'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.'

 

At a time when expressions of support for the Palestinian cause are facing criminalisation at utterly unprecedented levels across Europe Witnessing  extraordinary restrictions being imposed on virtually all expressions of solidarity: Palestinian flags and kuffiyeh scarves are being banned and protest rallies are being systematically prohibited. I draw attention to the slogan “From the river to the sea.Palestine will be free  ” a  refrain that can regularly be heard :at pro-Palestine rallies across the world.

For Palestinians and pro-Palestinian campaigners.the phrase has been a popular rallying call for decades, signifying what they believe is their right to peacefully return to the land that is now Israel. About 700,000 Palestinians, approximately 85% of the Arab population, were expelled or forced to flee in 1948, when Israel declared independence after the United Nations voted to divide Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. In the 1967 war, Israel expanded the territory under its control and has since occupied the Gaza Strip and West Bank. It has blockaded Gaza since 2007, after Hamas took control of the strip.  

But the phrase has been the subject of global controversy, with some seeing it as antisemitic or even dangerous, especially after it was adopted by Hamas..Many Israelis and supporters of Israel have claimed that the chant effectively calls for genocide and implies the destruction of Israel.  In mid-October, police in Vienna banned a pro-Palestine protest on the basis of the chant, claiming it was a call to violence.  And while London's Metropolitan Police said they would not be arresting protesters who chanted the slogan at a pro-Palestine protest over the weekend, the UK Home Secretary has publicly stated that she believes police should intervene, suggesting that the chant is an "expression of a violent desire to see Israel erased from the world" and recently called the slogan a “staple of antisemitic discourse.”, 

Despite the slogans controversy, the origins of which go back to the 1940s. The chant the river refers to is the Jordan River which lies to the east of the West Bank and Israel while the sea is the Mediterranean Sea, on the west. The area in between consists of 7 million Palestinians who live under Israeli rule.  The entire land between the river and the sea used to be historically Palestine.  Upon the conclusion of the British Empire’s mandate over historic Palestine, the United Nations put forth a proposal to divide the region into separate Jewish and Palestinian states. The plan, which saw 62 per cent of land going under Israeli control, was rejected by Arab leaders. 

Once the British left, the Nakba, or “cataophophe” took place that resulted in more than 700,000 Palestinians being displaced. In 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) was formed with the aim of representing the Palestinian people and their national aspirations..In the late 1960s, the PLO put forward a visionary idea of Arab-Jewish coexistence in one democracy, arguing for Israel and the Occupied Territories to become “one secular, democratic state of Palestine” based on one person, one vote, where Arabs, Jews, Muslims and Christians would enjoy full equality.

The chant  refers to and  acknowledges the fact that nowhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean sea .do Palestinians enjoy full and equal rights, and the slogan means that Palestinians will be free one day to go back to their homes and lands that were stolen from them during the Nakba. They will be free again and not prisoners.

The outrageous and deeply inflammatory intervention from Suella Braverman. offers no help whatsoever to the tragic currently unfolding in Gaza.Yes. ' From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.' is a call for the end of the ethno-supremacist state of Israel but no, it is  not a call for the death or suffering of any Jewish person.Calling for an end to this oppressive system is not antisemitic, rather it is an invitation for Palestinians and Jews alike to imagine themselves as free and equal in this land, liberated from the oppressive power relations that prevail today. Rather than criminalizing the slogan, the British government should be working toward this aspirational future. And the first step is recognizing the present reality for what it is.. Palestinians wanting an end to the occupation is not anti semitic and people supporting Palestinians  currently facing genocide is not antisemitism and expressing solidarity with Palestinians is not hateful.    

'“From the river to the sea represents a political manifesto increasingly recognised around the world: justice for all Palestinians in historic Palestine and in exile. and also' means that Palestinians will be free to live in all of modern Israel, Gaza and West Bank. in freedom and equality/ No different from what Israeli Jews want. So, a a unitary state with equal rights in Palestine-Israel is the obvious compromise. Unless one side refuses to share,

In these  perilous times in Israel-Palestine. with Israel’s retaliatory bombing of Gaza  wreaking destruction on the already besieged strip and killing a ballooning number of civilians. Emboldened settlers in the West Bank, backed by the army, are seizing the opportunity to escalate their attacks on Palestinians., '“From the river to the sea”serves to remind us of  the fragmentation of Palestinian land and people by Israeli occupation and discrimination. who  since 1948 have been divided in a myriad of ways by Israeli apartheid policy.

There are Palestinian refugees denied repatriation because of discriminatory Israeli laws.There are Palestinians denied equal rights living within Israel’s internationally recognized territory as second-class citizens. There are Palestinians living with no citizenship rights under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank. There are Palestinians in legal limbo in occupied Jerusalem and facing expulsion. There are Palestinians in Gaza living under an Israeli siege. All of them suffer from a range of policies in a singular system of discrimination and apartheid, a system that can only be challenged by their unified opposition. All of them have a right to live freely in the land  liberated from all  forms of occupation discrimination, and oppression,  from the river to the sea.

Beyond the Storms

 

In these maddening days

Paths of confusion and disorientation,

Somber times of  utter sadness

Hopes blighted instead of gladness,

As bombs fall with a litany of despair

Forces of oppression, releasing depression,

Triggering tears and so much pain

Leaving minds brimming with anxiety,.

There are many lessons to be taught

Places to escape to in mind and spirit,

Following musical trails, other voices

Oceans of sound, offering surrender,

Where we can be wild and free 

Can't be controlled or destroyed,

Avenues where peace can be inhaled

Enabling us to laugh together,

With woven vines of passion

For complications to leap forward,

Through slivers of nature's dewdrops

Beyond the missiles and the bullets,

Allowing miracles to keep unfolding

Offering respite, calm and healing, 

Quintessence to be delivered

Cancelling out menace and injustice,

Releasing an anarchy of love

That keeps refusing to be tamed.

Vigil for Peace in Gaza

A vigil with candles and placards will be held on Saturday from 4 pm to 6 pm by Cambrian Quay Cardigan near the Otter to grieve for those affected by the recent conflict in Gaza, to allow our community to symbolically come together and peacefully take a moment in time to collectively grieve for all civilians that have died in Israel and in Gaza, and to hope for a peaceful resolution as soon as possible. 

Stressing that the violence in Israel which caused civilian casualties is not excusable, while acknowledging that this happened in the context of the decades-long oppression of Palestinians.

It is difficult to comprehend the horror to which so many civilians have been subjected to in recent days, and I fear for the fate of those caught up in the conflict. I am also concerned about the impact that the situation is having on those of Israeli and Palestinian heritage living in Wales. 

We must  condemn the attacks by Hamas. The taking of innocent lives, and the barbarity with which civilians have been treated can never be justified, and support calls for the international community to intervene so as to impose a ceasefire so that humanitarian aid can flow into Gaza and for the hostages held by Hamas to be released. 

Ordinary Palestinians have been let down by the international community and have suffered years of violence and injustice. Collective punishment of innocent civilians cannot be justified and will do nothing to bring about peace in the region.

More than 1 million Palestinians have been displaced, and the Israeli military under Netanyahu's extreme party continues to bomb and starve millions of people trapped in Gaza. So many deaths and so much violence with no clear end.  We must demand a ceasefire in Israel and occupied Palestine. We cannot be complicit in this violence. 

But our government’s leaders continue to dehumanize Palestinians and encourage the Israeli military’s relentless bombing of Gaza. We must do everything we can to bring all families home safely, and to protect everyone in the region no matter their faiths or ethnicities.

As Israel’s brutal assault on besieged the Gaza Strip continues, our political leaders are enabling its war crimes. We must put pressure on all politicians to speak out, it is clear that a ceasefire and an end to the siege in Gaza is the only way to guarantee that there is no further loss of civilian lives and that aid reaches those who need it. All are welcome. Heddwch/ Peace.

Crying out for Succour

As the future is submerged with despair

Forces of disarray tearing each other apart,

Deteriorating. degrading and destroying

Delivering blossoming grief, so suffocating,

With two countries.side by side suffering 

One far more, with daily iniquity and cruelty,

While bombs rain down with twisted agony

Creating so much sadness and brutality,

Out of the bowels of malevolence and carnage 

There is a pallid light struggling to shine,

Carried  through the continuing darkness 

To infiltrate broken minds and hearts,

In these times of sadness and madness

Pain numbing deep inside, instead of gladness,

Let our poems keep on delivering illumination

In orange and bronze, at least autumn has arrived,

Allow things of goodness continue to inspire

From the tiniest bug to this beautiful planet itself,

Everything is tied together by the thread of life

We must use this to embroider carefully,

Among life's cruelty allow love to sustain

To distinguish and vaporise the pain,

Against the rages and ravages of war 

Under the stars and guiding moonlight

Empower voices to be used for peacefulness ·

Fill your soul and mentality with tenderness,

Breathing in silence, realise all life is precious

Sparkling with countless harmonious grace,

At daybreak the hourglass releases tiny diamonds

Beyond  prisms of blackness, sparkling in abundance,

Cycles of smiles and laughter, scattering all the hate

Enabling  hope to rise, before it's too bloody late.

Call for Immediate Ceasefire in Gaza Now

As of this morning, at least 2,200 Israelis and Palestinians have been killed and many thousands wounded.  Usually, when a war breaks out in Israel/Palestine, the United States quickly calls for restraint. But yesterday when Biden spoke, instead of calling for a ceasefire, he pledged U.S. involvement in Israel's pursuit of revenge and intention (already underway) to commit war crimes.The first shipment of U.S. weapons and the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world's largest warship, have already entered the fight. Biden and Congress are planning to provide additional funding for Israel's military.  

I'm absolutely astonished at the number of people who don't know that Israel has been occupying Palestine since 1948 in breach of international law. An average of 10,000 Palestinians are killed or injured by Israel every year, including hundreds of children, and what's becoming abundantly clear is a huge section of the western world not only supports this, but wants more bloodshed.

It's truly chilling. All violence is  abohrent. so is apartheid. Gaza’s 2+ million population are mostly children, who live under blockade in what Israel’s own former intelligence chief has called an open air prison. The overwhelming majority live in poverty. Many suffer lifelong psychological and physical trauma. Egypt has closed its border crossing with Gaza, Palestine. Israel has closed its border crossing with Gaza, Water turned off and today the Gaza Energy Authority announced that it  had run out of fuel. Gaza's sole power plant will stop working at 2pm local time. Soon all services vital for the survival of the population, including hospitals, will no longer function. Hamas is not the people of Palestine. Real people are living this. It's utterly heartbreaking.

Whatever is left of their hospital system is about to collapse entirely. With over a 1000 dead (hundreds being children), the wounded now have no treatment and aid has been shut off from all directions. Without electricity, the few voices from the ground will also disappear. What little remains of the now cut off water supply will dry up.

The power crisis is unfolding against a backdrop of escalated military actions, with both sides suffering casualties.The residents of Gaza are finding themselves amidst a worsening humanitarian situation, with the electricity cut-off adding to the difficulties .

The situation in Palestine-Israel is growing more and more dangerous, with total casualties now in the thousands. The situation is now so dire that some are warning of potential genocide in Gaza.

International agencies and humanitarian groups are calling for the restoration of electricity and the establishment of aid corridors to ensure the delivery of essential supplies and services. The situation highlights the complexities and the ripple effects of the ongoing conflict on basic amenities like power.  As the hostilities continue, the power cut-off in Gaza stands as a stark reminder of the far-reaching implications of military confrontations. The current scenario underlines the necessity for de-escalation and dialogue to address the humanitarian challenges and work towards a sustainable resolution of the conflict.

Violence leads to violence. Hamas’s attack was appalling, but so is the daily violence of Israeli apartheid. Israeli forces are carrying out relentless attacks reducing entire neighborhoods to rubble.at least 950 people have been killed, many more are trapped under the rubble. As the death toll mounts, we  must urge Israeli forces to make every effort to spare civilian lives. 

The brutality of Israel’s response is already clear and  now despairingly Keir Starmer is cheering on the cutting off of food, electricity, water and medical aid to Gaza. Intentionally starving civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to survival, such as drinking water. 

Under 4th Geneva Convention collective punishment is a war crime. 1,000,000 children in Gaza. Indiscriminate bombing and starving Palestinians of food, water and electricity is collective punishment. 

But instead of condemning these war crimes, Western politicians are cheering them on. It should not be controversial to oppose the killing of both Palestinian and Israeli children. It should not be controversial to oppose war crimes.No government should be endorsed to deliver collective punishment to innocents and cut off power and water to hospitals.  You can't utter these words and then call for international law to be maintained in the same sentence. It's unethical, immoral and disgusting.

Should Starmer as a former human rights lawyer. simply not be  horrified by the appalling toll of civilian deaths in  the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel and be calling for a ceasefire an an end of all hostilities, the protection of civilians, and a just resolution in accordance with international law!

There is no military solution to this conflict. No amount of bombing, no ground invasion, no height of collective punishment, will make anyone safer anywhere between the river and the sea.

Gaza, an open-air prison, under blockade and siege for 16 years, is at a breaking point. Medical personnel and aid workers are facing huge barriers to delivering desperately needed supplies to the over two million who are trapped there. We need a humanitarian corridor into Gaza to protect civilian lives.  Palestinians have the right to live in dignity and peace, the right to movement, and as refugees, the right of return.

The Israel-Palestine issue is not complicated; an apartheid regime abuses and oppresses an indigenous ethnic group who don't have the same rights as others. The only reason anyone thinks it's complicated is because they assume if it were simple, the news would've told them so.

The Palestinian flag by the way is a symbol of struggle, suffering and survival against tyranny. It is a symbol of hope for a better future, one of freedom and peace.Waving that is a statement of solidarity.

We should all mourn the hundreds of people killed across Israel and Palestine over the past few days and we need a concerted effort for peace and justice in the region.We need urgent de-escalation, an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the establishment of a dialogue to restore the historical rights of the Palestinian people and negotiation towards a free Palestine and  to an end of occupation and siege in order to end this tragic cycle of violence and a means in achieving a just and lasting peace.

Remembering Loukanikos : Symbol of anti-austerity resistance

Loukanikos,  a  much loved ginger mongrel  known internationally  as the 'Riot Dog'  died peacefully in his sleep on 9 October 2014, aged around 10. His name translated into English as 'sausage'. More than just a dog, he was a protector and a beloved comrade facing down riot Police daily as demonstrators took to the streets  of Greece against the police murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos, a 15 year old Greek student  who was gunned down in cold blood in the center of Athens, and later against austerity measures.

His presence on the "front lines" of anti-austerity protests in Athens became one of the defining images of the crisis. Throughout the 2011 protests, the mongrel was a constant feature on Athens' streets - barking at riot police, narrowly avoiding being kicked in scuffles, and trotting past blazing missiles thrown by the demonstrators.  

Loukanikos, was usually  to be found at the thick of all the action in front of the crowds, charging and yelping alongside protestors when they confronted  police on the streets of Athens The canine became a symbol of resistance in Greece after he was pictured facing off with riot police and surrounded by tear gas during various demonstrations. 

Protesters said he would often stand with them during bouts of unrest and protect people by grabbing tear gas canisters and pushing them away..And in this way, Loukanikos became a symbol of urban revolution in Athens and a mascot for the protestors inspiring so many to keep up the struggle.in Greece and around the world.

So legendary was this noble creature that he had a bar named after him in Madrid, and. in 2011 Time magazine listed  Loukanikos as one of its personalities of the year.

Loukanikos  retired from h which explains his death at 10 years of age.is duty as professional protester in summer 2012. The family in charge of him had considered it was too dangerous for him to continue taking part in protests and clashes with riot police As it turns out, the chemicals and the beatings he had taken by the police on more than one occasion had damaged his health.

This valiant defender His system had been damaged by tear gas and policemen kicks, and he had been greatly weakened, which explains his death at 10 years of age. Loukanikos now rests under the shade of a tree, atop a hill in Athens. . Let's continue to remember this  courageous four legged revolutionary and symbol of anti-austerity resistance,

The following song  "Riot Dog," was written in his honour by American singer David Rovics.

David Rovics - Riot Dog

Here be Monsters

Heinous creatures pretending to be human

Snakes in disguise. scattering their poison,

Self absorbed. peddlers of division

Vampiric entities treating all with derision,

Killing the country. spreading cruelty and hatred

Releasing narratives of calculated debasement,

With a cockney rhymimg chancellor Jeremy Hunt 

Alongside racist Suella Braverman, what an affront,.

Like a horror show unfurling before our eyes

Collectively in rancid sickness,spreading lies,

Lining their own pockets. reeking of depravity

While forcing the vulnerable into further poverty;

With wickedness perpetrate deeds of unreason

It is after all their parties conference season,

All together turn into a hideous nightmare

Dark fibrillating hearts of total despair. 

The Tories are crooks, thieves and swindlers

Just like the witch Thatcher, their evil goddess, 

As they continue to  release extreme rhetoric

We witness the wreckage of Tory's sociopathic,

Fickless.brimming with hateful hollowness

Battering the electorate with facile bollocks.

Remembering Muhammad al-Durrah, 23 years on

 

Today marks the 23rd anniversary of the deliberate killing of Mohammed Al-Durrah, a Palestinian child. While he was hiding in his father's arms pleading for their lives, the Israeli occupation forces shot him two days after the Al-Aqsa Intifada began..I remember him and the 1000s of  other Palestinians killed by an occupying force as the world watches.

On September 30th 2000 Mohammed Al  Durrah and his father were filmed crouching behind a concrete block along one of Gaza streets as Israeli army soldiers showered them with heavy gunfire. Moments later, the terrorized boy collapsed dead on his father’s lap whose attempts to shield his son from live ammunition proved to be futile.

This incident became one of the most evocative events of the occupation and haunting images of the intifada. Jamal al-Durrah and his 12-year-old son, Mohammad, were filmed by Talal Abu Rahma, a Palestinian cameraman freelancing for France 2, they are seen with their, backs pressed against the wall, Jamal’s arm attempting to shield his young son whose mouth is oval with what must have been a paralyzing fear. And then the shots. After an emotional public funeral, the 12 year old became a symbol of the struggle of the Palestinian people against a ruthless occupier.

Jamal al-Durrah , who was also badly wounded, said his son died for “the sake of Al-Aqsa Mosque.” His mother Amal added, “My son didn’t die in vain. This was his sacrifice for our homeland, for Palestine.” 

As the BBC reported at the time: “For 45 minutes, Mohammed’s father tried in vain to shield him from gunfire as they crouched against a concrete wall near Netzarim in the Gaza Strip. The boy’s father waved desperately to Israeli troops, shouting: “Don’t shoot.”

After initially taking responsibility for killing Mohammad, a bogus Israeli army investigation concluded that the killing of Mohammad was a hoax, that Palestinians were to blame, that the France 2 journalist who shot the video was part of a conspiracy to ‘delegitimise Israel’.The Prime Minister’s office released a document  officially denying Israel’s responsibility for the death and stating that the 

footage was staged.But the boy did die in conflict and his own father could not save him.In 2013, a French court vindicated Abu Rahma and France 2 after they were accused of staging the video,.

Abu  Rahmeh told the Al-Monitor news website that his French employer had posted on YouTube the entire raw video to put an end to attempts to discredit him through claims that the footage was staged.

The footage of al-Durrah was popular because it captured human emotion, he said: “It moved the world and whoever saw it because it reflected a real human emotion of a father unable to protect his young son.”

Abu Rahma, who has won numerous awards for his work, including the Rory Peck Award in 2001, is now based in Greece, where he, his wife and nine year-old son are residents. He works between there and Amman, Jordan. He has been banned from returning to Gaza since 201

Here is a report by the Guardian newspaper on the case:-

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/23/israeli-report-denies-death-al-dura. 

Thousands of other Palestinian civilians died too and he symbolized their plight. The footage, became the most potent symbol of the Palestinian resistance against the decades-long Israeli occupation.Drawings and pictures of the scene were painted on walls across many parts of the world in support of the Palestinian cause.

The fact remains that Israeli soldiers still do kill little Palestinian boys on a regular basis,with impunity sometimes just for throwing rocks. Human rights groups’ reports are never short on distressing details: 954 Palestinian children were killed between the Second Intifada in 2000 and Israel’s war on Gaza, the so-called Operation Cast Lead in 2008. In the latter war alone, 345 children were reportedly killed.

Palestinian children  live a reality of apartheid and structural violence, where they could be gunned down at any time without any serious prospect of accountability killed by an occupying force as the world watches

Years years later, we should remember this terrified boy, remember his name and all the other innocents since trapped in the fogs of war and occupation.

In Gaza, the protracted humanitarian protection crisis continues to have a significant impact on the well-being of children and families. Successive conflicts have resulted in thousands of deaths, created high levels of psychosocial distress, and eroded public infrastructure. To date, the international community has failed to ensure proper protection of Palestinian children from the political violence of the Israeli government and settlers. 

Israeli military's continuous offensives and its complete disregard for international law have frustrated any meaningful efforts toward implementing comprehensive protections for Palestinian children. Children remain the most vulnerable and are paying the heaviest price of the conflict. They must be protected from violence, exploitation and grave violations and the international community must demand an end to Israel’s illegal military assaults and systemic impunity by investigating allegations of war crimes and holding the perpetrators accountable.

Stop all the clocks - WH Auden (21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973)

Wystan Hugh Auden was born in York, England on 21 February 1907 the third son of a successful  doctor and a missionary nurse, he grew up in Solihull and described his early advantages as 'good genes and good education'.

WH Auden was a uniquely modern poet and one who speaks unmistakably to our modern times. He came of age at a moment when the intellectual elites of Europe were in tumult over the rise of dictators across the continent, and was one of the few writers to come out of the period alive in body and soul. His politics formed an intrinsic part of his writing, and were the basis on which Auden’s hatred of totalitarianism and demand for total intellectual freedom, were founded.

He was the bright young thing of dour, embittered thirties Britain, a man whose image and writings brought the best out of him and the worst out of others. Auden’s genius to put the most complex of literary and political emotions into the most simple, elegiac verse.

He received a public education, first at St Edmund's Hindhood and then at Gresham's School, Holt in Norfolk. In 1925 he entered Christ Church, Oxford University where he studied English literature.It was during his time at Oxford that he formed an association with a group of young literary intellectuals including Stephen Spender, Christopher Isherwood, C. Day Lewis and Louis MacNeice.

After graduation in 1928, Auden spent almost 12 months in Berlin. Like Isherwood and Spender, part of the attraction of going to Berlin for Auden was to enjoy the city’s tolerant attitude towards homosexuality. He initially lodged with family connections in an affluent but semi-rural setting at Potsdamer Chausse 40, by the Wannsee; but he soon moved to the much shabbier working-class district of Kreuzberg, where he was freer and closer to the city’s famous gay nightlife. Auden’s new place in Fürbingerstraße 8 was, in fact, down the road from the Cosy Corner, to which Auden introduced Isherwood on his first visit. In Berlin, Auden met the English anthropologist John Layard, through whom he became acquainted with the theories of the American psychologist Homer Lane, who argued that repression was the cause of physical illness. 

Although Auden wrote no poem or text that was strictly about Berlin, his experiences in the city caused two important transformations that had a deep impact on his writing: he became aware of social injustice and he embraced his homosexual identity with gusto. 

By the early 1930s he had emerged as the pre-eminent figure in a group of young writers who boldly asserted that they could speak for the inter-war generation.Strongly influenced by Freudian Psychoanalysis, his studies in anthropology, and by left-wing political ideologies, Auden was strongly anti-Romantic and rejected existing literary conventions and the need to fit his poetry to any particular style. 

Rather, he forged a reputation as a virtuoso exhibiting an enormous range of technique and form in his works, variously employing sonnets, ballads and numerous strict, metered patterns of his own devising.  His use of the vernacular, mixed syntax and his own special vocabulary mark his earlier work, although they are curbed somewhat in his later pieces

Auden made his reputation in the intensely political ‘30s, when it was hard for the most reluctant to avoid political involvement. And early on in his career he showed his inclination towards the left wing, which was against the rise of dictatorship in Europe. He even served as stretcher-bearer for the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. His achievement as a poet lies in the fact that with his poetry he managed to implicate with utmost sensitivity the altering moods and opinions of his time. 

His first volume of poems was published in 1930. the collection is political in nature and his attitude towards poetry remained such till the end of WWII.

Although gay, Auden married  Erika Mann in 1935 to enable her to escape persecution in Nazi Germany.Before the war broke out in 1939 Auden and Christopher Isherwood left Europe for America. He had earlier collaborated with Isherwood to write the stage play The Dog Beneath the Skin. This move provoked the ire of many belonging to his country’s literary circles.

In 1939, Auden fell in love with Chester Kallman and regarded their relationship as a marriage, but this ended in 1941 when Kallman refused to accept the faithful relations that Auden demanded. However, the two maintained their friendship, and from 1947 until Auden's death they lived in the same house or apartment in a non-sexual relationship, often collaborating on opera libretti such as that of The Rake's Progress, (1951) to music by Igor Stravinsky. Auden was a prolific writer of prose essays and reviews on literary, political, psychological, and religious subjects, and he worked at various times on documentary films, poetic plays, and other forms of performance.
Stop all the clocks. WH Auden  Auden settled in New York but never entirely severed connections with Britain, especially Oxford, where he was professor of poetry from 1956 to 1961. Auden continued to publish volumes of new poetry, among them Another Time (1940), For the Time Being (1944), The Age of Anxiety (1947, which was awarded a Pulitzer Prize), Nones (1951), The Shield of Achilles (1956), Homage to Clio (1960), and City Without Walls (1969). He also collaborated with Hans Werner Henze's Elegy for Young Lovers (1961).

His selections from the writings of Kierkegaard (1952, 1955) are indicative of the way his thought turned away from the Marxist preoccupations of the 1930s to a kind of Christian existentialism. He also edited several anthologies, wrote critical essays, and made a number of translations. In 1966 he published his Collected Shorter Poems 1927–57 and two years later his Collected Longer Poems.

In 1951, shortly before the two British spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean fled to the USSR, Burgess attempted to phone Auden to arrange a vacation visit to Ischia that he had earlier discussed with Auden; Auden never returned the call and had no further contact with either spy, but a media frenzy ensued in which his name was mistakenly associated with their escape. The frenzy was repeated when the MI5 documents on the incident were released in 2007.

In 1956 Auden was appointed Professor of Poetry at Oxford University.  Auden died in his sleep of a heart attack on September 28 1973, after a poetry reading to the Austrian Society of Literature in Vienna; he was 66 years old.  His funeral was held at Kirchstetten on the 14th October and drew mourners from Britain and the United States. The procession to the church was led by Chester Kallman who died two years later in Athens.  Auden is commemorated with a plaque in 'Poets' Corner', Westminster Abbey, London.  One of the poems from Twelve Songs (sometimes known as Funeral Blues) was famously featured in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Throughout his career he was both controversial and influential, and critical views on his work ranged from sharply dismissive. treating him as a lesser figure than W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot.to strongly affirmative, as in Joseph Brodsky's statement that he had "the greatest mind of the twentieth century". After his death, his poems became known to a much wider public than during his lifetime through films, broadcasts, and popular media and is regarded by many critics as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century.

Stop all the clocks - WH Aiden.

 Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

 Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

 Silence the pianos and with muffled drum 

 Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. 

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead  

Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. 

He was my North, my South, my East and West, 

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;

For nothing now can ever come to any good. 

Here's a link to the Auden Society

https://www.audensociety.org/

Refugees Not Criminals : A message for Suella Braverman.

 

 Suella Braverman is a sick, self-loathing, hateful excuse for a human being.  whose words do not represent me or for most of the United Kingdom  She is a far right fascist who wants to close the country and  scrap the ECHR for us here.

In her speech in Washington  yesterday she said that people don’t deserve asylum “simply for being gay, or a woman, and fearful of discrimination.”  

She is in my opinion  an incompetent dangerous rabid racist who  represents  only a small minority of right-wing bigots. What she said was utterly disgusting in its calculated cruelty. She is making a case deliberately designed to appeal to homophobic, racist arseholes simply to advance her own career. Shameless and barbaric.

Her latest ill-thought out and extreme right-wing idea is to persuade world leaders to rip up the 70-year-old U.N. Refugee Convention and to rewrite ' it to ensure refugee rules are fit for the ‘modern age’. What this is really about of course is the fury of right-wing Tory MPs at the UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, after it ruled that the UK government’s plan to send those who come into the UK illegally to Rwanda or a third country was “incompatible with the letter and spirit” of the convention. 

If the Tory Party can’t get its way, then the self-proclaimed party of law and order wants to do away with treaties and conventions designed to protect human rights, reducing Britain’s standing in the world just so that it can please its reactionary and right-wing base. 

The Refugee Convention is the cornerstone of international refugee protection and remains a life-saving instrument that ensures millions of people fleeing conflict and persecution each year can access safety and protection across borders.

The UN Refugee Convention was agreed in the wake of World War 2 and the Holocaust to guarantee refugee rights. It’s protected people for seven decades. But now Suella Braverman thinks it’s “not fit for purpose” because it’s at odds with the government’s cruel policies.  

This is just another example of this government's dangerous rhetoric. Scapegoating and fearmongering does huge damage to people and our society They at the end of the day want to overturn recognised principles of human decency that we should all be proud of.. But together, we can stand firm in our belief in compassion, and never let powerful forces pedal hate/ We must reject the Home Secretary's dangerous and divisive rhetoric  Threats to tear up international laws designed to protect people  fleeing persecution, incl LGBTQ+ people and women fearing for their lives, undermine our human rights and values we hold dear. must not go unchallenged. 

As the Refugee Council’s Enver Solomon put it: “After the horror of the Second World War, the international community chose to stand up for those principles which are just as important today as they have ever been. Abandoning them is not an option.

The UN has responded to  Braverman's rivers of blood speech by basically  calling her a fascist and saying that the UK's asylum problem is due to her own incompetence and refusal to deal with it. And if multiculturalism has failed how the hell did Braverman get to be be bloody Home Secretary.. 

if a white Home Secretary said what she had  said he/she would have to (quite rightly) resign in disgrace, it was dangerous and toxic and  inflammatory.There's no doubt about it,  Braverman is unfit for office!We need to  focus on creating a functioning UK asylum system that tackles the backlog her policies have created,and to be able to meet the UK's limited refugee responsibilities and .need to keep  calling  out Suella Braverman's dangerous racist, homophobic lies and nonsense

 

UNHCR statement

https://unhcr.org/uk/news/press-releases/unhcr-news-comment-importance-international-refugee-convention

Refugees Not Criminals

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