Nakba Day : End Injustice, End Apartheid!

 

On May 15th each year, Palestinians and their allies around the world mark the Nakba ( Catastrophe in Arabic) the time when more than 750,000 Palestinians, about half of the Arab population  in Palestine at that time, were forced out of their homes and lands and saw  Palestinian villages wiped off the map to establish the state of Israel in 1948. Thousands of people were brutally massacred in Deir Yassin, Lydda, Tantura and many other areas, by gangs which later became the Israeli Defence Force.

The vast majority of Palestinian refugees, both those outside the 1949 armistice lines  and those internally displaced, were barred by the newly declared state of Israel from  their right to return to their homes or the reclaiming of their property, and in doing so Israel violated international law. It is the defining event that formed and solidified the Palestinian liberation struggle.

To understand the Nakba is to first confront its sheer scale and totality. Before the Nakba there was a large, deeply rooted, and essentially ancient Arab society in most of what, within a few months, became the Jewish state of Israel. In effect, one day it was there, as it had been for living memory, and the next day it was gone. An entire society, with the exception of relatively small groups in a few places, simply vanished.

After World War I, the League of Nations broke the Ottoman Empire up into territories assigned to different colonial powers. The lands that today constitute Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories were placed under British rule, but with two explicit and incompatible purposes: Britain was already committed to supporting the recently established Zionist movement that sought to create “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. 

Then in Britain came the notorious 1917 Balfour Declaration and the Palestine mandate, in which the overwhelming Palestinian majority was simply referred to as “existing non-Jewish communities,” with “civil and religious rights,” but not political ones.

With the Balfour Declaration, the government of the time was seeking Jewish support for its war efforts, and the Zionist push for a homeland for Jews, which was becomming an emerging political force. In 1917, Jews constituted 10% of the population, the rest were  Arabs. Yet Britain recognised the national rights of a tiny minority and denied it to the majority This was a classic colonial document which totally disregarded the rights and aspirations of the indigenous population. In the words of Jewish writer Arthur Koestler: “One nation solemnly promised to a second nation the country of a third.”

It was a shock to the Arab world, which had not been consulted and had received promises of independence of its own in the post-war break up of the defeated Ottoman Empire. The Palestinians have always condemned the declaration, which they refer to as the "Balfour promise" saying Britain was giving away land it did not own.

The Balfour Declaration constituted a  dangerous historical precedent and a blatant breach of all international laws and norms, and this  act of the British Empire to “give” the land of another people  for colonial settlement created the conditions for countless atrocities against the Palestinian people. Balfour, in a 1919 confidential memo, wrote: 

 “Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age old traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far greater import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land”  

The discriminatory language used by Sir Arthur Balfour and seen in the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate reveal the prejudiced rational behind British foreign policy in Palestine. A month after the Balfour Declaration on 2 December 1917, the British army occupied Jerusalem. In 1923, the British Mandate for Palestine came into effect, and included the entire text of the Balfour Declaration. Through the Mandate, Britain would go on to rule Palestine for three decades.

As a result of all of this the Palestinian people were denied the right to independence and statehood, and were treated as refugees in their own land. The Nakba resulted in the destruction of much of Palestinian society and much of the Arab landscape was obliterated by the Zionist state. And in the post 1948 period the Palestinians became second class citizens, subject  to a system of military occupation by a government that confiscated the bulk of their lands.

 Even the word 'Nakba' was banned by the Israeli Minister of Education in 2009, and was removed from school textbooks. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayah said at the time that the word was tantamount to spreading propoganda against Israel. But the word Nakba is the term that about a fifth of Israel's population, the Palestinians use to describe this day.
This is the Palestines history, it is essential we should be allowed to talked about. It is it not wrong to question, when other regimes oppress, we question them too, we have a duty to criticise and condemn, when fundamental freedoms and rights are violated. Any state that acts aggressively is open to criticism. All human beings are entitled to human rights.

This period of time is what we remember today, but also now marks the anniversary of those killed during the Great Return March in Gaza in 2019. Thousands of Palestinians, stuck in the blockaded Gaza strip, initiated protests that started in Gaza as a way to draw attention to the living conditions in Gaza, where currently more than 1.3 million Palestinian refugees live, but more importantly as a march for the right of return. This Great March characterized the use of peaceful activism by Palestinian citizens since the early 2000s. These mobilizations aim to defend land rights, rights to resources, mobility through non-violence and sometimes innovative actions to attract international attention demanding their right to return to their homes from which they were expelled in 1948. They were also condemning the continued occupation and siege. Hundreds of people have been killed during these marches, including children, disabled protesters, journalists and paramedics.

There is no peace in stolen lands, especially when people still cry for liberation and the right to return to their lands.The fact is the Nakba never ended. It continues every day as Palestinians are evicted from their homes in East Jerusalem and the West Bank to be replaced by illegal Jewish-only settlements. It continues as Israel’s occupation obstructs and severely restricts Palestinians’ attainment of rights and fundamental freedoms, including: the right to life, the right to liberty and security of person, and their right to an adequate standard of living,amongst others. Notably, Israel also violates Palestinians’ right to freedom of movement within and from the Occupied Palestinian Territories through its closure policy made up of the Annexation Wall and its associated permit-regime in the West Bank, and its prolonged closure of the Gaza Strip, which has made Gaza uninhabitable for Palestinians.

In the Gaza Strip, in particular, Palestinians continue to be severely deprived of their liberty as a result of Israel’s unlawful closure, amounting to collective punishment. In Gaza, Palestinians are trapped in a humanitarian crisis without adequate water or electricity as they are prevented from returning to their lands inside what is now Israel.It continues with sniper attacks on Palestinians in Gaza, encroachment of illegal settlements across the West Bank and extreme limitations placed on Palestinians' movements within and between towns, courtesy of IDF-staffed checkpoints and all in violation of international human rights law and in denial of the fundamental aspirations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which sought “the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy … freedom from fear and want”.

Palestinians still have no state and no equality, Refugee camps still exist all over the world and a majority of Palestinians live in the diaspora. Palestine is occupied  in the most brutal way possible.

For the nearly six million Palestinians who live between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, the Nakba remains an ongoing process, as Israel uses a range of tools to restrict their livelihoods.

They remain vulnerable to expulsion, watching an ever-increasing share of their land become off-limits. About half of the occupied West Bank is already inaccessible to Palestinians, designated as military zones or nature reserves, or set aside for future Israeli settlements.The Israeli military control large parts of the West Bank and Gaza is completely sealed and “monitored” by Israeli ships, fighter planes and tanks.

Against their will, the Nakba has divided the Palestinian people between Gaza and the West Bank. Still searching for justice and dignity, rememberance acts as resistance to their occupiers who still try to bury and hide their history. Despite the international attention that the Nakba has received over the years,  Israel has not yet recognized the Nakba, nor their responsibility in 1948. The right of return for Palestine refugees is a right guaranteed by international law and enshrined in UN General Assembly resolution 194. Knowing that the displacement of Palestinians is still being practiced by Israel today in the West Bank and Gaza, the question of the ongoing Nakba needs to be addressed to achieve justice and peace in the region. The right for Palestinian refugees to return to their land must be the precondition for a dialogue for peaceful coexistence between Israel and Palestine.

The development of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine is deemed a breach of international law, and thus by doing business in these settlements, many international companies are contributing to the economic viability of settlements and are normalising Israeli annexation of Palestinian land,and aiding in promoting discrimination, oppression and injustice.

The Nakba still reverberates today because  Al Nakba is constant and continuing, felt through all aspects of Palestininian life, whether in Israel. the Occupied Territories, the refugees camps, or even in settled Palestinian communities abroad.

2,400 Palestinians in Masafer Yatta face the largest expulsion from their land since 1967. This is yet further proof of the ongoing catastrophe Palestinians face under Israeli apartheid. Israeli violence and ethnic cleansing against Palestinians is escalating rapidly. Earlier this week the Israeli High Court, which includes a settler judge, ruled that Palestinians who lived on their land for generations are “illegally” residing in a military “firing zone.” Wednesday, Israeli military snipers killed Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh while she was covering a military raid on a Palestinian refugee camp.  Israeli forces then brutally beat and attacked Palestinian mourners at Shireen’s funeral. In the last two months alone, Israeli forces have killed 34 Palestinians, including six children. The ongoing displacement, theft, and murder by the Israeli regime marks a new brutal and devastating phase of the ongoing Nakba.

This May also marks the one year anniversary of Israel’s 11-day military assault on Gaza and the historic Palestinian Unity Uprising. In the year since, settler and military attacks and home demolitions have continued to escalate, while mainstream  media outlets have largely ignored violence against Palestinians and ethnic cleansing in Palestine.  

From the home demolitions in Silwan to the imminent expulsions in Masafer Yatta, we know the Nakba is not a static event, but rather an ongoing reality for Palestinians.The Nakba is felt each time a Palestinian family is forcibly removed from their home. The Nakba is felt each time a Palestinian family is forcibly removed from their home. The Nakba is felt each year that the crushing siege on Gaza continues, and with each Israeli air strike. And the Nakba is felt each time Israeli forces violently raid some of Islam's holiest sites, as was the case with the numerous attacks on the Al Aqsa compound during Ramadan last month.This daily violence cannot continue.

Today, as we observe  the sad sombre event of the Nakba and it's ongoing resonance, lets be stronger and more determined  than ever to stand up to Israeli policies of apartheid. It is more important than ever that the  international community keep defending Palestinian human rights, support Palestinian protests against forced housing demolitions and land theft and put real pressure on Israel to end its occupation and comply with international law. To take all measures within international law to hold Israel accountable for its ongoing strategy resulting in ongoing human rights violations and international crimes committed against the Palestinian People, including forcible transfer, colonization and apartheid. Today therefore is an occasion to reaffirm the inherent dignity and rights of Palestinians and to assert the right of the Palestinian people, as a whole, to self-determination, which includes the right to permanent sovereignty over natural wealth and resources and the right of return of Palestinian refugees, in order to achieve justice and durable peace for the Palestinian People.

The  ongoing occupation of Palestinian land makes the Boycott Divestment  Sanctions (BDS) campaigns all the more urgent and necessary.However in the Queen’s Speech on Tuesday Prince Charles spoke of an “anti-BDS Bill” for public bodies.This means the government wants to make it illegal for public bodies (eg. councils) to boycott, divest and sanction.This is extremely concerning. In a free society, public bodies must retain the right to make ethical choices. Please sign this petition now to protect the right of public bodies to make ethical choices through BDS. 

Palestinians are not going to give up and be content to mourn the ghost of Palestine. Today we remember this. The Palestinian people still belong to their land, where they still remain, in their hearts and spirits, still holding and caring for the keys of their houses for the people who left. Time drifts, but for many memory is never erased, still belonging to the land of their ancestors, where hearts and minds can never leave.  It is time for the leaders of the world to understand that there is no homeland for the Palestinians except Palestine.

Now is the time, for those of us who are able, to say with our bodies and voices that we will bring our all to the struggle for Palestinian liberation. The continuation of the Israeli occupation, it's system of apartheid, and further displacement of Palestinian families must come to an end. From the rivers to the sea, Palestine will be free.  

 

 

Our human rights are under attack

 

The UK Government has confirmed its intention to bring forward a new ‘Bill of Rights’ in the Queen’s Speech announced earlier this week. This Bill will reform the Human Rights Act 1998 and aims to make it harder for ordinary people to bring legal challenges when their rights have been violated.

The government has claimed its new Bill of Rights will curb “the incremental expansion of a rights culture” and “end abuse of the human right framework,” by “establishing the primacy of UK case law” over the  European Court of Human Rights ( ECHR)

In particular, the government argued the new bill will prevent foreign criminals from evading deportation, by using Article 8 of the ECHR – which guarantees the right to family life – to appeal decisions, but quite simply  is just another attempt by the Tory Government to make it harder for all of us to protect or enforce our rights.

The Human Rights Act  covers everyone  living in the UK, based  on the European Convention of Human Rights, that the Labour Party introduced  in 1998 and  has repeatedly let ordinary people - hold the state to account.  It is here to protect us all, and has enabled people for example to go to court to object against the bedroom tax. The policies have been created for no reason than to protect us as human beings. Without it any one of us could be wrongly accused of a crime, the government will be allowed to breach our privacy, and anyone could fall victim to careless decisions made by authorities. What happens to innocent until proven guilty and dignity in dying?

Moreover the HRA has empowered citizens to ensure that they are treated with greater dignity and respect in their everyday lives. It has led to vital improvements in laws and policies that have improved the lives of a wide range of people in a wide range of situations – including health and social care, education and housing.

Human rights  are in place to stop corrupt Governments like the one we have at the moment, and the Human Rights Act brings home fundamental, universal rights we all have as human beings, and allows us to challenge authorities if they violate them. If you’re lucky you won’t ever need to use it in a court. But it’s protecting you all the same.

It’s an invisible safety net for all of us, working quietly to ensure our rights are respected, and a crucial means of defence for the most vulnerable.  Right now this vital protection is at risk How could anyone in their right mind oppose any of the following.

Right to life
Freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment
Right to liberty and security
Freedom from slavery and forced  labour
Right to a fair trial
No punishment if you have not broken law
Respect for your private and family life 
Freedom of thought, belief and religion
Freedom of expression
Freedom of assembly and association
The right to marry and start a family

50 groups, including Amnesty, Liberty and the British Institute of Human Rights, have since warned Prime Minister Boris Johnson  that repealing the Act would “undermine the global system of rights and protections.”

Responding to the Queen’s Speech, Amnesty UK chief Sacha Deshmukh condemned what he described as the “systematic gutting” of key protections for people in Britain.

“Scrapping the Human Rights Act and replacing it with a narrower, meaner Bill of rights will make it even harder for ordinary people to challenge mistreatment at the hands of the state,” he warned.

“Relatives of the Covid bereaved, women challenging serious failures to investigate and prosecute rape, activists fighting for abortion services in Northern Ireland: all these rely on the Human Rights Act.”

This Tory Government’s attacks on human rights and the rule of law must stop. Trying to weaken people’s ability to challenge the Government just because the courts sometimes rule against you is the act of dictators and despots.We must not allow the Conservatives to steal away our precious human rights. 

The human rights act is ours, scrapping it will take away the rights of everyone, and it is the most vulnerable that will suffer most. We must do everything in our power to save it. As a modern democratic society, we must ensure that our human rights law remains on the statute books, and continues to make the lives of all people in the UK fairer and better.

Remembering John Brown Militant Abolitionist

  .

John Brown was born May 9, 1800, in Torrington, Connecticut to Calvinist parents Ruth Mills and Owen Brown. One of the most controversial figures in United States antebellum history, Brown was, and still is, a polarizing figure. Some see him as a social justice visionary, prepared to do whatever was needed to end the scourge of slavery; others, as an unstable, obsessive zealot who ruthlessly killed others in pursuit of a misguided vision of revolution.

The fourth of eight children, Brown left Torrington at the age of five when his family moved to the Western Reserve of Ohio. As a young man, Brown returned to Connecticut to attend the Morris Academy in Litchfield in hopes of becoming a minister, but had to drop out because of illness and financial John, like his father before him, spent most of his adult life wrestling with financial insolvency and moving from place to place in search of steady work.

Brown witnessed the barbarity of slavery when he was 12 years old and saw a Black child beaten in the streets while he was traveling through Michigan. That experience and his father’s repulsion for the institution of slavery had a lasting affect on young John that would eventually lead him to infamy in the annals of American history.

During his first fifty years, Brown moved about the country, settling in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New York, and taking along his ever-growing family. (He would father twenty children.) Unfortunately, his first wife died, as did half of their children during infancy. Working at various times as a farmer, wool merchant, tanner, and land speculator, he never was financially successful, he even filed for bankruptcy when in his forties. His lack of funds, however, did not keep him from supporting causes he believed in. He helped finance the publication of David Walker's Appeal and Henry Highland's "Call to Rebellion" speech. He gave land to fugitive slaves. He and his wife agreed to raise a black youth as one of their own. He also participated in the Underground Railroad that ran through western Massachusetts, which convinced Brown that the national stain of slavery could be destroyed only through violent means.

John Brown’s life is indivisible from his religious beliefs. Puritan religious devotion was intense on both sides of his family. The religion of the Brown clan was not that modified by time, but rather the Orthodox Calvinism of Puritan times. Indeed, Brown modeled himself on the Puritan warrior, Oliver Cromwell. Owen Brown had bequeathed to his son an intense hatred of slavery. Brown took as his text those words of the Bible that admonished “You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped…Rather he shall dwell with you.” (Deuteronomy 23: 15-16) 

Throughout his life, Brown turned to the Bible for solace and guidance.In his community, he demonstrated his anti-racist views by sharing meals with Black people and addressing them as “Mr.” and “Mrs.” He also vocally denounced segregated seating in church. Starting in 1834, Brown began educating Negroes, and for the next twenty years he, and his family, worked actively within the abolitionist movement.

The abolitionist movement was a revolutionary struggle to end chattel slavery in the American republic. The Nat Turner Slave Rebellion of 1831 had influenced all that followed.https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2012/08/nat-turner-2101800-111131-his-legacy-of.html Among the major figures in the movement: Angelina Grimke, a daughter of Southern slaveholders who turned against the system that she initially saw as corrupting white slaveholders. An intellectual, William Lloyd Garrison, impelled by both the religious and secular spirit of the time to seek a more perfect society, became the voice and the pen of the movement. A slave, Frederick Douglass, came to fight back against the “slave breaker” brought in to beat him into submission. And there was Elijah Lovejoy, an abolitionist editor in Alton, Illinois. His murder in 1837 inspired John Brown to dedicate his life to the destruction of slavery.What set Brown apart from his contemporaries was that he’d had enough of trying to use peaceful discourse as a means to end slavery. He opted instead for violence.

 Brown’s Calvinist upbringing had convinced him that fighting against slavery was his primary mission in life. He believed it was a sin so thoroughly that Frederick Douglass, who he  first met in 1847, said, “John Brown was a man who though a white gentleman, is in sympathy, a Black man, and as deeply interested in our cause, as though his own soul had been pierced with the iron of slavery.”

It was at this meeting that Brown first outlined his plan to Douglass to lead a war to free slaves.

Brown moved to the black community of North Elba, New York, in 1849. The community had been established thanks to the philanthropy of Gerrit Smith, who donated tracts of at least 50 acres to black families willing to clear and farm the land. Brown, knowing that many of the families were finding life in this isolated area difficult, offered to establish his own farm there as well, in order to lead the blacks by his example and to act as a "kind father to them."

Despite his contributions to the antislavery cause, Brown did not emerge as a figure of major significance until 1855 after he followed five of his sons to Kansas, a territory deeply divided over the slavery issue. There, he became the leader of antislavery guerillas and fought a proslavery attack against the antislavery town of Lawrence.

Perhaps more than any other American historical figure, the militant abolitionist John Brown embodies the idea that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Brown’s zeal at the Pottawatomie Massacre, on the night of May 24, 1856, where Brown and his sons murdered five men who supported slavery, although none actually owned slaves. Brown and his sons escaped. Brown spent the next three years collecting money from wealthy abolitionists in order to establish a colony for runaway slaves.Their republic hoped to form a guerrilla army to fight slaveholders and ignite uprisings, and its population would grow exponentially with the influx of liberated and fugitive enslaved people. To accomplish this, Brown needed weapons and decided to capture the arsenal at Harpers Ferry.

In 1794, President George Washington had selected Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and Springfield, Massachusetts, as the sites of the new national armories. In choosing Harpers Ferry, he noted the benefit of great waterpower provided by both the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers. In 1817, the federal government contracted with John H. Hall to manufacture his patented rifles at Harpers Ferry. The armory and arsenal continued producing weapons until its destruction at the outbreak of the Civil War.

In the summer of 1859, John Brown, using the pseudonym Isaac Smith, took up residence near Harpers Ferry at a farm in Maryland. He trained a group of twenty-two men, including his sons Oliver, Owen, and Watson, in military manoeuvers. On the night of Sunday, October 16, Brown and all but three of the men marched into Harpers Ferry, capturing several watchmen. The first victim of the raid was an African-American railroad baggage handler named Hayward Shepherd, who was shot and killed after confronting the raiders. During the night, Brown captured several other prisoners, including Lewis Washington, the great-grand-nephew of George Washington.

There were two keys to the success of the raid. First, the men needed to capture the weapons and escape before word reached Washington, D. C. The raiders cut the telegraph lines but allowed a Baltimore and Ohio train to pass through Harpers Ferry after detaining it for five hours. When the train reached Baltimore the next day at noon, the conductor contacted authorities in Washington. Second, Brown expected local slaves to rise up against their owners and join the raid. Not only did this fail to happen, but townspeople began shooting at the raiders.

Armory workers discovered Brown’s men in control of the building on Monday morning, October 17. Local militia companies surrounded the armory, cutting off Brown’s escape routes. Shortly after seven o’clock, a Harpers Ferry townsperson, Thomas Boerly, was shot and killed near the corner of High and Shenandoah streets. During the day, two other citizens were killed, George W. Turner and Harpers Ferry Mayor Fontaine Beckham. When Brown realized he had no way to escape, he selected nine prisoners and moved them to the armory’s small fire engine house, which later became known as John Brown’s Fort.

With their plans falling apart, the raiders panicked. William H. Leeman tried to escape by swimming across the Potomac River, but was shot and killed. The townspeople, many of whom had been drinking all day on this unofficial holiday, used Leeman’s body for target practice. At 3:30 on Monday afternoon, authorities in Washington ordered Colonel Robert E. Lee to Harpers Ferry with a force of Marines to capture Brown. Lee’s first action was to close the town’s saloons in order to curb the random violence. At 6:30 on the morning of Tuesday, October 18, Lee ordered Lieutenant Israel Green and a group of men to storm the engine house. At a signal from Lieutenant J.E.B. Stuart, the engine house door was knocked down and the Marines began taking prisoners. Green seriously wounded Brown with his sword. Brown was taken to the Jefferson County seat of Charles Town for trial. 

Of Brown’s original twenty-two men, John H. Kagi, Jeremiah G. Anderson, William Thompson, Dauphin Thompson, Brown’s sons Oliver and Watson, Stewart Taylor, Leeman, and free African Americans Lewis S. Leary and Dangerfield Newby had been killed during the raid. John E. Cook and Albert Hazlett escaped into Pennsylvania but were captured and brought back to Charles Town. Brown, Aaron D. Stevens, Edwin Coppoc, and free African Americans John A. Copeland and Shields Green were all captured and imprisoned. Five raiders escaped and were never captured: Brown’s son Owen, Charles P. Tidd, Barclay Coppoc, Francis J. Merriam, and free African American Osborne P. Anderson. One Marine, Luke Quinn, was killed during the storming of the engine house. Two slaves, belonging to Brown’s prisoners Colonel Lewis Washington and John Allstadt, also lost their lives. It is unknown whether or not they voluntarily took up arms with Brown. One drowned while trying to escape and the other died in the Charles Town prison following the raid. Local residents at the time believed the two took part in the raid. To discredit Brown, residents later claimed that these two slaves had been taken prisoner and that no slaves actually participated in the raid. 

On December 2, 1859,  John Brown was hanged in Charles Town Virginia (now West Virginia) for treason and while his raid had failed, his capture and hanging had a much greater impact on national events. Brown’s actions set off shockwaves across the country. In the North, many hailed him as a hero. In the South, he was viewed as a villain and a true reflection of the North’s intended war on slavery. 

Tensions mounted in the days leading up to Brown’s execution. Rumors of a massive jailbreak circulated in both the North and South. The jail and gallows were guarded by Virginia troops, including Major Thomas Jackson—later to be known as “Stonewall.”

As Brown was brought to the gallows, he handed off a note that read, “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land can never be purged away but with blood.” Perhaps more than any other event, Brown’s death hastened a cascade of events that culminated with the first shots of the Civil War , 16 months later Northern abolitionists immediately used Brown's executions as an example of the government’s support of slavery. John Brown became their martyr, a hero murdered for his belief that slavery should be abolished. In reality, Brown and his men were prosecuted and executed for taking over a government facility. But in non-slave states, his execution on December 2, 1859, was marked by the tolling of church bells and martyrdom within the abolitionist movement whose “truth goes marching on”; reviled by others became  a symbol of pro-Union, anti-slavery beliefs.

"He did not recognize unjust human laws, but resisted them as he was bid. . . .," said Henry David Thoreau in an address to the citizens of Concord, Massachusetts. "No man in America has ever stood up so persistently and effectively for the dignity of human nature. . . ."

After the Civil War, a school was established at Harpers Ferry for African Americans. The leaders of Storer College always emphasized the courage and beliefs of John Brown for inspiration. In 1881, African-American leader Frederick Douglass delivered a classic speech at the school honoring Brown. Twenty-five years later, W.E.B. DuBois and Martinsburg newspaper editor J.R. Clifford recognized Harpers Ferry’s importance to African Americans and chose Storer College as the site for a meeting of the Second Niagara Movement, which later became the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Those in attendance walked at daybreak to John Brown’s Fort. In 1892, the fort had been sent to the Chicago World’s Fair and then brought back to a farm near Harpers Ferry. Today, the restored fort has been rebuilt at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park near its original location.

The original Brown family homestead burned down in 1918, but the foundation is still visible in Torrington — a visual reminder of the humble beginnings of one of America’s most controversial figures in the years leading up to the Civil War. The site is actively maintained by the Torrington Historical Society and became a stop on the Connecticut African-American Freedom Trail in 1997.

In his biography of Brown, Du Bois said the following about Brown’s legacy:

“Was John Brown simply an episode, or was he an eternal truth? And if a truth, how speaks that truth today? John Brown loved his neighbor as himself. He could not endure therefore to see his neighbor, poor, unfortunate, or oppressed. This natural sympathy was strengthened by a saturation in Hebrew religion which stressed the personal responsibility of every human soul to a just God. To this religion of equality and sympathy with misfortune, was added the strong influence of the social doctrines of the French Revolution with its emphasis on freedom and power in political life. And on all this was built John Brown’s own inchoate but growing belief in a more just and a more equal distribution of property. From this he concluded – and acted on that conclusion – that all men are created free and equal, and that the cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.”

What is undeniable for me, is that John Brown talked the talk and walked the walk. Brown popularized the idea of militant insurrections and drove a wedge between Americans who called for abolition and those who called for appeasement with slaveholders. Even after his death, Brown's legend lives on. John Brown's  dedication to a cause, was, and is, immortalized in the following song, "John Brown’s body"

 

John Brown's Body- Pete Seeger 

 

 

John Brown's body lies a-moldering in the grave
John Brown's body lies a-moldering in the grave
John Brown's body lies a-moldering in the grave
But his soul goes marching on

The stars above in Heaven are looking kindly down
The stars above in Heaven are looking kindly down
The stars above in Heaven are looking kindly down
On the grave of old John Brown

Glory, Glory, Hallelujah
Glory, Glory, Hallelujah
Glory, Glory, Hallelujah
His soul goes marching on

He captured Harper's Ferry with his nineteen men so true
He frightened old Virginia till she trembled through and through
They hung him for a traitor, they themselves the traitor crew
But his soul goes marching on

Glory, Glory, Hallelujah
Glory, Glory, Hallelujah
Glory, Glory, Hallelujah
His soul goes marching on

 Further  Reading

“John Brown Birthplace Site,” Torrington Historical Society

Peter Vermilyea, “Hidden Nearby: John Brown’s Torrington Birthplace,” connecticuthistory.org

Cassetteboy vs The Tories May 2022

 

Cassetteboy has just released a brilliant new video mocking the Conservatives on the eve of the local elections.

In the two-minute clips the parodist has cut up speeches by senior government figures to show what they are really up to…

It starts with Boris Johnson apparently saying: ‘We’d rather let our people freeze than tax our energy companies’ and ends with: ’We are the party of lies’.

In between, Rishi Sunak, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Priti Patel and others are mocked with their own words…..

Cassetteboy don't make any money,, from their political videos, if you like what they do go to it     https://ko-fi.com/Cassetteboy they'd really appreciate it..

Song  Without Me (Instrumental)

Artist  Eminem

Album  Without Me

Writers Eminem, Kevin Bell, Malcolm McLaren, Jeff Bass, Anne Dudley, Trevor Horn

Licensed to YouTube by UMG (on behalf of Aftermath); AMRA, CMRRA, LatinAutorPerf, IMPEL, UNIAO BRASILEIRA DE EDITORAS DE MUSICA - UBEM, Kobalt Music Publishing, MINT_BMG, LatinAutor - PeerMusic, Peermusic, Forward Music Publishing Co., Ltd., BMG Rights Management (US), LLC, LatinAutor, ASCAP, ARESA, Reach Music Publishing, AMRA BR, BMI - Broadcast Music Inc., and 18 music rights societies

A reminder: local Conservatives are the same as Conservatives in Westminster.  They’re just nearer. They are not your friends.Vote them out, everywhere.The British Conservative party is diametrically opposed  to the good of the British public and deliberately acts against their interests. Their motives driven by authoritarianism designed to disenfranchise all, unless  you are not a millionaire, the Conservative Party is not your friend, they are enemies of the people. Inhabited by people with no feeling at all. How on earth are they governing this land,  they have no credible mandate to do so, and remain for me  a thoroughly nasty bunch of  people, with policies designed to wreck our lives, destroying Britain as they carve it into pieces.

Aided and abetted by their friends in the Daily Mail, the Telegraph and the Scum newspapers. Rags that keep on pumping out the same disingenous and divisive rubbish.  We should not forget the Tory's ruthless, toxic and unjust policies. Their constant assaults on the NHS, people on welfare, the disadvantaged, the poor, which include poorly paid workers.

We are currently living in very dark days for democracy  as Boris Johnson’s government continues to legislate away our democratic rights right under our noses. The Policing Bill, the Elections Bill, the Nationality and Borders Bill, the overhaul of the Human Rights Act, and others are indicative of Johnson’s  vision for an austere, divided and undemocratic Britain.  

Taken together, the picture looks very grim as almost every safeguard is being dismantled.Not only has Boris lost the moral authority to lead by lying to the public repeatedly, his government has proven beyond a doubt that their priority is power consolidation, not helping regular people deal with the cost of living or the impacts of COVID and Brexit.

Boris and his government are rushing these bills through because they want to be untouchable and unquestionable.A Government, elected on a minority of votes, has used its power to stack our electoral system in its favour, while bulldozing through every safeguard our political system has.

The Conservatives with their feelings of self entitlement believe they are born to rule. Unconcerned by any principles except their maintenance of power, they U-turn  on positions at a drop of a hat, betray promises and even sacrifice their own in order to maintain control.The interests they serve are not yours or mine, but those of the bankers, financiers, fossil fuel magnates and the elite. As they continue to inflict hardship on the vulnerable with  their ideological cruelty and want to transfer wealth upwards towards the rich,  they continue to fuck up the country, presiding over economic incompetence and unrelenting social catastrophe, leading  Britain to international isolation and the United Kingdom itself to breaking apart.

The Tories response to the cost of living crisis appears to be get on the bus to keep warm (Johnson) eat supermarket own brand foods (Eustace) nothing more I can fo right now (Sunak) pry (Mogg) and privatise yourself (Dorries).Meanwhil the rich get richer, energy companies make billions. 
The Tories simply do not care about this country's direction or the plight of the people, only with staying in charge.They are a real threat and a constant danger to our well being, and we all deserve so much better. We have to get rid of them. I hope the Tories get absolutely irreversibly annihilated  in the local elections tomorrow.

Vote Tactically to kick Tories out. Ensure the DUP loses assembly seats in N. Ireland,Vote for anyone who can get Tories out of councils and then out of government.  Make sure not to vote for Independents  who are maybe Tories in disguise. Vote  Conservative however if you enjoy being ripped-off, mugged off and made a fool of,

Beyond the Weight of the World

Time is laden and bereft, skies overcast and grey

As hopes promise seems to fall so far away,

The world full of trouble doom and gloom

A broken system delivering unease for us to consume,

People left stranded in shadows of depression

Instead of being carried by emotions of jubilation,

Thoughts held captive by forces of attrition

Persistent provocation, executing demolition,

There is sorrow and too much fragility

Depths of sadness releasing torrents of tragedy,

Tears keep flowing as sustenance fails to deliver

Primordial floods releasing portals to shiver, 

The living ain't easy, but at least we are alive

Struggling through biting deterents, with aim to survive,

Beyond the apathy of fools, breaking on through

Undeterred, finding brighter vistas to pursue, 

So as not to let  hearts become further broken

Beyond despair hold on to positive emotion,

Clearing all obstacles from your head

Cling on to branches of respite instead,

Close those sad eyes and dream awhile

Beyond melancholy release a smile,

Though blurred horizons will call and confuse

Malignant politicians continue to abuse,

Search for logic and reason to console

We can reverse the weight with mind and soul.

The Origins of May Day

 

May Day, the 1st of May  marks an ancient northern hemisphere spring festival and a traditonal spring festival in many cultures around the globe. With the earliest May Day celebrations appearing with the Floralia, festival of Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers. During the Roman Republic era, this was held on April 27 and with the Walpurgis Night celebrations of the Germanic countries. It is also associated with the Gaelic Beltane, which is most commonly held on April 30.

The day was originally a traditional summer holiday in many European pagan cultures, as February 1 used to mark the first day of spring, therefore May 1 celebrated the first day of summer, thus the summer solstice in June 25 was Midsummer.
When Europe became Christianised, May Day changed into a popular secular celebration and the secular versions observed both in Europe and North America incorporated the traditional dancing around the maypole and crowning the Queen of May.
The giving of ‘May baskets’, small baskets of sweets or flowers which were usually left anonymously on neighbours' doorsteps, were also a traditional part of May Day, but have now faded in popularity since the late 20th century. Today also marks a neo-pagan festival, Beltane, the Celtic festival of Summer's beginning a time to dance under a Maypole, a time of cleansing and renewal,drink and be merry, follow Jack in the Green, the mystical Green Man of legend.
Although the secularisation of May Day was due to the pagan holidays losing their religious character, during the late 20th century many neopagans began reconstructing traditions and began again celebrating May Day as a religious pagan festival.
May Day traditions in the UK also involve crowning a May Queen and dancing around a maypole, where traditional dancers circle around with brightly coloured ribbons. Historically, Morris dancing has also been linked to May Day celebrations.
May Day May Day has been a traditional day of festivities for many centuries, usually in small towns and villages, with people celebrating springtime fertility of the soil, livestock, and people.
May Day is also  now recognised symbolically all over the world as International Workers Day or Labor Day. It is a day for the working class to down tools and take to the streets in protest against capitalism and wage slavery. We should not  forget Chigago , Haymarket either, where on May 4, 1886, demands for an eight hour working week became particularly intense. Where a labour demonstration caused a crowd of some 1,500 people to gather. When policemen tried to disperse the meeting, a bomb exploded and the police opened fire on the crowd. At least eight people died as a result of the violence that day and more than 100 people were injured. Eight leading Chicago anarchists were subsequently arrested, and charged with the bombing, despite no evidence of their involvement, five were sentenced to be hanged, two were given life sentences and the last was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The trial is now known by legal historians as one of the worst miscarriages of American history and spared an international wave of protest,.

In December 1888 the American Federation of Labour called a protest for 1 May 1890 and in 1889 the founding meeting  in Paris by what is known as the congress of the Second International Workingman's association took up the call  for a "great international demonstration" to take place the following year, The call was a resounding success. The International had already decided to begin a campaign for the 'three eights'--eight hours work, eight hours leisure and eight hours sleep. The causes of the eight hour day and the Chicago Martyrs were tied together, and May Day was launched.

The Second International meant business. It called not just for protests, but for international strike action on 1 May 1890. It was decided that the day would symbolise not just the struggle for an eight hour day, but the international power of the organised working class.

That first May Day in 1890 thousands of workers stopped work and took to the streets in Germany, there were mass strikes in Italy, and in Cuba the cigar workers struck. In Britain 10,000 workers marched behind a temperance band in Northampton, and in London there was a huge demonstration of 500,000 people. Observing it, Engels commented that he had heard 'for the first time in 40 years, the unmistakable voice of the English proletariat'.

May Day soon developed into a truly international workers' day. At the Hyde Park celebrations in 1904 German, Polish, Yiddish and Russian speakers were heard, reflecting the diversity of the working class movement., attracting thousands and thousands of people. On May Day 1909 the march was led off by 2,000 children from Socialist Sunday Schools singing socialist hymns and 300 Clarion cyclists wearing red roses. It  has continued to this day. Since then,  May Day has become established as an annual event to commemorate all the workers who have died in the struggle against those who exploit them. A celebration of international struggles and our solidarity. As workers have emerged from tyranny and repression in whatever country, they have adopted May Day as theirs. With these acts of solidarity we also lay down the foundations of a future world.

In February 2011 it was reported that the Tories were considering scrapping the bank holiday associated with May Day in favour of replacing it with a bank holiday in October, possibly in order to coincide with Trafalgar Day,  thankfully this failed.

I see no reason why not to celebrate all of the above but as the severe economic recession around the world pushes a drastic number of people into poverty, joblessness and social insecurity  and the dire  situation the working people and the poor  continues to deteriorate  as nations and regional powers  pursue their own geopolitical interests with continuous war that fuels  the cost of living crisis and other hardships, it is clear  that  capitalism fails in securing a liveable planet and future for humanity.  

This is the third May Day since the pandemic and we are only starting to understand how profound the impact has been. As the lockdowns ease, it is clear that not everyone was equally harmed or affected. but frontline and essential workers, especially the frontline essential workers we rely upon, bore the bulk of the harm.

It is more important than ever that workers know that they are supported. The long struggle for basic labour rights has provided workers in some countries great benefits, but that has not happened everywhere. This is why we must continue to organize and fight for benefits and workers' rights. We celebrate May Day.to remind ouselves  of the importance of working class solidarity, as we vontinue our fight against an exploutative and extractive capitalist system and for emancipatoty social change, and for a better world..Happy May Day. Heddwch/peace

 

 

A Garland for May Day

1895, Walter Crane 

 
The Internationale

Stand up all victims of oppression
For the tyrants fear your might
Don't cling so hard to your possessions
For you have nothing if you have no rights
Let racist ignorance be ended
For respect makes the empires fall
Freedom is merely privilege extended
Unless enjoyed by one and all

So come brothers and sisters
For the struggle carries on
The internationale
Unites the world in song
So comrades come rally
For this is the time and place
The international ideal
Unites the human race

Let no one build walls to divide us
Walls of hatred nor walls of stone
Come greet the dawn and stand beside us
We'll live together or we'll die alone
In our world poisoned by exploitation
Those who have taken now they must give
And end…

Dark Days for British Democracy

 

We are living in very dark days for democracy  as Boris Johnson’s government continues to legislate away our democratic rights right under our noses. The Policing Bill, the Elections Bill, the Nationality and Borders Bill, the overhaul of the Human Rights Act, and others are indicative of Johnson’s  vision for an austere, divided and undemocratic Britain.  

Taken together, the picture looks very grim as almost every safeguard is being dismantled.Their goal is to rush as much authoritarian policy as possible through before prorogation.  

Not only has Boris lost the moral authority to lead by lying to the public repeatedly, his government has proven beyond a doubt that their priority is power consolidation, not helping regular people deal with the cost of living or the impacts of COVID and Brexit.

Boris and his government are rushing these bills through because they want to be untouchable and unquestionable.A Government, elected on a minority of votes, has used its power to stack our electoral system in its favour, while bulldozing through every safeguard our political system has.

With the Governments  racist  Anti-Refugee Bill now becoming law,the UK will no longer meet it's legal or ethical obligations to refugees and others in need of protection.It will become a criminal offense to knowingly arrive in the UK illegally. This means that people fleeing war, torture and persecution coming to the UK will be criminalised, and so will anyone who helps them. 

This is hugely contentious because Patel has closed down all legal routes for asylum-seekers to enter the UK.The daughter of refugees herself, she has literally pulled up the ladder behind her, as the saying goes.This law punishes people rather than offering protection, and is inhumane, unfair ad denies people their basic right to safety,

It also means Priti Patel’s plan to send asylum-seekers to live in Rwanda, rather than the UK, will be put into practice just as soon as she can  can get all the mechanisms in place, and never mind that it costs more than sending these people to live at the Ritz.Our rotten system, now becomes even worse, a system of punishment for those seeking safety on our shores.

The House of  Lords only  eventually backed the Bill after repeatedly amending it over recent months only to have the measures reinstated by MPs. The Bill passed just ahead of the suspension of Parliament today.  It's all utterly shameful.

Following the passage of the Bill, more than 235 groups, including some of Britain’s biggest charities, vowed to carry on the fight against the “hostile new anti-refugee laws.”

They include Oxfam, Save the Children, homeless charity Crisis and anti-racism organisation Runnymede Trust along with dozens of migrant and refugee rights groups.

Refugee Action chief executive Tim Naor Hilton, one of the signatories, said: “These extreme and vicious new laws give ministers the green light to treat refugees with ever-more hostility.

“We must stand alongside people fleeing war and persecution and continue to fight tooth and nail against all attempts to bully the families and individuals who simply want to live their lives in safety.”

The Lords eventually backed the Bill after repeatedly amending it over recent months only to have the measures reinstated by MPs. The Bill passed just ahead of the suspension of Parliament today.

The Elections Bill has also  been passed. Peers defeated the law on Monday, but it was sent back to the upper house just two days later – reportedly catching opposition parties off guard.

Just 67 Labour peers turned up to vote against eh measure, alongside 70 Lib Dems, 33 cross benchers and three rebel Tories.  

The government  has voted to officially end the independence of the Electoral Commission and that the new powers mean ministers can effectively rig election rules in their favour and .will be able to restrict whether you are allowed to vote or not, based on whether you have a particular form of photographic identification. Millions of people don’t.

 Critics say the changes represent a grave threat to free and fair elections – and amount to an “authoritarian” power grab that will let ministers shape how electoral law applies to political opponents and their own party.

This is how countries slide into authoritarianism,first you take control of the institutions, then you rig them in your favour and ban noisy protest so people can’t fight back. It’s a dark day for democracy.The Electoral Commission has admitted it is “concerned” about its independence after the government passed the new law to place it under ministerial control.

Despite public outcry The Policing Bill has being passed  too, which means  we no longer live in a country where we are legally allowed too protest against the Government. The Bill widens the definition of protest to include one-person protests, and it lowers the burden of proof on the state to show that demonstrators were knowingly non-compliant with restrictions that have been announced. It makes it possible to ban demonstrations because a person “is put at risk of suffering” any disruption – including noise – which means that no offence need even have occurred to ban the demonstration. And the maximum penalty for non-compliance is 10 years,

This cruel new law seeks to punish people fleeing torture and war for the way they flee to safty, All part of the government's plans to scapegoat refugees, The Bill was passed despite furious opposition to the anti-protest measures and provisions targeting Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, which gave rise to the national Kill the Bill movement.

In a joint statement an informal coalition of 350 organisations that oppose the bill, said: “Today is a dark day for democracy. Despite over a year of relentless opposition from MPs, campaigners, and many Lords, the government today passed measures that will undermine everybody’s right to protest and criminalise the way of life of Gypsy and Traveller communities. 

“Police will now have the unprecedented power to impose noise-based restrictions on protests, the power to impose large fines and jail sentences on anyone who strays from conditions imposed on a protest and criminalise Gypsy, Traveller and nomadic families who have no place to stop and rest. It's cruel to use the full strength of the law to tell people where they can't go, but offer nowhere they can go.

“Over the course of the campaign, we have succeeded in removing some of the most draconian measures impacting protests but make no mistake, this is an anti-democratic Bill and will continue to defend and promote democracy.”

Campaigners said they feared that new laws will restrict organisations’ ability to protest and hold government to account. 

Stephanie Draper, CEO at Bond, a network of NGOs, said: “In the face of worsening crises such as climate change, rising food prices and the war in Ukraine, now more than ever we need to be able to protest and hold the government to account. 

“By abandoning these principles, the UK has lost its credibility as a country that champions human rights and democratic values and stands up for minorities around the world. At a time when democracy in Europe is under attack, we must lead by example and do all we can to protect our rights and freedoms here in the UK.” 

Sam Grant, head of policy and campaigns, Liberty, described the bill as a “an attack on the fundamental right to protest”. 

He highlighted how the bill will affect Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, and said: “Liberty will continue to stand up against abuses of power, defend the right to protest, and resist this government’s attempt to make itself untouchable.”

Sarah Mann, director at Friends, Families and Travellers, added: “Part 4 of the Policing Bill goes above and beyond to tell people where they can’t go, but offers no alternatives for where they can go. If only the same amount of effort to criminalise trespass had simply been directed towards addressing the chronic lack of safe stopping places, we could be looking at significantly better life outcomes for Gypsy, Traveller and nomadic people. 

“It’s not only cruel but utterly illogical to criminalise trespass and further marginalise families and entire communities without offering suitable stopping places – such as sites or negotiated stopping arrangements. This sets a terrifying precedent not just for Gypsy and Traveller families, but for society at large. This bill punishes people for the ‘crime’ of having nowhere else to go.”

Campaigners said that the legislation would weaken democracy and vowed to continue to lobby against measures in the bill.

 “This is dark day for civil liberties in the UK,” said Amnesty International UK chief executive Sacha Deshmukh.

“This deeply authoritarian Bill places profound and significant restrictions on the basic right to peacefully protest and will have a severely detrimental impact on the ability of ordinary people to make their concerns heard.”

Delia Mattis of Black Lives Matter, a member of the Kill the Bill coalition, said: “They may be making this into law, but the law will be an infringement on our human rights and we will continue to protest against the injustices that our communities are faced with.

“We have been using protest as a way to challenge the state for hundreds of years and we will continue to do so for hundreds more years.”

Kevin Blowe of policing monitoring group Netpol said: “Now the Bill has passed, the real battle begins.

“We are calling on campaigners to resist new powers by making sure they are fully briefed on their rights and are ready to actively challenge limitations on protests, legally if necessary.”

As the Queen signs away our rights to protest in the UK. It is worth noting that it is also in the interests of the monarchy  to silence dissent, especially when an ascension is going to take place.The monarchy adversely affects the way we do politics.

The institution of the monarchy and the Crown (not the royals themselves) give vast, almost unlimited powers to our politicians. This is a politicians' monarchy - it makes our government far too powerful and allows parliament to ignore the wishes of the people. The Queen has significant power in that she has to invite the Prime Minister to form a government, and can reject them. She also has the power to dissolve parliament and call a general election. This is very undemocratic as it allows a single individual to wield huge amounts of power, rather than the people or their elected representatives.The Monarchy rules at the :- Peoples consent, yet we don’t have a regular referendum to voice our dissent or approval. The Monarchy simply put is an archaic institution that is utterly corrupt and rotten to its core, that is not fit for purpose anymore..

The UK is now  at grave risk of becoming a rare country in Europe without a right to peaceful protest, all  because of an undemocratic party set on dismantling democracy But if they themselves don't obey the rule of law- why should we? This law will not stop us protesting, it will however force us to protest harder than ever It is a moral  responsibility for every citizen to disobey, unjust, undemocratic and unethical laws.

The system isn't broken, it's functioning exactly as designed. As this government is moving more towards a  crypto-fascist state intent on  tearing at the very fabric of the UK , do we just stand back and watch, with hands tied and wait for demonstrators  soon to be beaten and jailed without trial,  if these undemocratic laws are nor repealed. people's human rights not attempting to devalue them

If all of the above was not alarming enough the Human Rights act is also being attacked. The act is a lifeline for thousands of vulnerable people who are mistreated and neglected, It allows people to seek justice against those who breach the right to equality, life, liberty and personal security. It lets you defend your rights in UK courts and compels public organisations – including the Government, police and local councils – to treat everyone equally, with fairness, dignity and respect.

From the Hillsborough 96 to Grenfell’s 72 innocent victims and their bereaved families, to helping prevent violence at the hands of the state and investigating deaths in police custody, we rely upon the HRA and ECHR in our fight for justice. When we sought to protect marginalised individuals—the rights of disabled people, or those of asylum seekers—the HRA and ECHR were there. In our pursuit of sexual equality, the right to fair trial, freedom of expression and religion, it was these vital protections that we again drew upon. We used the same instruments to prevent privacy invasions by the press, and arbitrary interference with our fundamental right to a private and family life. We count upon the HRA and ECHR every day.These are a few examples covered by the act which the Tory government are now attempting to weaken. The  government should be protecting people's human rights not attempting to devalue them.

The Health and Care Bill that has passed  will also accelarate the privatistion of the NHS, leading to more cuts, more cronyism and less acxess to treatments, and will make years of underfunding and privatisation far worse. It will cut medical and emergency services, and force more people to pay for their health care and let more private companies take over services and make decisions on budgets,It will do nothing to address thee state of emergency our NHS is currently in. What awful days in history we are living.  

We need to take to the streets and get loud, showing them we won’t sit idly by while they erode our democracy and our human rights. Enough is enough, change is long overdue. It’s time to give Boris Johnson the boot and address the broken system and malfunctioning democracy that enabled him to get into this position of draconian power in the first place, and for us to never to stop from working towards a fairer, kinder and better society,where everyone is welcomed wherever they come from.

On the 85th Anniversary of the Bombing of Geurnica

 

                         Guernica- Pablo Ruiz Picasso

During the Spanish Civil War on the afternoon and early evening of Monday, April 26th, 1937,  the German and Italian fascist air forces destroyed the  sacred city of Basque People, Guernica in a raid lasting three hours. The war crime was ordered by the Spanish nationalist military leadership and carried out by the Congor Legion of the German luftwaffe and the Italian Aviazone Legionairre. Designed to kill  or main as many civilians as possible, Operation Rugen was deliberately chosen for a Monday afternoon when the weekly town market would be at its most crowded. Guernica, in the Basque  country where revolutionary sentiment among workers was deep, was defenceless from the bombers, which could fly as low as 600 feet.

The prototype of all future bombing raids, the Junker and Heinkel bombers of the Legion Condor visited a hell on earth in the form of bombs weighing up to 1000lbs across the town of 10, 000 people.  Heinkel fighters, according to press reports, machine gunned the fleeing crowds as they sought escape into the surrounding fields.
The airplanes made repeated raids, refuelling and returning to drop more bombs. Waves of explosive, fragmentary, and incendiary devices were dumped in the town. In total, 31 tons of munitions were dropped between 4.30 in the afternoon and 7.30 in the evening. In the aftermath of the raid, survivors spoke of the air filled with the screams of those in their death throes and the hundreds injured. Civilians fleeing the carnage in the fields surrounding the town were strafed by fighter planes. Human and animal  body parts littered the market place and town center, a horror soon immortalised by Pablo Picasso's Guernica.
Guernica was effectively wiped of the map. From a population of 5,000 some 1,700 residents were killed and a further 800 injured. Three quarters of the buildings were raised to the ground. Farms four miles away were flattened.

The savage and barbarous attack was a deliberate attempt to terrorise and intimidate the workers of Republican Spain. Spanish nationalist general Emilio Mola had spoken of destroying the industry of Barcelona and Bilbao in order to cleanse the country. In other words, the Nationalists would endeavour to destroy the industrial proletariat. As the historian Paul Preston wrote  in Spanish Holocaust, the Nationalist forces had launched a scorched earth policy during their rapid advance through Spain, most notably in Badajoz, where many hundreds of revolutionary workers were machine gunned to death in the city's bullring.
The fascist government of Berlin and Rome were only to glad to assist Franco in his 'cleansing' of the Spanish population, as both a geo-political necessity and as a test for their military command, new military technology and fighting forces. At his trial for war crimes at Nuremberg, the leading Nazi Hermann Goering would tell the tribunal that he had urged Hitler to send German forces to stem socialism in the Iberian theatre and to test out the Luftwaffe.We should never forget. 

 Franco, who ruled Spain as a fascist dictator for nearly forty years, from 1936 until his death in 1975, claimed the attack on Guernica never took place. They tried to blame the Basques, but the truth is Germany deliberately bombed the town to destroy it and observe in a clinical way the effects of such a devastating attack, practicing a new form of warfare, where only civilians were the targets.In October 1937, a Nationalist officer told a Sunday Times correspondent: 'We bombed it, and bombed it, and bombed it and Beuno why not. ' 

Pablo Ruiz Picasso's picture still resonates with clarity, capturing the full terror and horror of this terrible moment in history.The work was an order of the government of the Second Spanish Republic during the period of the Civil War in 1937. The work commissioned to Picasso would be exhibited in the Pavilion dedicated to Spain at the International Exhibition in Paris of this same year. The aim of the artwork was to use the art to spread the horror that Spanish society was living during those years of war.

It seems that Picasso was going through a inspiration crisis, he had not advanced in the project for months, but he suddenly found a theme for his work when receiving the news of the bombings on the 26th of April of 1937 by the German Condor Legion on the Basque village of Guernica. Picasso ended his artwork in just 7 weeks.

The commander of this legion was Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, cousin of the famous I World War aviator Manfred von Richthofen, known as the Red Baron, who would also recognize the cruelty of the bombing.

It is said that in the middle of the creative process in his studio in Paris, a group of Gestapo officials knocked on Picasso’s door and got stunned with the Guernica. Staring at the magnificent work and the horror that it spread, they asked him: Have you done THAT? To that question, Picasso answered, full of hate: “You did THAT, Nazis”.

Picasso never wanted to give his own explanation about the artwork and so, many theories have arisen trying to explain the symbolism of the painting and the intentions of the artist.

What can be assured is that the painting symbolizes the barbarism and terror produced by the war. It became the emblem of the harrowing conflicts of European society of the early twentieth century as well as the premonition of the suffering caused by the Second World War.

Guernica , massive in size, composed in mixture of black and gray and white, is a picture of an air raid, and all it's horror. It is twenty-fivee and a half feet long and more than eleven and a half feet in height. 

Concerning the symbolism of this cubist work, we find several elements worthy of analysis. The work is divided into two groups: the one of the animals and the one of the human beings. At the center of the composition horse stands trampling on a warrior. This is a symbol of the European totalitarian regimes and the repression exerted by their dictators – Franco, Hitler and Mussolini. The horse is a clear allusion to death, as its nose and teeth forms a skull.

 

Detail of the skull in Guernica.

The warrior holds in his right hand a broken sword, a symbol of defeat. In it, a hidden flower can also be found. It represents the renewal of life, which would be a neccesary but tough and not so clear period for the victims.

Detail of the flower and sword in Guernica

The mythological figure of the Minotour, half bull half human, perfectly reflects the struggle between the human and the bestial side of the war.
Regarding the people depicted in the painting, the protagonism of one women stands out.  In spite Picasso was married to one woman and expecting a child from another one,  When Picasso painted Guernica, he was maintaining a relationship with the French artist Dora Maar, whose face appears holding a candle in the painting, reflecting  with this the little light that illuminated the life of Picasso in that tragic moment. As an allusion to his sentimental situation, they also appear in the picture.

Alleged portrait of Dora Maar in Guernica

Dora photographed the entire creation process leaving by doing it a very important document for the history of Art.

Pablo Ruiz Picasso painting Guernica

The photographs published by the press of the bombing over Guernica and its brutallity were the inspiration of Picasso and the reason for the lack of color in his work. It is a symbol of the darkness of that terrible period of the Spanish history. 

 From 1937, it was exhibited in Europe and the US to raise money for Spanish refugees. Then in 1939, Picasso entrusted his masterpiece to  New York's Museum of Modern Art, where it stayed more than 40 years.

 The painter gave the museum clear instructions - the canvas belonged to the Spanish people and would only be given back "when they have recovered the freedoms that were taken away from them."
Finally in 1981, the painting arrived in Spain, which was transitioning to democracy after the death of Franco. 
It was first put up for show in an annex of the Prado Museum, behind explosion- and bullet  proof glass to protect it from possible harm in a country still struggling to deal with its very recent, dark past. Now at the Reina Sofia, it has become the star attraction.

The prophetic description of anonymous warfare, the blankets of darkness and death dropped over civilian populations still resonate. To the degree we realise the truth expressed in this work, Guernica stands as possibly the greatest painting of the 20th Century.

The atrocity that was Guernica  horrified the world and helped shift public opinion towards the Spanish Republican Cause, but shamefully the British Government stuck steadfastardly to its non intervevention line. The fascists hated liberalism and humanity, their ideology was one of evil destruction, 'Long Live Death' they cried.  Guernica represented their creed, with one of the Fascist Generals declaring " Like a resolute surgeon, free from false sentimentality, it will cut the diseased flesh from the healthy body and fling it to the dogs. And since the healthy flesh is the soil, the diseased flesh, the people who dwell on it, fascism and the army will eradicate the people and restore the soil to the sacred national realm... Every socialist, Republican, every one of them, without exception, and needless to say, every Communist, will be eradicated, without exception.' An ideology of unfettered hate, and evil., an  ideology that is still trying to tear the world apart.

The attempts by the Francoist rebels for many years to make the world believe that this war crime, this crime against humanity, was the work of the democratic Basque authorities was fortunately rendered useless by foreign correspondents, such as George L Steer and Noel Monks, who told the world the truth about what happened.  Following this first attempt, more have followed, even to today, to downplay its historical importance and reduce the number of victims.

The destruction of Guernica was part of Franco's wider, brutal campaign against the existence of the Spanish Republic. This campaign led not just to widespread destruction of property, but thousands of civilian casualties too, as well as widespread displacement. Many sought refuge abroad, as many as 3,800 Basque children were evacuated to England and Wales for the duration of the war. The British Government at the time callously refused to be responsible for the children, but  throughout the summer children were dispersed to camps throughout Britain. Eight of these colonies were here in Wales. They were received with a mixture of hostility and kindness, but they had all managed to escape the grips of Franco's fascist Spain.
After Guernica , George Steers eyewitness account in The Times described what he saw as 'without mercy, with system', words that remain tragically pertinent to the bloody legacy of carpet bombing in conflicts ever since. Conflicts that continue across the world, that allow humanity to descend into darkness.Guernica represnted the first instance of a new kind of war. The Blitz followed it, then Dresden and the fireboming of Tokyo. Then Hiroshima, followed by the saturation bombing of Vietnam, on to the tragedies of Afghanistan, Iraq, Temen, Somalia, Syria, Palestine, Ukraine etc.

So we must remember Guernica ,and  its legacy, we must make sure the fascists are stopped in their tracks, we must not let them pass., we must carry on singing no pasaron to whatever disguise they dress themselves up in, because today , throughout Spain and Europe, there is an ideological current that feeds into the same hatred and misery and ' principles' that guided the births of fascist, nazi, Francoist totalitarians.

Since the bombing, Guernica has become a symbol for peace. The town has a pace museum and a peace park. and survivors  of the air raid have over the year joined forces with others from Dresden and Hiroshima to campaign against war.

Sirens symbolically blare across Guernica today at the precise moment when fascist  warplanes  carpet-bombed it during the Spanish Civil War. We should never forget.It is important to remember for future generations, so that horrors like this never happen again.We much continue to be enraged by crimes against humanity, and together we should try to work together for  peace

Extract from poem written by Paul Eluard, a surrealist poet and friend of Picasso, in August, 1937.

Lovely world of cottages
Of the night and fields
Faces good in firelight good in frost
Reusing the night the wound and blows

Faces good for everything
Now the void fixes you
Your death will serve as a warning

Death the heart turned over

They made you pay your bread
Sky earth water sleep
And the misery of your life.

 
Guernica - A.S Knowland

Irun- Badajoz - Malaga - and then Guernica

So that the swastika and the eagle
might spring from the blood-red soil,
bombs were sown into the earth at Guernica,
whose only harvest was a calculated slaughter.
Lest freedom should wave between the grasses
and the corn its proud emblem, or love
be allowed to tread its native fields,
Fascism was sent to destroy the innocent,
and, goose-stepping to the exaggerated waving
of the two-faced flag, to save Spain.

But though the soil be saturated with blood
as a very efficient fertiliser, the furrow
of the ghastly Fasces shall remain barren.
The  planted swastika, the eagle grafted
on natural stock shall wither and remain sere;
for no uniformed force shall marshall the sap
thrilling to thrust buds into blossoms, or quicken
the dead ends of the blighted branches;
but the soil shall be set against an alien crop
and the seed be blasted in the planting.

But strength lies in the strength of the roots.
They shall not pass to ruin Spain!

Reprinted from
The Penguin Book of
Spanish Civil War Verse (1980)

Further Reading:-

The Spanish Civil War - Hugh Thomas
Penguin (1965)

They Shall Not Pass:
The Spanish People at War
-Richard Kissh (1974)

Guernica: The history and art of:-

 

 

Guernica - Paul Eluard - P Picasso  - Victory at Guernica
Music: Richard  Wagner and Herbert Von Karajan