant and exposure to ultraviolet rays could help people with the  deadly coronavirus.

It was not long before White House officials began texting one another to ask where he got that idea because they thought, as one adviser put it, “this was going to be bad.”

None of them seemed to know, as Trump did not consult with any task force members or administration officials before making his impromptu statement, which has now been universally rejected by health experts, the officials said.

Instead, it appears Trump conflated and misinterpreted scientific information discussed with him in the Oval Office before Thursday’s daily briefing, according to the officials.

During the meeting some advisers — including the acting undersecretary for science and technology, Bill Bryan — shared with the president some new but promising information about testing that’s been done on coronavirus, officials said. It included a discussion about how the virus is killed on surfaces with disinfectants and on hands with soap or sanitizer and studies about the effectiveness of light, temperature and humidity, as well as a mention of treatments for various conditions such as radiation, officials said.

The plan was to stress during the daily White House coronavirus briefing that disinfectants should be used on surfaces, but then “the president took it a couple steps further,” one administration official said. He wants to always be giving people hope and optimism. He certainly isn’t telling anyone to drink bleach or ingest disinfectant,” the official said.

On Friday Trump told reporters he was being sarcastic when he suggested people inject disinfectant into their bodies.

It’s not the first time the president has claimed that his attempted “jokes” were being misinterpreted after facing intense backlash and widespread criticism. When he referred to himself to reporters as “the chosen one” during an exchange on trade talks with China last year, he argued later that he had just been “kidding” and “having fun.” During the 2016 campaign, after repeatedly saying that then-President Barack Obama was the “founder of ISIS,” he backtracked by saying he was simply being “sarcastic.” A man in Arizona died in late March after taking chloroquine phosphate - a substance used to clean fish tanks - after Trump repeatedly talked about hydroxychloroquine. The man's wife told TV network NBC News he had been watching the president's daily briefings.

Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested that warmer weather will kill COVID-19 and allow the country to resume its normal behavior. At a White House press briefing, he theorized dangerously about the power of sunlight, ultraviolet light, and disinfectant injections to rid the body of the novel coronavirus. The very fact that the president actually asked somebody about what sounded like injecting disinfectants or isopropyl alcohol into the human body was kind of jaw-dropping.
 Mr Trump's comments have since  been heavily criticised by doctors and have unleashed a torrent of ridicule online, with one comedian on social media app TikTok miming the action of injecting bleach into her veins like a drug.
On Twitter, journalists shared a video of Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House task force on the coronavirus, who appeared to look down, hunch her shoulders, and blink rapidly as Trump told the briefing that disinfectant “does a tremendous number on the lungs.”
April 23, marked an important moment in the history books, as it was the day that Donald Trump went from dangerous circus clown to actual imminent threat to all Americans.
There were early signs that at least some Americans were preparing to act on Trump’s comments, according to the Washington Post, Maryland's COVID-19 hotline has received 100 calls re: ingesting disinfectants.) Which led to, on Friday, what we believe is the first known instance of a manufacturer of a product (Lysol and Dettol maker Reckitt Benckiser ) that carries a poison label on the side of the bottle having to put out a statement effectively saying, “Please don’t listen to the president of the United States when he tells you to drink this.”"Under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route),""Our disinfectant and hygiene products should only be used as intended and in line with usage guidelines. Please read the label and safety information," the company said in a statement.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the danger that Trump poses is twofold. First, his mishandling of the crisis has already cost countless lives. His paranoid, narcissistic and psychopathic characteristics are certain to mean that many more lives will be lost due to his handling of the crisis than would be the case if a president of sound character and mental health were in office. The  fact remains  it's exceptionally dangerous to listen to any word that comes  out of the mouth of this very irresponsible president.
As well as  being a racist, sexist , homophobic, authoritarian bully  it's come a a bit of a surprise that it's taken his lunatic notion of injecting disinfectant for everyone to acknowledge the truth that has been staring us in the face all along – Donald Trump is clearly mentally disordered and poses a grave danger to us all.  His madness is catching, too. From the trauma people have experienced under the Trump administration to the cult-like characteristics of his followers, he has created unprecedented mental health consequences across his nation and beyond.
People worried about coronavirus should seek help from a qualified doctor or a qualified pharmacist and not take unfounded advice from an idiot whose daily briefings are actively endangering the public's health. Please don't inject disinfectant or ingest any of Trump's deluded bullshit, in  the meantime  stay tuned for next week when he wonders aloud if there would be any merit to freebasing rat poison when it comes to killing the virus, nothing  really surprises me anymore. .