Remembering Tiananmen Square Massacre

 

 

Today marks the anniversary of the bloody  massacre of hundreds of unarmed peaceful pro-democracy protesters in Beijing and the arrest of tens of thousands of demonstrators in cities across China.

The Chinese government has never released a death toll of the June 4, 1989 crackdown, but estimates from human rights groups and witnesses range from several hundred to several thousand.

 China had slid into economic chaos in 1988 with panic buying triggered by rising inflation peaking at more than 30 per cent in cities. Public discontent, coupled with the death of purged reform-minded Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang on April 15, 1989, set the stage for the demonstrations.
More than one million people flooded into central Beijing, keen to vent their anger against corruption, economic mismanagement, nepotism and poor career prospects for students. Gathering in Tiananmen Square, the students erected their own 'Goddess of Democracy' statue opposite the official portrait of the Communist revolutionary leader Chairman Mao Zedong.

The Tiananmen Massacre was precipitated by the peaceful gatherings of students, workers, and others in Beijing's Tiananmen Square and other Chinese cities in April 1989, driven  by the hope for a better future, they were simply  calling for freedom of the press and for some government accountability, and the imminent problems of corruption, and began the largest political protest in the history of Communist China. #

The government responded to the intensifying protests in late May 1989 by declaring martial law.Overnight on 3 to 4 June, the government sent tens of thousands of armed troops and hundreds of armoured military vehicles into the city centre to enforce martial law and forcibly clear the streets of demonstrators. The government wanted to 'restore order' in the capital.

As they approached the demonstrations, troops opened fire on crowds of protesters and onlookers. They gave no warning before they started shooting.A night of bloodshed on  June 3rd resulted  with over 2,000 of protestors being killed.As the troops kept firing into the crowds, some of those running away were shot in the back. Others were crushed to death by military vehicles. Brave, innocent, the Chinese government has never accepted responsibility for the massacre or held any officials legally accountable for the killings. despite individual souls, shotdown and massacred triggering shock and outrage across the world.

 The Tiananmen protests were immortalised in Western media on 5 June through the image of a lone man in a white shirt carrying shopping bags, facing an imposing column of military tanks sent by the government to disperse protesters. The man is known simply as Tank Man: his identity has never been confirmed.
Tank Man would not let the military vehicles pass. He succeeded. Eventually, he was pulled out of the way of danger by onlookers. But the image of unarmed man versus tank quickly came to symbolise the struggle of the Tiananmen protesters - peaceful protest met with military might.
'It demonstrates one man's extraordinary courage, standing up in front of a row of tanks, being prepared to sacrifice his own life for the sake of social justice' Stuart Franklin, Tank Man photographer
Stuart Franklin took the Tank Man photograph.

Tank Man



In  the following short film below he talks about how he came to capture what would become one of the most iconic images of the twentieth century.

In the aftermath long prison sentences were given out, one  of which was for 17 years for  simply throwing paint at a portrait of Mao Zedong. We should take a minute and think about those sacrifices and all those who died,  so that their actions  have not been in vain. Sadly brutal suppression and censorship has continued to this day, that  condemns the Chinese nation and its people to a future without freedom.

Today many activists are still being  ruthlessly persecuted by the Chinese Authorities, and the climate of free expression remains stifling,  with scores of writers still being silenced, also many social media sites are still banned, and three decades later, China, under President Xi Jinping, is undergoing the worst crackdown on human rights since the Tiananmen massacre. Hopes that China would gradually liberalize politically as it opened up economically have been dashed.

The  Chinese regime to this day  continues to bury the truth of what happened in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. Tiananmen remains one of the most censored issues in an internet and social media environment that has become increasingly restrictive  since Xi Jinping became president in 2012.Young Chinese below the age of 35 today either know nothing about it or believe that it was the protesters who were the criminals. A regime that sent tanks and guns to slaughter its people now seeks to hide the evidence, threaten its critics, eliminate alternative ideas and impose absolute control. Seeking to suppress every form of freedom, with Pro-democracy activists being jailed, and in every corner of China's territory, from Xinjiang to Hong Kong, that  has also seen critics abroad being intimidated, threatened and, in the worst cases, kidnapped.The Chinese government has never accepted responsibility for the massacre or held any officials legally accountable for the killings. It has been unwilling to conduct an investigation into the events or release data on those who were killed, injured, forcibly disappeared, or imprisoned.

For those who participated or observed the events of 1989, however, the search for truth goes on. Memories have not faded. The hard facts of the massacre are etched into history.No one can erase it; no power, however mighty, can alter it; and no words or tongues, however clever, can deny it.

Since this day   a candlelight vigil has been held in Hong Kong to remember the victims, but the authorities banned the event in 2020. In 2021, union leader Lee Cheuk Yan, along with seven others, was sentenced to 14 months in prison for “inciting, organising and participating” in the candlelight vigil on the 4th of June 2020.

The Chinese government has long ignored domestic and international calls for justice for the Tiananmen Massacre, and some of the sanctions that the European Union and US imposed in response have over the years been weakened or evaded. The lack of a sustained, coordinated, international response to the massacre and ensuing crackdown is one factor in Beijing’s increasingly brazen human rights violations.

Chinese authorities have over the past year stepped up the harassment and persecution of activists for commemorating the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, Human Rights Watch said today. The Chinese  government should acknowledge and take responsibility for the massacre of pro-democracy protesters in June 1989, and  should immediately release activists held for commemorating the occasion, and cease censoring discussions of the bloody crackdown.

As a party to a number of international human rights treaties and as a current member of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which obligates China to “uphold the highest standards of human rights,” the Chinese government should urgently take the following steps with respect to the Tiananmen Massacre:

Respect the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly, and cease the harassment and arbitrary detention of individuals who challenge the official account of the Tiananmen Massacre;

Meet with and apologize to members of the Tiananmen Mothers, publish the names of all who died, and appropriately compensate the victims’ families;

Permit an independent public inquiry into Tiananmen and its aftermath, and promptly publish the findings and conclusions;

Allow the unimpeded return of Chinese citizens, exiled due to their connections to the events of 1989; and investigate all government and military officials who planned or ordered the unlawful use of lethal force against demonstrators, and appropriately prosecute them.

Permit an independent public inquiry into June 4, and promptly release its findings and conclusions to the public;and allow the unimpeded return of Chinese citizens, exiled due to their connections to the events of 1989; and investigate all government and military officials who planned or ordered the unlawful use of lethal force against peaceful demonstrators, and appropriately prosecute them.

The spirit of the Tiananmen movement continues to burn in the hearts of veterans of 1989 and younger generations of activists who fight for a more just China.We must continue to support all those that fight  against state  oppression and censorship and never forget the tragic  legacy of Tinanamen Square that continues to haunt us  as the  memory of those that bravely died for democracy at Tiananmen  lives on, remind ourselves that their light will never go out.

Allen Ginsberg (3/6/26 - 5/4/97) - King of May/ Cosmopolitan Greetings/ Fifth Internationale

Allen Ginsberg's the visionary poet and founding father of the Beat generation  who inspired the American counterculture of the second half of the 20th century with groundbreaking poems such as "Howl" and "Kaddish, " was born on this day in Newark, New Jersey on June 3, 1926.

As a boy he was a close witness to his mother’s mental illness, as she lived both in and out of institutions. His father, Louis Ginsberg was a well-known traditional poet. After graduating from high school, Ginsberg attended Columbia University, where he planned to study law. There he became friends with Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs. Together the three would change the face of American writing forever.

With an interest in the street life of the city, Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs found inspiration in jazz music and the culture that surrounded it. They encouraged a break from traditional values, supporting drug-use as a means of enlightenment. To many, their shabby dress and “hip” language seemed irresponsible, but in their actions could be found the seeds of a revolution that was meant to cast off the shackles of the calm and boring social life of the post-war era. While a nation tried desperately to keep from rocking the boat, Allen Ginsberg and the Beats saw the need for a more vibrant and daring society.

One of the primary first works of the Beats was Ginsberg’s long poem “Howl.” In an age plagued by intolerance, “Howl” (1956) was both a desperate plea for humanity and a song of liberation from that intolerant society. Ginsberg’s use of a gritty vernacular and an improvisational rhythmical style created a poetry which seemed haphazard and amateur to many of the traditional poets of the time. In “Howl” and his other poems, however, one could hear a true voice of the time, unencumbered by what the Beats saw as outdated forms and meaningless grammatical rules.

For its frank embrace of such taboo topics as homosexuality and drug use, “Howl” drew a great deal of criticism. Published by City Lights, the San Francisco based publisher of many of the Beats, the book was the subject of an obscenity trial. Eventually acquitted of the charges, City Lights came out with Ginsberg’s second book in 1961. “Kaddish, And Other Poems,” often considered Ginsberg’s greatest work, dealt again with a deep despair and addressed Ginsberg’s closeness with his mother while she was hospitalized and fighting insanity. The raw nature of the subject matter and Ginsberg’s desperate emotions found a perfect home in his poem “Kaddish.” Of “Kaddish,” Ginsberg wrote “I saw my self my own mother and my very nation trapped desolate…and receiving decades of life while chanting Kaddish the names of Death in many mind-worlds the self seeking key to life found at last our self.”

Throughout the 1960s, Ginsberg experimented with a number of different drugs, believing that under the influence he could create a new kind of poetry. Using LSD, peyote, marijuana and other drugs he attempted to expand his consciousness and wrote a number of books under the influence including the “Yage Letters” with William Burroughs. For much of the youth of the day, Ginsberg’s embrace of illegal drugs and unrestrained sexuality made him a central figure in the rebelling movements of the time. More than any other American poet of the 20th century, Ginsberg used his popularity for social change. Coining the phrase “flower power,” Ginsberg encouraged protesters of the 1960s to embrace a non-violent rebellion.

On May 1st 1965 he was crowned 'King of May'( which is Kral Majales in the Cechoslovakian tongue) by an enthusiastic crowd in Prague town square (Vystaviste) in Communist Czechoslovakia. Soon underdover police halted the festivities nd un-crowned him. A few days later they seized his journals and summarily deported him. He wrote the following poem about the experience because he wrote poems about all his experiences. (It wasn't an experience until it was a poem).

Kral Majales (King of May)- Allen Ginberg

“And I am the King of May, which is the power of sexual youth,/and I am the King of May, which is industry in eloquence and action in amour,/and I am the King of May, which is long hair of Adam and the Beard of my own body/and I am the King of May which is Kral Majales in the Czechoslovakian tongue..”

By the 1970s, his fame had grown enormously, and though he cast aside drug use for an interest in Buddhism and yogic practices, he remained important to newly-formed youth movements.

By the 1980s, Ginsberg was the most famous living American poet. As a writer he continued to publish challenging and personal verse and as a celebrity he maintained an international presence as a spokesperson for peace and tolerance—working often as a teacher and lecturer . In the last decade of his life, Ginsberg wrote and performed at the prolific rate of his youth  In  1982 he featured on the Clash song Ghetto Defendant. originally a poem called Capital Air..For his lyrics he researched punk rock culture and included phrases like '  do the worm' and 'n slam dance' as well as reciting the Bhuddist Heart Sutra. According to Ginsberg's biography, several sessions and collaborations were recorded but this was the only song ever released. .

Allen Ginsberg /The Clash - Capital Air

Allen Ginsberg died on April 5, 1997 at the age of seventy. At the time of his death, “Howl” had been reprinted more than fifty times, and the words of William Carlos Williams’ introduction still rang true—”This poet sees through and all around the horrors he partakes of in the very intimate details of his poem. He avoids nothing but experiences it to the hilt. He contains it. Claims it as his own—and, we believe, laughs at it and has the time and affrontery to love a fellow of his choice and record that love in a well-made poem.”

7 th October, 1958, Allen Ginsberg's first reading of Howl.

https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2017/10/7th-october-1955-allen-ginsbergs-first.html

Allen Ginsberg's Wales Visitation

https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2010/01/allen-ginsbergs-wales-visitation.html

Cosmopolitan Greetings - Allen Ginsberg

                  To Struga Festival Golden Wreath Laureates
                                & International Bards 1986

Stand up against governments, against God.
Stay irresponsible.
Say what we know & imagine.
Absolutes are coercian.
Change is absolute.
Ordinary mind includes eternal perceptions.
Observe what's vivid.
Notice what you notice.
Catch yourself thinking.
Vividness is self-selecting.
If we don't show anyone, we're free to write anything.
Remember the future.
Advise only yourself.
Don't drink yourself to death.
Two molecules clanking against each other require an observer to become
scientific data.
The measuring instrument determines the appearance of the phenomenal world
after Einstein.
The universe is subjective.
Walt Whitman celebrated Person.
We are observer, measuring instrument, eye, subject, Person.
Universe is Person.
Inside Skull vast outside skull.
Mind is outer space.
"Each on his bed spoke to himself alone, making no sound."
"First thought, best thought."
Mind is shapely, Art is shapely.
Maximum infomation, minimum number of syllables.
Syntax condensed, sound is solid.
Intense fragments of spoken idiom, best.
Consonants around vowels, appreciate consonants.
Subject is known by what she sees.
Others can measure their vision by what we see.
Candor ends paranoia.

                                                                                            Kral Majales
                                                                                          June 25, 1986
                                                                                   Boulder Colorado

Fifth Internationale - Allen Ginsberg

                 To Billy MacKeever      

Arise ye prisoners of your mind-set
Arise neurotics of the Earth
For Insight thunders Liberation
A sacred world's in birth

No more attachment's chains shall bind us
Mind's Aggression no more rules
The Earth shall rise on new foundations
We have been jerks we shall be Fools

'Tis the Path of Accumulation
Let each sit on his place
The International Crazy Wisdom School
Could save the Human Race

Reprinted from
Cosmopolitan Greetings
1992.

In this collection, Ginsberg proved his vitality, his mind  still full of humanity and hopefulness and play, his unobstructured breath still dancing with Spiritus. I'm still listening, still learning . His subversiveness still echoing with reason.Thiis Queen of May whose poetry still burns bright.  Happy birthday, Allen ! All aroud the world ,people will be raising a glass in celebration of the life and work of this great man, me included, will not be toasting another Queen that is being celebrated today.

Stuff the Jubilee

The Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II is being celebrated this coming weekend to mark the 70th anniversary of her accession on 6 February 1952. The celebration plans were formally unveiled in full by Buckingham Palace on 10 January 2022.The Platinum Jubilee will run from Thursday June 2 to Sunday June 5. £28 million is helping fund a whopping 70,000 lunches, 1,458 public events, 2,000 street parties and a massive concert inside Buckingham Palace. All this occurring at a time when millions are currently living in poverty, unable to put food on the table and struggling to pay bills and 1000s are sleeping on the streets. But we are being encouraged to celebrate the Queen' whose fortune is £370mn while millions rely on Food Banks to survive and more are about to be pushed into absolute poverty by soaring, profit-driven, inflation.

The jubilee is all about encouraging the view that the majority of people have to bow down and show deference to our ‘superiors and betters’. The queen and the rest of her family stand at the top of a dung heap of privileged and wealthy people.

Let's not forget that the Queen gained her wealth in the first place from empire and robbing the public purse.I just feel like there is a real grossness to this state driven Jubilee celebration fanfare. People are skint, getting even more skint and full of worry and we are supposed to go out and celebrate 70 years of unadulterated, unaccountable wealth, privilege, power and exploitation?

Imagine what you could do with the £28 million of government money that is being spent on the celebrations? First you could help out the 2.4 million adults who, according to a new report, can't afford to eat everyday. Then there's the 5.6 million on Universal Credit. And it might be worth thinking about how to support the 1.3 million people who could fall into absolute poverty next year, including half-a-million kids. But no, instead of helping ease the pain of the cost of living crisis, Boris and his buddies are hosting one of their legendary parties - at least this time it's legal and we're all invited. The excuse? Not a leaving do, this time, but 70 years of her royalness, Queen Elizabeth II, lording it over us. There once seemed little chance that Elizabeth would even become Queen, as she was third in line. But this all changed when her uncle, King Edward VIII, a Nazi sympathiser, abdicated and married Wallis Simpson—another Nazi sympathiser,

For me and many others, the Queen is the figurehead for a family run cabal of elitists whose core business is the preservation and expansion of their status, wealth and privillege which they see as their birth right.Their most important job is to make you agree that it "is " their birth right. Don't buy into it. I'm as sick of the Platiimum Jubilee as I am of the Tories, A hereditary monarchy has no place in a modern functioning democracy.

In unbelievably desperate stuff by the Tories.They are undertaking an Imperial measurement review to mark the Jubilee. Does anyone really care? What next, food rationing and shillings-Labour MP Angela Eagle at least had the tenacity to say it was a "pathetic" attempt to "weaponise nostalgia"  

I find the whole thing outdated and ridiculous at this point, while we’re looking looking looking at services crumbling, food shortages, food banks, and there’s going to be a massive big party for empire.The monarchy represents a $28 billion empire made up of various lands and properties, such as the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall. Yet, the monaarchy still relies on taxpayer funding in the form of the sovereign grant 

The amount of taxpayer’s money they’ve spent protecting Prince Andrew is just crazy, and when the Queen could find £12 million, of no doubt our money, to give to her very dishonourable second son, to give to a woman he claimed he'd never met is shocking,

The government says they want us to “come together" to celebrate this "historic milestone”, but seems they are ignoring the growing republican sentiment among young Brits. Queen Elizabeth II's monarchy is losing support in the 70th year of her reign as more than a quarter of Brits now want to abolish the royals. Anti-monarchy campaign group Republic https://www.republic.org.uk/ warned of "a huge problem for the royals" as research that the organization commissioned from pollster YouGov showed a decline in support. Historically, the monarchy has enjoyed overwhelming public approval in Britain. But data collected between April 30 and May 2 showed a rise in the number of those who place democracy above tradition. 

According to the poll. 54% of people in the UK are not interested in the Queen's Platinum Jubilee The poll showed 54% were not very (29%) or not at all (25%) interested in the event with just 11% 'very' interested, and the press have said12-million people across the UK are planning to celebrate the Jubilee. That’s good. It means 56-million people are planning to ignore it.

The monarchy is not just a feudal hangover. Our cuddly home-grown royals are not just symbolic figureheads. They are class inequality personified, brutal colonial history justified , the embodiment of nation and an obscenely expensive reminder of what is rotten in our society, Their lifestyle costs the taxpayer heavily, their powers are unaccountable and they see privilege as a birthright . In today's world nobody should have the right to amass so much wealth and call themselves superior when so much of the world; population is struggling to survive.

The Monarchy at the end of the day supports capitalist class rule over the rest of us. As the historian Christopher Hill wrote: “Charles II was brought back because this was necessary for the possessing classes, threatened by social revolution.” The only thing we need less than a Jubilee celebration is a Queen, who apart from reaching such a grand old age of 96 .I have no respect whatsoever for. Pro fox hunting. Yuk. Parasites and animal abusers every last one of them. The monarchy invites its subjects to pretend that an arbitrary inbred mob is somehow better than anyone else, thus suggesting an intrinsic limitation on success and possibility of power for the general populace. 

It's reputation is damaged by its errant members, whether Andrew’s friendship with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, or Harry and Meghan pretending to be everyman whilst courting the world of celebrity The public has also witnessed this family ruthlessly do everything within their power to hold on to archaic traditions while rejecting modernity It sure has a peculiar set of values. Minor slip ups such as marrying the wrong person can be met with zero tolrance. On the other hand, it can be incredibly forgiving of those accused of sex offences, not forgeting the whiff of racism and colonialism that lingers alongside them. Spending £200 million on a bloody new royal yacht doesn't help matters either.

And as the late great Nye Bevan once said " Royalty in the propoganda apparatus that is, has four functions; to foster the illusion of national unity; to prescribe the hierarchy of honours and titles by which representatives of the workers are subjected to the most insidious forms of corruption; to supply a fertile source of diversion; and above all, to intervene at times of acute political crisis and exert its influence in favour of the existing order."

In the interests of balance, any coverage by the media should make it clear that a significant proportion of the country are staunch republicans, and don't feel that the family represent us in any way, shape or form.

Today a quarter to a third of the British population fvour a republic, still more whn the Queen leaves the mortal realm.

The idea that any human being deserves to have a role within a state institution purely because of their bloodline is offensive for the same reason it’s offensive that we live in a world where some people are born into wealth and others into poverty. It is more than than time to end this symbol of privilege once and for all and confine the monarchy to the dustbins of history. The abolition is well overdue , particularly following the recent procurement of Parliament. When a Queen conspires with a tyrannical Prime Minister to silence parliament we are reminded that monarchies are simply an impediment to democracy. MPs are effectively banned from criticising in Parliament a protected medieval relic although fawning is encouraged. So the case for discussing whether we need a monarchy, or that Charles must win a public vote to succeed his mother is suppressed and he’ll be crowned automatically to avoid debate,

The Monarch is the head of the Armed Forces, the Church of England, and Parliament, and owns the British Overseas Territories to which British subjects do not have an automatic right to live and work. While it is generally held that the Monarch does not exercise their sovereign powers to interfere in political matters, they have the ability to do so and this in itself undermines trust in this country’s democratic institutions.

We all love a fairytale but the function of the monarchy is to condition us to accept inequality and to adore those who exploit and sneer at us. Stuff that fairytale.Stuff the jubilee. Abolish the monarchy. Down with the Crown Feed the poor,

As you can tell I for one will most definitely not be celebrating the Queen's long reign this weekend.Hope people enjoy their four day Bank holiday weekend though, and my thoughts will be with all those struggling currently with financial difficulties. I will end this post with a link to 5 events and protests people are throwing against the Platinum Jubilee, thankfully this country isn't totally a nation off sheep:- .https://www.indy100.com/news/anti-platinum-jubilee-events-queen 

Retribution ( For Boris Johnson)

After deceitfulness has been exposed 

There are lessons to be learnt,

We can untangle the threads

That make hearts and minds boil.

With their betrayal, time to scream, shout 

To ease discomfort, hold power to account,

Moving on, only to keep fighting back

Against a system that tries to cripple rationale.

With eyes wide open now

And an angry summer approaches

The night air disturbed by rebellion

The country once more awoken.

Remember they started all this

As they behaved like dictators,

While the rest of us took shelter

Cancelled out lifes excesses.

If your not paying bloody attention

One party, one leader, on the road to fascism,

We cant say we don't know what's happening

Still repulsive, delivering liars forked tongue.

His leadership failed to protect us

Only dished out  further restrictions,

That he ignored as people died

Partied on, tightened oppressive grip.

Let our days be full of rage 

While we plan  paths of retribution

Place cogs in their alglorithm

In the name of  revolution.

Bring to life, key necessities of change

Follow the mirage of hope that never faded,

Beyond the brazen stains of corruption

Reflection of the future, erasing the darkness.

Partygate report in brief.

 

Partygate report in brief:

Vomiting 

Excessive boozing 

Fisticuffs

Partying until 4.35am (before Prince Philip's funeral) 

Broken swing

Secret Santa 

Cleaners & security staff bullied 

Red wine on walls 

Karaoke 

Sitting on laps

 

"We seem to have got away with it" - Martin Reynolds ( Downing Street Chief )

Boris Johnson also spent almost £30k in takeaways in 8 months. Or about the annual income of four pensioners. I wonder if anyone  in the NHS remembers getting drunk at work until after 4am during lockdown? Doubt it very much. The reason Party Gate has taken up so much time is because the Tories refused to give a straight answer, and played us off against Sue Gray and the Met Police for five bloody months!!  The report absolutely damns  Boris Johnson who  should have resigned in November! 

SNP's Ian Blackford said:  "If you don't send a letter (to the 1922 committee) how will you ever look your constituents in the eye again" 

Then I read that Boris Johnson was apparently so sorrowful at the 1922 Committee that Tory MP Caroline Johnson told the PM to stop being so apologetic and get on with the job. 

If the Tories had any honour there would be 300 or so letters in with the 1922 Committee tonight. There aren’t. Not only is there no honour, but there is obvious support as a result for the fascism Johnson is pursuing.

They also support the gravy train that they've been riding on for the last two and a half years.It's not about the electorate or the country it's about the party,the Conservative Party. Allegra Stratton is still the only resignation, and she never went to a party.

We are all  being taken for mugs, and completely fucked over by this immoral shower of shit bags. They want us to move on and forget about Tory corruption, partygate, lies and deceit, 180k covid related deaths. 

The only people who should move on after the party gate scandal are Boris Johnson and the Conservative MPs who are supporting him. These MPs are putting their party before the interests of the country, and are belittling the anger and hurt of bereaved families and everyone who complied. They are all a bloody disgrace. I won’t forget, will you? .Johnson who broke the rules he set and lied repeatedly should no longer be prime minister,.It’s that simple. No deflection, no flim flam. He should be gone. Enough is enough.

Remembering Revolutionary Modernist Poet Lola Ridge ( 12 December, 1873 – 19 May, 1941 )

Irish American. revolutionary working class poet Lola Ridge was born Rose Emily Ridge on Dec. 12, 1873, in Dublin, Ireland. Her medical student father died when she was three, so her mother emigrated to Australia, before moving on to Aotearoa/New Zealand when Lola was 13. Her mother remarried in 1880 to a Scottish miner and the family lived in a three-roomed shack on the Hokitikagold fields, among Maori and European and Chinese immigrants.

At 22, Ridge married a gold-mine manager in Kanieri, Hokitika. Their first son, born in 1896, died of bronchitis in infancy; their second, Keith, was born in 1900. In 1901 and 1902, under the name 'Lola’, she published her first poems, ‘A Deserted Diggings, Maoriland’ and ‘Driving the Cattle Home’ in Bulletin and Otago Witness. This was a crossroads moment, when she decided to break with social convention to become an artist.

In 1903, she left her husband and took her son to her mother in Sydney, where she studied art at the Académie Julienne and wrote her first book, Verses. In 1907, her mother and stepfather both died, and she left for San Francisco at the age of 34.

 After making a name for herself there, she moved on to New York City’s Greenwich Village,in 1908 after she left her son in an orphanage.The move to New York saw the birth of Lola Ridge, modernist poet, utopian anarchist and labour activist, claiming to be ten years younger than she was. To support herself, she worked as an illustrator, factory worker, poet, and model.

She quickly became the center of the thriving radical scene and the modernist literary movement, contributing to and editing a number of “little” magazines. She was heavily involved in various leftist causes, and her radical politics were easily discernible in both her actions and her words. 

In New York by 1908, she became Emma Goldman's confidante. By then Ridge had become the chief organizer of anarchists at the Ferrer Center in Manhattan, a task which honed her progressive New Zealand radicalism into a love of Kropotkin-style anarchy. She heard passionate speeches by the most prominent free-thinkers and immigrants in the country and organized classes in everything from Esperanto to music appreciation. When describing.what America had to offer the immigrant, Ridge wrote: “On my board are bitter apples/And honey served on thorns.” She felt very deeply about the stinting of its promised freedom."

In 1916 she supported the cause of Tom Mooney and Warren Billings, convicted (and much later pardoned) after having been framed as "usual suspects" for the Preparedness Day Bombing; and she was arrested in the 1920s for protesting against the execution of  Sacco and Vanzetti  (Italian anarchists who were charged with a bank robbery in which two guards were killed, convicted in a ludicrous trial and sentenced to death. A worldwide campaign and a full confession by the real robber failed to prevent this sentence being carried out. who didn't get a fair deal from a highly prejudiced court at a time of terrorism hysteria - one critic compared  the chances of an Italian getting a fair trial in Boston to a black person getting one in the American South).In 1916 she supported the cause of Tom Mooney and Warren Billings, convicted (and much later pardoned)  outside the Massachusetts State House, after facing down a rearing police horse

She published poems in Emma Goldman’s radical journal Mother Earth and in The New Republic. Some of these poems were collected in The Ghetto and Other Poems (1918), a vivid collection of works evoking the brutal life of the working classes of New York City.The title poem celebrates the Jewish immigrants of the Lower East Side.

Rooted in early 20th-century New York City, The Ghetto and other Poems anticipates much of what was to emerge amongst the “objectivists,” apparent in Ridge’s focus on the working poor and their intrinsic role in the composition and machinations of the city. Everywhere the city, its people, and their conditions are conjoined, as in “Faces” where “A late snow beats/ with cold white fists upon the tenements.” The conditions and exploitation of the working poor engaged with in this book carry an intense consciousness of the ongoing Great War and its implications, a tone that tempers every atmosphere in the collection :

 Ridge soon began publishing poems in other journals, including the Dial, Poetry, and the Literary Digest. She became involved in a circle of poets that included William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, and Waldo Frank, and she worked as associate editor of the journal Others.

Ridge was an anarchist concerned with the larger political picture but concerned as well with intimate life. Well ahead of her time, she supported the rights of women, laborers, blacks, Jews, immigrants, and homosexuals (she identified and was identified as bisexual). She advocated individual liberty as well as social justice. A year after the publication of The Ghetto and Other Poems, Ridge gave a speech in Chicago  entitled “Women and the Creative Will,” in which she argued that sexually constructed gender roles hindered female identity development. This was at least a decade before such ideas were popular, even among women’s rights advocates, making her a model for us today as we struggle in a world beset by ever more sophisticated versions of the sexist, racist, heterosexist, and xenophobic threats that face each new generation.

Ridge worked on an expanded version of her speech for years until Viking, her publisher, told her it wouldn’t sell. The title poem of her second book, Sun-up and Other Poems, which was a huge success is told in the voice of a bad girl who beats her doll, bites her nurse, wonders “if God has spoiled Jimmy” after he exposes himself, and intimates that her imaginary friend is her bisexual half.

She modelled a practice of engagement in her personal life by actively participating in rallies and protests against injustice with ferocious spirit, and living in poverty in solidarity with the poor, giving her work an authenticity worth investigating. Solo and broke in the next decade, she traveled to Baghdad and Mexico – and took a lover at sixty-one. Her five books of poetry contain poems about lynching, execution, race riots, and imprisonment. Her writing is vigorous and electric, and of great power and intensity.,

“Anything that burns you” was the advice she gave English critic Alice Hunt Bartlett when she asked what poets should be writing in 1925. “I write about something that I feel intensely. How can you help writing about something you feel intensely?”

Always an active social protester, her Red Flag (1927) was a collection of poems celebrating the Russian Revolution. Ridge’s strongly emotional, almost mystical work became somewhat out of fashion as radical social realism gave way to modernist avant-garde in the art world.  Her later collections included Firehead (1930) a long poetic allegory on the execution of the Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti, and Dance of Fire (1935), the latter written after her trip to Mexico on a Guggenheim Fellowship.Her reputation as a poet developed, and she was twice awarded the Shelley Memorial Award for Poetry (1935, 1936) and was awarded a Guggenheim Poetry Fellowship (1935).

Throughout her life, Ridge grappled with a variety of ills, ranging from an eating disorder and moments of severe economic insecurity, to the threat of political repression during the 1919 – 1920 Palmer raids on leftists and anarchists, and what may have been a nervous breakdown. She weathered them all,until she died in Brooklyn, NYC,  of pulmonary tuberculosis on March 19th 1941 aged 67. The New York Times declared her “one of America’s best poets” when she died, and in their obituary describe her as “one of the leading contemporary poets” who “found in the meeting of many races in America the hope of a new world " but her interest in radicalism, feminism, and experimental poetry wrote her out of literary history,possibly in part due to the inhospitality of mid-twentieth century America towards socialists and communists,. but she remains a trailblazer for women, poetry, and human rights who was far ahead of her time,, few today may have heard of Ridge, but her impact on America society cannot be denied, a poet whose work brought real, tangible change. Ridge’s poem about Sacco and Vanzetti, for instance, was duplicated by the thousands, passed hand-to-hand among activists, and would help free the labor activist Tom Mooney from unjust incarceration.and she remains significant for the courage with which she addressed social issues in her writing and for her pivotal position among the modernist and women writers of twentieth-century America. I would strongly recommend the book  Anything That Burns You: A Portrait of Lola Ridge, Radical Poet, by Terese Svoboda, Schaffner Press, 2016.for a further insight into this revolutionary poet's life.

Dream - Lola Ridge

 

I have a dream
to fill the golden sheath
of a remembered day….
(Air
heavy and massed and blue
as the vapor of opium…
domes
fired in sulphurous mist…
sea
quiescent as a gray seal…
and the emerging sun
spurting up gold
over Sydney, smoke-pale, rising out of the bay….)
But the day is an up-turned cup
and its sun a junk of red iron
guttering in sluggish-green water –
where shall I pour my dream?

 

Freedom- Lola Ridge

Let men be free!
All violence is but the agony
Of caged things fighting blindly for the right
To be and breathe and burn their little hour.
Bare spirits—not debight
In smooth-set garments of philosophy;
But near earth forces, elemental, crude,
Scarce knowing their invicible, rude power;
Within the close of their primeval servitude
Half comatose.

Who, ravening for their depleted dower
Of so much sun and air and warmth and food,
And the same right to procreate and love
As the beasts have and the birds,
Strike wild—not having words
To parry with—at the cold force above.

Let men be free!
Hate is the price
Of servitude, paid covertly; and vice
But the unclean recoil of tortured flesh
Whipped through the centuries within a mesh
Spun out of priestly art.
Oh men, arise, be free!—Who breaks one bar
Of tyranny in this so bitter star
Has cleansed its bitterness in part. 

To the Others - Lola Ridge

I see you, refulgent ones,
Burning so steadily
Like big white arc lights…
There are so many of you.
I like to watch you weaving—
Altogether and with precision
Each his ray—
Your tracery of light,
Making a shining way about America.

I note your infinite reactions—
In glassware
And sequin
And puddles
And bits of jet—
And here and there a diamond…

But you do not yet see me,
Who am a torch blown along the wind,
Flickering to a spark
But never out.

Secrets-  Lola Ridge

Secrets

infesting my half-sleep…

did you enter my wound from another wound

brushing mine in a crowd…

or did I snare you on my sharper edges

as a bird flying through cobwebbed trees at sun-up

carries off spiders on its wings?

 

Secrets,

running over my soul without sound,

only when dawn comes tip-toeing

ushered by a suave wind,

and dreams disintegrate

like breath shapes in frosty air,

I shall overhear you, bare-foot,

scatting off into the darkness….

I shall know you, secrets

by the litter you have left

and by your bloody foot-prints.

Submerged - Lola Ridge

I have known only my own shallows—
Safe, plumbed places,
Where I was wont to preen myself.

But for the abyss
I wanted a plank beneath
And horizons...

I was afraid of the silence
And the slipping toe-hold...

Oh, could I now dive
Into the unexplored deeps of me—
Delve and bring up and give
All that is submerged, encased, unfolded,
That is yet the best.

 

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.