Rest in Power Benjamin Zephaniah (15 April 1958 – 7 December 2023)

 

Heartbreaking  news."An unequal spread of justice will damage the people and cause pain. Give justice and equality to all."   Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal  Zephaniah the beloved. trailblazing dub poet, vegan anarchist. cultural revolutionary, public intellectual and inspiration to so many. has died age 65 today after being diagnosed with a brain tumour eight weeks ago.  💔. 

A statement shared on his social media profiles reads: “It is with great sadness and regret that we announce the death of our beloved Husband. Son, and Brother in the early hours of this morning (7 December). Benjamin was diagnosed with a brain tumour eight weeks ago.”

The post continued: “Benjamin’s wife was by his side throughout and was with him when he passed. We shared him with the world and we know many will be shocked and saddened by this new. Benjamin was a true pioneer and innovator, he gave the world so much.” 

 “Through an amazing career, including a huge body of poems, literature, music, television, radio, Benjamin leaves us with a joyful and fantastic legacy,” the statement concluded. 

My heart is truly  heavy  with his  loss. I  was fortunate  to  meet  him on  three occasions.  a  man  of  gentleness  and  deep integrity. If there were more people with the integrity of Benjamin Zephaniah, the world would be a much better place.His poetry influenced me enormously, especially his pro-Palestinian, anti-monarchy, radical stance..

Benjamin Zephaniah  one of the UK’s most renowned poets, novelists, playwrights and activists  was born was born in Handsworth, Birmingham on 15 April 1958. The son of Barbadian and Jamaican parents, his dyslexia meant he left school at  the  age  of  14 unable to read or write. This never held him back from his love of poetry and by his mid-teens, he was already well known for his poetry within the local community.

Zephaniah moved to London in his 20s, where he published his first poetry collection ‘Pen Rhythm’ in 1980. Over his life, he went on to publish 14 poetry collections, among  them The Dread Affair: Collected Poems, Rasta Time in Palestine, Too Black, Too Strong and We Are Britain! alongside five novels, a non-fiction biography of Mona Baptiste, five children’s books, seven plays,and in 2018, he released his autobiography The Life And Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah. His poetry was hugely influenced by the music and poetry of Jamaica and what he previously called "street politics".

Alongside his writing work, Zephaniah has recorded extensive music, including seven studio albums. He also acted, most notably as recurring character Jeremiah Jesus in the BBC series ‘Peaky Blinders’. 

Zephaniah broke boundaries with his work,and throughout his life, Zephaniah used his poetic voice for the good of society. He has campaigned extensively for antiracism, animal rights, against homophobia  colonialism.and injustice. And as s a writer, activist he always stood steadfast with the Palestinian people.who had previously expressed his wish to see Palestine’s liberation in his lifetime.Solidarity  was at  the core of  all of  his  work. 

Within Benjamin Zephaniah’s commitment and conviction to social justice came  his refusal of the OBE three years ago.due to its reverence of the British Empire and its cruel history of slavery and racism.  explaining: “Benjamin Zephaniah OBE – no way Mr Blair, no way Mrs Queen. I am profoundly anti-empire.”  

Outside of writing, Zephaniah released seven albums, with his final LP, Revolutionary Minds, arriving in 2017.essential listening for the times we live in, a solid piece of creativity that drives on home messages of hope, liberation, economic and political corruption rampant racism, fascist patriarchy in this world of struggle and desperation. 

His poetry, books and plays have captivated hearts and minds, fuelling imaginations and winning him a legion of fans all over the world.His poems packed a powerful punch for social justice, but always so gently and humorously delivered, they never preached.

Nelson Mandela also requested that he host his Two Nations Concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 1996. Notably, he collaborated with The Wailers in 1982 on the album Rasta, which marked the group’s first release since the death of Bob Marley.

His voice was one of reason and hope when Britain looked to sink below the abyss, as it is now. A unique  and inspired voice for peace, a real  genuine radical  who  will  truly be  missed. An icon whose impact and  legacy will  resonate forever.What a fabulous role model he was in so many ways and all round bloody brilliant person who  freed so  many  with  the power of his  pen. Zeph was a hero on  many levels, loved so dearly by so many of us. Brilliant, blazing, beautiful with  such a glorious mind.  How brutally unfair. He should have had years more. We'll miss you bother. 

"If you didn't have troublemakers, most women wouldn't have the right to vote, a black person wouldn't be talking to a white person & I'd be back in slavery. We need troublemakers to challenge the establishment. I want to be one of those people" 

Rest in Power Benjamin Zephaniah

 

The British Poem  - Benjamin Zephaniah

 

Take some Picts, Celts and Silures

And let them settle,
Then overrun them with Roman conquerors.

Remove the Romans after approximately 400 years
Add lots of Norman French to some
Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Vikings, then stir vigorously.

Mix some hot Chileans, cool Jamaicans, Dominicans,
Trinidadians and Bajans with some Ethiopians, Chinese,
Vietnamese and Sudanese.

Then take a blend of Somalians, Sri Lankans, Nigerians
And Pakistanis,
Combine with some Guyanese
And turn up the heat.

Sprinkle some fresh Indians, Malaysians, Bosnians,
Iraqis and Bangladeshis together with some
Afghans, Spanish, Turkish, Kurdish, Japanese
And Palestinians
Then add to the melting pot.

Leave the ingredients to simmer.

As they mix and blend allow their languages to flourish
Binding them together with English.

Allow time to be cool.

Add some unity, understanding, and respect for the future,
Serve with justice
And enjoy.

Note: All the ingredients are equally important. Treating one ingredient better than another will leave a bitter unpleasant taste.

Warning: An unequal spread of justice will damage the people and cause pain. Give justice and equality to all.

We Refugees - Benjamin  Zephaniah

I come from a musical place
Where they shoot me for my song
And my brother has been tortured
By my brother in my land.

I come from a beautiful place
Where they hate my shade of skin
They don't like the way I pray
And they ban free poetry.

I come from a beautiful place
Where girls cannot go to school
There you are told what to believe
And even young boys must grow beards.

I come from a great old forest
I think it is now a field
And the people I once knew
Are not there now.

We can all be refugees
Nobody is safe,
All it takes is a mad leader
Or no rain to bring forth food,
We can all be refugees
We can all be told to go,
We can be hated by someone
For being someone.

I come from a beautiful place
Where the valley floods each year
And each year the hurricane tells us
That we must keep moving on.

I come from an ancient place
All my family were born there
And I would like to go there
But I really want to live.

I come from a sunny, sandy place
Where tourists go to darken skin
And dealers like to sell guns there
I just can't tell you what's the price.

I am told I have no country now
I am told I am a lie
I am told that modern history books
May forget my name.

We can all be refugees
Sometimes it only takes a day,
Sometimes it only takes a handshake
Or a paper that is signed.
We all came from refugees
Nobody simply just appeared,
Nobody's here without a struggle,
And why should we live in fear
Of the weather or the troubles? 

We all came from somewhere

Revolutionary Minds -  Benjamin Zephaniah

Palestine - Benjamin Zephaniah

Your not not alone this Christmas

'

Christmas can be a happy and joyous time, but it can also be an incredibly sad, lonely and difficult time for  many  of  us,.it could  be your first Christmas, your third Christmas, your tenth Christmas without someone close to you.

Christmas can be a daunting time for many, especially to those of us who are prone to depression. It’s known as 'The Most Wonderful Time of the Year' but for many, myself included, it’s filled with anxiety and depression. 

It's not uncommon for mental illnesses to be exacerbated at this time of year.Christmas can intensify feelings of grief and sadness.During a difficult cost of living crisis, difficult times globally, and anger and dismay at politics, it might feel especially difficult to resist getting lost in our own thoughts and ending up feeling disempowered and unmotivated.

Many experiencing feelings of isolation, financial pressures or increased family conflict that make the season a very stressful time of year For people without a significant other, who don’t have family or who live far from family, the holidays can be especially tough. While longing for company, lonely people may isolate even more, leaving them feeling even worse. At  same time  this  Christmas the scale of injustice and inequality in world  is  clearly in plain sight, 

Lots of  us will not  be full of  Christmas cheer,  some of  us  near the edge of  black holes and will  not  be counting our  blessings. instead feeling  rather  anxious and trying to  find  ways  to cope..In  light  of  all  this. try and  look after your mental health over Christmas  and if  you  are feeling anxious or hopeless  try  not  to  forget that there  are lots of  helplines and chat services to support your mental health over the festive season if you need it..

If there’s one thing you should always keep in mind: it’s OK not to be OK. Mental health struggles impact each and every one of us in different ways. If you're feeling down at Christmas, don’t feel you need to put on a brave face for those around you, or join in with the festive cheer just for the sake of it.  Be honest about how you're feeling, and reach out to someone if you need to. That could be a friend, family member, or a professional counsellor. It’s much better to embrace how you feel rather than ignore it or pretend you’re OK.

I acknowledge too  that NHS mental health services are under increasing “unsustainable pressure” as demand far outstrips the capacity of overstretched services to provide adequate care, with  Health service leaders from the mental health sector  calling on the government to “do more” to alleviate “skyrocketing pressure” on mental health services.

The importance of looking after your wellbeing doesn't stop at Christmas though either. in  the  longer  term. It's crucial that we come together as people who want a livable future to support the values we hold dear and invest in the change we want to see in the world. that  prioritizes people, planet and peace! Lets continue  to  fill  the hearts of humankind with the desire to ensure justice for all..

Please share this for everyone who might be struggling this December. Try and  be  kind  to yourself. . Don't hesitate to reach out to anywhere that can provide a listening ear and a safe space for you to express your emotions..You are not alone. Please  don't  suffer in silence. 

So Long to Legendary Singer Songwriter Shane Macgowan

Devastating news Shane Macgowan, the legendary singer-songwriter and frontman of brilliant"Celtic Punk" band The Pogues, died this  morning, his family said. He was 65.although many would have been forgiven for wondering how he made it that far. I was still shocked and utterly saddened though.I really  loved his music and songwriting and it has meant a lot to me over the years,

His wife Victoria Mary Clarke broke the news today (30th November), sharing a post on Instagram, which read: "I don’t know how to say this so I am just going to say it. Shane who will always be the light that I hold before me and the measure of my dreams and the love ❤️ of my life and the most beautiful soul and beautiful angel and the sun and the moon and the start and end of everything that I hold dear has gone to be with Jesus and Mary and his beautiful mother Therese. I am blessed beyond words to have met him and to have loved him and to have been so endlessly and unconditionally loved by him and to have had so many years of life and love ❤️ and joy and fun and laughter and so many adventures. There’s no way to describe the loss that I am feeling and the longing for just one more of his smiles that lit up my world. Thank you thank you thank you thank you for your presence in this world you made it so very bright and you gave so much joy to so many people with your heart and soul and your musicYou will live in my heart forever. Rave on in the garden all wet with rain that you loved so much ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ You meant the world to me.. "https://www.instagram.com/p/C0RN60nstwc/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=67b6de40-1339-40fe-bf04-c634d6d06d25 The singer died peacefully with his family by his side.

Tributes  have  since  flooded  in with celebrities and public figures taking to social media to pay their condolences. 

Irish President Michael D Higgins described his “great sadness” at hearing of Shane MacGowan’s death. “Shane will be remembered as one of music’s greatest lyricists,” he said. “So many of his songs would be perfectly crafted poems, if that would not have deprived us of the opportunity to hear him sing them.” 

Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald said MacGowan told “the Irish story” like no other.  “Shane was a poet, a dreamer and a champion of social justice. He was a dedicated Republican and a proud Irishman.  “Nobody told the Irish story like Shane – stories of emigration, heartache, dislocation, redemption, love and joy. 

Musician Nick Cave called him “a true friend and the greatest songwriter of his generation.”

Shane Patrick Lysaght MacGowan was actually born in Pembury Kent on Christmas Day 1957 to Irish parents and was raised in Tipperary, Ireland,  from  the  age of six  before the family moved back to London. Ireland remained the lifelong center of his imagination and his yearning. He grew up steeped in Irish music absorbed from family and neighbors, along with the sounds of rock, Motown, reggae and jazz. He claimed that as a five year-old he was given two bottles of Guinness a night.

The young MacGowan was noted for his literary gifts and received a scholarship to  the elite Westminster School in London, but  was expelled after being caught in possession of drugs.and spent time in a psychiatric hospital after a breakdown in his teens. MacGowan embraced the punk scene that exploded in Britain in the mid-1970s. In 1970s London, he became a well-known face on the punk scene.Aged 18, he graced the cover of the local papers after his ear was bloodied during a concert by the Clash. and soon found a role as frontman for the band The Nipple Erectors, later rebranded as The Nips. performing under the name Shane O'Hooligan,.

After the original line-up of The Nips broke up in 1980, Macgowan formed Pogue Mahone, fusing fused punk's furious energy with traditional Irish melodies and instruments including banjo, tin whistle and accordion. They  were  named named after the Irish Gaelic phrase "póg mo thóin" ("kiss my arse")  

The singer changed his early punk style for a more traditional sound when founding The Pogues in 1982, drawing upon his Irish heritage. The new group, then known as Pogue Mahone, played their first gig at The Pindar of Wakefield on October 4, 1982. Many of the Celtic punk band's songs are influenced by Irish nationalism, Irish history, the experiences of the Irish diaspora (particularly in England and the United States), and London life in general.

They drew the attention of the media and Stiff Records when they opened for The Clash on their 1984 tour.The Pogues debut  album, "Red Roses for Me," was released in 1984 and featured raucous versions of Irish folk songs alongside originals including "Boys from the County Hell," "Dark Streets of London" and "Streams of Whisky."  MacGowan wrote many of the songs on the next two albums, "Rum, Sodomy and the Lash" (1985) and "If I Should Fall from Grace with God" (1988), ranging from rollicking rousers like the latter album's title track to ballads like "A Pair of Brown Eyes" and "The Broad Majestic Shannon."

The band also released a 1986 EP, "Poguetry in Motion," which contained two of MacGowan's finest songs, "A Rainy Night in Soho" and "The Body of an American." The latter featured prominently in early-2000s TV series "The Wire," sung at the wakes of Baltimore police officers.  "I wanted to make pure music that could be from any time, to make time irrelevant, to make generations and decades irrelevant," he recalled in his memoir.

But it was The Pogues collaboration with Kirsty MacColl at Christmas that year that gave them eternal fame.  "Fairytale of New York" a bittersweet Christmas classic that opens with the decidedly unfestive words: "It was Christmas Eve, babe, in the drunk tank." 

The Pogues reinvigorated folk music in the early 80s and their success came in the midst of "The Troubles" sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland and as an upstart punk group, The Pogues had a distinctly political edge. Their 1988 song "Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six" recounted the plight of six Irishmen wrongly imprisoned for deadly bombings at two pubs in the central English city.  The Irish Republican Army (IRA) were widely suspected of perpetrating the 1974 attack that killed 21 and left scores more injured.  "They're still doing time/For being Irish in the wrong place/And at the wrong time," MacGowan sang.  The tune fell foul of a UK government ban that covered the broadcast of the voices of pro-Irish republican paramilitaries and their political representatives. However the band was vindicated in 1991 when all six men saw their convictions quashed on appeal, in what remains one of Britain's worst miscarriages of justice.

Their legendary bacchanalian antics, on and off stage, were as much a part of the band’s philosophy as the music. As MacGowan told Melody Maker in 1991, “The most important thing to remember about drunks is that drunks are far more intelligent than non-drunks. They spend a lot of time talking in pubs, unlike workaholics who concentrate on their careers and ambitions, who never develop their higher spiritual values, who never explore the insides of their head like a drunk does.”

The Pogues were briefly on top of the world, with sold-out tours,I was blessed to  see some fiery  performance  by  them  back  in  the  day. but the band's output and appearances grew more erratic, due in part to MacGowan's struggles with alcohol and drugs. He was fired by the other band members in 1991.In 2004, MacGowan said he "was glad to get out alive". 

In 2016, MacGowan's wife Victoria reported he was finally sober, if a shadow of his former self, and even had his trademark rotten teeth restored.  The dentist responsible, Darragh Mulrooney, gave the singer 28 teeth on a titanium frame in a procedure that took nine hours and was dubbed "the Everest of dentistry".

As lead singer of The Pogues and as a solo artist, Shane MacGowan was s a defining figure of modern Irish music. Among the greatest songwriters of his generation, he infused traditional Irish folk with the spirit of punk and a bleary-eyed romanticism to create a compelling and unique intoxicating musical brew,.sometimes sad, sometimes wonderful, and often soaked in a mixture of alcohol and genius. MacGowan became as famous for his sozzled, slurred performances as for his powerful songwriting.  His songs blended the scabrous and the sentimental, ranging from carousing anthems to defiant ballads  of  the  downtrodden and the  doomed to unexpectedly tender love songs. A man of great talent and humanity as well as being a wild, creative and  talented maverick. .

"It never occurred to me that you could play Irish music to a rock audience," MacGowan recalled in "A Drink with Shane MacGowan," a 2001 memoir co-authored with Clarke. "Then it finally clicked. Start a London Irish band playing Irish music with a rock and roll beat. The original idea was just to rock up old ones but then I started writing."  

He continued performing with a new group as Shane MacGowan and The Popes, before reuniting with The Pogues in 2001 for a series of concerts and tours.He also enjoyed a minor career as an actor, appearing in the films Straight To Hell and Eat The Rich..However his public reputation remained sealed as a heavy-drinking, drug-using rebel.

MacGowan had years of health problems and used a wheelchair after breaking his pelvis a decade ago.In 2016, MacGowan's wife Victoria reported he was finally sober, if a shadow of his former self, and even had his trademark  broken rotten teeth restored.  The dentist responsible, Darragh Mulrooney, gave the singer 28 teeth on a titanium frame in a procedure that took nine hours and was dubbed "the Everest of dentistry".

MacGowan received a lifetime achievement award from Irish President Michael D. Higgins on his 60th birthday. The occasion was marked with with performers including Bono, Nick Cave, Sinead O'Connor and Johnny Depp.

The musician was hospitalised in Dublin in December 2022 with encephalitis - a condition in which the brain becomes inflamed and often needs urgent treatment - and taken into intensive care again in July 2023, but had returned home shortly before his death. Shane MacGowan would have celebrated his 66th birthday this Christmas Day.

Thank  you Shane for  your  songs  maestro, your  genius and  sensitivity, I''ve been  playing  your  fine timeless  records  today and long I hope  will  continue to  do  so and  have  been  raising  a  few glasses  in  your  honour. The  likes  of  you  we  will  not  see  again. My deepest sympathies go  out  to  your  wife and family.  Taisteal go maith dul milis / Travel  well  go  gentle.. Rest in Peace.

The Pogues live at the Town and Country Club London '88

The Pogues - Misty Morning Albert Bridge

Shane MacGowan and the Popes - Church of the Holy Spook

International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People 2023

Today  is International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People; a platform and a poignant reminder of the ongoing Palestinian struggle for human rights, peace and self-determination.Called for originally in 1977 by the UN General Assembly as a commemoration of the day the UN adopted the resolution on the partition of Palestine in 1947. 

“The resolution on the observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People also encourages Member States to continue to give the widest support and publicity to the observance of the Day of Solidarity." UN official statement reads. 

The day reaffirms solidarity with the steadfast people of Palestine and helps keeping the Palestinian cause live and present in the international events and the global conscience,

The UN has organised an exhibit to commemorate the Palestinian Nakba  a deeply traumatic event which took place during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war  https://www.un.org/en/observances/international-day-of-solidarity-with-the-palestinian-people

During this time more than half of the Palestinian people were expelled from, or fled their homes and became refugees. The Nakba, which means “catastrophe" in Arabic, refers to the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Before the Nakba, Palestine was a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society.

However, the conflict between Arabs and Jews intensified in the 1930s with the increase of Jewish immigration, driven by persecution in Europe, and with the Zionist movement aiming to establish a Jewish state in Palestine.  As early as December 1948, the UN General Assembly called for refugee return, property restitution and compensation.and has also  said that the Nakba serves as a reminder that close to 6 million Palestinians remain refugees to this day, scattered throughout the region. 

Now, 76 years after partition, Israel has violated international law despite countless UN resolutions relating to Palestine, and has slowly attempted to occupy all of Palestinian land while the rights of the Palestinian peoples continue to be denied.

Today, Israel is also waging one of the most violent wars on Palestine in decades,with the aim to ‘eliminate’ Hamas. Israel announced war against Hamas after it launched an attack on Israel on October 7 and killed about 1,200 people. In retaliation Israel has killed at least 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza , the vast majority being women and children. and tens of thousands injured, while homes, schools, hospitals and basic infrastructure across Gaza have been flattened..unprecedented brutal aggression, in which humanity has been slaughtered every day for more than fifty-four days.

The 2.1 million residents of Gaza. a tiny enclave wedged between Egypt, Israel and the Mediterranean Sea . have previously suffered through four previous wars, and this fifth one is the most devastating yet. The grim death count continues to grow. The UN has strongly condemned the killing of civilians and has repeatedly called for "an immediate humanitarian ceasefire" in the densely populated enclave.  According to UNICEF, people under the age of 18 — which the organisation classifies as children — make up almost half of the Palestinian population in Gaza.  "Gaza is becoming a graveyard for children," UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres has said. 

Τhe massacre in Palestine, the brutal and unacceptable bombing of the hospitals, the killing of a child every 10 minutes, are crimes which are committed with the provocative tolerance and support that Israel receives from the USA, the Uk the European Union and the rest of their allies. 

The root cause of this situation is the occupation and illegal settlement of the occupied Palestinian territories by Israel and the continuous, daily crimes and the blockades of Gaza that have been committed against the Palestinian people for decades.

The massacre of Gazans, as well as their steadfast resistance to occupation, has generated a global movement in solidarity with Palestine,with millions around the world  organising to show they reject this mass murder and challenge the complicity of our governments and institutions in the Israeli war machine and the apartheid regime which powers it. and is on many fronts is trying to end worldwide support by politicians and corporations for Israel, especially in the West.

Although the circumstances of Palestinians have changed over the years, their core demands for liberation and return – and the need for resistance and solidarity to achieve this – have not.The tenacity of Palestinians in struggling for their most basic of rights, and the continued solidarity of people across the world in response, offer a ray of hope that neither alarming rightward drift of Israeli politics nor the bleak geopolitical landscape can diminish. The ongoing challenge for Palestinians, and those engaged in their struggle, this 29 November, is to translate this sentiment of hope into tangible structures capable of moving towards a different political reality. Today and everyday  lets  re-affirm our solidarity with all Palestinians in historic Palestine and their right to self-determination' with Palestinian political prisoners (women, men and children) in Apartheid Israel's jails, and with the millions of refugees struggling to make their legally guaranteed right of Return a reality.

This Wednesday November 29, groups around the world will hold actions in solidarity with the Palestinian people, Now, more than ever, we should be standing in solidarity and allyship with the Palestinian community to support them in their enduring fight for freedom and justice.

In Britain, the Palestinian Youth Movement and the Youth Front for Palestine are organizing shut downs of Fisher German offices across the country. Fisher German is the landlord for the Shenstone and UAV Engines’ factory site, which they rent to Elbit Systems, an Israel-based weapons company which is supplying weapons for the genocide in Gaza. “The weapons manufactured on Fisher German’s premises are the very same weapons being used to carry out the zionist genocide against our siblings in Gaza,” state the organizers.https://www.instagram.com/p/C0LhUfzgF7f/

We must \also urgently advocate for the extended pause in  the conflict  in  Gaza to evolve into a sustained ceasefire, a crucial step towards a just and lasting solution to the conflict. The four-day long humanitarian pause, extended for two days just hours before hostilities were due to resume, has seen more than 60 hostages freed who were taken to Gaza after Hamas’ 7 October attack, and more than 150 Palestinian prisoners freed from detention in Israel. The pause is set to expire tomorrow, amid reports of mediators negotiating a further extension. Now, among widespread fears for the people of Gaza that this pause will only be brief, a sustained humanitarian ceasefire is the only option to end bloodshed. 

In drawing attention to the struggle of the Palestinian people we cannot but remember the firm stand that the United Nations took against racism, against the evil of Apartheid and supported the liberation struggle of the people of South Africa. 

At the time his people were liberated, the celebrated leader of the liberation struggle for South Africa Nelson Mandela made a profound statement, which resonates around the world to this day.  He said: “For many years the United Nations stood firm against racism. Because of that a worldwide consensus was built against this unfair system. We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” 

Today on International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People wherever you are in the world you can activate your solidarity by joining and sharing existing campaigns that can put an end to Israel;s impunity. Apartheid is still a crime against humanity. 

The international community must take serious and decisive action to stop the grave Israeli violations against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the entire occupied Palestinian territory and work on lifting the injustice and suffering of the Palestinian people. From the rivers to the sea, Free Palestine!

Pulsating Forces

Beyond the pain and sorrow

Let our hearts keep beating,

Seizing sources of hope

Allow your soul to awake,

Inhaling  the breath of poets

Whether they be living or dead,

Destroy the days of dread

Feelings of madness in head,

Remember the revolution 

Only survives if we are one,

Away from the killing fields

The daily horrors endured,

In gentle ripples of anger

Allow faith to be restored,

Laced together with humanity

Quiet rivers running free,

Shivas breath reaching

Allah's truth teaching,

As a silent god keeps glancing

Gleaming through the windows,

While the pipes of pan soothing

Softly whistles through the trees,

And the thirst of the universal  

Gasping, reaches upwards to the sky,

Epiphanies of love keep delivering

In essences of truth and justice,

Tear away fatuous fibres of division

Let all things be bright and beautiful,

Comprehending the extremes,

Finding brand new beginnings,

Remembering existence is resistance 

Silence can make us complicit,

With every second, every minute

Every hour, of every day,

In every act of survival

Keep absorbing your truth.

'Don't be a Sucker' Anti-Fascist film from 1947

In 1943, the Army Signal Corps produced Don’t Be A Sucker. Containing anti-racist and anti-fascist themes. this short 17-minute film was intended to boost the morale of U.S. soldiers by helping them understand the dangerous appeal of fascism. Four years later, the U. S. War Department shared the film with the general public, hoping to explain the ways that fascism might take root in the United States.

Created as a warning against creeping fascism and racism in the United States, the movie illustrates the divide-and-conquer method employed by German Nazis. 

The movie begins by profiling a young man named Mike who has just arrived in the big city. Noticing a crowd of people gathered around an angry middle-aged man standing on a soapbox, Mike stops to listen to the man’s speech. 

 “I happen to know the facts. Now, friends, I am just an average American. But I’m an American American. And some of the things I see in this country of ours make my blood boil. I see people with foreign accents with all the money. I see Negroes holding jobs that belong to me and you. Now I ask you, if we allow this thing to go on, what’s going to become of us real Americans?”  “What are we real Americans going to do about it? You’ll find it right here in this little pamphlet. The truth about Negroes and foreigners. The truth about the Catholic church.”  

Mike follows along with the speech, nodding his head with each rhetorical beat, saying “it makes pretty good sense to me.” But the speaker continues to rant.  “I tell you friends, we’ll never be able to call this country our own until it is a country without… Without Negroes and foreigners. Without Catholics. Without Freemasons.”  

At this point, Mike hesitates. “What’s wrong with Masons? I’m a Mason.” 

The rest of the film dissects the speaker’s arguments, discussing the history of fascism, the need to preserve the rights of the minority, and the value of liberty.

In August 2017, the short film went viral on the internet in the aftermath of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and various copies have been uploaded to video-sharing sites since then

This film is not propaganda. To the contrary, it teaches how to recognize and reject propaganda, as was used by the Nazis to promote  bigotry and intimidation. It shows how prejudice can be used to divide the population to gain power, and attacked racial and nationalist stereotypes, stressing human features that united rather than divided different peoples..

Though  this video is over 75 years old, the cautionary tale is more important than ever and feels strangely timely today, serving  as a prescient warning. for us here  in the UK,  and perfectly explains Nigel Farage, Suella Braverman, Tommy Robinson and the right wing  mentality. Please Don't Be a Sucker: don't fall for fascism ·

Remembering the life of Jewish British writer, poet and political activist Anna Mendelssohn (1948 – 16 November 2009)

 

Anna Mendelssohn, was a Jewish  British writer, poet and political activist.whose poetry has also appeared under the names Anne Mendelson and Grace Lake, who was born near Manchester in 1948. Anna also wrote fiction, drama, and life writing; and was also a visual artist, musician, and translator. 

She came from a left-wing political family,amd  was the daughter of Maurice Mendleson, a market trader from Stockport in Cheshire. According to Peter Riley, writing in The Guardian, her father was from a "working class Jewish" background,who fought on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, and was a Labour councillor in Stockport.Her mother had worked with Holocaust survivors and  was an activist with Manchester International Women for Peace. Both were involved with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. 

Anna was educated at Stockport High School for Girls, where she became Head Girl. She was reported to have been a "brilliant and unruly pupil". Mendelssohn was the first of her family to attend university when she enrolled at the recently opened University of Essex in 1967 reading English and American literature,.There she encountered radical poets such as Tom Raworth and Ed Dorn, who reportedly led a party of students, including Mendelssohn, to Paris during the May 1968 protests. That same month, Essex students shut down the campus to protest a visiting lecture from chemical defense scientist Thomas Inch, who worked at Porton Down, the world’s oldest chemical weapons research facility. Mendelssohn appears in footage of the occupation included in British Sounds (1969), a film that London Weekend Television commissioned from Jean-Luc Godard but then refused to screen because of female nudity. She left  without a degree in 1969.

She spent the following year in  Turkey teaching English  and  French and translating  1930's Turkish  poetry,  surrealistand  social  realist. Then Anna worked for dispossessed groups in London in 1970 such  as the Claimants’ Union and working  for  the  underground press, at the  same timeshe moved into a house in Stoke Newington with a mixed group of activists. They were aligned with an urban guerrilla movement called The Angry Brigade a small, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist left-wing group who took aim at various representatives of the ruling class or establishment..They were more moderate than some of their European counterparts, such as the Red Army Faction76. Their actions were organised according to the tenet that ‘we attack property not people’. No-one was killed or badly injured by Angry Brigade actions whose small, purely symbolic bombs were planted at different locations: embassies, politicians’ residences and a BBC van at a Miss World beauty pageant. 

The Angry Brigade’s high-profile bombing in 1971 of the house of Robert Carr, the Conservative Minister responsible for the Industrial Relations Bill, precipitated a large-scale police investigation into British counterculture. Over the next year the police raided up to forty organisations including the offices of the International Times, the International Marxist Group and the International Socialists. Communes and squats were also raided. According to the radical newsletter Conspiracy Notes, a partisan and therefore not wholly reliable source, the police confiscated private address books, diaries and letters, and detained scores’ of activists for questioning. In order to cope with the scale of the operation, the Bomb Squad was formed, the original counter-terrorist policing force in Britain. After following a paper trail of cheque fraud and various tip-offs, on the 20th August 1971 Anna Mendelson (then going by the name of Nancy Pye) was arrested along with Jim Greenfield, Hilary Creek and John Barker at 359 Amhurst Road, Stoke Newington, London.

In the days and months that followed, a further four (Kate McLean, Stuart Christie, Angela Weir and Chris Bott) were arrested on the same charge - conspiracy to cause explosions. Together, they became known as the Stoke Newington Eight.

Along with John Barker and Hilary Creek, Anna courageously defended herself at the Old Bailey/ Though she pleaded innocent in what was then the longest criminal trial in British history. Mendelssohn was convicted and sentenced to ten years tin London;s notorious  Holloway Women's Prison.She always maintained that this was a gross miscarriage of justice.(a position she defended throughout her life) Her impassioned and eloquent self-defence at the Old Bailey is still remembered with pride by her then comrades.

It seems clear that the police planted incriminating evidence, with one of the defendants saying afterwards “they framed a guilty man”. Angry Brigade bombings took place after the trial.

Anna was quietly released on parole in November 1976, just four years after the end of the trial, partly as a consequence of her teaching her fellow inmates literacy and drama. The news was not disclosed by the Home Office until 13 February 1977, causing a storm of press coverage which one reporter described as "scandalous and distasteful".The issue was raised in Parliament with Home Secretary, Merlyn Rees, saying that Anna was no longer a danger to society; William Whitelaw criticised the decision and asserted that protection of the public and police morale came first.

Anna moved to Cambridge to live with friends as a condition of her parole, and remained a Cambridge resident for the rest of her life. Her father gave an interview to BBC Radio explaining that prison had had a terrible effect on her, making it impossible for her to concentrate. He also said that she had taken no part in the bombings and that she and the other defendants were "good young people" who tried to help others.

After her release,In 1983 she changed her name by deed poll to 'Grace Lake' (Sylvia Grace Louise Lake) to  avoid  exposure to  her  past  and published much of her poetry under that name. Anna subsequently withdrew from political groups and devoted herself entirely to art and writing. She spent some time in Sheffield, where she started a family and had three children. Anna moved to Cambridge in about 1985, studying poetry at St Edmund's College, Cambridge,She became opposed to technology and disliked judgments based on rationality in favour of those based on an artistic judgment, which led to her life becoming increasingly disconnected from the rest of society.

Such a lifestyle meant she was not greatly interested in seeing her poetry published, but others thought that her work deserved a larger audience. From the early 1980s, Anna composed nineteen poetry collections and published in journals receptive to her experimental, charged lyrics, among them, Parataxis, Critical Quarterly, and Jacket. Her work appeared in seminal anthologies including Denise Riley's Poets on Writing (1992), Iain Sinclair's Conductors of Chaos (1996), and Rod Mengham and John Kinsella's Vanishing Points: New Modernist Poems (2004).

Often situated within the British Poetry Revival, Anna retained a marginal, if constant, presence in the poetry community in Cambridge, England, where she lived from 1983 until her death in 2009.

Anna's poetry is bound up with her prison experience, the poverty that came with release and her severe ill health.

In 1988, struggling to cope with the demands of single parenthood and simultaneous academic study, she gave permission for her children to be temporarily fostered. They were never returned to her care. The following year, she sabotaged her finals exams, writing out a screed on the university’s childcare provision, and once more failed to graduate.. 

Like her life, Anna's poems are shaped by modes of refusal. Her texts often hover on the edges of communicability, yet testify to a consistent belief in the transformative power of aesthetic form;.

Labelled surrealist and ludic, Anna's poems draw thematically and stylistically on an expansive lineage that encompasses an international array of post-1850 avant-garde figures such as Charles Baudelaire, Gertrude Stein, Anna Ahkmatova, Nâzim Hikmet, Federico García Lorca, and Tom Raworth. 

Closely attuned to the fraught legacy of the female vanguard writer, as well as to disparities of class and race, her poems are impassioned, acute, probing, allusive, and unparalleled. Part aesthetic treatise ("a poem is not going to give precise directions"); part antipolitical manifesto ("the war is too close / for revolution to be understood"); part lament ("softly the sound of woe / gallops"); part celebration of the possibilities of poetic noise and possibility, replete with "scoopydoo sounds", "night[s of] pouring gold", and "high walk[s] into fantasy", 

Anna's writing resolutely resists containment or category and become her form of resistance to state power, patriarchy and middle-class feminism. Grammar and punctuation are often unconventional in the poems and the absence of linear narratives or arguments make them difficult to paraphrase. Her voice, though, is loud and clear. It is indomitable, restless and fierce, with sardonic one-liners and cryptic allusions counterpoised by a tenderness and a solipsism that protect the rage from self-destruction:  “crowds / locked invisibly leading their largely miserable lives /in stiff cultural patterning”.

 A poem beginning “This is the reason why I do not conform” refers to “people without minds”.The language twists and turns, “goes forwards by backwards” as she says, and barely conceals feelings of fear, hurt and trauma. The reader will often be uncertain of what is being said, confused even, and political concerns are more often on the periphery than openly stated: 

Politics destroy art. / That is to not to say that / my art is not political, it is / highly political, but it is not /politics. 

She had no time for predatory males, whatever their ideological leanings, and was able to use the word ‘gentleman’ without sarcasm.  Well-heeled women who spout feminist notions but at no personal cost earn only her derision.  

 In 1997 she officially reverted to her original name of Anne Mendleson but called herself 'Anna Mendelssohn', the name under which she published her principal work, 'Implacable Art', and  used for most of the remaining years of her life

Mendelssohn collapsed in February 2009, and was subsequently diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour on her cerebellum. As the tumour developed, she became incapacitated by it and dependent on hospital care, being almost unconscious for the last two weeks before her death on  the 16th of November 2009 at  the age of 61.

She left behind nearly 800 notebooks and thousands of loose sheets, among them, coffee filters, napkins, and pizza box linings, on which she inscribed everyday musings, research, poetry, and visual art. Taken together, undated loose-leaf pages such as Untitled (“The world of poetry inhabits and moves in a world of its own”) and Untitled (“my eroticism is stirred by paint”) reveal the complexity of her poetic style and interior life.

In 2010, her vast archive of writings and drawings was generously donated by her three children to Special Collections at the University of Sussex.

An anthology of writing that celebrated Anna Mendelssohn.  “I’m working here” by Anna Mendelssohn is published by Shearsman Books in 2022. Anna Mendelssohn  is increasingly acknowledged as one of the most important poets of her time.

Magnitude of Fear

In times of darkness

Tears rolling down cheeks,

The screams of children

Created by genocidal intent,

Rage difficult to compress

Mind and hearts broken,

Grief shattering lives

Justice buried and denied,

Morality dissipated

Destruction released,

Ignorance leading the blind

As humanity is besmirched,

A land soaked in blood

It''s people clothed with anxiety,

Sadness overflowing

Caused by hellish terror,

Feelings of death

Hang' upon the air,

Beyond our anger

Our collective pain,

Energy sapped

Emotions stirred,

Spirits drained 

Fury unbridled,

Rustling leaves

Clutter skies,

Beseeching the grey

In emerging light, 

Where souls shift

Towards peace.

Suella Braverman Does Not Speak For Me

 

The longer Israeli genocide goes on, the louder we must continue to call it out and stand in solidarity with Palestine. Ignore Nazis like  Suella Braverman. Together we can end the suffering of countless civilians. So many lives depend on us.

The Home Secretary has written a shocking article in the Times and accused police of “double standards” and “playing favourites” with protesters as a pro-Palestine march on Armistice Day looks set to go ahead in London.  She said: “I do not believe that these marches are merely a cry for help for Gaza.  “They are an assertion of primacy by certain groups — particularly Islamists — of the kind we are more used to seeing in Northern Ireland. Also disturbingly reminiscent of Ulster are the reports that some of Saturday’s march group organisers have links to terrorist groups, including Hamas.”

It's the latest in a long line of behaviour that seems more focused on grabbing headlines, than actually helping people up and down the country. Braverman is out of control, she could not care less about public safety. She's completely driven by her own agenda and ambition, but where is the PM. did he sign off on this inflammatory rhetoric. Why is he too weak to sack her? . 

Braverman  is an utterly irresponsible, dangerous racist, vile, poisonous, deranged  and the most  useless Home Secretary this country has ever seen, attacking the police, smearing  pro palestinian protestors and inflaming tensions in Northern Ireland. Not to mention her complete inhumanity by saying homelessness is a lifestyle choice or her nasty anti-immigrant, anti-refugee dog whistling rhetoric.

She is absolutely repugnant. A soulless far right wing fanatic.Many remember Enoch Powells “rivers of blood” speech and the trouble and division it caused. Braverman  seems intent on doing exactly the same stirring up the far right groups and individuals not just in her own party but across the country.

A Home Secretary is supposed to be responsible for the nation's security and wellbeing. Sadly, this vile UK incumbent instead is a shameless enabler of hate and division who has no place in UK political life.There is a vicious aspect to this person which also does not belong in society and needs locking up. 

She does not speak for me. Every day that she remains in post is another day of shame for this decaying government and spineless prime minister Surely for the sake of security and to prevent further damage she needs to be removed from office? Now.

Enough is enough. Please sign the following petition to sack Suella :-

https://act.38degrees.org.uk/act/sack-suella-braverman?bucket=twitter-tweet-2023-11-09_&utm_campaign=2023-11-09_&utm_medium=tweet&utm_source=twitter

King's Speech 2023

 

Panto season has started early this year. an unelected parasitic, nonce-protecting  King with 23 luxury residences including multiple palaces sits on a gold throne  and reads out a list a measures  from a unelected Prime Minister of a corrupt party on what they will do to continue supporting fascism, inequality,unaccountable power. while depriving the British people of their liberties, targeting the right to strike and protest. and destroying the planet. that will do nothing for the poor, the hungry or the homeless.  It will never be not ridiculous that this guy sits there  while wearing enough jewellery to make a large dent in solving health inequalities would they be sold .talking about the cost of living crisis for the rest of us. His crown travels in a separate car by the way. Utterly grotesque. Can this antiquated, antediluvian  ritual of Kings Speech truly represent UK  2023.  Anyone still believe  we are living in a Democracy?

Ahead of the speech, anti-monarchy protesters gathered outside parliament with placards which read: "Not my king!". They could be heard booing the King as he left parliament for Buckingham Palace once he had delivered the speech. Campaign group Republic organised the anti-monarchy protest outside Westminster,  Around 500 people turned up for the protest and a statement on Republic’s Twitter/X account said: “We’ve just told Charles that he’s not our King at the State Opening of Parliament!  “500 republicans have today turned up to protest for democracy and the right to elect our head of state – thank you all for the amazing support.” Writing on Twitter/X, Republic CEO Graham Smith pointed out that the BBC had made no mention of the boos on its live blog.

The Kings Speech was an opportunity to set out a vision for the future: to bring down energy bills, cut emissions and restore nature. Nothing was said in the Kings Speech today about the severe hardship millions of families are facing.the cost of living crisis, energy costs  NHS Crisis. poverty. Despite the emphasis on crime, there was no mention of the recent pro-Palestinian protests that have been taking place across the UK, and which Ms Braverman has described as "hate marches".  Her controversial plans to restrict the use of tents for people who are homeless were also not raised by the King.The government is also continuing its attack on freedom of speech and expression through the Economic Activity of Public Bodies Bill.  Uniquely shielding Israel from criticism amid allegations of war crimes in Gaza is deeply concerning. It is also clear mental health is not a priority for this Government. No mention of the Mental Health Act being reformed. To name just a few of the current serious  issues. No investment, no help, and nothing was said about how the UK government plans to fix this.  It’s not right that families are having to turn to food banks.. 

The King's Speech just served as a vehicle for Rishi Sunak to further his desperate pursuit of short-term political point scoring, at the expense of the public,The most vulnerable in society failed yet again. This is what Charles should have been said today," My government is full of crap, has run out of ideas, and lacks integrity, professionalism and accountability. A general election is what the people want and what the country needs.;" Hang on though where's the bloody opposition, The country;s  fucked. .It's time to fight back and continue to question the relevance of the monarchy.