Save the Human Rights Act

This week the Deputy Prime Minister  Dominic Raab promised to “overhaul” the Human Rights Act.

The Justice Secretary said Boris Johnson had given him the task of rewriting the law when he moved him from the Foreign Office in September’s reshuffle.

In his speech to the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, Mr Raab highlighted the case of a drug dealer “convicted of beating his ex-partner” who claimed the right to family life to avoid deportation.

“It is absolutely perverse that someone guilty of domestic abuse could claim the right to family life to trump the public’s interest in deporting him from this country.

“We’ve got to bring this nonsense to an end.”

At a fringe event, Mr Raab said the problem was with the powers the domestic legislation had given to judges, rather than the European Convention on Human Rights itself.

“The problem is not the convention, it’s the way it has been interpreted and in particular the licence given to the courts in this country under the Human Rights Act to adopt, through judicial legislation, ever more elastic interpretations of rights.”

Raab who did not back up his claims with any actual hard evidence also has history on this subject, as far back as 2009, he said: “I don’t support the Human Rights Act and I don’t believe in economic and social rights,” 

And, in a book composed by Mr Raab around the same time, entitled ‘The Assault on Liberty: What Went Wrong’, he contended the 1998 enactment had prompted a large number of new cases in the courts.

“The spread of rights has become contagious and, since the Human Rights Act, opened the door to vast new categories of claims, which can be judicially enforced against the government through the courts.

The Act had allowed UK law to be trumped by the European courts," Mr Raab claimed, while the boundaries between parliament, government and the judiciary had been blurred.

I don't believe foe one second that Raab and his nasty party cares about the human  rights of anyone, long have they advocated their removal from ordinary people. Both Labour and senior legal figures have raised fears that Mr Raab’s appointment is to allow him to drive through more dramatic changes to the HRA than planned by his sacked predecessor, Robert Buckland.

 Shadow justice secretary David Lammy said: “After 11 years of Tory Government, court backlogs have reached record levels, violence and self-harm in prisons have soared, rape convictions have plummeted, and many women have lost confidence in the criminal justice system. 

“Yet instead of addressing any of these problems, the new Justice Secretary chose to focus on vague threats to take away ordinary people’s rights.”

Mr Raab said the move would bring “common sense” to the justice system, but campaign group Amnesty International warned “politicians should not be removing the rights of ordinary people with the stroke of a pen”.

Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s CEO, said: “The Human Rights Act has been key to some of the biggest justice fights over the last 30 years – from Hillsborough and the Mid Staffs hospital deaths, to years of human rights violations against women activists in the Spycops scandal. 

“The deeply unacceptable delay to setting up a public inquiry into the Government’s handling of the Covid pandemic is just one example of why the Human Rights Act is so important."

 Human rights group Liberty has previously hit out at the idea, saying it was “designed to create more stigma and division”.

The fact is the Human Rights Act protects each and every one of us from the unlawful actions of the State and public authorities.We can’t let the Government weaken our human rights.

 The Human Rights Act 1998 sets out the fundamental rights and freedoms that everyone in the UK is entitled to. It incorporates the rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into domestic British law. The Human Rights Act came into force in the UK in October 2000.

It requires all public bodies (like courts, police, local authorities, hospitals and publicly funded schools) and other bodies carrying out public functions to respect and protect your human rights.

In practice it means that Parliament will nearly always make sure that new laws are compatible with the rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights (although ultimately Parliament is sovereign and can pass laws which are incompatible). The courts will also, where possible, interpret laws in a way which is compatible with Convention rights.

The Human Rights Act makes our rights real. It places an obligation on public authorities to respect everyone’s rights, meaning very few people will ever have to use the Act themselves. But, if public authorities don’t live up to that standard, the Human Rights Act gives ordinary people the power to enforce their rights in British courts.

It helped families of those who died in the Hillsborough disaster to get justice for their loved ones. 

It has enabled disabled people to challenge the removal of their benefit payments. 

It has been used by families to secure investigations into the deaths of their family members after poor treatment and neglect.

It helped LGBT veterans get their medals back after they were kicked out of the armed forces.

It has protected people’s privacy, freedom of expression, right to practice their religion, and so much more.

The Human Rights Act has made many people’s lives better. The Government’s attack on the Act is nothing more than a cynical attempt to hide from accountability for its actions.

Along with the Policing Bill which will criminalise protesters, the Judicial Review Bill which will make it harder for people to challenge injustice in court, and plans for mandatory voter ID which will prevent hundreds of thousands of people from taking part in elections, the Government’s threat to the Human Rights Act is part of a wider plan to make itself untouchable.

Politicians should not be removing the rights of ordinary people with the stroke of a pen. The Human Rights Act is ours, scrapping it will take away the rights of everyone, and it is the most vulnerable that will suffer the most.
A useful reminder of whether the Act needs to change, or should remain is to look at the list of rights protected by the Act and ask yourself ,"Which one would I give away? Which one would I not want for myself or for members of my family?"the right to life? the right not to be tortured? the right to a fair trial? http:/legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/schedule/1  
Sometimes we can't appreciate the value of something until it is taken away.We have to stand up for the Act.The proposal is simply appalling and unacceptable, trying to get rid of the Human Rights Act is a blatant open  wholesale assault on democratic rights and must be opposed, it ia part of our protection to be able to function as citizens in a democratic country.

 Surely it can't have escaped the Tory's attention that our country has seen a spike in hate and division recently, considering this they should not be  pouring yet more public money, into scrapping human rights and equality protections that are needed to be respected now more than ever.People power got us these rights, and now it’s up to us to stand up for them again.We can prove public opinion is against scrapping the Human Rights Act - and show we’re prepared to fight for it unless we plan on giving up being human. We must convince the government to nip these plans in the bud once and for all. These rights ensure we are all entitled to dignity and respect without fear of discrimination

Remember the Battle of Cable Street : No pasaran !

 

                                Detail from Cable Street Mural

 I have made a point of annually remembering that on this day 4th October, 1936, the Battle of Cable Street when Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists attempted to march through the predominately  Jewish section of East London, to be met by over 100,000 local residents and workers who fought with the fascists and the police  in order to protect their community, which forced the march to be abandoned.  The people of the East End inflicting a massive defeat on  Mosley’s British Union of Fascists that must never be forgotten. 

During this time Britain was facing very serious economic problems,  with a climate of mass unemployment and economic depression, and far right forces were intent on using this in order to exploit division and stir up hate. Oswald Mosley, a former member of Parliament known for his public speaking skills, founded the BUF in 1932, and within two years membership had grown to 50,000. Mosley's  fascists held vile anti-semitic views and tried to blame Jews for the cause of the country's problems. Throughout the mid 1930s, the BUF moved closer towards Hitler’s form of fascism with Mosley himself saying that “fascism can and will win in Britain”. The British fascists took on a more vehemently anti-Semitic stance, describing Jews as “rats and vermin from whitechapel” and tried to blame Jews for the cause of the country's problems. Mosley’s blackshirts had been harassing the sizeable Jewish population in the East End all through the 1930s. By 1936 anti-semitic assaults by fascists were growing and windows of Jewish-owned businesses were routinely smashed. Hurrah for the Blackshirts!’  The notorious Daily Mail headline is just one chilling indication of the very real threat Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists posed in the mid 1930s.

  

 As the fascist movement developed, so too did opposition to it. Led by Communists, socialists and trade unionists the anti-fascist movement grew, supported also by Liberals and some anti-fascist Tories.

However, those who interrupted fascist meetings found themselves dealing with unprecedented violence from Blackshirt thugs.

The notorious Olympia meeting of 7 June 1934 came to symbolise Blackshirt thuggery. After the Daily Worker posted the location of the West London meeting, a number of anti-fascists attended, intending to disrupt the meeting.

Hecklers were beaten by gangs of Blackshirts armed with knuckledusters and other weapons and thrown into the street. The BUF was roundly condemned by the mainstream and the violence of the meeting effectively ended Mosley’s pretence of respectability.

Whilst the first Jews came to Britain following the Norman Conquest of 1066, the Jewish community of London’s East End mainly comprised of families that had arrived between 1881 and 1914.

Many of these families settled in England after fleeing antisemitism and murderous pogroms in Russia, Poland and many other Eastern European countries. They followed previous waves of immigration that had brought Huguenots, Irish and other smaller groups into the area.

By the 1930s some 183,000 Jews lived in London, the majority in the East End due to cheaper rents. Stepney was home to some 60,000 Jews and the heart of Jewish East London.

With its reputation in tatters following Olympia and increasingly under the influence of Hitler, BUF leaders sought to exploit the reservoir of antisemitism in the East End in order to save the party.

By 1936 the BUF was pouring most of its resources into holding meetings in the East End and distributing crude antisemitica. Mob orators such as Mick Clarke and Owen Burke sought to whip up violence on street corners night after night.

As this approach gradually gained support in poor neighbouring areas such as Bethnal Green, Mosley announced he would celebrate the fourth birthday of the BUF by staging a provocative march through Stepney, the heart of the Jewish East End, on 4 October, 1936, following months of BUF meetings and leafleting in the area designed to intimidate Jewish people and break up the East End’s community solidarity. Political leaders in the East End petitioned the Home Secretary Sir John Simon to ban the march; however, their request was denied. On 2nd October, the Jewish People’s Council presented a second petition with 100,000 signatures to request that the march be banned on the grounds that the “avowed object of the Fascist movement in Great Britain is the incitement of malice and hatred against sections of the population.”   

Despite these efforts, the British government allowed the march to proceed as planned and assigned 7,000 members of the police force to accompany it. They were not to be welcomed, instead they were met by protestors, waving banners with slogans such as 'They shall not Pass'( no pasaron, famous republican slogan from the Spanish Civil War) , 'No Nazis here' and 'East End Unite.'  A huge force had assembled prepared to defend their streets and neighbourhoods and their right to live in them. 

Even though uniformed policemen on horseback were employed to allow Mosley's  march to pass through, anti-fascists blocked the route by barricading the street with rows of domestic furniture and the police were attacked with eggs, rotten fruit and the contents of peoples chamber pots. Local kids rolled marbles under police horses hooves. A mighty battle ensued,  with people seriously hurt on both sides. Eventually, the police ordered the fascists to disperse, but the Metropolitain Police had by now (correctly) been perceived as having protected the BUF and were turned upon by local residents.It now became a battle between the cops and the local population. It goes almost without saying that local people won that fight, with the police having to withdraw after having bowls of urine and faeces dumped on them by residents above, police horses being immobilised by thumbtacks [drawing pins] being littered all along the street, and officers being pulled off their horses, spat -- and even urinated -- upon and beaten up.

Cable Street  is rightly remembered because it saw thousands of people, from many walks of life, women, children, local jews, Irish groups, communists, socialists, anarchists standing firm as one in an incredible display of unity who worked together to prevent Mosley's fascists from marching through a Jewish area in London. Remembering too the support of the Jewish community in the dock strikes of 1912, Irish dockers stood in solidarity with Jews against the fascists, ripping up paving stones with pickaxes handles to add to the barricades.Together, they won a famous victory and put the skids under Britain’s first fascist mass movement.The  fascists did not get to march and they did not pass, and were left in humiliation so today we look back on this living history in celebration and pride.   
There is much to learn from the Battle of Cable Street about the power that individuals and groups wield in the face of intolerant policies and behaviours when they unite against racism and discrimination. Hopefully by engaging with this history, we can think critically about the choices made by the East End community and its allies in 1936 and then consider choices available to us as agents of change in the face of prejudice and discrimination in our society  and communities today.

Significantly, for some people that were involved in the protest, Cable Street was the road to Spain, and many would go on to volunteer as soldiers for the Republicans there.The legend that was Cable Street became the lasting inspiration for the continuing British fight against the fascism that was spreading all across Europe and would eventually engulf the planet in a terrible world war, the event also  launched movements for tenant rights, against economic injustice, and in defense of immigrants.

Commissioned in 1976 by the Tower Hamlets Arts Project, the artist Dave Binnington drawing inspiration from Spanish muralists and Picasso’s Guernica. Binnington after interviewing many local characters and includong them in the design, started painting a large mural commemorating the battle on the side wall of St George's Town Hall.  In 1982, the still uncompleted mural was vandalised with right-wing slogans, after which Binnington abandoned the project in disgust.  It was subsequently finished by Paul Butler, Ray Walker and Desmond Rochfort, and officially unveiled in 1983.  It has subsequently been vandalised, and repainted, several times. The mural depicts the events  of a very physical confrontation  between police and protestors  in stunning detail, anti-fascist protestors proudly carrying banners, punches being thrown, a barricade of furniture and an overturned vehicle across Cable Street manned by residents of all ages and ethnic backgrounds, a chamber pot being thrown under the hooves of horses being ridden  by baton-wielding police, and fascist  with a startling resemblance  to Adolf Hitler, looking very alarmed in just his underwear and socks.  The mural stands today as a powerful symbol of anti-fascism in the East End.

 

 There is much to learn from the Battle of Cable Street about the power that individuals and groups wield in the face of intolerant policies and behaviours when they unite against racism and discrimination. Hopefully by engaging with this history, we can think critically about the choices made by the East End community and its allies in 1936 and then consider choices available to us as agents of change in the face of prejudice and discrimination in our society  and communities today.
We might like to think those days are behind us, but anti-semitism, racism and intolerance  is on the rise. The foul winds that blew across Cable Street ago still exist today..Far Right and fascist groups are trying to grow again. We have to organise to stop them. Today and tomorrow we must still rally around the cry of No Pasaran - They shall not pass. 

W.H. Davies ( 3/7/1871 - 26/9/40 ) The Battle for Cable Street.

You ask me how I got like this, Sir
Well, I don't care to say
But I will tell you a little story
Of when I was in a big fray.

I'm not very well in my old age
And as I sits drinking my broth
My mind goes back to 1936
That Sunday,Otober the fourth.

I was walking down Bethnal Green Road, Sir
just walking about at my ease
When the strains of a famous old song, Sir
Came floating to me on the breeze.

I stoppe, I looked and listened
Now where have I heard that old song?
Then I dashed to the Salmon and Ball, Sir
I know I wouldn't go wrong.

It was the Intenationale they were singing
They were singing it with a defiant blast
And holding up a big banner
With these words: " THEY SHALL NOT PASS"

And we then marched on to the East End
They were five thousand of us , I am sure
And when we got to the Aldgate
We were met by three hundred thousand more.

'Red Front! Red Front! these workers cried
It was a sight I wouldn't have missed
To see these thousands of defiant workers
Holding up their Mighty Clenched Fist.

The police said 'Now move along please,
This is all we ask'
But we said 'No, not for those blackshirts
Those rotters THEY SHALL NOT PASS'

We then marched on to Stepney Green Sir
You could see that this fight was no sham
For there were thousands of and thousands of workers
Marching from Limehouse,Poplar, Stratford and East Ham.

You could see that Mosely wouldn't get through Sir
That our slogan that day was no boast
And I shouted 'Hip Hip hurrah'
And I saw our flag being tied to a lamp post

the children shouted from the windows "O, golly"
For Mosley, no one seemed sorry
But someone had the goodness
To lend us their two ton lorry

We got it over on its side Sir
It wasn't much of a strain
But the police kept knocking our barricade down
So we built the damn thing up again.

The police said we worked mighty fast
As with a hanky their faces they mopped
So we got out our big red banner
And stuck it right on the top.

The police then charged with their truncheons
They charged us, the working class
But they couldn't pinch our red banner
With these words THEY SHALL NOT PASS

I wish you had been there to see it
You would have said it was a ruddy fine feat
How we kept that old Red Flag flying
On those barricades of Cable Street.

So this is the end of my story
And I must get back to my broth
But I hope you will never forget Sir
It was Sunday October the fourth. 

 

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

Cable Street - The Young 'Uns

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

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

And we had so much to lose.

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

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

We had so much to lose.

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

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

We sang: They shall not pass!

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

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

We would not be moved.

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

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

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

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

Lyrics and music  by Sean Conney 

 

 

George Cecil Ives and the Order of Chaeronea

George  Cecil Ives one of Britain’s first gay activists, was born on October 1, 1867 in Germany, the illegitimate son of an English army officer and a Spanish-Jewish baroness.. He was raised by his father’s mother, Emma Ives, and referred to her as his mother. Ives and his grandmother primarily resided in England at Bentworth Hall, or in the South of France. Ives was educated at home and at Magdalene College, Cambridge.

A self-described “evolutionary anarchist,” in around 1893, he founded a secret homosexual society, the Order of Chaeronea, the name taken from the town in ancient Greece where, in the late 19th century, the remains were found of an elite corps of 150 pairs of male lovers who died in 338 BC in a battle against Philip II of Macedon. The army of Alexander the Great and Philip II of Macedon  vanquished the one-hundred-fifty members of the Sacred Band of Thebes in this last battle before Greece was under the hegemony of the Macedonians.

Ives believed that since homosexuals were not accepted openly in society, they needed to have a means of underground communication. The Order’s rituals were based on the writings of Walt Whitman,https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2017/05/happy-birthday-walt-whitman-legendary.html who Ives had met Whitman when he toured America in 1882. “I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lips,” he later admitted. and the society took on issues beyond the realm of homosexuality, making efforts to reform laws affecting STDs, birth control, abortion and other repressive sex related statutes. The Order, which promoted what Ives referred to as "The Cause," soon attracted members worldwide.

According to Ives, the Order was to be "A Religion, A Theory of Life and Ideal of Duty", although its purpose was primarily political. Ives stressed that The Order was not to be a means for men to meet other men for sex, although he accepted a degree of ‘passionate sensuality’ could take place. He also believed that love and sex between men was a way to undermine the rigid class system, as a true form of democracy. The Secret Society became a worldwide organization, and Ives took advantage of every opportunity to spread the word about the “Cause.”

In Ives’ words:

We believe in the glory of passion. We believe in the inspiration of emotion. We believe in the holiness of love. Now some in the world without have been asking as to our faith, and mostly we find that we have no answer for them. Scoffers there be, to whom we need not reply, and foolish ones to whom our words would convey no meaning. For what are words? Symbols of kindred comprehended conceptions, and like makes appeal to like.

It was brotherhood and the horizontal that he embedded in the Order of the Chaeronea in his relations with his fellow middle and upper middle class champions of the cause.In this he followed an established radical tradition of fraternity identifiable in French revolutionary rhetoric and the British Labour movement. Here though it was a more immediate and intimate idea of political fraternity, associated with the romantic socialism of Walt Whitman and his friend Edward  Carpenter https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2019/08/edward-carpenter-2981844-2861929-loves.html. Though Ives was at the centre of the Order in terms of its foundation he also specifically structured it non-hierarchically, without Presidents. Vice presidents, committees and sub committees.

The ritual for joining the Order emphasised mutual responsibility, duty, loyalty and endurance. Such rhetoric is familiar in other modes of political organising but by being ritualised along almost Masonic lines Ives inculcated a sense of un-conditionality and permanence, which also brushed closely against notions of family. It helped to suggest less a voluntary allegiance but rather a pre existing bond of sexuality, a homosexual elite which Ives saw the ritual acknowledging rather than creating.

It is estimated that, under Ives, the society numbered about 300 participants,(including a few Lesbians) the same as the number of soldiers of the Sacred Band of Thebes.but no actual membership lists survive.

By 1897, Ives understood that the “Cause” would not be accepted openly in society,a time where  he was in danger of imprisonment for up to two years hard labour just for his sexuality.  and must therefore have a means of underground communication. Ives and other members dated letters and other materials based on this date, so that 1899 would be written as C2237. An elaborate system of rituals, ceremonies, a service of initiation, seals, codes, and passwords were used by the members.

The Order of Chaeronea was resurrected in the United States in the late 1990s and today has chapters in South Africa, France and the United Kingdom, as well.
In 1892 Ives met Oscar Wilde, at the Authors’ Club in London, who was attracted by his youthful good looks. Through Wilde, Ives met Lord Alfred (Bosie) Douglas, with whom he had a brief affair. Although Ives recruited both men to join his "Cause," neither chose to join him. Their acquaintance, however, did provide Ives with an important entry into the Victorian literary scene. Ives figured prominently in the published diaries of Oscar Wilde. Ives was also a friend  to Arthur Conan Doyle and was the basis of the fictional character, A. J. Raffles.

In 1914 Ives became a co-founder alongside Edward Carpenter, Lawrence Houseman and others of the British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology, which in 1931 became the British Sexological Society. Ives was the archivist for this society. whose papers are now housed at the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas at Austin. 

Ives was also a member of the Humanitarian League, a radical advocacy group, which operated between 1891 and 1919.

His diary which is about three million words long, most of them illegible, and it runs from 1886 to 1950 is at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Centre in Austin, Texas.It’s a more or less daily record of his campaigning life, his home life, his friendships with Oscar Wilde, Laurence Housman and various other luminaries including his meeting with Radclyffe Hall, who he disliked.

Ives did not only fight for gay rights but also for prison reform and visited prisons across Europe and specialised in the study of the penal methods, particularly that of England. He lectured and published books on the topic.

In later life he developed eccentricities and developed a passion for melons, filling his house with them. And when the Second World War ended he allegedly refused to believe it and carried a gas mask with him everywhere until his death.

Throughout his life, Ives had many lovers whom he called his children, He took care of them, gve them money and bought them houses. He often lived with more than one lover at a time and some stayed with him for several years.

He died in London on the 4th of June, 1950  but was buried in the village of Bentworth, Hampshire.;His grave was tidied up by the  Voices for Heritage LGBT History Project in 2018 and a melon and flowers placed upon it, 

A true polymath, Ives thus had multiple careers as a poet, penal reformer, writer, gay rights activist and First-Class cricketer. He left  behind extensive diaries detailing his life which have become important sources of research for what life was like for LGBT individuals  during the nineteenth and early 20th centuries. 

Separate from his books, Ives made 45 volumes of scrapbooks. These scrapbooks included clippings on topics such as murders, theories of crime and punishment, psychology of gender, homosexuality, and cricket scores.

All in all Ive's lived a fascinating and interesting life who throughout his life Ives battled  to get pro-homosexuality laws passed. Although he did not live till 1967, when same-sex sexual activities became legal in England, but he was one of the earliest battlers. Considering the times that Ives lived in he was a true pioneer in what would pave the pathway to what we celebrate and take for granted today. .

Remembering the life of Indian Revolutionary and Freedom Fighter Bhagat Singh.

 

Today I remember the life of Indian revolutionary and freedom fighter Bhagat Singh. The day is marked as Bhagat Singh Jayanti and is celebrated all over India to remember his courageous sacrifice that ignited the spark of patriotism among countless people.

Bhagat Singh who would become popularly known as Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat was born on September 28, 1907, in Banga village of Lyallpur district ,western Punjab, India  which is now in Pakistan to Kishan Singh and Vidyavati. At the time of his birth, his father Kishan Singh, uncles Ajit and Swaran Singh were in jail for demonstrations against the Colonization Bill implemented in 1906. His uncle, Sardar Ajit Singh, was a proponent of the movement and established the Indian Patriots' Association.

Bhagat Singh attended Dayanand Anglo Vedic High School, which was operated by Arva Samai (a reform sect of modern Hinduism), and then National College, both located in Lahore.

Bhagat Singh’s  Sikh family was politically active and were advocates of independence. His father and his uncles Ajit Singh and Schwann Singh were active in progressive politics, taking part in the agitation around the Canal Colonization Bill in 1907, and later the Ghadar Movement of 1914–1915. The presence of such revolutionary people at home had a profound impact on Bhagat Singh.

The Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919 at Armistar when he was only 12  after a large peaceful crowd had gathered to protest against the arrest of pro-Indian independence leaders Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr. Satya Pal. in which in response to the public gathering, the British Brigadier-General R. E. H. Dyer surrounded the Bagh with his soldiers and ordered his troops to open fire on the nationalist meeting brutally killing hundreds  and  the violence against unarmed Akali protestors at Nankana Sahib  in 1921 also all left a huge impact on the young Bhagat Singh and as a result of decided to join the freedom struggle in the fight against colonialism. 

He joined the non-violence movement of Mahatma Gandhi.but felt disillusioned with Gandhi's idea of non-violence as the latter called off the non-cooperation movement which was started after the Jallianwala Bagh incident. and as he was attracted to Marxist ideologies and also influenced by Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.

In 1923, he joined the National College in Lahore, founded two years earlier by Lala Lajpat Rai in response to Mahatma Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement, which urged Indian students to shun schools and colleges subsidized by the British Indian government.

The following year Singh became a member of the Hindustan Republican Association, a revolutionary organization that believed in armed struggle against British colonial rule in India that was  started by Sachindranath Sanyal a year earlier. The main organizer of the Association was Chandra Shekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh became very close to him.

Initially, Bhagat Singh’s activities were limited to writing corrosive articles against the British Government, printing and distributing pamphlets outlining principles of a violent uprising, aimed at overthrowing the Government. Considering his influence on the youth, and his association with the Akali movement, he became a person of interest for the government.The police arrested him in a bombing case that took place in 1926 in Lahore. He was released 5 months later on a 60,000 rupees bond. 

In 1926, he founded the Naujawan Bharat Sabha, an organization that aimed to encourage revolution against British rule by rallying the peasants and workers.

He made contact with the ‘Workers and Peasants Party’ which brought out the monthly magazine Kirti in Punjabi. For the next year, Bhagat Singh worked on the editorial board of Kirti.

In 1928, he established the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) along with Sukhdev Thapar, Chandrashekhar Azad and others. However after Azad was shot dead in 1930.the HSRA collapsed.

Singh popularised the slogan "Inqilab Zindabad". which can be translated as “Long Live Revolution”  that became  one of the most famous slogans during the Indian freedom struggle. It was used by Shahid-e-Azam Bhagat Singh throughout his speeches and writings.The slogan was originally coined by the Urdu poet and Indian freedom fighter Maulana Hasrat Mohani in 1921. 

In October, 1928, the British government of India appointed the Simon Commission to enquire into the possibility of granting India the chance to rule itself. That this Commission had no Indian representative made it the focus of popular attack in Lahore. Lajpat Rai was at the head of a peaceful demonstration that was asking the Simon Commission to go back to England.

Despite the non-violent nature of the demonstration, the Superintendent of Police, James A Scott, ordered the police to use batons to disperse the protesters.and Lala Lajpat Rai sustained fatal injuries during the clash.The revolutionaries although great critics of Lajpat Rai and his politics, were determined to avenge his death. The Assistant Superintendent of Police, J.P. Saunders who is believed to have hit Lala Lajpat Rai directly, was assassinated by Bhagat Singh, and his associates Sukhdev Thapar and Shivaram Rajguru..

On the next day in Lahore, there were public notices put up in the name of the Indian Socialist Democratic Army. One such notice declared, 'We regret having killed a human being but this man was a part of that unmerciful and unjust system that must be destroyed... Sometimes it is important to shed blood for a Revolution. The Revolution we envisage is one where the exploitation of man by man will finish... Inquilab Zindabad.'

The murder was condemned as a retrograde action by Mahatma Gandhi, but Jawaharlal Nehru  later wrote:

“Bhagat Singh did not become popular because of his act of terrorism but because he seemed to vindicate, for the moment, the honor of Lala Lajpat Rai, and through him of the nation. He became a symbol, the act was forgotten, the symbol remained, and within a few months each town and village of Punjab, and to a lesser extent in the rest of northern India, resounded with his name. Innumerable songs grew about him and the popularity that the man achieved was something amazing.”

In March 1928, the government introduced the Public Safely Bill in the Legislative Assembly. The Indian members rejected the Bill and in 1929, the Viceroy attempted to pass it as an ordinance. The Naujawan Bharat Sabha passed resolutions opposing this and the Trade Dispute Bill and it finally decided to intervene directly. On 8th April, 1929, Bhagat Singh and B.K. Dutt threw a small explosive in the Assembly and stayed in the visitors' gallery till they were arrested. On 7th May, Bhagat Singh's trial began and in the statement made in court on 6th June, Bhagat Singh and B.K. Dutt, representing the HSRA declared, 'we dropped the bomb on the floor of the Assembly Chamber to register our protest on behalf of those who had no other means left to give expression to their heart-rending agony. Our sole purpose was to make the deaf hear and to give the heedless a timely warning... from under the seeming stillness of the sea of humanity, a veritable storm is about to break out' 

On the 12th June, Bhagat Singh whose revolutionary ideas were becoming immensely popular during the freedom struggle, and seen as a threat by the empire, was sentenced to transportation in the Assembly Bomb case.

Singh considered  himself a political prisoner along with others, noted the discrimination between the European and the Indian prisoners. The political prisoners demanded equality in food standards, clothing, toiletries, and other hygienic necessities, as well as access to books and a daily newspaper.

 Singh along with other prisoners underwent a hunger strike. Failed attempts were made to break the strike by the government. With the nationwide popularity of the hunger strike, the government decided to advance the Lahore Conspiracy Case and Singh was transported to Bostal Jail in Lahore and the trial needless to say, which was one-sided started on 10 July 1929 and ended on the 7th of October, 1930 with a death sentence which was widely opposed and many attempts were made to challenge the decision.

When Bhagat Singh’s mother went to visit him in jail, he was believed to be laughing loudly. Everyone around him was shocked. Most of them considered that he was close to death. Reports suggest that the revolutionary leader was smiling  when he was was hanged along with his comrades Sukhdev Thapar and Shivaram Rajguru on March 23, 1931, at the age of 23 and it is said that the trio proceeded quite cheerfully towards the gallows while chanting their favourite slogans like “Inquilab Zindabad” and “Down with British Imperialism”. Singh and his peers were cremated at Hussainiwala on the banks of Sutlej River.

Despite his short life, Bhagat Singh's death had the effect that he desired and he inspired thousands of youths to assist the reminder of the Indian Independence movement. After his hanging, youths in regions around Northern India rioted in protest against the British Raj and also against the indifference of the congress. To this day he is revered by many as a symbol of resistance to British colonialism in India, and his example continues to inspire new generations of activists worldwide.  

Apart from being a freedom fighter,participating in various acts of resistance against British rule in India. Bhagat Singh was also a great speaker, reader, writer and journalist.for Punjabi and Urdu language newspapers. He was moulded and guided by not only the political situation in India but also by the situation in Asia, Europe and America. The Russian revolution and Marxist writings and literature on the Soviet Union captured his imagination when he was in his teens. By the time he was 20, Bhagat Singh had devoured books on the theories of socialism, economics and revolution in European countries.

According to historian J.N. Sanyal, Bhagat Singh was an extremely well-read man and his special sphere of study was socialism and the economic experiment in Russia under the Bolshevik regime that  greatly interested him.But he was equally alive to the importance of national language and literature in bringing about an awakening and national integration among the masses.

Although he often quoted from the writings of Guru Gobind Singh, Swami Ram Tirath and Swami Vivekananda, Bhagat Singh was totally against using religion for political ends. He believed that the failure of earlier revolutionaries lay in their divided loyalty to their nation and their religion.An atheist as well as being a socialist, Bhagat Singh was also attracted to communist and anarchist causes.

He wrote a series of articles on anarchism, wanting to fight against mainstream misconceptions of the word in the Punjabi periodical Kirti  and explainrd his interest in anarchist ideology and express his concern over misunderstanding of the concept of anarchism among the public. Singh tried to eradicate the misconception among people about anarchism. He wrote, “The people are scared of the word anarchism. The word anarchism has been abused so much that even in India revolutionaries have been called anarchist to make them unpopular.” As anarchism means absence of ruler and abolition of state, not absence of order, Singh explained, “I think in India the idea of universal brotherhood, the Sanskrit sentence vasudhaiva kutumbakam etc., has the same meaning.” He wrote about the growth of anarchism,”the first man to explicitly propagate the theory of Anarchism was Proudhon and that is why he is called the founder of Anarchism. After him a Russian, Bakunin, worked hard to spread the doctrine. He was followed by Prince Kropotkin etc.”

Singh explained anarchism by writing :

The ultimate goal of Anarchism is complete independence, according to which no one will be obsessed with God or religion, nor will anybody be crazy for money or other worldly desires. There will be no chains on the body or control by the state. This means that they want to eliminate: the Church, God and Religion; the state; Private property.

In ‘To Young Political Workers,’ his last testament before his death, he called for a “socialist order” and a reconstruction of society on a “new, i.e, Marxist basis.” He considered the government “a weapon in the hand of the ruling class”, which is reflected in his belief that Gandhian philosophy only meant the “replacement of one set of exploiters for another.”

Bhagat Singh is often admired and celebrated for his dedication to the cause of liberation. However his socialist, communist and anarchist beliefs were suppressed by the successive governments in Independent India, who saw a revolutionary who had the potential to inspire, unite and motivate the growing population of a spectrum of activists all over India, in direct response to the fast-spreading divisiveness and intolerance in the country, often patronised by the groups and organizations professing a right-wing fascist ideology.

Writing the introduction to Bhagat Singh’s remarkable essay Why I am an Atheist in 1979,the late Bipan Chandra described the Marxist leaning of Bhagat Singh and his associates in the following way; “Bhagat Singh was not only one of India’s greatest freedom fighters and revolutionary socialists, but also one of its early Marxist thinkers and ideologues. Unfortunately, this last aspect is relatively unknown with the result that all sorts of reactionaries, obscurantists and communalists have been wrongly and dishonestly trying to utilise for their own politics and ideologies the name and fame of Bhagat Singh and his comrades such as Chandra Shekhar Azad.”

Bhagat Singh’s dreams of a new social order live on, not just in his writings, but also reflected in the hearts of every activist, protester, and dissenting citizen.The fight for freedom,revolution, Inquilab, may have changed in meaning, but it is far from over. Bhagat Singh remains  one of the most influential, revolutionary figures in the Indian history and continues to serve as a tremendous source of inspiration for every generation.

The inspiration that Bhagat Singh still ignites within the soul of Indians can be felt in the popularity of the films and theatrical adaptations on his life. Several films like “Shaheed” (1965) and “The Legend of Bhagat Singh” (2002) were made on the life of 23-year old revolutionary. Popular songs like the “Mohe rang de basanti chola” and “Sarfaroshiki Tamanna” associated with Bhagat Singh are still relevant in inspiring patriotic emotions in the Indians. Numerous books, articles and papers have been written about his life, ideologies and legacy. 

“They may kill me, but they cannot kill my ideas. They can crush my body, but they will not be able to crush my spirit.”

 

"Revolution is an inalienable right of mankind. Freedom is an imperishable birthright of all. Labour is the real sustainer of society"

 

- Shaheed Bhagat Singh

Stop the Tories cut to Universal Credit

In just 2 weeks the Tory government plans to cut Universal credit by £20 per week. at a time when energy bils and the cost of living are soaring,and we approach the colder months it is unthinkable for the Torys government to go ahead with cuts that would decimate the incomes of  tens of thousands of ordinary folk across the land who are already finding it hard to to heat their homes or give their family a substantial meal  There appears to be a total lack of compassion at the heart of Government.

But does this really come as a surprise, Bojo Johnson has golden wallpaper, Rishi Sunak has a new swimming pool, Dominic Rabb and Liz Truss are fighting over the use of a large mansion, contemptible politicians who could lose several £20 notes on the back seat of the taxi they charge to the taxpayer and never notice a difference. Fighting against the backdrop of increasing food shortages, child poverty, hike in taxes, and a pandemic, people worried about heating their homes this winter or buy a Christmas dinner because their benefits  have been  cut,.

The UK is already suffering from a growing Tory poverty crisis, with the worst levels of poverty and inequality of any country in north west Europe - and the highest levels of in-work poverty this century as a direct result of Tory cuts, tax hikes and the cost of Brexit.This planned cut to Universal Credit which is the biggest overnight cut to the basic rate of social security since WW2. The Fabian society estimated in February that removing this amount “will put 700,000 people into poverty”, hitting particularly hard those households with a disabled adult, carers, and families with children. and will  see the most vulnerable in our society, who are already under constant pressure pushed to breaking point. 

 Let's not forget  in the first place that the £20 uplift to Universal Credit was not a handy boost to benefit rates, but a recognition that previous levels were simply inadequate. To remove it would result in the biggest cut to the basic rate of social security since the birth of the modern welfare state.

When it comes down to this kind of money, it’s the difference between moving through a day with relative ease and stacking stress on top of stressed foundations. On low incomes, everything becomes more difficult and more tiring; every setback more defeating; every comfortable option costly. It is not so much skimming the cream but taking away a ladleful of what makes already pared down lives more possible.

When people are so down to the wire, it’s unnecessarily cruel to strip it away further. How can any family in such a situation save for a rainy day, when it rains every day, and there’s absolutely no money to spare? 

The cut is also likely to widen inequality in health and wellbeing and runs counter to government’s commitment to levelling up health, At at a time when people are already stressed by growing debts and lower income, it will only serve to add to rising rates of mental illness. We have already seen a dramatic increase in the need for food banks due to the coronavirus crisis and the end of the uplift would increase demand significantly. As an increasing number of people struggle to manage essential household bills  taking away £20 per week would make this situation much worse

This cut is illogical, because at a time of fragile economic recovery, when high streets up and down the country are struggling and shops are closing, it makes no sense to be taking millions of pounds of expenditure out of every single consttuency in the country. And this cut is unnecessary, because it is a political choice.

Coming in the autumn, the timing of these cuts exposes the callousness of the UK Government, piling further misery of those already battling to survive,.the £20 uplift in Universal Credit which has kept so many people afloat is being cruelly ripped away by a party driven by its ideological animosity towards working class people. No reshuffling of Boris Johnson’s cabinet of millionaires will mask the sheer cruelty that seems to be the cornerstone of this rotten government.

From an economic perspective this will end up more expensive in the long run. Already over-stretched health and care services will have to foot the bill for providing support for the consequences of pushing more families into a state of despair. Poverty simply wastes and destroys lives. £20 a week makes all the difference to those on the lowest incomes, many of whom are already working all the hours they can but simply cannot make ends meet.

 These are the same people who have been at the frontline of the coronavirus pandemic: social care workers, shop workers, childcare workers, delivery drivers, hospital porters, bus drivers and others. This is no way to treat those who have seen us through the greatest crisis since the Second World War.

The Chancellor, himself a multi-millionaire, says the uplift was only ever temporary. What we know is that its removal will deliver a crushing blow to the long-term detriment of millions of people for many years to come.

The Government may not view £20 per week to be a large amount of money for those who need additional income to get by, but the reality is that the £20 could be keeping the heads of an individual or a family above water. We must continue to put pressure on the government not to cut universal credit. and instead make the £20 Universal Credit uplift permanent and extend it to those on' legacy' benefits, as part of a wider package of measures to protect household incomes. We must keep this essential lifeline, people will unnecessarily struggle without it. Please email your MP now.

 

https://action.trusselltrust.org/ask-your-mp-call-prime-minister-stop-%C2%A320-cut-universal-credit-0?fbclid=IwAR2hmXGQKwPTCGw9R1ag7ddn3brSYgllWMlw_jA0MYjQgsaDNihVyrA37f0&utm_campaign=KTL&utm_medium=social&utm_source=paid&utm_term=Copy4

 and please also sign too the following petition.

https://www.change.org/p/borisjohnson-ukparliament-stop-the-universal-credit-cut 

BBC Radio Ballads : The Travelling People

Broadcast on 17 April 1964, The Travelling People radio ballad took as its subject the gypsy and tinker population of Britain.Originally produced for the BBC, each one-hour radio-ballad consisted of recorded actuality from members of the public, a script and songs made by Ewan MacColl, musical arrangments and direction by Peggy Seeger, production and editing by Charles Parker, musical participation by singers and instrumentalists and ingenious procedures innovated by BBC technicians. The final programs were tapestries of speech, sound and song and were considered revolutionary for their time. They opened up new vistas and techniques for radio documentaries and many of Ewan MacColl's most popular songs were made for them. MacColl’s songs The Travelling People and Moving on was so true to their lives that it was taken up by travellers and absorbed into their repertoire#

The bulk of the recording fell to  MacColl and Seeger, who were already familiar with traveller families from earlier collecting sessions. They spent almost a month in tents, kitchens and caravans, at horse fairs and around campfires in Glasgow, Blairgowrie, Montrose and Aberdeen, Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Birmingham, London, Hampshire and Dorset. The travellers were natural subjects with their rich folk life, songs, legends and inborn gift for storytelling; they were also a fascinating social study, maintaining fierce pride and independence in the face of constant hostility and persecution. 

Originally produced for the BBC, each one-hour radio-ballad consisted of recorded actuality from members of the public, a script and songs made by Ewan MacColl, musical arrangments and direction by Peggy Seeger, production and editing by Charles Parker, musical participation by singers and instrumentalists and ingenious procedures innovated by BBC technicians. The final programs were tapestries of speech, sound and song and were considered revolutionary for their time. They opened up new vistas and techniques for radio documentaries and many of Ewan MacColl's most popular songs were made for them. MacColl’s songs The Travelling People and Moving on was so true to their lives that it was taken up by travellers and absorbed into their repertoire.

A phenomenal  timeless piece of work The Travelling People is an examination of the Romany people in Britain, it serves mostly as a condemnation of attitudes toward them and their nomadic lifestyle, which, as reflected in many of the soundbites, were not complimentary. People simply didn't want them around, calling them "tinkers" and things much worse, as "I Mean, We're Fed Up With Gypsies Living in Our Area" highlights, with the incident of a woman about to give birth being moved on by the police. The attitudes were reflected in other ways too, like the boy who spent several years in the same grade without being taught to read or write, because, the teacher explained, "he's the best message boy I've ever had." But this programme did  more than simply look at the negatives. It examined the life of the gypsies, the way they'd settle in the winter time, or how traveling was part of their nature. MacColl's songs are among the finest he wrote for the radio ballad series, and the accompaniment is richer and fuller than before, and the singers,, people like Belle Stewart, Joe Heaney, and Jane Stewart,  serve the material brilliantly. They become integrated into the whole program , that's intelligently fashioned to bring out a whole picture, one which is sympathetic to the travelers, but also allows for opposing views. The listener comes away educated, and also humbled by the quiet pride of these people. 

 Mac Coll’s songs The Travelling People and Moving on was so true to their lives that it was taken up by travellers and absorbed into their repertoire. Meanwhile however the plight of the travellers a  people who live on the margins of our society who are still treated with suspicion to this day by the rest of the population. and persecuted around the world and still subject to discrimination in modern day Europe.

They are now house-bound, stuck in the worst part of our housing estates, but still suffering all the jibes that their ancestors did. Traditional stopping places  have became harder to find and travellers find themselves increasingly pitched against the interests of the settled population and land owners. Their persecution has become virtually normalised by the failure of central and local government to enforce their rights and protect them. Sadly, many countries in Europe still use their difference in culture as an excuse to systemically oppress them. Many public programs turn away members of the travelling community from health care, employment, housing, and other social services.

In addition to this for around two decades, from the late ’60s to the ’80s, councils were required by law to provide sites for Gypsies and travellers. Some councils complied with the law. Many didn’t, and carried on as if the law of the land was irrelevant. And in the weeks before the general election, dozens of Tory candidates shamelessly made “inflammatory and discriminatory statements about Gypsies, Roma and Travellers” as a vote-catcher, promising action against local traveller camps, according to research and campaign group OpenDemocracy.

The modern history of travelling people in Britain is one of discrimination and persecution enshrined in law. The Travelling People may be over 40 years old but its message is as punchy as ever,

Nevertheless, these proud  people, descendants from Romany migrants who migrated from  Europe to the shores of Britain from the latter half of the sixteenth century are difficult to completely erase, and the ancient lifestyle survives to this day, a history of endurance and resilience, We must continue to support their right to live  as they choose, opposing all forms of prejudice and discrimination and prejudice  inflicted upon them.and allow them to be given the respect and tolerance that they  truly deserve.

Daydreaming

Beyond capricious government, wars of attrition

Arguments that arraign and rearrest the soul,

Find ascension in the land of dream

Where rainbows quiver with radiant glow,

Far from the spinning world of confusion

Receding and dissolving any pain within,

Upon seas of tranquility, clouds of safety

My heart wanders and freely roams,

The mountain paths shadow the calmness

Allow raging thoughts to find composure,

Against intolerance, grains of misunderstanding

Here at least, everything pulls into place,

Truth is found on sloping borders

As golden light dances upon leaves,

Slow beats of  transformation thunder

Rustle up some passionate fire,

Peaceful rivulets restore and deliver

A distant red headed lover to my side,

Our eyes smiling at one another

We kiss, soar high on iridescent sky.

Remembering the Racial Injustice of 1963, Birmingham Church Bombings.

 

On September 15, 1963, a dynamite bomb exploded , blowing apart the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. .Four young girls who were getting ready for Sunday School were killed almost instantly.

This cowardly, cold, calculating event should not be forgotten that saw Addie Mae Collins (14) Denise McNair (11), Carole Robertson (14), and Cynthia Wesley (14) killed in an act of racially motivated terrorism, as a result of a bomb placed under the church by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Twenty-two others, including Collins' younger sister Sarah, were injured.Showing clearly to the world the heart of racial injustice and hatred that today shockingly has not disapeared. In the months leading up to the bombing, Birmingham had become the focal point of the civil rights front. The city was all too familiar with racial violence. Both African Americans and moderate whites had been long terrorized by the Klan. This is  just one part of the landscape of America  that should not be forgotten.

The Church itself was the 16th Street Baptist Church and was designed by the State of Alabama 's only black Architect and was finished in 1911. The church was a large part of a heavily segregated in arguably one of the most racist towns in America. Birmingham had no colored Police officers of Firefighters and very few blacks could vote. The Church was very significant. The Church, besides having mass meetings of the local black community and holding various events was also a Rally point for the Civil Rights community.  

Immediately after the bombing, violence surged throughout the city as police clashed with enraged members of the Black community. Before the day ended, at least two other African American children had been slain: 16-year-old Johnny Robinson was shot by police as he fled down an alley, and 13-year-old Virgil Ware was shot and killed by white youths while riding his bicycle.

In the aftermath Civil Rights activists blamed George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama, for the killings.Only a week before the bombing Wallace had told the New York Times that to stop the civil rights movement and the march towards integration Alabama needed a 'few first-class funerals.'

Birmingham, a violent city, was nicknamed 'Bombingham, because it had been the scene of more than 50 bombings between 1947 and 1963. This bombing, however, would not go unnoticed. The murderous event awakened the nation and effectively galvanized the civil rights movement.

Years earlier, Birmingham minister Fred L. Shuttlesworth founded the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) to directly confront racism and segregation in the city. In the spring of 1963, Shuttlesworth's group joined forces with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the largest and best known organization fighting for equal rights at the time. Together, the men formulated a plan that called for months-long protests to end segregation in Birmingham.

In May of that year, after weeks of marches, sit-ins, boycotts, bus strikes, and prayer vigils, an agreement was reached. It had the input of local government leaders, white business owners, African American leaders and civil rights groups. The city would actively begin working toward integration. The agreement did not sit well with segregationists, among the most violent of which was the notorious KKK.

Civil Rights activists blamed George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama, for the killings.Only a week before the bombing Wallace had told the New York Times that to stop the civil rights movement and the march towards integration Alabama needed a 'few first-class funerals.'

Though Birmingham’s white supremacists were immediately suspected in the bombing, repeated calls for the perpetrators to be brought to justice went unanswered for more than a decade. It was later revealed that the FBI had information concerning the identity of the bombers by 1965 and did nothing. In 1977, Alabama Attorney General Bob Baxley reopened the investigation and Klan leader Robert E. Chambliss was brought to trial for the bombings and convicted of murder. Continuing to maintain his innocence, Chambliss died in prison in 1985. The case was again reopened in 1980, 1988 and 1997, when two other former Klan members, Thomas Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry, were finally brought to trial; Blanton was convicted in 2001 and Cherry in 2002. A fourth suspect, Herman Frank Cash, died in 1994 before he could be brought to trial. To this day, the perpetrators of the bombing still remain a mystery

The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing is cited by many historians as the turning point in the civil rights movement. An editorial in the Milwaukee Sentinel said the bombing should “ continue to serve to goad the conscience” of the country. “The deaths...in a sense are on the hands of each of us.”

We should always keep in mind that the four girls who died, while immortalized in history, were children with children's dreams. Carol Robertson was a straight A student who loved to dance. Cynthia Wesley excelled in math. Addie Mae Collins was quiet, athletic, and had a flare for art. Denise McNair wrote plays for the kids in her neighborhood.

History is not scripted. In the case of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing it was shaped out of racist hatred that ended the lives of four young girls.

Services for Victim of Birmingham Church Bombing

The following Alabama was written by John Coltrane in response to the racially-driven bombings which took place in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. It features a melancholy melody, a much slower tempo than many of Coltrane’s songs, and a hauntingly sorrowful tone from Coltrane’s saxophone. These aspects not only capture the tragedy and sorrow of the Birmingham event, but of the human injustice that ignited the civil rights movement.

 

 

 “Alabama,” among other politically motivated songs, remains known as an anthem of a kind for the Civil Rights Movement. Not an anthem that was sung during protests or at speeches by Civil Rights leaders, but that was heard on the radio and sparked a remembrance for the four girls who lost their lives in Birmingham in 1963. The piece was released on the album Live In Birdland in 1964.

 It is said that Coltrane was motivated by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s eulogy for the girls In his eulogy, King stated, “These children, unoffending, innocent and beautiful, were the victims of one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity…They did not die in vain. God still has a way of bringing good out of evil.” 

This video, featuring King’s eulogy, also shows clips from the aftermath of the Charleston church shooting from 2015, which has evocative parallels to the 1963 Birmingham bombing. We  must remember and continue to stand against racial injustice wherever it occurs.:

'Bantu' 'Stephen Biko (Dec. 18, 1946–Sept. 12, 1977) - Gone But Not Forgotten

 

 

'Bantu' Stephen Biko was one of South Africa's most significant political activists who was strongly against the apartheid system and the white minority rule in South Africa. He was  born in Tarkastad in the Eastern Province (now Eastern Cape) on 18 December 1946, the third child of Mzingaye Biko and Nokuzola Macethe Duna. Mzingaye worked as a policeman, and later as a clerk in the King William’s Town Native Affairs office. An intelligent man, he was also enrolled at the University of South Africa (UNISA), the distance-learning university, but did not complete enough courses to get his law degree before he died. In 1948, the family moved to Ginsberg Township, just outside of King William’s Town in today's Eastern Cape. The Bikos eventually owned their own house in Zaula Street in the Brownlee section of Ginsberg - this despite Nokuzola's meagre income as a domestic worker. 

From an early age, Steve Biko showed an interest in anti-apartheid politics. After being expelled from his first school, Lovedale College in the Eastern Cape, for "anti-establishment" behavior. such as speaking out against apartheid and speaking up for the rights of Black South African citizens. he was transferred to St. Francis College, a Roman Catholic boarding school in Natal. From there he enrolled as a medical  student at the University of Natal Medical School (in the university's Black Section).

While at medical school, Biko became involved with the National Union of South African Students. The union was dominated by White liberal allies and failed to represent the needs of Black students. Dissatisfied, Biko resigned in 1969 and founded the South African Students' Organisation. SASO was involved in providing legal aid and medical clinics, as well as helping to develop cottage industries for disadvantaged Black communities and combatting  the minority government’s racist apartheid policies and to promote Black identity. In 1972, he helped found and lead the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) alongside fellow activists, Dr. Mamphela Ramphele and Barney Pityana.  and in the next year was banned from politics by the Afrikaner government.

 The BCM was an anti-apartheid movement that filled the power void when the ANC and Pan African Congress leaders were banished and jailed and was founded as a direct result of the Sharpeville Massacre https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2021/03/remembering-sharpeville-massacre.html in the late 1960s. The massacre saw around 300 South African police open fire on unarmed civilians who were peacefully marching against the apartheid pass laws a regulation that required Black people and other people of colour to carry a pass book whenever travelling so that the government could monitor their movements. 

The movement sought to empower young Black South Africans and inspire them to break themselves free from the chains of white governance. The BCM helped with the empowerment and mobilisation of Black people in urban areas. During the struggle Biko gave South Africans hope for a better future, he never gave up and he fought for what he believed to be right. As he once said  “The greatest weapon in the hand of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed"

In September 1977, Biko was arrested for subversion. While in police custody in Port Elizabeth, Biko was brutally beaten and then driven 700 miles to Pretoria, where he was thrown into a cell. On September 12, 1977, he died naked and shackled on the filthy floor of a police hospital. News of the political killing, denied by the country’s white minority government, led to international protests and a U.N.-imposed arms embargo.

 Biko's funeral  was marked by passionate denunciations of the apartheid regime, and became something of a political rally, lasting more than six hours. Mourners thrust their fists into the air and shouted ‘Power!’ when Steve’s coffin was lowered into the grave.

Soon after Steve’s death, the state banned 18 organisations on 17 October 1977, the majority of them allied to the BCM. The BCM launched the Azanian People's Organisation (AZAPO) in 1979, but the organisation was also banned soon thereafter. By the early 1980s the Black Consciousness Movement was in decline, eclipsed by the re-emergence of the Congress movement, most notably in the shape of the United Democratic Front. Steve’s dream of uniting the various liberation organisations never came to fruition; rather, the Congress Movement took the reins of the anti-apartheid struggle and eventually the ANC became the ruling party after the first democratic elections in 1994.

In Pretoria on Dec 2 the Stephen Biko inquest ended  that absolved the security police and all others involved of any responsibility for the death in prison of the country's foremost young black leader. Demonstrations began outside the court. 

Although his death was attributed to "a prison accident," evidence presented during the 15-day inquest into Biko's death revealed otherwise. During his detention in a Port Elizabeth police cell he had been chained to a grill at night and left to lie in urine-soaked blankets. He had been stripped naked and kept in leg-irons for 48 hours in his cell. A blow in a scuffle with security police led to him suffering brain damage by the time he was driven naked and manacled in the back of a police van to Pretoria, where he died.

In 1995, after the peaceful transfer to majority rule in South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established to examine decades of apartheid policy and to address the widespread call for justice for those who abused their authority under the system. However, as a condition of the transfer of power, the outgoing white minority government requested that the commission be obligated to grant amnesty to people making full confessions of politically motivated crimes during apartheid. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu was appointed to head the commission, which was soon criticized by many South Africans for its apparent willingness to grant pardons.

In early 1997, four former police officers, including Police Colonel Gideon Nieuwoudt, appeared before the commission and admitted to killing Stephen Biko two decades earlier. The commission agreed to hear their request for political amnesty but in 1999 refused to grant amnesty because the men failed to establish a political motive for the brutal killing. Other amnesty applications are still in progress.

In 1978, a few months after Steve Biko’s death, Stevie Wonder called and asked Millard Arnold if he would accept the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured Peoples’ (NAACP) Image Award for Biko posthumously. Arnold was flown out to Los Angeles for the Eleventh Annual NAACP Image Award celebration at which he accepted the Stevie Wonder Perpetual Award in Biko’s honour. This is the poem Arnold wrote and read for the event.

 

They tell me Steve Biko is dead 
To persuade me perhaps that his strong but sensitive voice can be stilled by hatred and fear
They tell me Steve Biko is dead
To show me perhaps that humanity and dignity can be bludgeoned into submission
They tell me Steve Biko is dead
To convince me perhaps that courage and compassion can be somehow compromised 
But what they are afraid to tell me is that Biko lives
That the spirit, the ideals, the dreams, the glory of Steve Biko lives
That it lives in Soweto
That it lives in Watts
That it lives in Harlem
That it lives in the minds of all those oppressed
Steve Biko lives because the aspirations of a people cannot be denied
Steve Biko lives because violence and repression will not quench the thirst for freedom and decency
Steve Biko lives because his special sense of humanity and integrity cannot be forgotten
But they, they would have me, they would have you believe that Steve Biko is dead
You and I…
We know better

 

 Many of Biko's writings were posthumously collected in the 1978 anthology I Write What I Like. It is compulsory reading for everyone – especially as a way of understanding his nuanced theories and expositions of racial inequality and racist violence. In the preface to this collection, the editor Aelred Stubbs grappled with Biko’s passing, suggesting that while it was difficult to directly comment ‘in depth about his death’ or to begin writing a biography of him, Biko’s teachings were desperately needed: they were, and sadly continue to be, ‘timely, [as they] serve to inform those who all over the world know the name Biko only in the dreadful context of his death’. There are haunting echoes of what his happening, ‘all over the world’, today.

Before his untimely death in detention at age 30, he was instrumental in uniting Black Africans in the struggle against the apartheid government in South Africa. His place in history is firmly cemented and the struggle that he gave his life for continues. He left a legacy of thoughts and words, and these words pay tribute to the courage and power of the young leader who was to become one of Africa’s heroes.

 Internationally, many years after his death, Bantu Stephen Biko is memorialized as one of the most important activists of South Africa’s apartheid era, but in his hometown he is remembered as “Big Brother Bantu.”

 In Xhosa, one of South Africa’s 11 official languages, “Bantu” means “the people’s person.” Those who knew Biko said it was a name that described him well, according to Nkosinathi Biko, CEO of the Steve Biko Foundation and the eldest of Biko’s four children.

It has been many years  since the police arrested, interrogated and beat Biko with enough force to cause his death,yet the former medical student has not been forgotten. Biko became not just a hero of South Africa’s liberation struggle, but a universal symbol of resistance against oppression, with his memory praised in films, (1987's Cry Freedom, for instance) books and songs. " In popular culture, he remains  a very powerful symbol of hope … an icon of change,” Biko’s son Nkosinathi once said. “He helped to articulate our understanding, our own identity that continues to resonate in young South Africans to this day.“His ideas have a real influence well beyond the political field, in cultural organisations, in research organisations and in churches.”

Nelson Mandela  South Africa's post-Apartheid president who was incarcerated at the notorious Robben Island prison during Biko's time on the world stage, lionized the activist 20 years after he was killed, calling him "the spark that lit a veld fire across South Africa."

Biko’s brutal murder had a palpable impact on South Africa and the rest of the world, sounding a forceful wake-up call to non-Black citizens who wilfully overlooked the inhumane cruelty of apartheid. As well as impacting the politics of well-known figures like Nelson Mandela, Biko continues to be a source of inspiration today; his name has been leant to numerous organisations including the Steve Biko Foundation which has developed projects like Accelerate Hub to support young people across Africa.Movements like Black Lives Matter carry forward  versions  of ‘grass-roots’ organisations for which Biko advocated. They challenge anti-Black racism – in the US, the UK, and across the world – by unapologetically stressing the worthiness, the importance, and the value of each individual Black life existing within a system which derides all Black experiences as a whole. Black Consciousness remains a vital lens through which these ideas are being conveyed. In fact, Steve Biko was the great-uncle of Cherno Biko, the founder of Black Trans Lives Matters. 

I.will end this post with Peter Gabriel’s haunting 1980 song Biko:

 

 

“You can blow out a candle

But you can’t blow out a fire.

0nce the flames begin to catch

The wind will blow it higher.”

 

Sources : 

 

Biko, Steve. I Write What I Like. Bowerdean Press, 1978. 

 

“Cry Freedom.” IMDb, IMDb.com, 6 Nov. 1987. 

 

“Steve Biko: The Philosophy of Black Consciousness." Black Star News, 20 Feb. 2020. 

 

Donald Woods. Biko. Paddington Press, 1978.