Remembering George Floyd

 

One  year ago today in Minneapolis, on May 25, 2020, an ordinary 46-year-old African American man,George Floyd was murdered by police officer Derek Chauvin. even though Floyd was lying face down on the ground and hand-cuffed from behind.

George had bought a pack of cigarettes at a convenience store in South Minneapolis on the evening of 25 May 2020.

A shop assistant believed he had used a counterfeit $20 bill and called the police after Mr Floyd refused to return the cigarettes or pay again.

Officers arrived and handcuffed him but when they tried to put him into the squad car, he resisted. A struggle ended with Mr Floyd face down on the street.

George Floyd's  last moments were caught on video. While being arrested, Floyd was held down by a Minneapolis police officer's knee. The video shows Floyd pleading that he is in pain and can't breathe. Then, his eyes shut and the pleas stop. He was pronounced dead shortly after. Under the circumstances, it was clear that Floyd posed no threat to anyone. When bystanders pleaded on Floyd’s behalf, they were threatened with being pepper-sprayed. Floyd was tortured to death. This was a lynching of a black man, pure and simple. Prosecutors said Chauvin treated Floyd with particular cruelty during the lengthy restraint, saying Chauvin inflicted gratuitous pain and caused psychological distress to Floyd and to bystanders. They also said Chauvin abused his position of authority as a police officer, committed his crime as part of a group of three or more people, and that he pinned Floyd down in the presence of children — including a nine-year-old girl who testified at trial that watching the restraint made her “sad and kind of mad.”

 Expert witnesses on behalf of the state testified that Mr Floyd died from a lack of oxygen due to the manner of restraint employed by Chauvin and his colleagues.

 Chauvin himself chose not to testify, invoking his right to not incriminate himself with his responses.

Jurors took less than a day to reach their unanimous verdict, finding Chauvin guilty on all three charges: second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter. 

 Sentencing will take place in June, and Mr Chauvin could spend decades in jail.His lawyers have requested a new trial, but the motion is not likely to be granted.

Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng, who helped restrain Floyd, and Tou Thao, who stood near the others, were not initially charged. Lane, 37, Kueng, 26, and Thao, 34, are now charged with aiding and abetting  second-degree murder and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter. 

After the verdict, the Floyd family's lawyer, Ben Crump, said the conviction marked a "turning point in history" for the US.

It is rare that police officers in the US are charged, let alone convicted, for use of lethal force.

President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris called the Floyd family after the verdict. Mr Biden was heard saying that "at least now there is some justice".

In nationally televised remarks shortly afterwards, Mr Biden said: "Systemic racism is a stain on the whole nation's soul."

 However, despite the victory of a conviction, there was disturbing evidence in the background signaling that the struggle against racial oppression has a long way to go. Amid the trial and announcement of the guilty verdict, the Biden White House decided to drop the campaign promise to establish a national commission on law enforcement violence.

The way in which Mr. Floyd was killed revealed once again how systemic racism and anti-Blackness reinforce an unjust legacy of oppression that too often results in the death of Black people. Mr. Floyd’s passing, however, further ignited the growing need to address institutionalized bias and racially-motivated hate in all of its forms.

Floyd played basketball and American football in high school and won a scholarship to attend a community college, now known as South Florida State College. He left after two years and attended Texas A&M University in Kingsville, but left without graduating to return to Houston. He was arrested on drug and theft charges several times between 1997 and 2005, the Associated Press reported. In 2007, he was charged with armed robbery, pleaded guilty two years later and was sentenced to five years in prison. When he was released, he became involved with Resurrection Houston, a new church setting up in his old neighbourhood. He introduced the pastor to residents, who told Houston television station KHOU that “much of my ministry I was able to do at Cuney Homes was because of George Floyd”. But Floyd left for Minneapolis in 2014 in search of work to help support his daughter, born a year earlier, and a fresh start. He worked as a security guard at the Salvation Army, where a co-worker, Michelle Seals, recalled him as sweet-natured. He later drove trucks and was a bouncer at Conga Latin Bistro, but he lost his job when Covid-19 shut down bars and restaurants. Mary Ginns, a friend from high school, told NPR last year that Floyd once said to her that he was “going to change the world”. “We were like, ‘We know you are,’” she said. “You’re going to be in the NBA . . . But God put something in him to see it a different way. He probably didn’t know at the time what he was saying, but that is exactly what he did. He has changed this world.”

His  death sparked sparked a justified, constructive anger at racial injustice, police brutality,  that is still felt around the world. The call for police reform has become louder, the work to address the inequity of health outcomes more urgent, and the intersections of racism and other forms of injustice more obvious than ever. George Floyd's brutal murder by a Minneapolis police officer also led to a global wave of demonstrations and the resurgence of the #BlackLivesMatter movement.  

Since the inception of the BLM banner, it has become a life-affirming cry against racial oppression.This historic movement has changed the public debate on racism and police violence, but a massive backlash is underway, led by governments cracking down on dissent and police forces stepping up the harassment of black people.Yet despite government opposition, Black Lives Matter retains a broad appeal in the UK. By October last year, over half of the British public continued to support Black Lives Matter, with that number rising to seven in 10 for young people.

Recently, demonstrators have taken to the streets again to protest against the killings of Daunte Wright, Adam Toledo and Ma’Khia Bryant — three names out of dozens of people killed by the police across the country during the three weeks of testimony. 

 A rally in Minneapolis was held on May 23rd 2021 to remember Floyd. Hundreds of people gathered outside the Hennepin County Government Center, where Chauvin’s trial was held, including members of George Floyd’s family and others who lost loved ones to Police encounters.

 Many marchers carried signs, banners and pictures of Floyd, along with other men killed at the hands of the authorities.  

Floyd is remembered as a father of five. His youngest daughter Giana alongside her mother Roxie Washington ,spoke in June 2020 after the incident. Giana said “that she missed him”, describing her father as a fun man who often played with her.

 The Minneapolis rally was organised by the George Floyd Memorial Foundation and is one of several events set to go ahead across the USA in the coming week to honour his memory.

Among them will be an event held in Minneapolis which the foundation described as a “celebration of life.” 

Organizers said: “We will celebrate the life and legacy of George Floyd through Black culture, art, history and support of local businesses,” adding that there will be performances from a number of local and “Grammy award-winning artists”.

 As we mark a year since the murder of George Floyd, it is vital that we step up the movement for justice, against racism and police violence.As we remember, reflect, and respond in our own way to the senseless and brutal murder of George Floyd we must do battle with the past, take courage from the present and work to create a shared future that is just and allows individuals to flourish. 

The future can be so much brighter for all if the global insurrection, solidarity, sympathy, and decency against racial and other forms of injustice that George Floyd's death inspired continues to burn in our hearts and minds. And this is not because Mr George Floyd was a paragon of virtue, but rather because he was a man who was extrajudicially murdered because he was Black. That is the scandal; that reality, that truth, should trouble our conscience wherever we might live.

And if President Biden is right when he stated, after the court returned a 'Guilty' verdict against Derek Chauvin on 20 April, that George Floyd's murder 'in the full light of day' lifted the 'blinkers off the whole world' to see America's treatment of one of it citizens, then there is clearly urgent work that needs to done in society. 'I can't breathe.' 'We cannot', said President Biden, 'allow these words to die with him.'

 Floyd is recognised as a symbol, remembering his humanity is important, this, in part, is the significance of the request to  say his name. To speak about his humanity, to remind ourselves that he is more than what happened to him. Thank you Mr George Floyd for giving all of us another 'chance to change', to treat each other with dignity and respect, to pursue righteousness and justice.

 Anti-racists will  mobilise today to say no to institutional racism in Britain and globally. I encourage all of us today to  make time in the busy day and take the knee and observe 9 minutes and 29 seconds of silence, the length of time Mr. Floyd suffered under Derek Chauvin’s knee, to reflect on the changes that have followed his passing and the work that remains. Individually, we have to play our part in uprooting all forms of racism, oppression and exploitation once and for all, acting collectively as vehicles for real social change.

The Mandarin Sky

Beneath the canopies, underneath the spiralling stars

In the wake of violence, destruction and devastation,

The world has sighed with a heavy heart this week

From Colombia to Tigray to Palestine to Myanmar,

Misery consuming, mirth no longer passing

Negating hope with so much intensity,

People gazing into the night sky, praying for release 

Among the darkness filled with pheromones of hurt,

Traumatised and broken, wondering what has happened

No time to dream, wading through a living  nightmare.

Landscapes scarred with acerbity, agony and pain

Black holes filled with sadness, releasing tears of bitterness,

Tales of genocide, war crimes against humanity

In glooms of wrecked environment, as apartheid spreads globally,

Assaulting reason, anxiety and confusion testing faith

Blockades of injustice, multiply and mirror the ache, 

While we are left heartbroken, with feelings of outrage

There's no time for despair, because something has changed,

A growing movement of people, loudly speaking out

Every voice raised a tangible step on the road to justice,

With collective voices of resistance, change will increase

It's a long road ahead, with unity, let's deliver peace.

BREAKING: Israel approves a ceasefire, ending its nearly 2-week assault on occupied Gaza.

Israel has approved a ceasefire  between Hamas  after a devastating  offensive  on the Gaza Strip. Forced to stop bombarding  Gaza tonight after global condemnation.

At least 232 people were  killed , including 65 children,1,900 wounded. 90,000 displaced according to the UN. 1800 housing units destroyed. 74 government facilities bombed.33 media centres destroyed.6 high rise buildings  leveled.There are no bomb shelters, or bomb sirens in Gaza..

On the 17th May Israel bombed  the office of the Palestinian Children's Relief  Fund in Gaza that  provides free medical care for Palestinian children in need, they've also bombed power plants, water plants, mosques and the roads leading to hospitals, These are war crimes. 

While the ceasefire is to be welcomed,it is not enough, it will only stop the bombs temporarily.It doesn't mean those who lost their entire families will  be rectified, The Ceasefire does not mean that this is the end of illegal occupation, colonisation, oppression and ethnic cleansing.This is not a ceasefire.Israel will continue to kill Palestinians by land, sea and air in the coming days, weeks and months as it has done with every other ;ceasefire', Reduced media coverage after the ceasefire does not mean the root cause is resolved,

We cannot return to apathy, we must amplify our voices and must keep on protesting and  supporting Palestinians rights, for freedom, justice and equality for all under Israels apartheid government,and make sure that Israel pays its price for its criminality.

The Ceasefire arrives after President Biden  has incredibly approved s $735 Billion arms sale to Israel. that surely can't be justified. To put it briefly, the Biden administration, like its predecessors, is financing Israels brand of exceptionalism and settler colonial policies, The latests weapons deal is even uglier in the face of the bombing of Gaza because it demonstrates clearly US-Israel collusion against Palestinians..

It is time.for United State , the United Kingdom .and the EU to end their unequivocal support for Israeli aggression and illegal occupation .It is time for Israel to end it's brutal siege and blockade on Gaza the world'd largest ever open air prison.It is time to fully open all of Gaza's crossing. It is time to lift restrictions on imports and exports. It is time for Palestinians in Gaza to have more than 6 hours of electricity a day.It is is time for Israel to end it;s repeated violations of international law; It is time for the Palestinians to be free and safe and practicing all their human tights.

Please support the Palestinians in their quest for Peace and Justice through the boycott, divestment movement (BDS), and you can  also help by getting the following petition to 400K?

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/585314

Louisa Sarah Bevington (14/5/1845 - 28/11/1895) - Anarchist Poet

 

Louisa Sarah Bevington English poet, journalist, essayist, Darwinist and anarchist communist, was born. at St John's Hill, Battersea on 14th May 1845, the eldest of eight children to Quaker parents; Alexander, a member of Lloyds of London and his wife Lousia.

Details of her early life are scanty although in the census of 1861 she is listed as a scholar at Marlborough House, Winchcombe Street, Cheltenham. At the time her parents and siblings are listed as residing at Walthamstow with their four house servants and a coachman.

Louisa wrote poetry from a young age and she had two sonnets published in October 1871 in the Friends' Quarterly Examiner.

Her first collection, ‘Key Notes’, a slim volume of only 23 pages, was published under her pseudonym Arbor Leigh in 1876. A second publication, ‘Key-Notes: 1879’, written under the name L. S. Bevington also took issue with some Christian codes of conduct.

In her article in The Nineteenth Century in October 1879, ‘Atheism and Morality’, her secular pose provoked a clerical response. In December the same year, Bevington concluded a two-part essay entitled ‘Modern Atheism and Mr. Mallock’. This was in response to an attack on atheism in the same paper by a young Oxford graduate. Louisa put forward a spirited defence of secular morality.

Louisa received a letter from the philosopher Herbert Spencer, confirming that rationalists showed greater humanity than adherents of organized religion. Her exposition of this was published in The Fortnightly Review in August 1881 as ‘The Moral Colour of Rationalism’.

In 1882 ‘Poems, Lyrics&Sonnets’ contained both metrical experiments as well as remarks on the stagnant state of Christianity. Her politics were coming into focus.

In 1882, she went to Germany and in 1883 married a Munich artist Ignatz Felix Guggenberger. She found married life in Germany dull and humdrum. The marriage lasted less than 8 years and she returned to London in 1890.

Having formed a strong sense of social justice from her  Quaker parents, but became an agnostic and anarchist;and associated with international atheists and anarchists circles in which she preferred the use of her maiden name. In 1891 she commented to a preference for "L. S. Bevington" over "Miss Bevington", as she objected to the values "Mrs" and "Miss", although she did sign that letter "L. S. Guggenberger".

Louisa quickly gained credence as an anarchist poet and was also helped by her friends Charlotte Wilson and Peter Kropotkin who had founded the anarchist paper Freedom in 1886. Louisa sought distance from advocacy of bombs and dynamite and became associated with another paper, Liberty, edited by the Scottish anarchist and tailor James Tochatti, for which she wrote numerous articles and poems. She was also a contributor to The Torch, which was edited by the Rossetti sisters, nieces of the painter. She also authored the Anarchist Manifesto in 1895 for the short-lived Anarchist Communist Alliance. She also translated an essay on the Paris Commune by Louise Michel who became her friend.

At the age of 50 in 1895, Bevington was still active but was suffering from bad health, namely heart disease that had been afflicting her for years. She managed to write some articles for Liberty in that year and her last collection of poems for Liberty Press.

Louisa Sarah Bevington died due to dropsy and mitral heart disease on 28th November 1895 at the age of fifty in Willesden Green. Her funeral at Finchley cemetery was attended by her old comrade James Tochatti, Kropotkin, and the Rossetti sisters, among others. Whilst her poems, very much a product of late Victorian times, have not aged all that well, the articles and pamphlets she wrote in which she strongly argued for anarchism, still bear a look. 

 

https://archive.org/.../AnAnarchistManifesto_201410/mode/2up

https://www.libertarian-labyrinth.org/.../louisa-sarah.../

 

 Louisa Sarah Bevington- The Secret of the Bees

 

 How have you managed it? bright busy bee!
You are all of you useful, yet each of you free.

What man only talks of, the busy bee does;
Shares food, and keeps order, with no waste of buzz.

No cell that's too narrow, no squandering of wax,
No damage to pay, and no rent, and no tax.

No drones kept in honey to look on and prate,
No property tyrants, no bigwigs of State.

Free access to flowers, free use of all wings;
And when beelife is threatened, then free use of stings. 

No fighting for glory, no fighting for pelf;
Each thrust at the risk of each soldier himself. 

Comes over much plenty one summer, you'll see
A lull and a leisure for each busy bee.

No overwork, underwork, glut of the spoil;
No hunger for any, no purposeless toil.

Economy, Liberty, Order, and Wealth!
Say, busy bee, how you reached Social Health?

(Answer.)

Say rather, why not? It is easier so;
We have all the world open to come and to go.

We haven't got masters, we haven't got money,
We've nothing to hinder the gathering of honey.

The sun and the air and the sweet summer flowers
Attract to spontaneous use of our powers.

Our work is all natural nothing but play,
For wings and proboscis can go their own way.

We find it convenient to live in one nest,
None hindering other from doing her best.

We haven't a Press, so we haven't got lies,
And it's worth no one's while to throw dust in our eyes.

We haven't among us a single pretence,
And we got our good habits through sheer CommonSense. 

 Louisa Sarah Bevington- In Memorium

Mad, as the world calls mad,
  See Anarchy’s few;
Fighting the False and the Bad
  In all that they do;
Forcing a way for the Glad,
  The Pure, and the True.

Bolder and clearer it grows
  The Anarchist task;
Liberty’s plausible foes
  To assail and unmask;
Handing the torch as it glows
  To all who may ask.

 Great! oh, exceedingly great,
  The Anarchists’ claim!
Fusing the falsehood of State
  In unquenchable flame;
Breaking the fetters of fate
  In Humanity’s name.

Breathing with fiery breath
  On the mammonite crew;
Fearless, in splendor of faith,
  Of the worst they can do;
Blessed, in life and in death,
  O beneficent few! 

 Louisa Sarah Bevington - Revolution

 Ah, yes! You must meet it, and brave it;
Too laggard too purblind to save it;
Who recks of your doubting and fearing
Phrase bound 'Evolution?'
Do you not hear the sea sounding it?
Do you not feel the fates founding it?
Do you not know it for nearing?
Its name Revolution.
What! stem it, and stay it, and spare it?
Or will you defy it, and dare it?
Then this way or that you must change you
For swift restitution.
Do you not see men deserving it?
Do you not hear women nerving it?
Down with old Mammon! and range you
To aid Revolution!
The last hour has struck of our waiting,
The last of your bloodless debating,
The wildfire of spirit is speeding
Us on to solution.
Do you not thrill at the uttering?
Do you not breathe the breeze fluttering
Round the brave flag of our pleading?
The world's Revolution! 

 Louisa Sarah Bevington - My Little Task

 I THROW a guess out here or there,
I breathe a hope into the air,
I feel a dumbness like a prayer.

What, with this fencèd human mind,
What can I do to help my kind?
I such a stammerer, they so blind!

Nothing; save through the single gate
Of utterance throw my little weight
To swell the praise of what is great.

Nothing; save in my every song
Heap cold discredit on the wrong,
And cheer the march of right along.

And when I hear the lark's pure mirth,
Or see sweet flowers gladden earth,
Sing forth the mood that feels their worth.

Or when a bitter woe in me
Is healed by tender sympathy,
To let the healing songful be.

So add what force a singer may,
To ring opinion's echoing sway
A few chords mellower day by day.

Through chiming all that's pure and true,
Through hymning steadfast love anew,
This is the most that I may do.

Marking the 73rd anniversary of the Nabka

Today marks the 73rd anniversary of the occupation of Palestine, so on this day as Palestinian people enter the 73rd  year of dispossession and exile, Palestinians, friends of Palestine and supporters of justice and liberation , commemorate the Nakba ( day of catastrophe in Arabic ) this forced displacement was the basis for the foundation of the Israeli state..

Between 1947 and 1949,  saw 531 villages being cleared , with massacres that led to 16,000 Palestinians being killed at the hands of Zionist para-military groups like Haganah, that later formed the core of the Israeli Defense Force, Ergun and the Stern Gang.Today, over 7 million Palestinians live as refugees or exiles, denied the right to return to the land from which they, or their family, were forcibly expelled. A right which is enshrined in international law. Palestinians who remained in the State of Israel, and those in the occupied territory, many of whom are refugees, face a system of discriminatory racist rule that amounts to the crime of apartheid under international law.

Despite the coronavirus, more Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem  had their homes demolished in the first 19 months of 2020 alone than in any full year  since 2016. Alongside this Israel is attempting to ethnically cleanse Palestinian families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, occupied Jerusalem. Four of the Palestinian families face the prospect of being evicted this week. As Palestinians protest in Jerusalem against these evictions, and Israel’s ongoing programme of ethnic cleansing, Israeli forces have responded with brutality, including an assault on worshippers at Al Aqsa Mosque that has wounded hundreds.

With the complicity of the international community, the Nakba continues, with the militarisation of the Israeli State that has seen the Palestinians people confined  to a series of open air prisons, in which the Israeli state routinely rehearses its cruel technologies of war, poisoning the soil, contaminating the water and terrorising  the people. 

On May 8, 80,000 Palestinians came to Al Aqsa Mosque. Israeli police had violated their holy place and they came to reclaim it. They overwhelmed the roadblocks and the paramilitary police and faced them down with their bodies and their prayers.Palestinians protested in Ramallah and Jaffa, in Gaza and in Haifa, with  Palestinians and their allies are protesting around the world.

At the sight of fire in the Al Aqsa Mosque. Gazan fighters fired rockets in defiance to protest the forced expulsion of Palestinian families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah.

IsraeI responded with airstrikes in Gaza on Monday evening, following rocket fire from Gaza that caused damage to one Israeli vehicle, and ‘lightly injured’ one Israeli civilian, according to an Israeli army statement.” 

Israeli bombs killed 21 Gazans overnight . They killed nine children, and injured scores of people. Let that attest to the relative value placed on one Israeli vehicle and 21 Gazan lives.

International governments condemned the rockets and eluded the rest.Let us be clear, there can be no equivalence between oppressor ad oppressed, between colonizer and colonised. The Palestinians blockaded  on all sides by walls and turrets, have few means to defend their rights in the face of of Israel's machinery of war.Israel currently  bombing schools, hospitals, media centres and power plants in what amounts to war crimes.At least 126 people have now been killed in Gaza , including 31 children and 20 women. with thousands of Palestinians  forced to flee their homes after a week of sustained conflict. 

Gaza is 3km wide ad 42km long  and has more than 2 million inhabitants.The population density is extremely  high. This is why there are multiple civilian casualties as soon as conflict and fighting occurs. People simply cannot scape the bombing.

To make the situation worse Gaza has been under blockade for a long time and vital supplies are extremely limited. The latest clashes could damage vital infrastructure, leading to a rapid deterioration in the situation. 

It has seen huge numbers of people turning  out to march in solidarity with the Palestinian people against the escalating aggression from the Israeli state. An estimated 100,000 people have marched in London as the Palestine Solidarity Campaign pointed out.

As we mark 73 years of Nakba, we also celebrate 73 years of resistance and struggle for liberation, therefore I will continue to side with the Palestinian who dares to dream of the day of return, when they can open up the locked doors of their stolen homes, are welcomed home, recognised  and encouraged by a world that acknowledges the injustice that has been inflicted upon them.

Today we will see the Palestinian people renew  their demands for return, to their cities, villages and lands that they were forced to leave in 1948. Many Palestinians still carry keys to the homes they or their ancestors were displaced from,all those years ago, a  continuing haunting memory of their existence.

For the past 73 years  Palestinians have resisted the Israeli Government's continued efforts to erase the memories of trauma and resistance that began with the Nakba and will remain rooted to their land. Beyond their suffering and Israels blockade of the West Bank and the open air prison we know as Gaza it does not stop their dream for their right to return and for having Jerusalem as their capital. 

Today we remember and recount the unique personal stories of those who lived through the Nakba  and acknowledge that today over 4 million registered Palestinians worldwide, the majority of them still living within 60 miles of the border of Israel and the West Bank and Gaza strip where their original homes are located. Israel refuses to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their homes or to pay them compensation as required by UN resolution 194  of 1948. Over 1.7 million Palestinians now live under occupation in the West Bank  imprisoned by an Israeli wall, and the over  2 million currently living under military siege in Gaza, denied a series of fundamental rights, that include the freedom to move, access to clean water, food, medicine and electricity.

Their catastrophe ongoing. But their will remains  unbroken, we stand with them today in solidarity,until they are allowed to move freely again in Palestine, until they are given back the dignity and respect and basic rights  that they deserve as human beings, hoping that this cycle of injustice can be ended,  it is not just about remembering , a day of mourning , it is acknowledging the Palestinians right to return,  maybe one day, one day the continued catastrophe will end.

On the 73rd anniversary of the Nakba it is the duty of people of conscience  everywhere to stand the right side of history, in solidarity taking action to end  international complicity of states, institutions and corporations in maintaining Israeli apartheid. Boycott products services of and mobilise international pressure to divest from Israeli and international  companies and banks that are complicit in Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity. This includes  all Israeli banks (Leumi, Hapoalim etc) and mjor corporations such as Elbit Systems  HP, G4S/ Allied Universal, AXA, CAF, Puma, Caterpillar, General Mills/Pillsbury, Hyundai Heavy Insustries, JCB, Volvo, Barclays Bank, Alstom, Motorola Solutions and CEMEX. From the rivers to the sea Palestine will be free. 

 Here is a link to an emergency update from Medical Aid for Palestinians CEO Dr Aimee Shalan :-

https://www.map.org.uk/news/archive/post/1109-video-message-from-the-ceo-on-the-covid-19-outbreak

And here is a link to a petition  calling for sanctions  against Israel, including blocking all  trade, and in particular all arms. 

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/585314

In Solidarity With the Palestinian People

 For the past several weeks, Israel’s police and paramilitaries, together with violent settlement groups, have escalated their brutal attacks against Palestinians in Jerusalem. Specifically targeted are the residents of Sheikh Jarrah, who face imminent eviction by Israeli settlers,and Ramadan worshippers at the al-Aqsa Mosque and around the Old City. the third holiest site for Muslims in the world, the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) firing rubber bullets, tear gas cannisters, and sound bombs, targeting Palestinians, in which at least 26 people in Gaza, including 9 children were killed that saw in

response retaliatory rockets fired from Gaza into Israel, which resulted in the first Israeli causalities, These localized attacks have further escalated into an all-out military campaign against Gaza, totally besieged since 2006 but unwilling to abandon their brethren in Jerusalem. These are not merely “clashes” between “sides” in a symmetrical “conflict” between two peoples. They are rather actions of conquest, political repression and dispossession on the part of Jewish Israelis met with defiant Palestinian reaction. Zionism, a settler colonial movement of the late 19^th century, had a clear and explicit agenda: in the language of the Zionist movement, to Judaize Palestine, to turn an Arab land into a Jewish one; in short, to “cleanse” the country ethnically. At the heart of this project was displacement. Jewish settlers could only assert their exclusive claims of entitlement to the country by driving the indigenous population off the land and taking demographic as well as political control. Ethnic cleansing remains the single-minded preoccupation of modern Israel. It lies at the heart of the attacks and resistance protests in Sheikh Jarrah and the al-Aqsa mosque, as well as in the continued resistance of the people of West Bank, Gaza and even, it appears, Palestinian citizens of Israel who still find themselves displaced and without equal rights.

This particular round of low-intensity warfare occurs at Ramadan, in which thousands of Muslims converge on Jerusalem. There, the Israeli police violently harass them, demonstrating total Israeli control through sheer force. Bad enough in itself, this tense period collides with the triumphalist celebrations of Israel’s Independence Day and Jerusalem Day, an official “holiday” in which thousands of religious-nationalist settlers come to assert the “Jewishness” of the city. A major component of these “celebrations” is humiliating Jerusalem’s Palestinian inhabitants by marching with large Israeli flags and drums through their Old City quarters, yelling out patriotic songs.

Friends in Gaza  are currently  frightened.  They have had no sleep for two nights now.  There is a high degree of confusion.  People do not know when the next bombing will happen or where it will be.  It has been non-stop for two days. They are defenceless.

Meanwhile since the Conservative government was elected in May 2015 the UK has licensed over £400 million worth of arms to Israeli forces So would in this moment in time ask you to  .Email your MP:and demand that the UK government stops arming Israel.

It is also worth noting that  yesterday, in the Queen’s Speech opening the new Parliamentary session, Boris Johnson’s government announced a plan to deny UK citizens the right to protest against Israeli atrocities via BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) in what in my opinion  can only be seene as wholehearted support for the murder of Palestinian children:

Despite this I would like to urge people to boycott products/services of, and/or mobilize institutional pressure to divest from, Israeli and international companies and banks that are complicit in Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity. This includes all Israeli banks (Leumi, Hapoalim, etc.) and major multinationals such as: Elbit Systems,https://palestineaction.org//HP, G4S/Allied Universal, AXA, CAF, PUMA, General Mills/Pillsbury, Caterpillar, Hyundai Heavy Industries, JCB, Volvo, Barclays Bank, Alstom, Motorola Solutions, and CEMEX.

We know that the worse thing is the feeling that you are isolated and the people of the world are ignoring what you are going through. If  you believe in your human right to peace, freedom and justice and solidarity  if it does not include the Palestinian people, it's pure hypocrisy. Everyday we must completely and unequivocally support their struggle for liberation.and as the unvarnished face of apartheid is revealed again in its full brutality,our solidarity has never been more urgent.The Israeli government's deadly attacks against Palestinians must be stopped.

We must stand up against  Israel's human rights abuses. On Saturday 15th May 2021, take action in your local community. Stand together for an end to Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, and for the right of return for all exiled Palestinians.

 Protests are being organised around the country by Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War Coalition, Friends of al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, and Muslim Association of Britain.

Here is a list  of national protests  currently planned.;-:

 

https://www.palestinecampaign.org/nakba73-national-day-of-action-for-palestine-list-of-actions/ 

Mental Health Awareness Week 2021 Connecting with Nature

 Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW) is a nationwide yearly event, which begins today created by the Mental Health Foundation 21 years ago, that focuses on achieving good mental health.The event has grown to become one of the biggest awareness weeks across the UK and globally.

 Mental Health Awareness Week is open to everyone. It is all about starting conversations about mental health and the things in our daily lives that can affect it..This past year has been bloody tricky, to say the least  due to the covid-19 pandemic, so there’s no hiding from the fact that it has been difficult on everyone’s mental health, a lot of us spending increasing amounts of time at home in isolation  unable to see friends and family, with a lot of the things we enjoy that  have been limited on how far we can travel to help keep everyone safe.with our  outlets for wellbeing, like gyms, indoor sports, and spaces to connect with others closing overnight, the loss of weekly doses of live music has impacted on me greatly. It' been a time of great uncertainty, anxiety and stress.

We all know about the benefits of healthy living. From an early age, we are taught about the importance of exercise, a balanced diet and good hygiene. We know that if we look after our bodies, we reduce the risk of illness and we feel better in ourselves. People are not threatened by the word “health” and most people are willing to talk about it. However, place the word “mental” in front of it, and people may be much less willing to open up and share their experiences. 

The word “mental”still has negative connotations. It is still used as an adjective to describe something that was unreasoning, unreasonable, out-of-control or just plain crazy.Those who suffer are often, like me, ashamed to speak of it. Those who are lucky enough to be free of mental illness are terrified of it. Nobody wants to be seen as “mental” and this stigma is perhaps what is making it so difficult to engage in sensible, open discussion about “mental health”.The reality is, mental health affects every single one of us. The word “mental” simply refers to aspects or functions of the mind. Very few people would claim that they don’t have a mind, so why should we feel unable to discuss it?

When it comes to mental illness, we still don't quite get how it all works. Our treatments, while sometimes effective, often are not. And the symptoms, involving a fundamental breakdown of our perceived reality, are existentially terrifying. There is something almost random about physical illness, in how it comes upon us , a physical illness can strike anyone – and that is almost comforting. Were mental illness to fall into that same category, then it too could strike any of us, without warning. And that is terrifying.
But more than simple fear, mental illness brings out a judgmental streak that would be unthinkably grotesque when applied to physical illness. Imagine telling someone with a broken leg to "snap out of it." Imagine that a death by cancer was accompanied by the same smug head shaking that so often greets death by suicide. Mental illness is so qualitatively different that we feel it permissible to be judgmental. We might even go so far as to blame the sufferer. Because of the  stigma involved  it often leaves us much sicker.
Mental ill health is a real and important thing in the exact same way as physical illness, trauma and inherited conditions. It is however to say that in a better organised world our lives would be less pressured into brokeness, despair and ill health. Our minds, like our limbs, break under stress. Our lives within the capitalist system are harmed by the system, often we medicate not to make ourselves well, but very often we medicate in order to continue to function in a broken society, and capitalist system where our only immediate  value is in how they exploit us. It should be noted  that many  people believe that our Governments policies are actually fuelling the current  mental health crisis. Budget cuts to mental health services combined with no genuine support are driving  many people to the edge. As a result many young people and adults are left isolated facing long waiting lists for mental health therapies and diagnostic assessments. 

Mental health charities report that one in four people will be affected by mental health problems at some point in their lives. That’s 25% of the population. One in twelve children and young people  are affected by mental health difficulties that have a negative impact on their relationships, education and general well-being on a day-to-day basis. Depression and anxiety are now the number one cause of long-term absence from work and mental health issues are estimated to cost Britain £70 billion each year. With so many of us affected and with such a cost to the economy, you would have thought that we would at least be able to talk openly about it.

 In recent years, successive governments have become aware of the growing need to address the country’s mental health difficulties. Money is often pledged to tackle the problems of underfunding and targets are frequently set to reduce waiting times for patients to access counselling services. This is all beneficial when the politicians actually deliver on their promises but evidence points out that they don't so  unless people become more willing to hold them to account and continue to discuss their individual experiences of mental health issues, the stigma and the access to services so much needed  will remain.

Previous generations would have struggled to imagine it: whether on TV, social media or in the pub or the park, mental health is  at least increasingly being discussed across society. Though much remains to be done, the once prevalent stigma around the topic is slowly disintegrating.It’s a positive  shift, and one that is much needed.

But mental health isn’t just about illness, it’s also about what we can do to nurture and sustain our wellbeing; getting the crucial help we need in difficult times and crises, while also finding the insights, tools and communities that can support our resilience and personal growth.

Each year the Mental Health Foundation set a different theme, connected to improving, and achieving better mental health. This year, the Mental Health Foundation have made 'Nature' the theme’ and the benefits it can have on improving our mental health and wellbeing. Their aim is to encourage people to share how nature has supported their mental health, especially throughout the past year of lockdowns.

Mark Rowland, Chief Executive of the Mental Health Foundation explains how nature has played a crucial role in maintaining positive mental health and wellbeing over the past year, Mark said –

 “Our research on the mental health impacts of the pandemic showed that going for walks outside was one of our top coping strategies and 45% of people reported that being in green space had been vital to their mental health. It was as if we were re-discovering at our most fragile point, our fundamental human need to connect with nature.”

There is increasing evidence that spending time in nature can have a positive impact on our mental health. As well as being more active outside and the health benefits that come with this, spending time in nature can improve our mood, lower stress levels, improve confidence and self-esteem, and give us a valuable ‘time-out’ from the busy world we live in. Research into ecotherapy (a formal therapeutic treatment involving time spent in nature and close mindful examination of the impact this has on our thoughts and feelings) has shown it can reduce symptoms of mild to moderate depression. For others, simply pottering around in the garden or going for a walk can be a less structured, but equally beneficial experience. Nature can have has this calming and enchanting effect.Spending time in nature is a great way to take a break from looking at screens and look after your mental wellbeing. Going for a walk or sitting outside in a park and listening to the sounds around you is a great way to clear your mind if you are feeling overwhelmed or stressed.No matter if it's spring, summer, autumn, or winter, nature is all around us. that like our well beings still needs  so much protection and looking after, as it continues to nourish all that depend on her.

Have you ever noticed that when the sun is out you often feel in a better mood? This is because sunshine gives you Vitamin D and Vitamin D helps you stop feeling tired and sad. The next time it is sunny be sure to go out and enjoy the good weather. It will make you feel happier and boost your mood. Sitting outside, in nature, calms me so much, gardening makes me feel healthier, inspired, the rain calms me, the smell and sounds of birds, animals, flowers, the wind, watching clouds float by, calms me.

However I accept the fact that , many of us may face barriers that might stop us from connecting with nature. For example, you may be limited by your environment and access to outdoor space. Or you may be unused to spending time in green space and find it uncomfortable or unfamiliar.

We all have different experiences, different ways of coping and  if you feel anxious in new places or social situations, you could ask someone you trust to go with you at first or you could even connect with others & share how you’re feeling. Be kind to yourself and try to maintain goodwill and generosity to others, and please don't vote for the Tories, there certainly not going to help at all. In these divisive times it's certainly not an easy road, I hope I have at least  offered some positivity, a little room for optimism, even if sometimes when it gets a little too dark, I do not always find the time to practice what I preach. Please try and remember you are not alone.

 

If you’re experiencing mental health problems or need urgent support, there are lots of places you can go to for help.You might feel better contacting these people because they are trained experts who can get you the help you need straight away. For details of organisations such as the Samaritans and Mind, visit this list of support services

Happy Birthday Gary Snyder: Poet laureate of Deep Ecology

Today is  acclaimed poet, essayist, scholar, environmentalist and Zen Buddhist Gary Snyder's (one of my favourite writers) birthday. He has been called the "poet laureate of Deep Ecology." Deep Ecology is the philosophy of environmental ethics, the spirituality of Gaia. Deep ecology leads to direct action. In his writing and his life, Snyder explores what he describes as "the mytho-poetic interface of society, ecology, and language."

Snyder’s purpose in writing  is to actively influence emotional, political, and physical change.,using images of our environment, to re-establish our connection to the world in order to promote political change that addresses the ecological problems which face our capitalistic, image-driven culture. And throughout his life has pursue a radical vision that has continued to inform his poetry, shaped the cause of Deep Ecology  and helped provide distinctive answers to the eternal question of what it is to live a human life. 

Gary Sherman Snyder was born to Harold and Lois Snyder on May 8, 1930 in San Francisco, California.at the beginning of the Great Depression  and was raised in an anarcho-syndicalist household, his grandfather soapboxed with the Industrial Workers of the World, and both his parents were labor movement radicals who grew disenchanted with the Soviet Union and Stalin's atrocities. Snyder himself was a member of the IWW. The family soon moved to the Pacific Northwest, to start a small dairy farm north of Seattle, Washington. His sister, Anthea, was born in 1932. The family moved to Portland, Oregon, in 1942. Snyder climbed Mt. St. Helens in 1945; and a year later he joined the Portland Mazamas, a mountaineering club. Throughout his life he has continued to climb mountains and take long wilderness hikes. During his high school years, he held a number of part-time jobs including working at a camp on Spirit Lake in Washington and as a copy boy for the Portland Oregonian. 

In 1947, Snyder graduated from Lincoln High School and enrolled at Reed College. He published his first poems in the campus literary magazine, Janus. While at Reed, he met fellow poets Philip Whalen and Lew Welch who would become his lifelong friends. Snyder graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Anthropology in 1951. His senior thesis was later published as the book, He Who Hunted Birds in His Father's Village: The Dimensions of a Haida Myth (1979).

Snyder spent the summer of 1951 working as a timber scaler on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation on the east side of the Oregon Cascades. Following the summer job, he hitchhiked to Indiana University to begin graduate study in Anthropology. It was on the trip east to Indiana that Snyder had a revelation that constituted a real turning point in his life. In an interview with the Commonwealth Club on May 15, 2002, Snyder described the incident, "In the middle of Nevada, on old Interstate 40, there was a period of about five hours where nobody would give me a ride. As I stood there in the middle of the sagebrush flats, I was reading through a chapter of Suzuki's Essays in Zen Buddhism, First Series, and I hit on some phrases that turned my mind totally around. I knew that I wouldn't last at Indiana, and that I would soon be heading in the other direction back toward Asia, but I had to complete my short-term karma. So I did finish out that semester and then went back to the West Coast."

By spring 1952, Snyder was living with Philip Whalen in San Francisco and taking on odd jobs in order to support himself. During the early 1950's, Snyder returned several times to the forests and mountains of the Pacific Northwest for summer employment including stints as a choker-setter for the Warm Springs Lumber Company and as a fire lookout. From 1953 to 1955, he lived in a tiny cottage near campus as he pursued graduate studies in the Department of East Asian Languages at the University of California, Berkeley. It was while he was at Berkeley that Snyder met Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac.

In October 1955, Snyder and Ginsberg hosted a poetry reading at the Six Gallery in San Francisco. Snyder, Ginsberg, Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, and Philip Whalen read, and Kenneth Rexroth acted as master of ceremonies. Snyder read his poem, "A Berry Feast."inspiring an interest in Zen Budhism that has become a hallmark of Beat writing. Jack Kerouac recalled this event in The Dharma Bums (1958) and used Snyder as the basis for the book's fictional hero, Japhy Ryder, a Beat poet, Asian scholar, and mountain climber. In the early months of 1956, Snyder moved into a cabin in Mill Valley and Kerouac later joined him there. Snyder named the place, Marin-an -- Japanese for "Horse Grove Hermitage" for the adjacent meadow with its grazing mares.

In May 1956, Snyder left for Japan to study and work at a Buddhist temple, Shokoku-ji, in conjunction with the activities of the First Zen Institute of America's Kyoto facility. He took a job, in August 1957, as a wiper in the engine room of the S.S. Sappa Creek and was at sea for eight months until the ship reached the United States in April 1958. He spent the next nine months involved in the San Francisco Bay Area literary scene before returning, in early 1959, to Kyoto, where he began studying under Oda Sesso Roshi at the Daitoku-ji monastery. During this time, Snyder's first book Riprap was published, printed in Kyoto by Cid Corman and distributed through City Lights Books.

Snyder married Joanne Kyger in Kyoto in February 1960. From late 1961 to early 1962, the pair spent six months travelling in Sri Lanka, India, and Nepal. They joined Allen Ginsberg in New Delhi and visited with the Dalai Lama in Dharamshala, where they had a notable discussion on hallucinogens.

His second collection Myths and Texts  came out in , followed by two pamphlets  that gained him a wide readership. Snyder returned to San Francisco in May 1964, and that fall he taught English classes at the University of California, Berkeley. Snyder and Kyger divorced in 1965, and he returned to Japan in October of that year.

On August 6, 1967, Snyder married Masa Uehara. The ceremony took place on the rim of an active volcano on Suwa-no-se, a small island north of Okinawa. Suwa-no-se was the site of the Banyan Ashram, founded by Nanao Sakaki, a poet, World War II veteran, and Japanese cultural radical. In 1967, Snyder briefly lived at the Banyan Ashram with the group of young people who gathered around Sakaki and called themselves Buzoku or Tribe.

In April 1968, Snyder's first son, Kai, was born in Kyoto. The family left Japan in December 1968 to make their home in California. A second son, Gen, was born in 1969. In 1970, Snyder took up residence with his wife and two young sons on San Juan Ridge, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, near Nevada City, California. With students and friends, Snyder built his home and named it Kitkitdizze, a Native American (Wintun) word for a local plant with a unique and pungent aroma. Snyder and Uehara divorced in 1989. 

Inherent in Snyder's philosophy is the concept of place and community:

We are all indigenous to this planet, this garden we are being called on by nature and history to reinhabit in good spirit. To restore the land one must live and work in a place. The place will welcome whomever approaches it with respect and attention. To work in a place is to bond to a place: people who work together in a place become a community, in time, grows a culture. To restore the wild is to restore culture.

Snyder leaped  from being a regional poet to national acclaim in 1974 with the publication of Turtle Island a political text that aimed to teach readers how to 'be ' in North America. Turtle Island, Snyder writes in the volumes introductory note, is "the new/old name for the continent based on many creation myths of the people who have been living here for millenia.... A Name: That we may see ourselves more accurately o this continent of watersheds and life communities."

Snyder's next bestseller was Axe Handles (1983), a less political collection of poems that espouses how to live in the world, specially as a family. Additionally, his intense submersion in envrironmental concerns, Zen Buddhism, and Native American, Chinese and Japanese cultures, permeate all of his works.

Snyder also  manages to practice what he preaches. At San Juan Ridge, he has established a lay Zen centre and an ecology centre. He has politicised the local community, helped them to understand nature and to be able to respect and defend their space.

Snyder was a founding member of the "Ring of Bone" Zendo, a country-based Mahayana Buddhist sangha, which is located on his property on San Juan Ridge. Meetings and sesshin were first held in Snyder's barn in the 1970's and later moved to the Zendo after it was constructed in 1982. The Zendo was named "Ring of Bone" after the poem by Lew Welch. Although the Zendo is an affiliate of the Diamond Sangha in Hawaii, it functions as a completely independent and self-governing church.

Using Kitkitdizze as his home base, Snyder toured extensively, giving readings and talks, doing what he termed, "hunting and gathering." In addition to his numerous appearances in the United States and Canada, his lecture tours took him to Australia in 1981, Sweden, Scotland, and England in 1982, Taiwan in 1990, Spain in 1992, Ireland in 1995, and Greece and the Czech Republic in 1998, Korea and Japan in 2000, Japan and France in 2002, and Japan again in 2003.

Snyder married Carole Koda in April 1991 in a ceremony at Kitkitdizze. She is a writer and has two daughters, Mika and Robin. Of Japanese-American heritage, Koda grew up in the South Dos Palos area of the San Joaquin Valley of California on a large rice farm that had first been planted by her father's parents. Her father researched and founded the "Kokuho Rose" line of rice and was a pioneer in using airplanes to plant rice from the air.

Snyder became a faculty member in the Department of English at the University of California, Davis in 1986. He was instrumental in founding the "Nature and Culture" program (1993), an undergraduate academic major for students of society and the environment. He was also active in establishing "The Art of the Wild" (1992), an annual conference on wilderness and creative writing. The Academic Senate selected Snyder as the 2000 Faculty Research Lecturer, the University of California, Davis' highest faculty peer honor. He retired in 2002. 

Snyder has written  wrote more than twenty books of poetry and prose including: Riprap (1959), Myths & Texts (1960), Riprap & Cold Mountain Poems (1965), A Range of Poems (1966), The Back Country (1967), Earth House Hold: Technical Notes & Queries for Fellow Dharma Revolutionaries (1969), Regarding Wave (1970), Turtle Island (1974), The Old Ways (1977), The Real Work: Interviews & Talks, 1964-1979 (1980), Axe Handles (1983), Passage Through India (1983), Left Out in the Rain: New Poems 1947-1985 (1986), The Practice of the Wild (1990), No Nature: New and Selected Poems (1992), A Place in Space: Ethics, Aesthetics, and Watersheds, New and Selected Prose (1995), Mountains and Rivers Without End (1996), The Gary Snyder Reader (1999), The High Sierra of California (2002), and Look Out: A Selection of Writings (2002).

In addition to his books, Snyder contributed his works of poetry and prose to numerous journals and anthologies. He often provided introductions and prefaces to scholarly translations, Buddhist studies, and poetry books. His writings have been translated into a number of languages, and he has been the subject of several critical books and many interviews.

Recognition of Snyder's achievements includes the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his book Turtle Island, his appointment to the California Arts Council (1975-1979), and his induction into both the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1987) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1993). After his long poem cycle and forty-year work, Mountains and Rivers Without End, was published, he was presented with the 1997 Bollingen Prize for Poetry. In conferring the award, the judges observed, "Gary Snyder through a long and distinguished career, has been doing what he refers to in one poem as 'the real work.' 'The real work' refers to writing poetry, an unprecedented kind of poetry, in which the most adventurous technique is put at the service of the great themes of nature and love. He has brought together the physical life and the inward life of the spirit to write poetry as solid and yet as constantly changing as the mountains and rivers of his American -- and -- universal landscape." 

This quotation is striking in that it hints at the inherent relationship between Snyder's writing and his environmental activism – that one does not exist without the other. Snyder's poetry, religious beliefs, and his activism are then all related. By reading his poems to find ecological significance, one also finds religious meaning.

Snyder received the Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Grant in 1998. Also in 1998, he was honored with the Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai (Society for the Propagation of Buddhism) award for his outstanding contributions in linking Zen thought and respect for the natural world across a lifelong body of poetry and prose. In 2001, he was awarded the California State Library Gold Medal for Excellence in the Humanities and Science. 

 The pursuit of “relentless clarity” in everything characterizes Snyder’s life and art, but the pressures of the search are alleviated by his congenial nature and sense of humor. While emphasizing the importance of Zen “mindfulness,” Snyder has also stressed that “a big part of life is just being playful.” In accordance with this approach, Snyder has kept dogmatic or simplistic solutions out of his work and has cherished the wild and free nature of humankind. In “Off the Trail,” which he wrote for his wife, Koda, he envisions a life in which “all paths are possible” and maintains that “the trial’s not the way” to find wisdom or happiness. “We’re off the trail,/ You and I,” he declares, “and we chose it!” That choice—the decision to go against the grain “to be in line with the big flow”—has led to a poetry of “deeply human richness,” as Charles Molesworth puts it in his perceptive study of Snyder’s work, in which “a vision of plenitude” leads to a “liminal utopia, poised between fullness and yet more growth.”

 Snyder’s poem "For All" puts a new spin on the takes the American Pledge of Allegiance. Instead of pledging allegiance to a flag, Snyder pledges allegiance to the land. Creating a new pledge of allegiance is a revolutionary act. Snyder takes the focus off national identity and instead put it on nature. While God is mentioned in the original Pledge of Allegiance, Snyder replaces him with the sun. By doing so, he is shifting the focus from an outside deity onto a natural object. Just as God is seen as an important, life-giving power, the sun can also be seen that way – the lives of plants, animals and humans would be impossible without the light the sun provides. By replacing God with the sun, Snyder says that the ecosystem is a complete and sacred entity unto itself.

It is also noteworthy that Snyder's new pledge of allegiance makes no specific mention of humans. Humans are implicitly referred to in the line, "and to the beings who thereon dwell," but the poem never raises humans above the other forms of life on Turtle Island. Again,this demonstrates Snyder's belief   that humans are only a part of the world, and not necessarily the most important one.

Happy birthday to this trailblazing Beat icon, and wise and witty charming poet who has made such an indelible mark on late twentieth and twenty-first century thought, who is still writing, his words still pushing the edge of contemporary thought, continuing to speak for all.

For All - Gary Snyder

Ah to be alive

on a mid-September morn

fording a stream

barefoot, pants rolled up,

holding boots, pack on,

sunshine, ice in the shallows,

northern rockies.

Rustle and shimmer of icy creek waters

stones turn underfoot, small hard as toes

cold nose dripping 

singing inside

creek music, heart music,

smell of sun on gravel.

I pledge alleigance to the soil

of Turtle Island,

and to beings who thereon dwell

one ecosystem

in diversity

under the sun

With joyful interpretation for all. 

and some more from the master

Remembering Bobby Sands

 Robert  Gerard "Bobby " Sands (Roibeard Gearóid Ó Seachnasaigh )  died  at 1.17am on 5th of May 1981 after being on  hunger strike for 66 days in the Long Kesh Maze Prison in Northern Ireland in protest against British treatment of political  prisoners.  He was 27, emaciated weighing a mere 95 pounds his fillings having fallen out, his organs shut down and the whites of his eyes turned orange from toxins released.

Over the next few months, 9 other republican prisoners followed him, the culmination of a 5 year struggle in the prisons of Northern Ireland demanding jail reforms and the return of special category status allowing them to be treated as prisoners of war , allowing them the privileges of POW's as specified in the Geneva Convention.  Using hunger strikes as a practice of political and social resistance has its first records in 5th century India. The records tell us that people who felt wronged for some reason sat without eating in front of the household of the accusing person. This action had a lot of cultural symbolism, with the accusers’ honor being tarnished for leaving a person without eating in front of their homes. Hunger strikes, as a means of action often  have  since been used as a last resort in the fight against a particular injustice.

Bobby Sands had been bought to the republican struggle through personal experience after being intimidated out of his job as an apprentice car builder  by fellow workers. and after his family were intimidated out of their home in Rathcoole, a predominantly loyalist area of North Belfast, growing up under the cloud of nationalist and toyalist divisions, Catholics like Bobby were  reduced to second class citizens while the Protestant majority were granted privileges in jobs, education and services.

In 1971 the British introduced internment - allowing its forces to arrest anyone they saw fit and hold them indefinitely without charge. In 1972 at the age of eighteen the year he joined the IRA he was picked up by the police beaten up and tortured after some handguns were found in a house he was staying in and was sentenced to 5 years in Long Kesh, he was rearrested in 1976 and in a juryless trial was sentenced to 14 years  for possession of a gun found in a car he shared with 5 other people

Developing his political ideas he was to  become a leader and inspiration to the prisoners. During this time Bobby read widely and taught himself Irish which he was later to teach the other blanket men in the H-Blocks. He pushed hard for prison reforms confronting the authorities, and for his outspoken ways was often given solitary confinement sentences He was also a prolific writer, who wrote numerous poems.

On 27 October 1980, republican prisoners in the H Blocks of Long Kesh began a hunger strike. Many prisoners volunteered to be part of the strike, but a total of seven were selected to match the number of men who signed the Easter 1916 Proclamation of the Republic. On 1 December three prisoners in Armagh Women’s Prison joined the strike, including Mairéad Farrell , Mairéad Nugent and Mary Doyle.

‘I am (even after all the torture) amazed at British logic. Never in eight centuries have they succeeded in breaking the spirit of one man who refused to be broken. They have not dispirited, conquered, nor demoralised my people, nor will they ever.’ Bobby Sands wrote at the time. 

In January 1981, it became clear that the British Government had reigned on an agreement that had been made/. Prison authorities began to supply the prisoners with officially issued civilian clothing, whereas the prisoners demanded the right to wear their own clothing.

In the aftermath of this Bobby Sands, then leader of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the Maze Prison, refused food on 1 March 1981 and so began a new hunger strike. The choice of the date was significant because it marked the fifth anniversary of the ending of special category status (1 March 1976). The main aim of the new strike was to achieve the reintroduction of 'political' status for Republican prisoners. Special category, or 'political', status would be achieved if five demands were met: the right of prisoners to wear their civilian clothes at all times; the right to free association within a block of cells; the right not to do prison work; the right to educational and recreational facilities; and the restoration of lost remission of sentence. It later became clear that the IRA leadership outside the prison was not in favour of a new hunger strike following the outcome of the 1980 strike. The main impetus for a new protest came from the prisoners themselves. The strike was to last until 3 October 1981 and was to see 10 Republican prisoners starve themselves to death in support of their demands.
The tactic of the hunger strike has a special place in Republican history and has proved very emotive for Nationalists in Ireland throughout the 20th century. The impact that could be achieved on world opinion was clear in 1920 when Terence MacSwiney, then Lord Mayor of Cork, died in Brixton Prison, London, on day 74 of his hunger strike. A passage from a speech he had made at his inauguration as Lord Mayor was to be recalled during the 1981 hunger strike: "It is not those who can inflict the most, but those who can suffer the most who will conquer".

In the weeks and days before Sands died, there were two major attempts to unconditionally end the hunger strike. The first was an intervention by the European Commission on Human Rights. This was supported by the Dublin Government and the SDLP as a way to alleviate nationalist pressure on them to take Britain to task by supporting the prisoners' demands. The second was the visit to Sands from the Pope's Private Magee, Both interventions ended in failure following re-affirmation to their relatives by Sands and some of the other hunger strikers, like Raymond McCreesh and Francis Hughes  that they would not settle for less than their five demands. Margaret Thatcher the ""Iron Lady" British  Prime Minister at the time decided that no concessions be made to the prisoners, and with cold and calculated cruelty she and her government allowed them to die, but on March 30th, 1981 he was nominated as candidate for the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election caused by the sudden death of Frank Maguire, an independent MP who supported the prisoners’ cause. He was subsequently elected to Parliament in a defiant rebuke to the British Government from the people of Northern Ireland having won 30,492 votes, ten thousand more than Thatcher in her London Constituency of Finchley and with a majority twice as large becoming the people's own M.P. I remember  Thatcher's ( British PM at the time)  callous refusal to reach any compromise - " crime is crime, it is not political." she said,  which only served to reinvigorate the republican cause at the time. It is estimated that over 100,000 people attended Bobby's funeral on  March 7th  where he was laid to rest in the Republican plot at Millbank Cemetery, Belfast. His death saw an international outpouring of grief and anti British demonstrations taking place. Protests were held in Paris, Milan, Ghent , Australia and Greece. In a ripple effect that was felt across the world.

 

  

After the death of a further  nine more republican  prisoners  the hunger strike was called of  on October 8 after pressure from the strikers families  And although Margaret Thatcher claimed victory , her government conceded the hunger strikers demands and even after the  hunger strike protests ended even she, the main adversary of Sands and his comrades was moved to say years later " It was possible to admire the courage of Sands and the other hunger strikers who died." 

Meanwhile, history has shown disgust with the name of Margaret Thatcher and no one, other than those officially charged with doing so, attended her funeral,  people danced in the streets and congratulated each other on being rid of the evil woman. Bobby Sands  name  though will always be remembered, his sacrifice never forgotten. Today his smiling face is known the world over and his fight for freedom  remains an inspiration wherever people rise up against injustice, from  Palestine to Kurdistan.

In political terms , the 1981 hunger strike marked a sea change in Irish republicanism and in the history of the Northern Ireland conflict, the scale of the mass campaign in support of the prisoners helped turn the republican struggle increasingly towards a political, rather than a purely military focus , away from violence, decommissioning  and towards ceasefire  which would be crucial in laying the ground for the peace process which would have once seemed inconceivable., marking a turning point in the bitter 30 year conflict over British rule.

The Republican movement had achieved a huge propaganda victory over the British government and had obtained a lot of international sympathy. Active and tacit support for the Irish Republican Army (IRA) increased in Nationalist areas. Political support for Sinn Féin (SF) was demonstrated in two by-elections (and the general election in the Republic of Ireland) and eventually led to the emergence of SF as a significant political force in Northern Ireland. The British government's fear that SF would overtake the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) as the main representative of the Catholic population of Northern Ireland was a key reason for the government signing the Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA) on 15 November 1985.

Following Bobby Sands  death Nelson Mandela led a hunger strike by prisoners on Robben Island to improve their own conditions..Palestinian  and Kurdish prisoners have since increasingly  used the same tactics too as an ultimate form of resistance, and it is easy to understand that a people deprived of its cultural, ethnic and religious existence find hunger strikes a useful tool. It equally reinforces the need for urgent, material support amongst those in solidarity with their cause. to bring attention to their plight.

Bobby Sands stature keeps growing, and his poetry and songs still resound, let us remember him, let us never forget.He said before he died " our revenge will be the laughter of our children." - a phrase that says all that we need to know about him and looks beyond the bloodshed to true peace.

The Peoples Own M.P - Christy Moore 

Here is a link to a previous post on Bobby Sands that includes some of his fine poetry

http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/bobby-sands9354-5581-rhythm-of-time.html

 
For Bobby Sands

He died in springtime,
When flowers were waking,
But his passion born of love and anger,
Remained undimmed, his will unbroken,
On the side of justice and right,
The most profound human hunger of all,
Through pain and struggle he rode on,
Kept up the fight, let the world be his witness,
Let truth shine it's light, for his cause to be seen,
Strength and courage carried this poets bones,
No fear, only defiance was to be seen in his eyes,
And  now today his spirit still lives on, 
As the ugliness of injustice continues to roam.