Like many, I condemn the appalling vicious murder of Sir David Amess MP. This atrocious act has reopened existing wounds when it comes to fears about the safety of MP'a and others in public life.
It is telling that when news broke that the man arrested for the murder of Sir David Amess was a British man of Somalin heritage, The reaction of the far-right to the murder was one of joy and glee. It is a reminder of how quickly these types of atrocities are so easily exploited, becoming another tool for those who seek to spread hate in our society.
It has all sparked a lot of deep reflection form people of all walks of life, different political and religious faiths but has also helped point out that attempting to put the blame for the level of violence, chaos and polarisation in society on the left, migrants, social media etc after the Tory establishment have been stirring things up for such a long time, just reeks of hypocrisy.
And pardon me we are currently being lectured on 'civility in politics; by papers and politicians who demonised migrants, doctors, and produced a deafening silence when an effigy of Jeremy Corbyn was being used as target practice by British soldiers, and were not bothered when it was reported that a Corbyn win at the General election would result in a coup. Remember that? Or what about the dangerous rhetoric during the referendum that led to Jo Cox's death. Damaging rhetoric that is still very much evident in papers like the Daily Mail, Daily Express, Telegraph and the Sun etc
We are currently being set up for a clamp-down on protest, free speech and anonymity that the government, their lobbyists and the establishment and corporations they work for want us to simply ignore.
Double standards are the new normal, Civility is for normalcy. When things are normal and working as intended, civility is part of maintaining balance. But when that balance is gone, civility does not help return it but rather destabilises it further. Because civility gives cover for evil.
Political violence can also be seen in how they starve people into poorly paid employment, as is allowing 1000s of people to die needlessly to coronavirus . Hunger and poverty is violence.War is violence. Dropping bombs on people is violence. Racism is violence. White supremacy is violence, Cutting healthcare is violence. How Civil is it to vote to deprive the poorest of £20 or to vote to not feed children, vote for war after war? I don't want to hear about ' civility and decorum' when so many people are suffering.
It would be so nice if we could all get along but our government is objectively corrupt, dishonest, autocratic, cruel and negligent. It's culture war is pitching its own people against each other , It has cut welfare, voted against feeding the poorest children, slashed foreign aid and we;re expected to believe they care about.kindness, truth and decency. Yes our society has become coarse, brutal, divided ,anxious, angry, fearful, ill-informed, gullible confused, Exactly how the regime wants it to be, and planned it to be. It is no accident,
Every politician has a choice but they want to shame us from using vigorous language, or holding power to account or even daring to think of standing up in disobedience We must continue to stand against intolerance, the rising tide of incitement to discrimination, hatred and violence against persons based on religion , race or belief , that is fuelled both online and offline, and keep promoting mutual understanding, dialogue with inspiring, constructive, fierce debate,because this is how the true pathways of democracy are maintained.
Many people may think of slavery as a thing of the past, but unfortunately they couldn’t be more wrong. The realities of modern day slavery are not always visible in our direct surroundings or social circles, however it still runs deep in communities all around the world.
Whilst the transatlantic slave trade was outlawed in 1807 and slavery is prohibited internationally by Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there are still an estimated 12.3 million people across the world in slavery today, forced to work for little or no pay.
It is thought that the buying, selling and exploitation of people is
the fastest growing crime in the world today. Long supply chains in
today’s globalised economy create spaces of opportunity for traffickers
to exploit the most vulnerable.
Thousands of people in the UK alone are currently living as slaves. This means they can’t exercise personal freedom and they are being forced to work against their will.
Created by Anthony Steen CBE, then MP for Totnes, now Chair of the Human Trafficking
Foundation, through a Private
Members’ Bill in December 2009.The
Bill passed through all its stages in the House of Commons and the
House of Lords quickly and gained Royal Assent on 8 April 2010, becoming
law as the Anti-Slavery Day Act 2010.
In July that year, the Prime Minister, David Cameron MP, announced that
Anti-Slavery Day would fall on 18 October every year. This date
coincides with the European Union’s Anti-Trafficking Day. Since then, it remains a firm date in
the calendar for human rights defenders, charities, civil society and
government alike and is often marked with events about combatting modern
slavery together.
Anti-Slavery Day was introduced with three aims. Firstly, to “acknowledge that millions of men,
women and children continue to be victims of slavery, depriving them of
basic human dignity and freedom.” To “raise awareness amongst young
people and others of the dangers and consequences of slavery, human
trafficking and exploitation and encourage them to be proactive in the
fight against it.” And finally, “draw attention to the progress made by
government and those working to combat all forms of slavery, human
trafficking and exploitation, and (to) what more needs to be done.”
Anti-Slavery Day serves as a reminder to people across the UK that
despite the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, slavery which is supposed to be illegal in every country on the planet, it is still a thriving industry and rife
in modern society. People are trafficked to, from and within the UK for
sexual exploitation, forced labour, domestic servitude, criminal
exploitation, bonded labour and even organ trafficking.
It is a global
problem that can affect anyone, regardless of their age, gender and
ethnicity.Poverty, limited opportunities at home, lack of education, unstable
social and political conditions and economic imbalances are just some of
the key drivers that contribute to someone’s vulnerability in becoming a
victim of modern slavery.
Identifying the root causes behind slavery helps us to make changes
that will prevent vulnerable people from being targeted and exploited,
while outreach programs and support systems provide victims of slavery
with an opportunity to escape their situation and build a sustainable
future.
The Modern Slavery Act 2015 introduced by Theresa May [former UK
Prime Minister] brought existing offences into one law and created new
duties and powers to protect victims and prosecute offenders of modern
slavery.
Victims of slavery and trafficking who have been forced to break the
law were protected under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and law courts were
granted the power to hand down a maximum life sentence for offenders or
to place restrictions on people they believe may commit a human
trafficking or slavery offence.
Businesses with an annual turnover of at least £36 million were also
required to publish an annual statement setting out the steps they have
taken to prevent modern slavery within their supply chains. This can
include information about modern slavery policies and due diligence
processes which includes slavery, forced labour and human trafficking.
Since the new law was introduced there has been a considerable
increase in tackling modern slavery offences at every stage; the police
are referring more cases to be prosecuted, the Crown Prosecution Service
is making more decisions to charge and overall, there are more
convictions.
Modern slavery is a serious and often hidden
crime which continues to affect people across the UK and the threat has
been heavily impacted as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Labour
exploitation saw a proportion of the threat being displaced following
the closing of public-facing businesses such as nail bars, car washes
and restaurants. In response, offenders sought to adopt the non-employer
model, placing potential victims into legitimate employment and
increasing their takings from rent, fees and wages.
Both
domestic servitude and sexual exploitation predominantly occur in a
secluded environment, and became even more difficult to detect with
national lockdowns. Criminal exploitation, particularly in young persons
has continued to increase. Slavery is the commodification of people for the purpose of exploitation and financial gain and is often hidden in plain sight.We want things cheap things. Are we complicit in the darker elements of humanity that continue to oppress, exploit and humiliate?
Slavery is often termed an invisible crime, and in many ways the
resultant exploitation can be difficult to spot. It is our job, as
allies, as colleagues, as friends, as people who want to do the right
thing to do better so that the invisible comes into sharp focus. As
William Wilberforce said “You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.”
Modern slavery is a heinous crime which has no place in our society that often happens because people are discriminated against, denied their rights and not protected by the law. Let us not stop in our fight against it while changing attitudes, challenging power and to help end the systemic
inequality that hampers efforts to bring freedom and justice for
everyone, and with small steps lets continue to break the chains that are all around us.
Climate change is a growing human crisis which is increasingly forcing impoverished vulnerable people from their homes in search of shelter and work. Consequently adults and children are finding themselves more and more vulnerable to forced labour and sexual exploitation. And millions more will be posed to this kind of slavery in the coming decades if we don't act.
As world leaders prepare to discuss the human act of climate change at COP26 next month the time to jointly address human rights, the environment and climate change is now : https://www.antislavery.org/antislaveryday-fighting-for-climate-justice/. And for further information on Anti-Slavery Day go to:
16 days before the GTO in 2009,Prime minister Gordon Brown was travelling the world to get binding commitments from world leaders to help get binding commitments from world leaders to help the world economy recover from crisis.
Prime minister Boris Johnson 16 days before #COP26 with hopes for the summit under serious threat of collapsing, after emptying the pockets the pockets of the working class and the poor jetted out of the country for a luxury holiday in Marbella, in a £25,000 a week villa ( that is linked to a number of offshore tax havenshttps://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/johnsons-luxury-spanish-holiday-villa-linked-to-offshore-tax-havens-295415/?fbclid=IwAR04OUf-yg61WvpD5FwlQmphZ-bR1IYaNe7sfbX4deyIOM-qsCkaJ01vzQg) he has apparently borrowed from his chum, Tory peer Zac Goldsmith despite the escalating crises in the UK, and has since been seen relaxing and trying to emulate his hero Winston Churchill but lacks any credibility, any statesmanship and is considered the most untrusted leader in the G7.Churchill painted in the sun, so Boris had to do the same ( and be photographed doing it ) just one day after his government was slated for its handling of the pandemic.
The timing of his jaunt could not have come at a worse time as he went in the same week that the £20 uplift to Universal Credit was cut, that even six former Conservative Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions opposed and which charities warned will push 800,000 people into poverty, this combined with increasing energy prices to damning criticism over how the health pandemic was handled, HGV shortages and empty supermarket shelves, the UK is bracing itself for a "winter of discontent,"
Boris knew what was happening, a savage report was imminent on his handling of the COVID crisis was coming out, which said the United Kingdom's Covid response was slow and "reactive,". Among the biggest failures of the government's approach was an initial policy at the start of the pandemic to try and manage the spread of Covid, rther than stop it spreading altogether. A delayed lockdown was also criticized , failures in the UK's contract-tracing program, and a lack of attention given to the most vulnerable, specifically those in the social care sector and at risk communities, namely Black, Asian and other ethnic minorities. The UK has one of the highest death tolls from the pandemic and more than 138,000 people have died.
So Johnson did the one thing that he is capable of doing, he escaped his responsibilities to avoid the scrutiny and backlash. Meanwhile Johnson despite mounting criticism carried on his holiday with wife Carrie and their year old son Wilfred regardless.In arrogance he was back behind his easel yesterday morning without a care in the world, As Britons struggled with mounting problems at home Boris was busy playing with his paints finishing his picture. Wearing dark blue shirt and casual trousers, with a white tie-up cord, he occasionally scratched his head as he added more brush strokes to his work His actions have only served to remind us all, that he has the same contempt for those that voted for him in, as he has for truth and honour.
On Monday, a Downing Street spokesperson defended Johnson's decision to take a holiday this week but refused to confirm who was funding the stay, The spokesperson also refused to discuss whether there was a potential conflict in interest from Johnson accepting a holiday from a peer whom he ennobled and made a minister. Boris's holiday comes less than two months after he and then foreign secretary Dominic Raab were under fire for going on holiday during the Afghanistan crisis.
Some people think they are above us, as they laugh and treat the rest of us as fools, but it's a joke that is really beginning to wear very thin. It's Swift meets Orwell meets Kafka, and the media are facilitating it. This sad excuse of a man does not give a damn about anything other than himself, What he sees in the mirror is all that he worships and adores, but is the very worst Prime Minister in decades.
My advice to Johnson is if he really feels the need for a holiday in the sun, then perhaps he should never have been PM in the first place (it' truly is such a sad indictment on our society that this shallow, lazy, incompetent and bigoted clown ever was.) May he carry on with his painting if he wishes , on all accounts still on his jolly, but he might be best at trying sticking to crayons and do us all a favour and resign, instead of continuing to take the piss, because many of us who are still stuck back at home would be ever so grateful if he at least did this.
Indigenous
Peoples’ Day is recognized the same day as Columbus Day each year, the
second Monday in October. This year, Indigenous Peoples Day falls today Oct. 11, 2021.It is a day to recognize indigenous people and the
contributions they’ve made to history, as well as to mourn those lost to
genocide and Western colonization—and to remember that Native Americans
were actually here long before European settlers showed up on these
shores. In 1977, the United Nations International Conference on
Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations in the Americas proposed
that Indigenous Peoples Day replace Columbus Day.
"Today,
we also acknowledge the painful history of wrongs and atrocities that
many European explorers inflicted on Tribal Nations and Indigenous
communities," Biden wrote. "It is a measure of our greatness as a nation
that we do not seek to bury these shameful episodes of our past — that
we face them honestly, we bring them to the light, and we do all we can
to address them."
which the Associated Press reported as
"the most significant boost yet to efforts to refocus the federal
holiday celebrating Christopher Columbus toward an appreciation of
Native peoples."
Christopher Columbus arrived in the
Bahamas on October 12, 1792,
beginning a
process of colonization and genocide against Native people, which
represents one of the darkest chapters in the history of this continent,
that unleashed unimaginable brutality against the indigenous people of
this
continent.that killed tens of millions of Native
people across the hemisphere. From the very beginning, Columbus was not
on a mission of discovery but of conquest and exploitation—he called his
expedition la empresa, the enterprise.
Even during his day, Christopher Columbus was viewed as controversial.
While his arrival in the Americas, specifically in Ayiti, (Modern
Haiti) allowed for the initiation of the colonialization and settlement
of the Western Hemisphere, the Atlantic slave trade and the amassing of
massive wealth for many European countries, many of his contemporaries
thought he was unnecessarily brutal.
Columbus deserves to be remembered as the first terrorist in the
Americas. When resistance mounted to the Spaniards’ violence, Columbus
sent an armed force to “spread terror among the Indians to show them how
strong and powerful the Christians were,” according to the Spanish
priest Bartolomé de las Casas. In his book Conquest of Paradise,
Kirkpatrick Sale describes what happened when Columbus’s men
encountered a force of Taínos in March of 1495 in a valley on the island
of Hispañiola: " The soldiers mowed down dozens with
point-blank volleys, loosed the dogs to rip open limbs and bellies,
chased fleeing Indians into the bush to skewer them on sword and pike,
and [according to Columbus’s biographer, his son Fernando] “with God’s
aid soon gained a complete victory, killing many Indians and capturing
others who were also killed.”
All this and much more has long been known and documented. As early as 1942 in his Pulitzer Prize winning biography, Admiral of the Ocean Sea,
Samuel Eliot Morison wrote that Columbus’s policies in the Caribbean
led to “complete genocide”—and Morison was a writer who admired
Columbus.
Many countries are now
acknowledging this devastating history by rejecting the federal holiday
of Columbus Day which is marked on October 12 and celebrating
Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead to honor
centuries of indigenous resistance.If Indigenous peoples’ lives
mattered in our society, and if Black
people’s lives mattered in our society, it would be inconceivable that
we would honor the father of the slave trade with a national holiday.
Let alone allow our history books to laud Columbus as some kind of hero. Because this
so-called “discovery” of the America caused the worst demographic
catastrophe of human history, with around 95 percent of the indigenous
population annihilated in the first 130 years of colonization, without
mentioning the victims from the African continent, with about 60 million
people sent to the Americas as slaves, with only 12 percent of them
arriving alive.Therefore, Native American groups consider Columbus a
European colonizer responsible for the genocide of millions of
indigenous people. Not an individual worthy of celebration because he
helped contribute to the Europeans Colonization of the Americas which
resulted in slavery, killings, and other atrocities against the native
Americans.
Columbus' voyage has even less meaning for North Americans than for
South Americans because Columbus never actually set foot on this continent, nor
did he open it to European trade.
During large waves of Italian immigration between 1880 and the start of
World War I in 1914, newly arrived Italians faced ethnic and religious
discriminations. In New Orleans in 1891, 11 Sicilian immigrants were
lynched. A year later, President Benjamin Harrison became the first
president to call for a national observance of Columbus Day, in honor of
the 400th anniversary of Columbus' arrival,
Italian Americans viewed celebrations of Columbus as a way to become
accepted into the mainstream American culture and, throughout the
country, they began to advocate for his recognition. Though it wasn't recognized as a federal holiday until 1971 Italian
immigrants had celebrated Columbus Day for centuries, Mariano A. Lucca, of Buffalo led the campaign for the national holiday. Colorado was the first state to formally recognize Columbus Day, doing so in 1905,
However Native Americans have been a part of the American tradition even before
the United States began, but due to hundreds of years of
persecution, much isn’t left of the neighboring tribes and many have
integrated into modern society.
In the last several years, with growing awareness of Columbus' brutal legacy and what the European arrival meant for America's first inhabitants, at least 14 states and more than 130 local governments have chosen to not celebrate the the second Monday in October as Columbus Day or have chosen to celebrate it as Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead.
Indigenous Peoples have spearheaded the cultural shift in understanding about how to mark this day.
The idea of replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day was first proposed in 1977 by a delegation of Native nations to the United Nations-sponsored International Conference on Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations in the Americas, held in Geneva, which passed that resolution.
In July 1990, representatives from 120 Indian nations from every part of the Americas met in Quito, Ecuador in the First Continental Conference (Encuentro) on 500 Years of Indian Resistance. The conference was also attended by many human rights, peace, social justice, and environmental organizations. This was in preparation for the 500th anniversary of Native resistance to the European invasion of the Americas, 1492-1992. The Encuentro saw itself as fulfilling a prophesy that the Native nations would rise again “when the eagle of the north joined with the condor of the south.” At the suggestion of the Indigenous spiritual elders, the conference unanimously passed a resolution to transform Columbus Day, 1992, "into an occasion to strengthen our process of continental unity and struggle towards our liberation." Upon return, all the conference participants agreed to organize in their communities. While the U.S. and other governments were apparently trying to make it into a celebration of colonialism, Native peoples wanted to use the occasion to reveal the historical truths about the invasion and the consequent genocide and environmental destruction, to organize against its continuation today, and to celebrate Indigenous resistance. (Indigenous Peoples' Pow Wow Website)
In the past twenty years the celebration of Indigenous Peoples’ Day has become a counter narrative to Columbus Day as way of correcting historical wrongs in acts of reconciliation and the roots of this rethinking go back several decades.
On October 6, 2000, the American Indian Movement Grand Governing Council wrote in a statement that "Columbus
was the beginning of the American holocaust, ethnic cleansing
characterized by murder, torture, raping, pillaging, robbery, slavery,
kidnapping, and forced removals of Indian people from their homelands."
The organization called for the federal abolition of the holiday.
In June, 2020, protestors in three cities targeted statues of Columbus, according to The Smithsonian Magazine.
A
statue of Christopher Columbus in downtown Syracuse has been the
subject of lawsuit against a plan by Mayor Ben Walsh to remove it, according to syracuse.com.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19
in the United States, Indigenous people have experienced some of the
highest mortality rates in the county. High rates of diabetes, obesity
and other poverty-related health problems make Native Americans more
vulnerable to the virus than other populations.
Nationwide one in every 475 Native Americans has died from
Covid since the start of the pandemic, compared with one in every 825
white Americans and one in every 645 Black Americans.
The true death toll is undoubtedly significantly higher as multiple
states and cities provide patchy or no data on Native Americans lost to
Covid. Of those that do, communities in Mississippi, New Mexico,
Arizona, Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas have been the hardest hit.
The findings were part of the Color of Coronavirus project,
and provide the clearest evidence to date that Indian Country has
suffered terribly and disproportionately during the first year of the
deadly coronavirus pandemic. Native Americans have suffered 211 deaths
per 100,000 people, compared with 121 white Americans per 100,000.
Indigenous leaders took coronavirus more seriously than many
communities from the beginning and certainly more seriously than the
White House took the virus. By late Spring 2020 the rate of infection
among Navajo Nation communities was worse than New York, then the center of the pandemic in the US.
Even then it emerged that Native Americans were being left out of demographic data on the impact of the coronavirus across the US,
raising fears of hidden health emergencies in one of the country’s most
vulnerable populations.
Centuries after Columbus Native peoples are still fighting to protect their lands and their
rights to exist as distinct political communities and individuals.Because of historical traumas inflicted on indigenous peoples that include land
dispossession, death of the majority of the populations through warfare
and disease, forced removal and relocation, assimilative boarding school
experiences, and prohibiting religious practices, among others, indigenous peoples have experienced
historical losses, which include the loss of land, traditional and
spiritual ways, self-respect from poor treatment from government
officials, language, family ties, trust from broken treaties, culture,
and people (through early death); there are also losses that can be
attributed to increased alcoholism.
These losses have been associated with sadness and depression, anger,
intrusive thoughts, discomfort, shame, fear, and distrust around white
people Experiencing massive traumas and losses is thought to lead to cumulative and unresolved grief, which can result in the historical trauma response,
which includes suicidal thoughts and acts, IPV, depression, alcoholism,
self-destructive behavior, low self-esteem, anxiety, anger, and lowered
emotional expression and recognition .These symptoms run parallel to
the extant health disparities that are documented among indigenous
peoples.
Today is about acknowledging all this whilst honoring the rich history
of resistance that Native
communities across the world have contributed to and it is also
about sharing a deep commitment to intergenerational justice.
Celebrating Indigenous People’s Day is a step towards recognizing that
colonization still exists. We can do more to end that colonization and
respect
the sovereignty of indigenous nations.
May we spend this
day, honoring Native Peoples’ commitment to making the
world a better place for all. Reflect on their ancestral past , the
ongoing struggles of indigenous peoples in protecting their lands and
freedoms,celebrate their sacrifices and celebrate life
whilst.recognizing the
people, traditions and cultures that were wiped out because of Columbus’
colonization and acknowledge the. bloodshed and elimination of
those that were massacred, whilst transforming this day into a
celebration of indigenous people and a celebration of social justice that
allows us to make a connection between painful history and the
ongoing marginalization, discrimination and poverty that indigenous
communities face to this day. We cannot dedicate just one day to acknowledging Indigenous People's, each and every day should be an act of solidarity, by us honouring and advocating for Indigenous rights.
World Mental Health Day aims
to raise awareness in the global community around mental health "with a
unifying voice through collaboration with various partners".
That’s according to the World Federation for Mental Health, the organisation behind the day, which was celebrated for the first time in 1992. World Mental Health Day was just
observed as an annual activity of the World Federation for Mental Health
and had no specific theme.
However, in 1994, at the suggestion of then-Secretary General Eugene
Brody, a theme for the day was used for the first time. The very first
theme of the day was “Improving the Quality of Mental Health Services
throughout the World.”
This year it takes place on Sundayy 10 October. A day designed to encourage raising awareness and spreading education about mental health issues across the globe.
The theme of this year's World Mental Health Day is 'Mental health in an
unequal world'. and is about making mental health care a reality for all. This theme
emphasizes the urgent need to close the huge gap in access to care for
people with mental health problems and psychosocial disabilities around
the world, and aims to raise awareness of the inequality in access to mental health
care, both locally and globally, for marginalised people, particularly
for people living in poverty.
The day will highlight that access to mental health services remains unequal with between 75% to 95 % of people with mental disorders in low and middle income countries unable to access mental health services at all and access in high income countries not much better. Lack of investment in mental health disproportonate to the overall health budget contribute to the mental health treatment gap. Also according to UN 2016 data,
“nearly 800,000 persons died every year by suicide, and 79 per cent of
global suicides occurred in low- and middle-income countries”
While the pandemic has affected everyone, people with
long term health conditions, or facing discrimination or parenting on
their own are struggling the most and need more support. The world has experienced the unprecedented impact of COVID-19 that has also impacted on the mental health of millions
of people..
Over the past year we have all been in thee same storm but in different boats, experiencing a wide range of thoughts and feelings. We
know that the levels of anxiety, fear, isolation, social distancing and
restrictions, uncertainty and emotional distress experienced have become widespread as the world has struggled to bring the virus under control and to find solutions. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the
effects of inequality on health outcomes and has brought additional
mental health challenges through infection and illness, bereavement, job
loss and insecurity, and social isolation due to physical distancing
measures. There is no doubt that this will have negatively impacted on people's wellbeing and mental health.
Mental health is a human right, and a rights-based approach to mental disability means domesticating
treaties such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons
with Disabilities.Using the framework of this convention and
others like it, it is possible to formulate an active plan of response
to the multiple inequalities and discrimination that exist in relation
to mental disability within our communities. While health care
professionals arguably have a role to play as advocates for equality,
non-discrimination, and justice, it is persons with mental disabilities
themselves who have the right to exercise agency in their own lives and
who, consequently, should be at the center of advocacy movements and the
setting of the advocacy agenda..
Quality, accessible primary
health care is the foundation for universal health coverage and is
urgently required as the world grapples with the current health
emergency. We therefore need to make mental health a reality for all – for everyone, everywhere.
Good mental health is not just about being free from a mental illness.
It involves the ability to better handle everything life throws at you
and fulfill one’s full potential. Mental illness is now recognised as one of the biggest causes of
individual distress and misery in our societies and cities, comparable
to poverty and unemployment. One in four adults in the UK today has been
diagnosed with a mental illness, and four million people take
antidepressants every year. This can have a profound impact on the lives
of tens of millions of people in the UK, and can affect their ability
to sustain relationships, work, or just get through the day. What
greater indictment of a system could there be.
While the uneven distribution of mental health resources both within and
between countries springs to mind there are many other inequalities
that I hope will be thought about on this day.
These include inequalities driven by race, sexuality, gender identity,
socio-economic status, access to technology and people living in challenged humanitarian
settings such as displaced people, refugees, and those living in
conflict/post-conflict situations are at greater risk of mental health
difficulties..Due to ongoing political and social
conflicts, the number of international refugees has been increasing.
Refugees are exposed to severe mental challenges and potentially subject
to traumatic experiences so the risk of psychiatric disorders is
increased.
Older people and immigrant groups are
both thought to be more likely to experience social isolation and
loneliness which can cause worse mental wellbeing.
Societal discrimination is likely to have
an impact on mental health. Interventions that take into account the
specific mental health risks that marginalised communities face, and are
designed to meet the needs of these groups, are therefore needed.
There are also significant mental health
related inequalities for the UK Black community as people from Black
African and Caribbean backgrounds are four times more likely to be
detained under the Mental Health Act, and experience poorer treatment
and recovery outcomes in comparison to other ethnic groups. The ON TRAC
project aims to address this by developing a mental health awareness
and stigma reduction intervention for Black faith communities.
Discrimination based on race,
ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity and other factors is
also widespread, and is known to cause or exacerbate mental health problems.
Stigma in all parts of society must be eradicated.
I think raising awareness about conditions and
treatments is crucial,
but so is re-addressing the way we think about mental illness as not
just an individual's problem but as something we must consider and
address collectively in the way our society functions. We feel such
huge pressures to feel we fit in somewhere, but actually it is
so much more important to accept yourself whether you feel you fit in or
not, after all you are the only person who will ever get to define who
you are.
Among the most menacing barriers to the social progress we need around
mental health are the profound levels of guilt, shame and stigma that
surround these issues. Mental illness
scares us and shames us. Those who suffer are often, like me, ashamed to
speak of it. Those who are lucky enough to be free of mental illness
are terrified of it. When it comes to mental illness, we still don't
quite get how it all works. Our treatments, while sometimes effective,
often are not. And the symptoms, involving a fundamental breakdown of
our perceived reality, are existentially terrifying. There is something
almost random about physical illness, in how it comes upon us , a
physical illness can strike anyone – and that is almost comforting. But
mental illness seems to fall into that same category, the fact it too
could strike any of us, without warning should be equally recognised..
But more than simple fear, mental illness brings out a judgmental
streak that would be unthinkably grotesque when applied to physical
illness. Imagine telling someone with a broken leg to "snap out of it."
Imagine that a death by cancer was accompanied by the same smug
head shaking that so often greets death by suicide. Mental illness is so
qualitatively different that we feel it permissible to be judgmental. We
might even go so far as to blame the sufferer. Because of the stigma
involved it often leaves us much sicker. Capitalist society also teaches us that we are each personally responsible for our own success.A system of blame that somehow makes the emotional and psychological difficulties we encounter seem to be our own fault.This
belief is such a firm part of ruling class ideology that millions of
people who would never openly articulate this idea, nonetheless accept
it in subtle and overt ways.People are often ashamed that they need medication, seeing this as revealing some constitutional weakness.People feel guilty about needing therapy, thinking that they should be able to solve their problems on their own.Millions
of people fail to seek any treatment, because mental health care is
seen as something that only the most dramatically unstable person would
turn to.
An ill-informed and damaging attitude among some people exists
around mental health that can make it difficult for some to seek help.
It is estimated that only about a quarter of people with a mental health
problem in the UK receive ongoing treatment, leaving the majority of
people grappling with mental health issues on their own, seeking help or
information, and dependent on the informal support of family, friends
or colleagues.Personally I have spent years of my life taking various antidepressants, anti anxiety medications whilst trying to deal with my own mental health (I am currently free from but the journey has not been an easy one. )
We need to break the silence around mental health.These are issues that all of us should have some basic exposure to.The proportion of the population that will experience an episode of acute emotional distress is extremely high.Those
of us who have never been depressed probably know and love several
people who have.It should be no more shameful to say that one is
suffering from mental illness , than to announce that one is asthmatic
or has breast cancer.Talking about these issues is part of the solution.
Breaking
the silence can be liberating. Mental health care should be part of
what we demand when we think about solutions to the economic crisis, and we
should keep fighting for the best mental health care to be the natural
right of all designed to meet human needs. Until then, engaging in the
struggle toward a fairer more equal society can be a source of hope.That is a world surely worth fighting for.
World Mental Health Day is a great opportunity every year to bring
together the common voice of people with psychosocial disabilities and
those working in mental health around the world. I wanted to add my voice to the call for a better deal for people with psychosocial
disabilities, and people living with the stresses of injustice and
inequity that have such a negative effect on mental well being.
There are a number of things you can do to take part if you want to
share your support of World Mental Health Day. The international symbol
for mental health awareness is a green ribbon, and the easiest thing to
do would be to wear one.These can be bought from mentalhealth.org.uk/green-ribbon-campaign, and you can also share it as a digital sticker through most social media platforms.There are also a number of resources available from Mind to help start questions about Mental Health inequality, we all have the power to achieve change ad make a difference about how we talk about mental health, challenge the stigma and help start conversations. https://www.mind.org.uk/get-involved/world-mental-health-day/wmhd-2021-resources/,
.If you are at all impacted remember that you are not alone, and there is no shame in reching out for support to get through it. If you need to talk to someone, the NHS mental health helpline page includes organisations you can call for help, such as Anxiety UK and Bipolar UK. or call The Samaritans
on 116 123.Call your GP and ask for an emergency appointment.Call NHS
111 (England) or NHS Direct (Wales) for out-of-hours to help .Contact
your mental health crisis team, if that is you have one. Remember it's ok not to be ok. Bekind to yourself and others. Mental health matters but what people suffering truly need at the end of day is well-funded good quality services that actually respond to each individual's needs, and that can be accessed immediately, and in an equal world this would actually be happening. Sadly in Britain at the moment mental services are seriously inadequate and letting down manybadly, this is the harsh and bitter reality.
John Winston Ono Lennon, English musician, singer and songwriter who rose to fame as founding member of The Beatles was born on this day October 9, 1940, in war-time Liverpool. Lennon's parents, Julia and Alfred Lennon, soon seperated. His father, a merchant seaman, returned with the intention of taking the young John with him to New Zealand, and he was forced to choose between his two parents, eventually going with his mother.
Julia prove too have a profound influence on his life. introducing him to the seminal music of Fats Domino, and teaching him to play the banjo.
However it was a strained relationship, and Lennon grew up largely with his aunt, Mimi Smith. He largely lost contact with his father, and his mother tragically died after being hit by a car in 1958.
Lennon started his first band, The Quarrymen, in 1956, at the age of 15.This was the genesis ofThe Beatles, where Lennon formed a celebrated songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney that became one of the most successful and critically acclaimed acts in the
history of popular music.They remain the best selling bands in history, having sold up to one billion albums worldwide.
Lennon's life went far beyond Strawberry
Fields and wanting to hold hands. He was an incredibly complex person
that led a life of highs and lows just like any other person. His rebellious nature also gave his
writings, interviews and work a notably acerbic and sardonic wit. A dreamer, a believer, a songwriter, a poet, an avant garde artist, a
rebel, a thinker; John Lennon was all of these things, but above all he
was a man full of love, though some of his action reveal that he was not without faults, and far from perfect. Through his revolutionary songwriting and
ability to express his visionary ideals of peace, tolerance,
multiculturalism, and independent thought, John Lennon made an
impression on popular music and activism that resounds just as clearly
today as it did during the era marked by the creative heights of
Beatlemania.
A man who began his career as as ordinary pop star who made
extraordinary music. During the last few years of the Beatles, Lennon was very much influenced by the ideas of the hippy movement. His song "Revolution " was a cynical response to the events of 1968, Lennon sung "You say you want a revolution" but ended the verse with " count me out"
The Beatles - Revolution
But as time went on he slowly began to evolve as his
fame grew, becoming radicalized through meetings and associations with
sixties activists. during this time , John started referring himself as
a "Revolutionary artist." Lennon especially used his social status to raise awareness for war and
discrimination rather than hiding his thoughts. John Lennon was a
humble working class Liverpool boy and despite being at the center of attention with
the achievements of the Beatles, he never turned his back to social problems and the problems of the individuals he was raised among.
Back in 1965, the Beatles were awarded the MBE (Members of the British Empire)
by the Queen. Four years later, as John’s political awareness
developed, he returned his medal in protest against British policy in
the Nigerian civil war and against the Vietnam war – and also, he said
in jest, to protest against his record, ‘Cold Turkey’, slipping in the
charts.
Lennon was able to present a vision of beauty and a world united from
one of the most chaotic periods in recent memory, marred by governmental
corruption and the Vietnam war. Songs like “Give Peace a Chance” served
as a rallying cry to the anti-war movement, while songs like “Imagine”
made a world at peace seem more attainable than it had ever been before.
In addition to the songs he wrote, Lennon used his incredible fame as a
vehicle through which to voice his opinions on both the political and
basic human issues he believed in. The infamous “Bed-in For Peace” alongside his partner, Japanese artist Yoko Ono was
more than a publicity stunt – behind the outlandish media spectacle was a
rationality and optimism that filled the void of war and intolerance
with a universal love and hope.
After John and Yoko returned to the UK from Japan in January 1971, they
gave an interview to political activists Tariq Ali and Robin Blackburn
of the Trotskyist newspaper Red Mole. Almost immediately John
began writing a song inspired by the interview and the day afterwards
began work on the song at Ascot Sound Studios. Released on 12 March 1971, ‘Power To The People’ came
from a phrase that was used as a form of rebellion against what US
citizens perceived as the oppression by The Establishment. The Black
Panthers used the slogan ‘All Power to the People’ to protest the rich,
ruling class domination of society, while pro-democracy students used it
to protest America’s military campaign in Vietnam.
‘Power to the people’, laid bare what democracy is really about. Or should be. .. According to John, “I
wrote ‘Power to the People’ the same way I wrote ‘Give Peace a Chance,’
as something for the people to sing. I make singles like broadsheets. It
was another quickie, done at Ascot.”
John Lennon - Power to the People
It was also during the early '70s that Lennon began to express a
deeper commitment to the concerns of oppressed people of color. Lennon
backed both Native-American and African-American rights. He expressed
sympathy for the African-American struggle and an understanding of the
need for Black consciousness. In a 1972 appearance on The Dick Cavett Show, Lennon stated support for the Black Panther's Ten-Point Program
and their faith in self-defense. The Ten-Point Program encompassed
calls for Black self-determination, a decent education, for Black
children free of racist and historical bias, as well as "land, bread,
housing… justice and peace." (Huey P. Newton, War Against the Panthers, 1966)
The
Black Panthers were criminalized and pathologized by the White
Establishment. Former President Herbert Hoover even called the group the
greatest threat to America's national security and subjected it to FBI
surveillance. The party's radical reputation was partly due to its
commitment to armed self-defense. Its community programs also sought to
provide free health care and clothing for the poor as well as hot
breakfasts for children.
Lennon's music in this period sought to
reawaken the moral conscience and political consciousness of the people.
He wrote songs for Black Panther campaigner Angela Davis and the co-founder of the supportive White Panther Party,
John Sinclair. The latter had been sentenced to ten years in prison for
a drug possession charge in 1969. Lennon performed at a concert for
Sullivan in Ann Arbor in December 1971. He also wrote about Ireland's
"Troubles" ("Sunday, Bloody Sunday") explicitly condemns the murders of 13 unarmed Catholic civil rights protesters in Northern Ireland by British forces and calls for the British to get out, .and in early 1972 attended a
demonstration in New York City against the killings.
He also participated that year in a demonstration with the
Native-American tribe the Onondaga Indians against the government's planned construction of a freeway through their land. His song Woman is the Nigger of the World was inspired by the writings
of James Connolly and paraphrases his famous quote ‘The worker is the
slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that
slave.’
John Lennon - Woman is the Nigger of the World
All this made the American system very afraid of him. Richard Nixon even involved the FBI to deport Lennon. A past drug’s offence would be used to threaten the singer with
deportation. And he would struggle to gain permanent resident
status in the U.S. period to come.
Under the plan to deport Lennon who criticized the war of Vietnam that covered between 1971 – 1972, FBI created a 300-page long file. The
case was published by the end of 2006. A sentence from the report said:
“The doubt that Lennon has revolutionary views is supported with
official meetings with the Marxist, his songs and other published
content.”
The conservative US was afraid of John Lennon’s radicalism and to use his position to spread anti-war and anti-capitalist views.
Whether Lennon was seen as a pacifist or a revolutionary, he
used his music and visual existence to spread certain ideas around the
world. Without being afraid of the consequences of his views that he
supported without taking a step back, he used his fame to change certain
things without forgetting his social class.
While some of his songs might come across as simple sloganeering,
“Working Class Hero” from 1970 is an insightful social commentary on class splits
and how society tries to exploit folks to become cogs in the machine. It
also touches how religious indoctrination and media causes people to
lose sight of the big picture. Despite being a millionaire, Lennon was still able to see the world through the eyes of ordinary people. Sadly the song is more poignant than ever.
John Lennon- Working Class Hero
Although his creative genius was lost tragically short of its time, John
Lennon attained more in his forty years than most could accomplish in a
hundred full lifetimes. And although Lennon’s creative output in the last eight years of his life was uneven and decidedly less political, in 1975 he withdrew from the music business
to raise his son, Sean, but returned in 1980 to release the album
Double Fantasy, with Yoko Ono. Three weeks after its release he was shot
and killed in his adopted home of New York City on 8 December 1980 by psychotic fan, Mark David Chapman. His
death triggered an outpouring of grief on an unprecedented scale
throughout the world.
81 years after his birth John Lennon lives on through his music and whenever people imagine a better future. His example as a leader in social activism paved the way for the prominent
activists of today. I
believe that together, as individuals or in groups we can still be
forces for change like John Lennon, whether it be for human rights,
economic and social
justice , working for a culture of peace , equality and freedom, in the
words of John Lennon ' some people call me a dreamer, but I'm not the
only one.' Lines from his ultimate song, ‘Imagine’, released in 1971. It has
been described as ‘a humanist plea and socialist anthem’. Its sweet slow
gentle delivery hides a message that is uncompromisingly radical, even
revolutionary, in its call for a world without borders, without
religion, and based on sharing rather than possession. Revolutionary, but sad that we've still not moved further forward.
John Lennon - Imagine
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today... Aha-ah...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace... You...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world... You...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
This week the Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab promised to “overhaul” the Human Rights Act.
The Justice Secretary said Boris Johnson had given him the task of
rewriting the law when he moved him from the Foreign Office in
September’s reshuffle.
In his speech to the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, Mr
Raab highlighted the case of a drug dealer “convicted of beating his
ex-partner” who claimed the right to family life to avoid deportation.
“It
is absolutely perverse that someone guilty of domestic abuse could
claim the right to family life to trump the public’s interest in
deporting him from this country.
“We’ve got to bring this nonsense to an end.”
At
a fringe event, Mr Raab said the problem was with the powers the
domestic legislation had given to judges, rather than the European
Convention on Human Rights itself.
“The
problem is not the convention, it’s the way it has been interpreted and
in particular the licence given to the courts in this country under the
Human Rights Act to adopt, through judicial legislation, ever more
elastic interpretations of rights.”
Raab who did not back up his claims with any actual hard evidence also has history on this subject, as far back as 2009, he said: “I don’t support the Human Rights Act and I
don’t believe in economic and social rights,”
And, in a book composed by Mr Raab around the same time, entitled
‘The Assault on Liberty: What Went Wrong’, he contended the 1998
enactment had prompted a large number of new cases in the courts.
“The spread of rights has become contagious and, since the Human
Rights Act, opened the door to vast new categories of claims, which can
be judicially enforced against the government through the courts.
The Act had allowed UK law to be trumped by the European courts," Mr
Raab claimed, while the boundaries between parliament, government and
the judiciary had been blurred.
I don't believe foe one second that Raab and his nasty party cares about the human rights of anyone, long have they advocated their removal from ordinary people. Both Labour and senior legal figures have raised fears that Mr Raab’s
appointment is to allow him to drive through more dramatic changes to
the HRA than planned by his sacked predecessor, Robert Buckland.
Shadow
justice secretary David Lammy said: “After 11 years of Tory Government,
court backlogs have reached record levels, violence and self-harm in
prisons have soared, rape convictions have plummeted, and many women
have lost confidence in the criminal justice system.
“Yet instead
of addressing any of these problems, the new Justice Secretary chose to
focus on vague threats to take away ordinary people’s rights.”
Mr Raab said the move would bring
“common sense” to the justice system, but campaign group Amnesty International warned
“politicians should not be removing the rights of ordinary people with
the stroke of a pen”.
Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s CEO, said: “The Human
Rights Act has been key to some of the biggest justice fights over the
last 30 years – from Hillsborough and the Mid Staffs hospital deaths, to
years of human rights violations against women activists in the Spycops
scandal.
“The
deeply unacceptable delay to setting up a public inquiry into the
Government’s handling of the Covid pandemic is just one example of why
the Human Rights Act is so important."
Human rights group Liberty has previously hit out at the idea, saying it was “designed to create more stigma and division”.
The fact is the Human Rights Act protects each and every one of us from
the unlawful actions of the State and public authorities.We can’t let the Government weaken our human rights.
The Human Rights Act 1998 sets out the fundamental rights and freedoms
that everyone in the UK is entitled to. It incorporates the rights set
out in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into domestic
British law. The Human Rights Act came into force in the UK in October
2000.
It requires all public bodies (like courts, police, local
authorities, hospitals and publicly funded schools) and other bodies
carrying out public functions to respect and protect your human rights.
In practice it means that Parliament will nearly always make sure
that new laws are compatible with the rights set out in the European
Convention on Human Rights (although ultimately Parliament is sovereign
and can pass laws which are incompatible). The courts will also, where
possible, interpret laws in a way which is compatible with Convention
rights.
The Human Rights Act makes our rights real. It
places an obligation on public authorities to respect everyone’s
rights, meaning very few people will ever have to use the Act
themselves. But, if public authorities don’t live up to that standard,
the Human Rights Act gives ordinary people the power to enforce their
rights in British courts.
It helped families of those who died in the Hillsborough disaster to get justice for their loved ones.
It has enabled disabled people to challenge the removal of their benefit payments.
It has been used by families to secure investigations into the deaths of their family members after poor treatment and neglect.
It helped LGBT veterans get their medals back after they were kicked out of the armed forces.
It has protected people’s privacy, freedom of expression, right to practice their religion, and so much more.
The
Human Rights Act has made many people’s lives better. The Government’s
attack on the Act is nothing more than a cynical attempt to hide from
accountability for its actions.
Along
with the Policing Bill which will criminalise protesters, the Judicial
Review Bill which will make it harder for people to challenge injustice
in court, and plans for mandatory voter ID which will prevent hundreds
of thousands of people from taking part in elections, the Government’s
threat to the Human Rights Act is part of a wider plan to make itself
untouchable.
Politicians should not be removing the rights of ordinary people with
the stroke of a pen. The Human Rights Act is ours, scrapping it will take away the
rights of everyone, and it is the most vulnerable that will suffer the
most.
A useful reminder of whether the Act needs to change, or should remain
is to look at the list of rights protected by the Act and ask yourself
,"Which one would I give away? Which one would I not want for myself or
for members of my family?"the right to life? the right not to be
tortured? the right to a fair trial? http:/legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/schedule/1
Sometimes we can't appreciate the value of something until it is taken away.We have to stand up for the Act.The proposal is simply appalling and unacceptable, trying to
get rid of the Human Rights Act is a blatant open
wholesale assault on democratic rights and must be opposed, it ia part of our protection to be able to function as citizens in a democratic country.
Surely it can't have escaped the Tory's attention that
our country has seen a spike in hate and division recently, considering this they should not be pouring yet more
public money, into scrapping human rights and equality protections that
are needed to be respected now more than ever.People power got us these rights, and now it’s up to us to stand up for them again.We
can prove public opinion is against scrapping the Human Rights Act -
and show we’re prepared to fight for it unless we plan on giving up being human. We must convince the
government to nip these plans in the bud once and for all. These rights ensure we are all entitled to dignity and respect without fear of discrimination
I have made a point of annually remembering that on this day 4th October, 1936,
the Battle of Cable Street when Oswald Mosley's British Union of
Fascists attempted to march through the predominately Jewish section of East London, to be met by over
100,000 local residents and workers who fought with the fascists and the
police in order to protect their community, which forced the march to
be abandoned. The
people of the East End inflicting a massive defeat on Mosley’s British Union of Fascists that must never be forgotten.
During this time Britain was facing very serious economic problems,
with a climate of mass unemployment and economic depression, and far
right forces were intent on using this in order to exploit division and
stir up hate. Oswald Mosley, a former
member of Parliament known for his public speaking skills, founded the
BUF in 1932, and within two years membership had grown to
50,000. Mosley's fascists held vile anti-semitic views and tried to
blame Jews for the cause of the country's problems. Throughout the mid 1930s, the BUF moved
closer towards Hitler’s form of fascism with Mosley himself saying that
“fascism can and will win in Britain”. The British fascists took on a
more vehemently anti-Semitic stance, describing Jews as “rats and vermin
from whitechapel” and tried to blame Jews
for the cause of the country's problems. Mosley’s blackshirts had been harassing the sizeable Jewish population
in the East End all through the 1930s. By 1936 anti-semitic assaults by
fascists were growing and windows of Jewish-owned businesses were
routinely smashed. Hurrah for the Blackshirts!’ The notorious Daily Mail
headline is just one chilling indication of the very real threat Oswald
Mosley’s British Union of Fascists posed in the mid 1930s.
As the fascist movement developed, so too did opposition to it. Led
by Communists, socialists and trade unionists the anti-fascist movement
grew, supported also by Liberals and some anti-fascist Tories.
However, those who interrupted fascist meetings found themselves dealing with unprecedented violence from Blackshirt thugs.
The notorious Olympia meeting of 7 June 1934 came to symbolise
Blackshirt thuggery. After the Daily Worker posted the location of the
West London meeting, a number of anti-fascists attended, intending to
disrupt the meeting.
Hecklers were beaten by gangs of Blackshirts armed with
knuckledusters and other weapons and thrown into the street. The BUF was
roundly condemned by the mainstream and the violence of the meeting
effectively ended Mosley’s pretence of respectability.
Whilst the first Jews came to Britain following the Norman Conquest
of 1066, the Jewish community of London’s East End mainly comprised of
families that had arrived between 1881 and 1914.
Many of these families settled in England after fleeing antisemitism
and murderous pogroms in Russia, Poland and many other Eastern European
countries. They followed previous waves of immigration that had brought
Huguenots, Irish and other smaller groups into the area.
By the 1930s some 183,000 Jews lived in London, the majority in the
East End due to cheaper rents. Stepney was home to some 60,000 Jews and
the heart of Jewish East London.
With its reputation in tatters following Olympia and increasingly
under the influence of Hitler, BUF leaders sought to exploit the
reservoir of antisemitism in the East End in order to save the party.
By 1936 the BUF was pouring most of its resources into holding
meetings in the East End and distributing crude antisemitica. Mob
orators such as Mick Clarke and Owen Burke sought to whip up violence on
street corners night after night.
As this approach gradually gained support in poor neighbouring areas
such as Bethnal Green, Mosley announced he would celebrate the fourth
birthday of the BUF by staging a provocative march through Stepney, the
heart of the Jewish East End, on 4 October, 1936, following months of BUF meetings and leafleting in
the area designed to intimidate Jewish people and break up the East
End’s community solidarity.
Political leaders in the East End petitioned the Home Secretary Sir John
Simon to ban the march; however, their request was denied. On 2nd
October, the Jewish People’s Council presented a second petition with
100,000 signatures to request that the march be banned on the grounds
that the “avowed object of the Fascist movement in Great Britain is the
incitement of malice and hatred against sections of the population.”
Despite these efforts, the British government allowed the march to
proceed as planned and assigned 7,000 members of the police force to
accompany it. They were not to be welcomed, instead they were
met by protestors, waving banners with slogans such as
'They shall not Pass'( no pasaron, famous republican slogan from the
Spanish Civil War) , 'No Nazis here' and 'East End Unite.' A huge force had assembled prepared to defend their streets and neighbourhoods and their right to live in them.
Even though uniformed policemen on horseback were employed to allow
Mosley's march to pass through, anti-fascists blocked the route by
barricading the street with rows of domestic furniture and the police
were attacked with eggs, rotten fruit and the contents of peoples
chamber pots. Local kids rolled marbles under police horses hooves. A
mighty battle ensued, with people seriously hurt on both sides.
Eventually, the police ordered the fascists to disperse, but the
Metropolitain Police had by now (correctly) been perceived as having
protected the BUF and were turned upon by local residents.It now became a
battle between the cops and the local population. It goes almost
without saying that local people won that fight, with the police having
to withdraw after having bowls of urine and faeces dumped on them by
residents above, police horses being immobilised by thumbtacks [drawing
pins] being littered all along the street, and officers being pulled off
their horses, spat -- and even urinated -- upon and beaten up.
Cable Street is rightly remembered because it saw thousands of people, from many walks
of life, women, children, local jews, Irish groups, communists,
socialists, anarchists standing firm as one in an incredible display of
unity who worked together to prevent Mosley's fascists from marching
through a Jewish area in London. Remembering too the support of the Jewish community in the dock strikes of
1912, Irish dockers stood in solidarity with Jews against the fascists,
ripping up paving stones with pickaxes handles to add to the barricades.Together, they won a famous victory and put the skids under Britain’s first fascist mass movement.The fascists did not get to march and they did not
pass, and were left in humiliation so today we look back on this living
history in celebration and pride.
There is much to learn from the Battle of Cable Street about the power
that individuals and groups wield in the face of intolerant policies and
behaviours when they unite against racism and discrimination. Hopefully
by engaging with this history, we can think critically about the
choices made by the East End community and its allies in 1936 and then
consider choices available to us as agents of change in the face of
prejudice and discrimination in our society and communities today.
Significantly, for some people
that were involved in the protest, Cable Street was the
road to Spain, and many would go on to volunteer as soldiers for the
Republicans there.The legend that was Cable Street became the
lasting inspiration for the continuing British fight against
the fascism that was spreading all across Europe and would eventually
engulf the planet in a terrible world war, the event also launched movements for tenant rights,
against economic injustice, and in defense of immigrants.
Commissioned in 1976 by the Tower Hamlets Arts Project, the artist Dave Binnington drawing inspiration from Spanish muralists and Picasso’s Guernica.
Binnington after interviewing many local characters and includong them in the
design, started painting a large mural
commemorating
the battle on the side wall of St George's Town Hall. In 1982, the
still uncompleted mural was vandalised with right-wing slogans, after
which Binnington abandoned the project in disgust. It was
subsequently finished by Paul Butler, Ray Walker and Desmond Rochfort,
and officially unveiled in 1983. It has subsequently been vandalised,
and repainted, several times. The mural depicts the events of a very
physical confrontation between police and protestors in stunning
detail, anti-fascist protestors proudly carrying banners, punches being
thrown, a barricade of furniture and an overturned vehicle across Cable
Street manned by residents of all ages and ethnic backgrounds, a chamber
pot being thrown under the hooves of horses being ridden by
baton-wielding police, and fascist with a startling resemblance to
Adolf Hitler, looking very alarmed in just his underwear and socks. The mural stands today as a powerful symbol
of anti-fascism in the East End.
There is much to learn from the Battle of Cable Street about the power
that individuals and groups wield in the face of intolerant policies and
behaviours when they unite against racism and discrimination. Hopefully
by engaging with this history, we can think critically about the
choices made by the East End community and its allies in 1936 and then
consider choices available to us as agents of change in the face of
prejudice and discrimination in our society and communities today. We might
like to think those days are
behind us, but
anti-semitism, racism and intolerance is on the rise. The foul winds that blew across Cable Street ago still exist today..Far Right and fascist groups are trying to grow again. We have to organise to stop them. Today and tomorrow we must still rally around the cry of No Pasaran - They shall not pass.
W.H. Davies ( 3/7/1871 - 26/9/40 ) The Battle for Cable Street.
You ask me how I got like this, Sir
Well, I don't care to say
But I will tell you a little story
Of when I was in a big fray.
I'm not very well in my old age
And as I sits drinking my broth
My mind goes back to 1936
That Sunday,Otober the fourth.
I was walking down Bethnal Green Road, Sir
just walking about at my ease
When the strains of a famous old song, Sir
Came floating to me on the breeze.
I stoppe, I looked and listened
Now where have I heard that old song?
Then I dashed to the Salmon and Ball, Sir
I know I wouldn't go wrong.
It was the Intenationale they were singing
They were singing it with a defiant blast
And holding up a big banner
With these words: " THEY SHALL NOT PASS"
And we then marched on to the East End
They were five thousand of us , I am sure
And when we got to the Aldgate
We were met by three hundred thousand more.
'Red Front! Red Front! these workers cried
It was a sight I wouldn't have missed
To see these thousands of defiant workers
Holding up their Mighty Clenched Fist.
The police said 'Now move along please,
This is all we ask'
But we said 'No, not for those blackshirts
Those rotters THEY SHALL NOT PASS'
We then marched on to Stepney Green Sir
You could see that this fight was no sham
For there were thousands of and thousands of workers
Marching from Limehouse,Poplar, Stratford and East Ham.
You could see that Mosely wouldn't get through Sir
That our slogan that day was no boast
And I shouted 'Hip Hip hurrah'
And I saw our flag being tied to a lamp post
the children shouted from the windows "O, golly"
For Mosley, no one seemed sorry
But someone had the goodness
To lend us their two ton lorry
We got it over on its side Sir
It wasn't much of a strain
But the police kept knocking our barricade down
So we built the damn thing up again.
The police said we worked mighty fast
As with a hanky their faces they mopped
So we got out our big red banner
And stuck it right on the top.
The police then charged with their truncheons
They charged us, the working class
But they couldn't pinch our red banner
With these words THEY SHALL NOT PASS
I wish you had been there to see it
You would have said it was a ruddy fine feat
How we kept that old Red Flag flying
On those barricades of Cable Street.
So this is the end of my story
And I must get back to my broth
But I hope you will never forget Sir
It was Sunday October the fourth.
Video Ghosts of Cable Street, set to the music of Men they couldn't hang
Cable Street - The Young 'Uns
On the fourth of October 1936 I was only a lad of sixteen. But I stood beside men Who were threescore and ten And every age in between.
We were dockers and teachers, Busmen, engineers, And those with no jobs to do. We were women and children Equal in union — atheists, Christians, and Jews.
And we had so much to lose.
For with Hitler in Germany, Franco in Spain, We knew what fascism meant. So when Mosley came trouncing, Denouncing the Jews, To the East End of London we went.
For I’d met refugees, who had fled o’er the seas, Germans, Italians, and Jews. And I knew their despair For what they’d seen there And I couldn’t let them be abused.
We had so much to lose.
Now 3,000 fascists — their uniforms black — Had set out to march on that day. And 6,000 policemen Intended to greet them By making clear the way.
But we were there ready — Our nerves they were steady — One hundred thousand en masse. And we planted our feet along Cable Street And we sang: They shall not pass!
We sang: They shall not pass!
Then all us young lads, We were sent to the side streets To stop the police breaking through. And with swift hands we made strong barricades Out of anything we could use.
And they came to charge us, But they couldn’t barge us, With fists, batons, and hooves. With as good as we got, we withstood the lot, For we would not be moved.
We would not be moved.
And, yes, there was violence. And, yes, there was blood. And I saw things a lad shouldn’t see. But I’ll not regret the day I stood And London stood with me.
And when the news spread the day had been won And Mosley was limping away — There were shouts, there were cheers, There were songs, there were tears, And I hear them all to this day.
And we all swore then we’d stand up again For as long as our legs could And that when we were gone, Our daughters and sons Would stand where we stood.
Was the first time I’d heard two tiny words Said by every woman and man. Now I say them still And I always will: ¡NO PASARÁN!
