As Hunger Striker Abu Hawwash Wins His Battle for Freedom: From Kurdistan to Palestine to Great Britain, Hunger Strikes Still Matter

 

Palestinian prisoner Hisham Abu Hawwash, who has been on an open-ended hunger strike for 141 consecutive days, has suspended his strike after an agreement was reached on his release from Israeli captivity, according to official Palestinian sources.
The Palestinian Authority (PA)'s Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs said in a statement that Abu Hawwash, who had been on his 141st day of hunger strike in protest against his detention without charge, ended the strike on Tuesday following an agreement under which he would be freed on February 26.
"The agreement stipulates the release of Abu Hawwash on February 26 without any extension, as well as the termination of his treatment in Israeli hospitals until his release," the statement underlined.
The Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS)'s attorney, Jawad Boulos, also confirmed that an agreement had been reached and the 40-year-old Palestinian inmate had terminated his open-ended hunger strike after 141 days in a row.
Palestinians have protested across the occupied West Bank and Gaza in support of Abu Hawwash and the Islamic Jihad resistance movement had threatened to target Tel Aviv if he died in Israeli jails.
Most recently, the 40 year-old political prisoner has recently suffered with a decreased level of consciousness, severe weakness, and a potentially fatal potassium deficiency.
Abdul-Latif Qanu, the spokesman for the Palestinian resistance movement of Hamas, praised the prospective release of the hunger-striking inmate and said, "A new victory is recorded by the prisoner Hisham Abu Hawwash, to confirm once again the ability of our Palestinian people and their valiant captives to win every battle they are waging with the occupation."
He added, "Abu Hawwash's victory over the Zionist regime is an extension of the steadfastness of our Palestinian people in the face of the Zionist occupation."
The rights advocacy group Palestinian Prisoners Club hailed Abu Hawwash’s resistance as a "victory" and said celebrations were held in the southern West Bank city of al-Khalil (Hebron) and his birth place after the announcement.
"The battle of Abu Hawwash brought the issue of the captive movement, specifically the issue of administrative detentions, to the fore, despite all the challenges that he and his comrades who preceded him on strike recently faced," Prisoners Club said in a statement, referring to an Israeli policy of detention without charge.
"Abu Hawwash's victory comes as a complement to previous victories achieved by others in the face of the arbitrary policy of administrative detention."
The Palestinian Commission of Detainees' and Ex-Detainees' Affairs warned earlier in the day that 50 Palestinian prisoners were set to begin an open hunger strike on Tuesday night in solidarity with Abu Hawwash. The commission added that the prisoners of the Islamic Jihad resistance movement in Israeli jails would be leading the strike.
Palestinian resistance groups had over the past weeks warned against the deteriorating condition of Abu Hawwash's health and pressured the Tel Aviv regime to release the Palestinian hunger-striking inmate.
Abu Hawwash, a father of five children, who had been held since October 2020 but, under the draconian administrative detention order, had not been charged and had not gone on trial.

Under Israel’s administrative detention orders, which are mainly used against Palestinians, prisoners can be held indefinitely without knowing what they are accused of, with evidence even withheld from their lawyers.and held in an Israeli jail without charge.
More than 7,000 Palestinians are reportedly held in Israeli jails. Over 540 of these inmates have apparently been held without charge, with some of them staying in jail for up to 11 years according to human rights groups. .
Israeli jail authorities keep Palestinian prisoners under deplorable conditions lacking proper hygienic standards. The inmates have also been subjected to systematic torture, harassment, and repression.
Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes in an attempt to express their outrage at the practice.

Ever since Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza in 1967, Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails have resorted to hunger strikes as a form of protest to win collective or individual rights.Since then, there have been many more mass and group hunger strikes. Prisoners have demanded improved conditions, to be allowed family visits, or an end to solitary confinement.

Hunger strikes are a form of resistance that has long been understood as a weapon of last resort by the powerless and disenfranchised. designed to provoke feelings of guilt in others, especially those in positions of authority. Most hunger strikers involve either a time-limited symbolic refusal of food, or – in more extreme cases – a prolonged fast, limiting themselves to a liquid diet.

Over the first three days without food, the body uses up its store of glucose for energy. Then, the liver starts processing body fat, and the body enters “ketosis”, producing ketones to use as fuel.

Once the fat store is exhausted, the body enters “starvation mode” and starts harvesting muscles and vital organs for energy. At this stage, the loss of bone marrow becomes life-threatening. Hunger strikers can last anything from 46 to 73 days before dying.Indeed, death has been the outcome of many hunger strikes as in the case of the 1981 Irish Republican prisoners’ strike.

Humans can generally live for up to seven days without food or water, depending on their health. If only liquids are taken, a human can survive for up to 30 to 45 days. To last longer than that, hunger strikers must keep their physical activity down to a minimum,

Hunger Strikes in British society is always a subject of much controversy many people see the act as a fanatical approach to resolving political objectives, while many people hold the importance of life to such an extent that they see the act hunger strike as nothing more than a suicidal approach to resistance. Many also see hunger strikes as a strange phenomenon that shares no link to our own society or history of our people. But this could not be further from the truth.

To understand this we need to look back at our own history. Since the days of the British Empire to the political turbulence of the Thatcher years, Hunger strikes have played a major role in our history. Hunger strikes have helped shift the political discourse of our society. This is impossible to deny. Looking back at our history, many major movements from women’s suffrage to the liberation of India and Ireland from British Colonialism. In each of these struggles there were hunger strikes.

In medieval Ireland, people would fast on the doorstep of those they believed had wronged them; if they died, the accused inherited their debts. Ancient India had a similar practice.

The first famous hunger striker in modern times was British suffragette Marion Wallace Dunlop, who began refusing food in prison in 1909 to fight for women’s right to vote.On 5th July, 1909 she petitioned the governor of Holloway Prison: “I claim the right recognized by all civilized nations that a person imprisoned for a political offence should have first-division treatment; and as a matter of principle, not only for my own sake but for the sake of others who may come after me, I am now refusing all food until this matter is settled to my satisfaction.” 

Wallace-Dunlop refused to eat for several days. When the doctor asked her what she was going to eat, she replied: "My determination". He answered: "Indigestible stuff, but tough no doubt."Herbert Gladstone , the Home Secretary, was consulted and he told the governor of the prison that "she should be allowed to die." 

However, on reflection, they thought that if this happened, Dunlop might become a martyr and after ninety-one hours she was suddenly set free. According to Joseph Lennon: "She came to her prison cell as a militant suffragette, but also as a talented artist intent on challenging contemporary images of women. After she had fasted for ninety-one hours in London’s Holloway Prison, the Home Office ordered her unconditional release on July 8, 1909, as her health, already weak, began to fail". . Gandhi, a lawyer in London at the time, was among the crowd that heard the speech she delivered after being released.

On 22nd September 1909,Chotte Marsh, Laura Ainsworth and Mary Leigh were arrested while disrupting a public meeting being held by Herbert Asquith  Marsh, Ainsworth and Leigh were all sentenced to two weeks' imprisonment. They immediately decided to go on hunger strike a strategy developed by Marion Wallace-Dunlop a few weeks earlier. but the governor of Winson Green Prison, was willing to feed the three women by force. 

Keir Hardie, the Labour MP, protested against the idea of force-feeding in the House of Commons. However, his comments were greeted with a chorus of laughter and jeers. One newspaper reported: "Most of us desire something or other which we have not got... but we do not therefore take hatchets and wreck people's houses, or even shriek hysterically because the whole course of government and society is not altered to give us what we seek. These notoriety-hunters have effectually discredited the movement they think to promote."

Hardie wrote to The Daily News to complain about the way these women were being treated: "Mr. Masterman, speaking on behalf of the Home Secretary, admitted that some of the nine prisoners now in Winston Green Gaol, Birmingham, had been subjected to 'hospital treatment', and admitted that this euphemism meant administering food by force. The process employed was the insertion of a tube down the throat into the stomach and pumping the food down. To do this, I am advised, a gag has to be used to keep the mouth open. That there is difference of opinion concerning the horrible brutality of this proceeding? Women worn and weak by hunger, are seized upon, held down by brute force, gagged, a tube inserted down the throat, and food poured or pumped into the stomach. Let British men think over the spectacle".

C,P,Scott wrote to Asquith and Gladstone complaining of the "substantial injustice of punishing a girl like Miss Marsh with two months hard labour plus forcible feeding." As the editor of the Manchester Guardian, a newspaper that supported the Liberal Party, he suggested that the women should be released "to prevent the damage which is being done to our party". As a result of this letter, Gladstone agreed to monitor the health of the prisoners with a view to recommending an early release. 

Mary Leigh, described what it was like to be force-fed: "On Saturday afternoon the wardress forced me onto the bed and two doctors came in. While I was held down a nasal tube was inserted. It is two yards long, with a funnel at the end; there is a glass junction in the middle to see if the liquid is passing. The end is put up the right and left nostril on alternative days. The sensation is most painful - the drums of the ears seem to be bursting and there is a horrible pain in the throat and the breast. The tube is pushed down 20 inches. I am on the bed pinned down by wardresses, one doctor holds the funnel end, and the other doctor forces the other end up the nostrils. The one holding the funnel end pours the liquid down - about a pint of milk... egg and milk is sometimes used." Leigh's graphic account of the horrors of forcible feeding was published while she was still in prison. Afraid that she might die and become a martyr, it was decided to release her. 

Charlotte Marsh also experienced force-feeding. According to Elizabeth Crawford the author of The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928 (2000): "The Prison Visiting Committee reported that at first she (Charlotte Marsh) had to be fed by placing food in the mouth and holding the nostrils, but that she later took food from a feeding cup."Votes for Women  on her release, reported that Marsh had been fed by a feeding tube 139 times.  The authorities believed that force-feeding would act as a deterrent as well as a punishment. This was a serious miscalculation and in many ways it had the opposite effect. Militant members of the WSPU now had beliefs as strong as any religion and now they could argue that women were actually being tortured for their faith. "Suffragettes submitted to force-feeding as a way to express solidarity with their friends as well as to further the cause."

The suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst wrote of the “sickening sensation” of force-feeding, though she noted that the “sense of degradation” was even worse than the pain.

 

 

 A drawing from the WSPU newspaper, The Suffragette in 1909

 

The use of hunger strike as a form of resistance in 20th century Ireland began with James Connolly and Hanna Sheehy Skeffington. They were imprisoned in Mountjoy Jail during the Great Lock-out of 1913 and were released within days of commencing their fast. The tactic was then borrowed by Irish republican prisoners,ten thousand of whom went on hunger strike in British prisons between 1916 and 1923. The brilliant and harrowing film, Hunger, by Steve McQueen, portrays the most famous republican hunger strike in the Maze prison, Belfast, when Bobby Sands starved to death in 1981 with nine other prisoners. 

 

 

With the ongoing war between the Provisional IRA and the British State over the struggle for Irish Reunification, Many Irish republican militants were arrested and interred at the Maze prison by the authorities. Whilst in prison the Irish republican prisoners began a series of protests over a five-year period. The protests began as the blanket protest in 1976, when the British government withdrew Special Category Status for convicted paramilitary prisoners. This led to two separate hunger strikes organized by prisoners of whom were members of the Provisional IRA and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). The first hunger strike took place In 1980, when seven prisoners participated in the action, however the strike ended when the British government decided to make an offer in order for the prisoners to concede their demands. This however was not to last when the Government then did a u-turn on the details of the agreement. The decision of the government led to a second hunger strike, which began in 1981 and was led by Bobby Sands. 

This hunger strike led to increased support for the Irish Republican cause in Ireland, North and South and around the world  One month before his death Bobby Sands was elected to Parliament in a rebuke to the British Government from the people of Northern Ireland having won 30,492 votes, ten thousand more than Thatcher in her London Constituency of Finchley and with a majority twice as large. I remember  Thatcher's ( British PM at the time)  callous refusal to reach any compromise - " crime is crime, it is not political." she said,  which only served to reinvigorate the republican cause at the time. It is estimated that over 100,000 people attended Bobby's funeral.and  an international outpouring of grief and anti British demonstrations were to take place. Protests were held in Paris, Milan, Ghent , Australia and Greece. In a ripple effect that was felt across the world.
In the end the strike was called off after ten of the prisoners had died as a result of the hunger strike. And although Thatcher claimed victory , her government conceded the hunger strikers demands soon after the protest ended and even she, the main adversary of Sands and his comrades was moved to say years later " It was possible to admire the courage of Sands and the other hunger strikers who died. Even today the legacy of Bobby Sands is respected not only in Ireland but all over the world.

Following Bobby Sand;s death Nelson Mandela led a hunger strike by prisoners on Robben Island to improve their own conditions.The hunger strikers who died alongside Sands still continue to provide inspiration to political prisoners everywhere.

Many years later it is perhaps difficult to fully appreciate the sacrifices made by Sands and his comrades, which even if you disagree with the aims for which they gave their lives remains a monumental testament to the power of the human spirit.
It should be noted that their fight won huge support in Ireland, North and South and around the world 
And although Thatcher claimed victory , her government conceded the hunger strikers demands soon after the protest ended and even she, the main adversary of Sands and his comrades was moved to say years later " It was possible to admire the courage of Sands and the other hunger strikers who died."

Mahatma Gandhi used political fasting to great effect against the British in India and to pressure Hindus and Muslims to halt sectarian violence. He came to regard the hunger strike as one of the most powerful tools in the arsenal of non-violent resistance.

 Another  example was Bhagat Singh. Singh was an Indian national who was an active participant in the Indian independence movement. He was an enthusiastic and determined revolutionary. Unlike Gandhi who leaned towards pacifism, Singh was more committed to the ideas of socialism and believed that only through revolutionary war could India be freed from British colonial rule.

When he was arrested on the charges of murdering British police inspector Saunders and Chanan Singh, Bhagat Singh was arrested and taken to prison in Punjab. Whilst there, along with other prisoners he began a hunger strike. His hunger strike was taken in order to raise a voice against the unsanitary and unhealthy conditions of the jail. The clothes, rooms, and all basic necessities provided by the authorities were dirty and unfit for purpose. Besides of this they were also coerced to do excessive manual labor which was intolerable and torturous not only for Singh but also for many other prisoners.

Bhagat started his hunger strike in June 1929 and he was successful enough to gain public sympathy and support. Jawaharlal Nehru, who would later become the first prime minister of India visited Singh in prison and was deeply affected when he saw how much pain he was in. Like with the suffragettes before, The British government planned to use counter insurgent tactics to the strike. One example was to place a well in front of Singh and the other hunger strikers in order to break their spirit, but their tactic served to no use and none of them ate food. Even after a court case where he was forced to attend in spite of his poor health and a transfer to another prison, Singh still carried on with his hunger strike. By this time he had lost 14 pounds. This further fueled popularity that crossed beyond the boundaries of Punjab. Only after the insistence of his own father did Singh decide to call an end to his struggle and in October 1929 after 116 days his hunger strike ended.

South African anti-apartheid activists, Turkish Marxists, Palestinian militants and Tibetan monks have likewise used hunger strikes with varying degrees of success, along with thousands of ordinary prisoners protesting solitary confinement and other abuses.  Cesar Chavez during the struggle for farm workers rights in the United States, and the prisoners incarcerated by the US in Guantanamo Bay.   

The demands by hunger strikers vary but are, in all cases, a reflection of broader issues and social, political and economic injustices. For example, the 1981 Irish Republican prisoners’ hunger strike demand for the return of Special Category Status reflected the broader context of “the troubles” in Northern Ireland. 

Hunger strikes have become one of the prominent actions of opponents of the regime in Turkey, along with other resistance actions that have been carried out in the prisons of Diyarbakır (Amed) and elsewhere, following the 1980 military coup.

Kemal Pir, Hayri Durmuş, Akif Yılmaz and Ali Çiçek lost their lives in the “great hunger strike” of 1982, triggering great resistance in the prisons. The ‘Diyarbakır Dungeons Resistance’ is accepted as one of the turning points in the struggle of the Kurdish people for their rights in Turkey.

Six prisoners lost their lives as a result of hunger strike actions in Diyarbakır and Sağmalcılar Prisons in 1984, demanding the abolition of the prison uniform, an end to torture, the provision of humane and social living conditions and the recognition of rights for political prisoners.

There were mass hunger strikes in many prisons in 1995 and 1996, and 14 prisoners lost their lives, two in 1995 and 12 in 1996. Hundreds of prisoners joined the hunger strike and ‘to-the-death’ strike actions in 2000-2007, protesting against the F-type prisons. A total of 69 people lost their lives, 48 prisoners in the prisons, 13 prisoners after release, and seven on the outside who were supporters of the prisoners.

In the last 10 years, prison hunger strikes have re-emerged through a series of actions led by Kurdish political prisoners. The main demand that has featured in all the mass hunger strikes in Turkey’s prisons in this period has been the release of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan from solitary confinement, and the securing of his physical freedom.

In 2012, hunger strikes in the prisons demanding Abdullah Öcalan’s release from solitary confinement continued for 68 days. As a result of tens of thousands of prisoners joining the hunger strike action, the gates of İmralı prison were opened and Öcalan met with a peace delegation.

In 2016, as Öcalan was again being prevented from seeing his lawyer and his solitary confinement conditions were gradually worsening, Kurdish politicians and liberals started a hunger strike in Diyarbakır. This action ended after Abdullah Öcalan was allowed to meet with his brother Mehmet Öcalan.

In 2017, Kemal Gün began a hunger strike in Tunceli (Dersim), demanding that the state hand over his son’s bones to him. He ended the hunger strike on the 90th day when he was promised that his son’s bones would be given to him. Also that same year, educationalists Nuriye Gülmen and Semih Özakça began a long hunger strike in Ankara demanding to be reinstated after they were dismissed by statutory decree.

In 2018, the frequent hunger strikes over previous years relating to serious human rights violations once again became a major agenda item under the leadership of Kurdish political prisoners demanding freedom for Abdullah Öcalan. In November that year, Leyla Güven, co-chair of the Democratic Society Congress (DTK) led the greatest mass hunger strike in the history of Turkey and Kurdistan. The hunger strike spread quickly through many prisons across Turkey and the demands of the Kurdish prısoners were the same: end Abdullah Öcalan’s prison isolation conditions.

Tens of thousands of people joined the hunger strike action of 2018 both inside and outside the prisons. And during the last months of the strike, dozens of prisoners changed it to a ‘to-the-death’ strike. This action continued for 200 days, and while the Peace Mothers ran resistance actions outside the prisons in the streets, significant resistance actions continued inside the prisons.

Zülküf Gezen, Ayten Beçet, Zehra Sağlam, Medya Çınar, Yonca Akıcı, Siraç Yüksek, Mahsum Pamay, Ümit Acar and Uğur Şakar sacrificed themselves and lost their lives in their protests against Abdullah Öcalan’s solitary confinement.

Here in Wales an activist from Newport by the name of Imam Sis, 32, of Newport, had gone without food for 161 days in protest over the treatment of Abdullah Ocalan.

On 26 May 2019, lawyers from Asrın Law Office announced that they had had a meeting with Öcalan. With the breaking of his solitary confinement in this way, the mass hunger strike came to an end.

On 27 November 2020, with the renewed and ever increasing severity of Öcalan’s solitary confinement, political prisoners once again began a hunger strike action (which also included, among its demands, that rights abuses of prisoners should end). There were also ongoing hunger strike actions in support of Turkey’s prisoners in Maxmur Refugee Camp in Iraqi Kurdistan and Lavrio Refugee Camp in Greece, where there were Kurds residing.

  

 

One of the earliest Palestinian hunger strikes was the seven-day hunger strike in Askalan (Ashkelon) prison in 1970. During this strike the prisoners’ demands were written on a cigarette pack as they were prevented from having notebooks, and included a refusal to address their jailers as “sir”. The prisoners won their demand and never had to use ”sir” again, but only after Abdul-Qader Abu Al-Fahem died after being force-fed, becoming the first martyr of the Palestinian prisoner's movement..

Hunger strikes at Askalan prison continued to be carried out through the 1970s.  In addition, two more prisoners, Rasim Halawe and Ali Al-Ja’fari, died after being force-fed during a hunger strike at Nafha prison in 1980. As a result of these and other hunger strikes, Palestinian prisoners were able to secure certain improvements to their prison conditions, including being allowed family pictures, stationery, books and newspapers.  

In recent years, ending the practice of administrative detention has been a persistent demand by Palestinian prisoners, given Israel;'s escalation of its use since the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000. For example, the mass  2012 hunger strike, which involved nearly 2,000 prisoners, demanded an end to the use of administrative detention, isolation and other punitive measures including the denial of family visits to Gaza prisoners. The strike ended after Israel agreed to limit the use of administrative detention.owever, Israel soon reneged on the agreement, leading to another mass hunger strike in 2014 by over administrative detainess pushing for an end to this practice. The hunger strike ended 63 days later without having achieved an end to administrative detention. 

In addition, there have been several individual hunger strikes sometimes coinciding with or leading to decisions to begin wider hunger strikes. Indeed both the 2012 and 2014 hunger strikes were sparked by individual hunger strikes demanding an end to the use of administrative detention. The individual hunger strikers included Hana Shalabi, Khader Adnan, Thaer Halahleh and Bilal Diab, all of whom secured an end to their administrative detention.  However, some of the individual hunger strikers were re-arrested after their release as in the case of Samer Issawi, Thaer Halahleh, and Tareq Qa’adan, as was Khader Adnan, who was released after a prolonged hunger strike protesting his re-arrest in 2015.

 As with other forms of resistance within and outside prison walls hunger strikes are acts of resistance through which Palestinians assert their political existence and demand their rights. It is vital to sustain and nurture this resistance. In addition to giving strength to and supporting the prisoners in their struggle for rights, this form of resistance continuously and powerfully inspires hope among Palestinians at large and the solidarity movement. It is our responsibility to both support Palestinian prisoners – and to work for a time when Palestinians no longer need to resort to such acts of resistance through which their only recourse is to put their lives on the line.   

At first glance, such acts of self-destruction might seem oddly irrational or self-defeating. Many forms of resistance , such as a classic workers’ strike – aim to place economic and other costs on opponents. Yet with the hunger strike, the most severe costs are suffered by protesters, who risk pain, bodily damage and even death.

Nonetheless, detainees know that the refusal of food can shame the authorities who bear ultimate responsibility for the lives of those in their custody.

By striking, hunger strikers also exert some measure of control against a system that micromanages their lives and strips them of agency. They demonstrate that they are sovereign over their own bodies and that the most serious decision of all – over life and death – is still in their hands.

As Guantanamo detainee Lakhdar Boumediene put it, "They could lock me up for no reason and with no chance to argue my innocence. They could torture me, deprive me of sleep, put me in an isolation cell, control every single aspect of my life. But they couldn’t make me swallow their food."

Also for detained migrants and refugees, the choice of such an extreme technique is powerful evidence of the cruelty they are subject to in detention, and their moral determination to resist. Caged and herded like animals, they exhibit the characteristically human capacity of mastering their natural appetites in pursuit of a higher ideal.

While authorities across the world frequently attempt to dismiss hunger strikers as pathological and mentally ill, the strike is in reality a careful and deliberate form of political action. As such, hunger striking should be respected as an expression of the fundamental human right to protest, as set out in Article 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

This means that authorities  must refrain from force-feeding, and all other forms of intimidation and listen to the just claims of detainees regarding their treatment.

Through hunger strikes, prisoners no longer remain silent recipients of the prison authorities’ ongoing violence: Instead, they inflict violence upon their own bodies in order to impose their demands. In other words, hunger strikes are a space outside the reach of the  state’s power. The body of the striking prisoner unsettles one of the most fundamental relationships to violence behind prison walls, the one in which the  state and its prison authorities control every aspect of their lives behind bars and are the sole inflictors of violence. In effect, prisoners reverse the object and subject relationship to violence by fusing both into a single body - the body of the striking prisoner – and in so doing reclaim agency. They assert their status as political prisoners, refuse their reduction to the status of “security prisoner”, and claim their rights and existence. 

Palestinian detainee Abo Hawwash suffered a lot as he was on the brink of death after spending 141 days on a hunger strike. During his recent hunger strike, he lost the ability to speak, to move and went into a coma.but today at least he can claim victory is his, and has succeeded in gaining his freedom back.and proved once again the Palestinian’s ability to win against the occupation. And prove his possession of a great and indomitable will, His courageous fight also proves that from Kurdistan to Palestine to Great Britain,  hunger strikes still matter,

Remembering The Siege of Sidney Street of 1911

 

 

The famous Siege of Sidney Street took place on this day 3 January, 1911 when a small group of Latvian revolutionaries  took on Winston Churchill and the British Army, in a pitched gun battle which has since entered into East London folklore.

The Siege of Sidney Street, or the “Battle of Stepney” was preceded by the Houndsditch murders. On 16^th December 1910 a gang of Latvarian anarchists attempted to rob a jewellers shop at 119 Houndsditch. It was one of a series of “expropriations” to raise funds for propaganda and help their fellow activists in Russia and Latvia.

The revolutionaries had planned this carefully: renting rooms in the building which backed onto the rear of the shop. They even had bought a 60 foot length of India rubber gas hose so they could use gas from their own building to burn through the jeweller’s safe.

There was just one flaw in their plan, they had picked Friday night for the robbery, in a largely Jewish neighbourhood. The unexpected noise on the Jewish Sabbath disturbed residents who promptly called the police.

Two sergeants, Bentley and Bryant, tried the door of 11 Exchange Buildings, which was answered by a man who did not appear to understand English. He went inside, apparently to summon assistance. The officers waited, then followed him in, and exchanged a few words with a man standing at the top of the stairs inside. In the dark, with no electricity, they could only see his feet.

The officers decided to go further on into the house, but had hardly taken another step when a gunman burst out of the back room and opened fire. The man on the stairs also started shooting. Both sergeants were hit, but managed to stagger into the street, where a constable named Woodmans ran to help Bentley, and was shot in the thigh. He fainted.

There were two detectives in the line of fire, but the burglars were not frightened of men in plain clothes. They were only interesting in picking off the men in uniform. Two bullets hit Sergeant Charles Tucker, who was killed outright. PC Arthur Strongman, not knowing the sergeant was dead, carried him to safety, followed by one of the gunmen, who kept firing, but missed. In doing so, he stepped under a street light, which meant that the constable was the only one to see any of the killers’ faces. The others saw only shadows, and the flashes as guns went off.

The gang fired on the unarmed officers. Three were killed,Sgt Charles Tucker (47) – Sgt Robert Bentley (37) and Constable Walter Choat (34). and two injured and it remains the single worst incident for British police in peacetime.There was enormous public outcry at the death and injury of the policemen,most of the public would not have been greatly interested in their affiliations and what drove them to such desperate actions. Their war was not with the British authorities per se, but rather with Tsarist Russia. They (and there were a dozen or so associated with Houndsditch and Sidney Street) were refugees in Britain, from Latvia, where the 1905 revolution was put down with exceptional violence.

For the popular press they were all anarchists, but most had Social Revolutionary or Marxist affiliations, and had fought in terrible encounters with Tsarist forces, some of them undergoing savage beatings and torture. They believed they would receive similar brutality from the British police should they be caught, which helps explain some of their actions.

 Most were Jewish, and were part of the wave of refugees driven out of Russia by the pogroms of the late 1800s and the savage reprisals that followed the failed 1905 revolution. Britain had a reputation as a haven for such refugees, though most ended up in the sweatshops of the East End, desperately poor and roundly despised by the rest of society as ‘aliens’.

After an  intense search that  followed. the police had their first lead when a local GP reported being called to a house to treat a man who had been shot and had refused to go to hospital. They found him dead and a considerable amount of guns and ammunition, including the gun used to shoot the three policemen. The dead man was George Gardstein, an anarchist from Latvia. Three others had fled the scene. Rewards were offered,, up to £500 – a huge sum of money in 1910. The police were soon looking for an unidentified woman, Fritz Svaars and a Russian called Peter Piatkov, also known as Peter the Painter as that was his trade.Several of the gang members, associates, revolutionaries, and Latvarian anarchists were arrested in the following days.

As well as the official investigation, the murders sparked a severe social backlash against Eastern European people, particularly political refugees who lived in the East End, as they were lumped together with the anarchists as “foreign malefactors”.By 1914, over 100,000 immigrants had arrived from Eastern Europe. The majority were Russian Jews fleeing the programs but they also included other Eastern Europeans. Most settled into their new lives in London, in some cases populating entire streets in the East End. There was inevitably some negative public reaction. The immigrants were linked in the press to a rise in crime and to violent crime in particular. There were calls to amend the Aliens Act of 1905, which had introduced immigration controls for the first time in Britain and also required the registrations of new arrivals.Emotive statements were regularly published in the daily papers , often targeting immigrants with comments such as “some of the worst alien anarchists and criminals who seek our too hospitable shores” – and overviews such as “the constant mollycoddling attitude towards criminals by the government, and certain so-called humanitarian sections of the general public” (these are actual extracts from The Times newspaper at those times). The Daily Mail newspaper ran a headline that read “Who are these fiends in human shape?” This is very unsurprising given the Daily Mail’s historic support of government authority and reactionary politics. On 15^th January 1934 the paper even openly supported the fascist Oswald Mosley by publishing an article entitled “Hurrah for the Blackshirts!”

 A fortnight after the shootings the police received information from a Mrs Gershon that two or three members of the gang, and possibly Peter the Painter, were hiding at 100 Sidney Street. The men inside, sensing they had been betrayed, seized the landlady and deprived her of her skirt and boots, assuming that no respectable Jewish woman would leave the house in her underclothes. But Mrs Gershon was made of sterner stuff, and slid out whilst the men were not watching.

Expecting heavy resistance, and not wanting anyone to escape, 200 armed police officers cordoned off the area after evacuating the other residents of the building, and on the morning of 3^rd January 1911, the battle began.As dawn broke, people started to gather around the police cordon, trying to find out what was happening. The police threw stones at the second-floor window where they believed the two men were hiding. Nothing happened. Then someone threw a brick and smashed a window pane. From the floor below shots fired out and a policeman was hit. A hail of bullets followed as they tried to move the wounded man.

The two holed up were heavily outnumbered, but possessed far superior firepower and had great stores of ammunition (during the 7 hours, over 400 rounds had come from the house). The German Mauser automatic pistols proved to be far superior to the weaponary than the Metropolitan police had available, and so a detachment of Scots Guards armed with rifles were sent to help. The Liberal government’s Home Secretary  of the day Winston Churchill got word of the siege, and sensing a chance for self-promotion, rushed along to take personal command. Finding the police equipped only with out-of-date firearms he authorised the deployment of 74 members of the Scots Guards stationed at the Tower of London – 35 members of the Royal Artillery plus 15 Royal Engineers – the first time the military had ever been called upon to support the constabulary..

Churchill headed down to observe it himself. Dressed in his fur coat and top hat, he proceeded to give shooting advice to the police officers. A stray bullet even passed through his top hat. To add to his preposterous appearance, Churchill had commissioned a field artillery canon to shell the building, but a fire had broken out before he had a chance to use it. This move is nowhere near excessive for a man who has put tanks on the streets of Britain before.

After 6 hours of continual shooting, a small cloud of smoke could be seen from one of the upstairs windows and very soon 100 Sidney Street was in flames.However, the soldiers showed no mercy and kept up their bombardment..

The media were in attendance; in fact it was apparently one of the first cases of live news coverage, filmed by Pathé News. and the first films were showing in West End cinemas that same evening. Eventually the police force swelled to at least 1,500, with a crowd of maybe twice that gathering to watch from the street and rooftops.

 

 

 

Once the fire brigade arrived, Churchill prevented them from putting out the fire until the firing had stopped, or in other words until the anarchists had been burnt alive. Sure enough no one emerged from the building, and the remains of 2 bodies.Fritz Svaars and William Sokolow (both were also known by numerous aliases), were later discovered inside the building. A firefighter was also killed by falling debris from the destroyed building. Churchill’s role in this affair proved to be highly controversial. The man was known for his love of spectacle, and desire to be at the frontline of events. He even informed his secretary that the siege was “such fun!”

Nobody was ever convicted of killing the officers. One of the assailants arrested before the siege was Svaars’ cousin, Jacob Peters. No one knows who fired the fatal shots, but Donald Rumbelow, an ex-police officer, argued it was Peters. However unlike the others, Peters willingly allowed himself to be arrested, and put his faith in the British legal system. Peters was a member of the Bolshevik Party, not an anarchist, and the distinction is very significant. Given his membership of the disciplined Marxist organisation, it is incredibly unlikely for Peters to have been involved in such anarchist escapades. The initial counts of murder were less than dubious, and after 128 days Peters was acquitted by the court and returned to Russia, where after the 1917 revolution, he became a leading figure in Lenin’s secret police, the Cheka, but was eventually purged by Stalin in the 1930s.

Peter the Painter was never found, and there is little of evidence of him even being present at the siege. In recent years, a British Anarchist historian, Phil Ruff, has concluded that the most likely candidate for ‘Peter the Painter’ is Janis Zhaklis, a leading member of Latvia’s revolutionary Social Democratic movement who reportedly took part in armed attacks on the Tsarist regime’s prison and secret police department in Riga in 1905-6 before being forced into exile. Zhaklis’ commitment to armed struggle over political struggle apparently led him to split from the Social Democrats and move in a more anarchistic direction. In exile his political group, like others, raised funds for their struggle against autocratic oppressors through ‘expropriations’ – aka robbing the rich. The young Stalin was a noted bank robber for the Bolsheviks, arguably his most useful contribution to the revolutionary struggle. (Zhaklis is also said to have given Lenin some of the funds from an ‘expropriated’ Helsinki bank.) Before the abortive raid on the Houndsditch jewellers, Peter the Painter’s group of Latvians had staged another failed robbery in north London in January 1909, this time of a factory’s wages. The ‘Tottenham Outrage’ as it became known culminated in a six-mile armed police chase across the Lea Valley that left two dead and two dozen injured. Peter the Painter eventually became somewhat of a folk anti-hero in the East End and beyond. The Mauser C96 pistols he and the anarchists used were reportedly referred to as “Peter the Painters” in the Irish war of independence against the British Empire.Tower Hamlets Borough Council, in 2006 named two of the their community housing tower blocks Peter House and Painter House, much to the annoyance of the Metropolitan Police.

The two deceased in the siege were known to have at one time frequented the Jubilee Street Anarchist Club, just around the corner from Sidney Street. At that time there were at least 3 anarchist clubs in London. The one at 165 Jubilee Street was opened under the guise of a Jewish Friendly Society and catered mainly for Jewish émigrés fleeing persecution from Tsarist Russia. It served more as a refuge and it was described as peaceful and friendly with a library and reading room, a kids’ Sunday school, lectures, dances, recitals and no alcohol. The police would often point homeless East European refugees in the direction of the Anarchist Club knowing they would get looked after. You can read more about London’s Anarchist Clubs here.

Over a hundred years on the blazing gun battle that was fought at 100 Sidney Street paints a picture of a bygone age of revolution and social and political radicalism, but also of the willingness of the British state to crush any form of revolutionary upsurge, even in a distorted anarchist form. The siege proved to be the impetus for the modernisation and militarisation of the British police force. There were also calls for tough new policies on immigration, and a general backlash against, and attempt to discredit, any kind of socialist politics. Not the Liberals though, who were in government. Josiah Wedgwood MP wrote to Churchill, just two days after the siege, urging him to oppose draconian measures: “It is fatally easy to justify them but they lower the whole character of the nation.“You know as well as I do that human life does not matter a rap in comparison with the death of ideas and the betrayal of English traditions.”

Churchill did not change the laws. 

However In today’s age of increasing police violence and increase in right-wing and reactionary politics, we can look to incidents like the Siege of Sidney Street to remind us what the true nature of the state apparatus is, an armed body of men in protection of private property and capitalism, willing to use whatever force it deems necessary to do so.

The building at 100 Sidney Street no longer exists but there is a red plaque on a block of flats that remembers Charles Pearson, a fireman who died at Sidney Street when part of the building collapsed on him, and there is also a memorial to the three police officers who were murdered at Houndsditch.

 For further information on the Sidney Street siege, there is one essential source. Donald Rumbelow’s The Houndsditch Murders and the Siege of Sidney Street (1973, revised 1988) is the classic account, outstanding in the dramatic detail and in its understanding of both police procedure and the revolutionaries’ motivations.

The siege was the inspiration for the final scene in Alfred Hitchcock;s original 1934 version pf The Man Who knew Too Much, and the story was heavily fictionalised in the rather awful l960 film The Siege of Sidney Street, starring Donald Sinden .

The siege was also the inspiration for two novels, The Siege of Sidney Street (1960) by F Oughton and A Death Out of Season (1973) by Emanuel Livinoff.

 The causes that drove the revolutionaries of 1911 have faded into history, even if terrorism on British shores inspired by overseas conflict and a different set of beliefs has not. But the films remain, and the press reports, and the photographs, and the many picture postcards that were produced, as tragedy was turned into commerce. The films not only show extraordinarily exciting things happening on the streets of London, but they show us an area of London never before visited by the motion picture camera..

Three of the five newsreels made of the Sidney Street siege exist at the BFI National Archive, with further copies of these at British Pathé and ITN Source. Each runs for two to three minutes in length. Versions of all three can be found online.

 The Siege of Sidney Street 

News of the World

Be still, attentive.Stay sill enough to notice,

Try to take a moment to read my letter to the world,

The cry of my screaming heart, where truth shakes free,

I'm awake, I'm alive,  but I'm far from happy,

The Queen started the new year,

By giving a knighthood to Tony Blair,

Who lied about about WMDS in Iraq. Afghanistan and beyond,

Who together with George Bush committed Britain to a criminal war,

The NHS is in crisis. Now seeing true cost of Conservatism,

Toxic Prince Andrew's Pizza Express alibi, 

Collapsing like Dominos before our eyes,

Could someone please pass me some Anchovies,

While I continue releasing my plaintive cries,

We have a Prime Minister that hid away to eat his Christmas Pud,

While ignoring deaths on an industrial scale,

Palestinian detainee Hisham Abu Hawwash,

Has not woken since 03:00 am, dying by Israeli design;

After 139 days of hunger strike, now slipped into a coma

From now on, every coming year will be his for eternity,

Mainstream media builds walls of silence to keep the sadness out,

There not a right wing franchise, there a Neoliberal entity,

The protectors of the wealthy elite and the  ruling class,

Something  doesn't have to change. Everything  has to change.

Iridescent

( A poetical response to a dear loves thought )

One day the world will end

As the cradle of life, let's us go,

Each moment, every breath erased

No kindness or tenderness to hold on to,

Fear and hatred forever evaporated

Never to be seen again, Amen,

Through the flames we will soar

Burning brightly as stars,

Though our blood will run no more

In magic of infinity, hurled dreams stored,

Beyond storm clouds of reality's confusion

In autonomous transcendence, forever illuminating,

Beyond frictionless feeling, the vortex of now

That we will be unable to touch or feel,

The noise,chaos and confusion fading

Divergent efflorescence permeating,

Distilling tears that no longer keep flowing

Stripping bare, the pulse of thought releasing,

Iridescent, in spite of our grain being smudged out

Maybe the echo of humanity will continue to shine.

Happy New Year : For a Brand New Tomorrow

Happy New Year everyone for tomorrow. I'ts been another tough year for us all. and as Covid cases have now reached almost 190,000 and over 300 dead, Boris  wants us to take a  test and remember the importance of ventilation while keeping the pubs open. Do not forget that he alongside Priti Patel and other senior Conservatives helped some of their friends got very wealthy off the pandemic. It's a scandal that demands answers.  This is corruption of the highest order and and all involved should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. In the meantime let's do something  really good for each other tonight, Stay home and  keep safe.

Meanwhile  a year in, there is growing evidence that Brexit has taken a toll on the British economy, despite Johnson’s claim,otherwise.According to a study conducted by John Springford, an economics researcher at the Centre for European Reform, British goods trade in September 2021 was 11.2 percent, or 8.5 billion pounds, lower than it would have been had the United Kingdom stayed in the EU’s single market and customs union. But the post-Brexit period is also beginning to have political consequences. There are signs that the pro-Leave coalition that swept Johnson to power in December 2019 just might be less stable than many initially assumed.

Let's keep building the resistance and get this corrupt shambles of a government out for good, while putting public need before corporate greed. Together we can remain strong  don't give up the fight, steady and slow a fairer society will come, darkness turning into light, our eyes in spring, summer, autumn, winter will glisten with rainbows and laughter, hope returning with no ending, we will smell the color of the clouds, feel the howling, taste the wind, in all awareness, our rich diversity, can thread us together.

Lets also keep fighting for social  justice, a profoundly different future, where the human rights of all will be fully realized, a future of life and of decent lives for all.highlighting injustices done to those fleeing persecution and war and those living in the UK who are denied means to protect their health. All the very best, love, rage, solidarity, heddwch/peace. Here's to making real and positive change  in 2022'xxx. Free Palestine, Kurdistan, Julian Assange, Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe , Abolish the Monarchy

 

" So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a farther shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells." - Seamus Heaney

" Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness." -Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Tribute to Archbishop Desmond Tutu: Relentless defender of Human Rights who used his voice to speak truth to power (1931 --2021)

 “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” These words by Archbishop Desmond  Mpilo Tutu are truly profound and among the many sagacious sentiments expressed.

The Nobel Peace laureate passed away on Sunday at the age of 90, stripping the world of a towering moral figure and bringing the curtain down on a heroic South African era.beginning a week of mourning for the revered anti-apartheid fighter.

 The death of Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu leaves a big void in the struggle for human rights and freedom around the world. He dedicated his entire life to the fight to create a world where people could be free to claim and exercise their freedoms, without being prejudiced or persecuted for who they are.

Tutu is best remembered for his active involvement in the struggle against South African apartheid, whose overthrow was one of the great historic achievements of the twentieth century. He used his positions first as the secretary general of the South African Council of Churches and later as the first Black Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town (hence his nickname, ‘the Arch’) to promote non-violent opposition to apartheid.

His funeral will be held on New Year's Day at Cape Town's St George's Cathedral, his former parish, his foundation said, although ceremonies are likely to be muted because of Covid restrictions.

In a statement issued by the South African government, the country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, confirmed the death and sent his condolences to the Tutu family.

“The death of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is another chapter of loss in our nation’s farewell to a generation of prominent South Africans who bequeathed us a South Africa liberated“,

The president has described Tutu as a “peerless patriot“and a” man of extraordinary intellect “who maintained his integrity in the fight against the” forces of apartheid. “

Even in a democracy, Ramaphosa has stressed, Tutu maintained the “vigor” and “vigilance” of the leadership to demand responsibilities to institutions.

The widow of South Africa's first black president Nelson Mandela, Graca Machel, on Monday mourned "the loss of a brother".

Tutu "is the last of an extraordinarily outstanding generation of leaders that Africa birthed and gifted to the world", she said in a statement.

He masterfully used his position as a cleric to mobilise South Africans, Africans, and the global community against the brutalities and immorality of the apartheid government," she said.

 "He stood resolute and fearless, leading demonstrations cloaked in his flowing clerical robe with his cross as his shield — the embodiment of humankind's moral conscience."

The bells of St George's will ring for 10 minutes from noon each day until Friday. The church has asked those who hear the sound to pause in their daily work and think of Tutu.

A memorial service will be held in the capital Pretoria on Wednesday. Family and friends will gather on Thursday evening around Tutu's widow, "Mama Leah".

On Friday, his remains will be placed in the cathedral on the eve of the funeral, although attendance for his farewell will be capped at 100, according to the archbishop of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba.

"Only a fraction of those who want to be there can be accommodated in the Cathedral. So please don't get on a bus to Cape Town," he said in a statement following a press conference. Due to Covid, singing and music at the ceremony will also have to be moderated, officials said.

Diminutive, crackling with humour and warmth, Tutu will be most remembered for fearlessly speaking against white minority rule, although he campaigned against injustice of any kind.

Ordained at the age of 30 and appointed archbishop in 1986, he used his position to advocate tirelessly for international sanctions against apartheid.

He coined the term "Rainbow Nation" to describe South Africa when Mandela became the country's first black president in 1994.

He retired in 1996 to lead a harrowing journey into South Africa's past as head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which exposed the horrors of apartheid in terrible detail.This commission, established in 1996 to uncover human-rights abuses during Apartheid, called on Apartheid-era perpetrators to publicly apologise for their crimes to victims, who were given the opportunity to share their stories. The result was that the perpetrators of some truly heinous crimes were forgiven. The idea was that, after Apartheid, South Africa could reconcile itself with its past and move on.

But Tutu’s embrace of both abusers and the abused, while an act of true Christian belief, was of immense political significance. In his book, No Future Without Forgiveness, he argued all parties who committed abuses should be treated equally, ‘whether they had been upholders of Apartheid or had sought to overthrow it’. He argued that this would be fair ‘because the perpetrator’s political affiliation was irrelevant in determining whether a certain act or offence was a gross violation or not’. But by equating those who took up arms against Apartheid with those who upheld it, he and the commission tarnished the struggle against Apartheid.

Some South African activists blamed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, for not “doing enough” to punish some of the worst murderers of the apartheid regime. Dome killed thousands of blacks during, and many black South Africans feel that mere “confessions” and “expressions of regret” should not have gained exculpation (more or less) for such brutes.

Among the apartheid crimes most resented were those by secret security forces personnel, who killed blacks and camouflaged their murders as “black-on-black violence”.

Also resented was the fact that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission remitted to an ordinary court, the trial of a notorious white doctor (nicknamed “Dr Death”) who had specialised in developing drugs that would kill “only blacks”. That Dr Death” (Dr Wouter Basson) was allowed to be tried by an ordinary court, which allowed him to exercise the rights of normal defence, and is currently still practising medicine, has left a sour taste in the mouths of many.

But maybe it was not Archbishop Desmond Tutu's fault so much as the fault of the euphoric atmosphere under which blacks were tasting power in South Africa for the first time, and were persuaded by the white-owned media that “forgiveness” had to be “the order of the day”.

Whatever one thinks, one must remember that Archbishop Desmond Tutu truly believed that one must never allow oneself to “behave as one's enemy would!”

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his central role in the fight against apartheid, The citation read:

“The Prize was awarded to Desmond Tutu for his role as a unifying leader figure in the non-violent campaign to resolve the problem of apartheid in South Africa....The means by which this campaign is conducted is of vital importance for the whole of the continent of Africa and for the cause of peace in the world.”.

The citation added that the Nobel Peace Prize had been “awarded to a South African once before, in 1960, when it was awarded to the former president of the African National Congress, [Chief] Albert Tulip.” The 1984 award “should be seen as a renewed recognition of the courage and heroism shown by black South Africans in their use of peaceful methods in the struggle against apartheid. This recognition is also directed to all who, throughout the world, use such methods to stand in the vanguard of the campaign for racial equality as a human right.” 

It was the Committee’s wish that the Peace Prize now awarded to Desmond Tutu “should be regarded not only as a gesture of support to him and to the South African Council of Churches, of which he is leader, but also to all individuals and groups in South Africa who, with their concern for human dignity, fraternity and democracy, incite the admiration of the world”.

 Archbishop Tutu, remembered around the world for his  tireless fight against injustice, was also an outspoken supporter of the Palestinian cause, often comparing Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories to apartheid. 

 "I have witnessed the systemic humiliation of Palestinian men, women and children by members of the Israeli security forces," he told the South African news outlet News 24 in 2014.

"Their humiliation is familiar to all black South Africans who were corralled and harassed and insulted and assaulted by the security forces of the apartheid government."

In an interview with Sir David Frost on the Al Jazeera English channel in 2012, Tutu said that the situation in the occupied West Bank was "in many instances worse" than in apartheid South Africa, referring to Israel's construction of the West Bank separation wall and its systematic  demolition of Palestinian homes 

 "Israeli politicians are aware that they can get away with almost anything because the West feels guilty about what they didn't do when the Holocaust happened," he said.

Tutu visited the Palestinian territories several times, leading a UN fact-finding mission to investigate an Israeli attack on the Beit Hanoun area of the Gaza Strip which killed 19 civilians in November 2006.

He also endorsed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS( movement once saying: "I wish I could keep quiet about the plight of Palestinians, I can't!"

While outspoken in his criticism of Israeli violence against Palestinians, Tutu also condemned Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, but noted that the Israeli response to these incidents was "disproportionately brutal".

Following the Archbishop's death, Palestinians from across the political spectrum praised him for his long-standing advocacy of their cause. 

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called Tutu "a hero for serving humanity and its causes, a fighter against apartheid, a global human rights activist, and a defender of the oppressed".

"The Palestinian people will remember with loyalty and gratitude his positions in support of our people's legitimate struggle against the occupation and its racist policy," he said. 

The Hamas movement  which controls the Gaza Strip, issued a statement saying: "Like South Africa, Palestine has lost a true patriot, a great human rights defender, an opponent of racism, and a staunch defender of the Palestinian cause in many international forums and arenas." 

Hanan Ashrawi, an independent Palestinian politician and former minister who was closely involved in early peace negotiations with Israel said on Twitter that Tutu's "humanity and compassion were equalled only by his courage and principled commitment in our shared struggle for justice and freedom". 

"His support for Palestine was an embrace of love and empathy," she added.

Among the millions who mourned his passing, President Cyril Ramaphosa called Tutu a man of "extraordinary intellect, integrity and invincibility against the forces of apartheid".

The Nelson Mandela Foundation called Tutu "an extraordinary human being. A thinker. A leader. A shepherd."

"He was larger than life, and for so many in South Africa and around the world his life has been a blessing," it said in a statement.

Queen Elizabeth II, Pope Francis, French President Emmanuel Macron were among those who paid tribute to him.

Barack Obama, the United States' first black president, hailed Tutu as a "moral compass" who was "concerned with injustice everywhere".

Tutu was "a towering global figure for peace and an inspiration to generations across the world," said UN chief Antonio Guterres.

However Keir Starmer has been shredded for his hypocrisy in paying tribute to human rights giant Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who wrote

"Desmond Tutu was a tower of a man, and a leader of moral activism. He dedicated his life to tackling injustice and standing up for the oppressed. His impact on the world crosses borders and echoes through generations. May he rest in peace."

But if Tutu had been a Labour member, Starmer would probably have expelled him, at least if he had the spine to do it, for comments in support of Palestinians and of boycotts and sanctions against Israel for its treatment of them.

Tutu, who had, earlier in his life, not been much impressed by a Christian religion whose officials and leaders often acted in silent concert with the racist rulers, was alerted to different approaches to Christianity by the actions of one man, a white cleric called Trevor Huddlestone, whom Tutu and his mother met one day whilst walking along the streets of Johannesburg.

Huddlestone took off his hat and smiled in greeting to Tutu's mother. In a South Africa where black women were looked upon by whites as “inferior domestics”, Huddlestone's unusual attitude moved Tutu greatly. So although his father was a Methodist, it was into the Anglican Church that Tutu enlisted himself. He eventually got appointed him to the highest Anglican position in South Africa, Archbishop of Cape Town.

Tutu was born in Klerksdorp, about 100 miles south-west of Johannesburg, on 7th October 1931. His father was headteacher of a local Methodist school. Later on in life, when Tutu was hospitalised with tuberculosis, he was pleasantly surprised to find that one of his most regular visitors was a man he recognised as the same Anglican priest who had taken off his hat for Tutu's mother in the street, Father Trevor Huddlestone!

In appreciation of Trevor Huddlestone's doings, Tutu actually named a son, Trevor, after Huddlestone. Huddlestone, humble though he was, achieved great fame by publishing a fierce book – Naught For Your Comfort – which was one of the first books to tell the world, in lurid detail, about the horrors that apartheid represented to South Africa's black population.

Tutu trained initially  as a teacher before anger at the inferior education system set up for black children prompted him to become a priest. He lived for a while in Britain. Tutu relentlessly challenged the status quo on issues like race, homosexuality, religious doctrine, a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy, and for the shunned and excluded victims of AIDS. Nor was he afraid to call out ANC corruption and their reneging on promises to the Black poor and working class.  President Ronald Reagan of the United States and  Margaret Thatcher of Britain were also some of the leaders he berated most often. 

 Bishop Tutu's proudest moment occurred when on 11 February 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from prison, and stayed with Bishop Tutu's family in Cape Town before making his way to Johannesburg. His relations with Mr Mandela remained warm, though they disagreed on some important issues, such as Nelson's divorce from Winnie Mandela.

He also gave his pioneering support for the assisted dying movement."I do not wish to be kept alive at all costs," he said in The Washington Post in 2016."I hope I am treated with compassion and allowed to pass on to the next phase of life's journey in the manner of my choice."

The archbishop had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1997 and repeatedly underwent treatment. After he retired from public life he continued speak out on social justice, freedom and human rights. In September 2012, he called for former US president George W. Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to be tried for their role in the Iraqi war by the International Criminal Court. Since his retirement, Tutu has worked as a global activist on issues pertaining to democracy, freedom and human rights.

 In his final years, his public appearances became rarer. This year, he emerged from hospital in a wheelchair to get a Covid vaccine, waving but not offering comment.He had been in a weakened state for several months and died peacefully at 7am (0500 GMT) on Sunday, according to several of his relatives.

Tutu was a true hero. His courage, particularly during the turbulent struggle against Apartheid, should be acknowledged and exalted. He was an exemplar of his Christian faith and of the human spirit. He acted as a moral compass in the face of man’s inhumanity to man. Despite facing immense personal risk, he defiantly and consistently gave a voice to the voiceless and spoke truth to power.

What makes Tutu’s death so poignant is that his quest for justice and human dignity ultimately ended in failure. Apartheid might be gone, but greed, corruption and inequality are worse problems in today’s South Africa than in the darkest days of white-minority rule. 

Despite this Desmond Tutu should be remembered for is his faith and his trust in ordinary people. He was a man who firmly identified with ordinary people, rather than those who falsely claimed to represent them. ‘The resilience of those we arrogantly dismissed as “the ordinary people”‘, he wrote in No Future Without Forgiveness, ‘in the face of daunting challenges and harassment that would have been the undoing of lesser mortals, was in the end quite breathtaking’.

Desmond Tutu’s great gift to the ordinary people he loved was his willingness to speak truth to power, whatever the consequences. His unshakeable belief in the power of ideas and the human spirit, especially the will to overcome oppression and adversity, should remind us that there are some things worth living and dying for. With Tutu’s passing, South Africa and humanity have lost a much-needed moral compass. He will be  mourned across Africa and the world.This iconic priest  leaves behind indelible footprints in the sands of time, a man of deep principle and moral ardor. 

 Along with his words of wisdom were actions of compassion and kindness. One of his many quotes may be the manual for a better world, "Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world." Rest in Peace Desmond Tutu

Finding Compassion

Every day can be beautiful

So could each  night,;

Allowing us to thrive

Uncompromised in belief,,

Releasing the gift of solidarity

As friends  make things seem right,

All of our struggles together pulsating

In times  of darkness, strength keeps calling,

In every heartbeat the pulse of defiance

Let's carry on, standing strong,,

Following Rainbow flags of diversity

The beat of freedoms awakening call,

The love we share allowing us to overcome

Tory neglect and stupidity,.

Grimy ideology that hurts us all

Drowning us with cruelty and pain,

With compassion a plenty.

Let's deliver tyranny's end,

For the lives of the many

Not the hands of. the few,

Garlanded around us all

Red roses of hope and resilience,

We can build a society of  kindness

Where our scars begin to heal,

Hope abiding, keeping us alive,

Holding on to precious sustenance

Beyond  the soreness  of today,

Abandoning greed that, ensnares

The profiteers that ruin us,

Tomorrow can deliver fairness

That  all of us can daily share,

Seasons Greetings

 

                                Peter Kropotkin 

It's come round again, the time some of us celebrate  the Festival of Yuletide, others the Birth of the Sun and, for Christians, the birth of Jesus Christ. The last two years have been difficult and unsettling for most of us. and as the country falls apart, everything doubling in price, from electric to food to trains and  Omicon infects last person and the worst government disintegates, while the prime minister still recklessly gambles with the lives of  every man, woman and child in  Britain, we certainly need some respite, if only for a short while

Christmas is a mixture of both ancient and modern traditions adapted through the ages to meet the needs of the ruling class of the time, be it Roman aristocrat, feudal lord or modern capitalist, ts roots go back into the dawn of the human experience of winter in the Northern hemisphere. People gathering around the fire to keep warm, and feasting to raise their spirits in the cold and dark; and looking forward to the return of the sun and the spring. is also the time to be generous to those less fortunate. This may be one reason why Dickens’ Christmas Carol is so popular. Nasty mean Scrooge is transformed and bestows good things on poor Bob Cratchett and his disabled son. Readers feel a warm glow. But that old chap Scrooge had a word which aptly describes  Christmas as well as the delusions of capitalism, its cynicism and its hypocrisy. Humbug.

Personally I do find this time of year  quite baffling, the usual suspects.,the misery that  explodes, The fact is that Christmas is in some ways a time for people to show their less attractive side—and for the massed forces of commercialism to cash in on the situation, ruthlessly and to the full, with the only justification they need—in the end they have more profit than if they had not played up to peoples’ snobbery, their insecurity and their distorted conception of the world in which they struggle to live.the annual artificial need to guzzle and consume vast amounts, whilst people commodify and profiteer from our faked jollity. Santa the manufactured symbol that resides right next to the sick heart of capitalism and consumerism, christmas at the foodbank the new order of the day. Tolerating neighbours stupid light displays and crappy Christmas carols. Reflecting on life and loss in general. The list goes on and bloody on.
We sing about peace and good will, while people caught up in war zones, and  countries are fractured by division. Our natural  impulse is to give, share and support others, feelings of solidarity and mutual aid,  these qualities find their form in the midwinter festival that in this part of the world, is now known as Christmas.Today, as the tentacles of the capitalist market reach into every part of our lives, those feelings are commodified, as we are encouraged to pay for the convenience of expressing our feelings for our fellow beings through gift giving. We fret about our purchases, are they good enough? Will the person like them? Presents are purchased by people who are really stretched for money and have therefore wasted their limited funds on presents that are not wanted or not appreciated. Some presents simply find their way to the bin. Clothes may be worn once and then jettisoned. Rubbish bags overflow, the contents on the way to landfill. Huge quantities of plastic are involved.
But, as well as all this, people across the world think of those who have less and donate food, clothes, toys and money.It is worth remembering that these acts of solidarity are part of our nature, that the impulse towards mutual aid is not just a once in a year anomoly, that it was a deciding factor in our evolution and is something we need to nurture, that   Peter Kropotkin wrote in Mutual Aid, is a factor of evolution. that we need in order to survive. 
 Blessed Saturnalia, roast chestnuts underneath the pagan tree, the children love it I suppose , this shindig of excess.  Their  sun will rise anyway, rudolph will leave eat all the carrots and someone will have bamdoozled the sherry.
I suppose it is is a time when many do genuinely take  some time out  to celebrate their faith, fair enough. but the original meaning seems to have got lost a long time ago now, and  for many  this time of the year is a time of immense difficulty, fear and uncertainty, people left in isolation, feeling alone, left cold, hungry and without support, in a downward spiral. People who feel they do not belong, who are discredited and denied their status as human beings.

We can use the time to reflect ,and offer the gift of solidarity to those that need it.Whatever you do, try  take it easy out there, and  hope  you have a good time, follow your dreams, your currents, each according to your need. We don't have to take what our leaders want to deliver, we can still make a difference.May we continue to support those that seek to overcome the inequality and injustice they are facing,However and whatever you are celebrating, for now wishing love, light and hope this holiday season, may the new year bring peace, change and possibility ,listening, talking, keep rising like the birds without borders anywhere,  take care, stay safe.

 

Santa Claus says Free  Palestine

The Santa Clause Army - Commoners Choir

 

Commoners Choir sing a Christmas song of festive hope, seasonal joy, and communal action against pig-ignorant authority. A song based on the loveable story of the 'Santa Claus Army' members of the radical Danish  Solvognen theatre group (“The Sun Chariot,” an allusion to Norse mythology). During the 1970s, the collective performed many large-scale actions intended to make bourgeois Danish society “act itself out as theater.” 

In  the the lead-up to Christmas 1974 they paraded through the city of Copenhagen, singing carols, handing out sweets and hot chocolate, and asking everyone what they wanted for Christmas. After spending a few days cementing the good image of Santa Claus, their generosity became increasingly radical.

Among other things, the Santas climbed a barbed wire fence surrounding the recently shutte red General Motors assembly plant with the purpose of giving jobs back to “their rightful owners.” The week-long performance reached its crescendo inside one of Copenhagen’s biggest department stores, the Magasin, when the Santas started handing out presents to customers directly off the shelves.  The Santas said: “Merry Christmas! Today, no-one has to pay.” They justified their actions, saying they were returning gifts to the workers who had made them. 

The shoppers were thrilled, thanking the Santas and wishing them well. Children stared, amazed. Then the police came. Magasin officials grabbed at the white Santa beards, trying to pull them off the actors’ faces, as police handcuffed the Santas and hauled them out of the store. The children cried. The actors were thrilled because all the roles were performed accordingly – the generous and good Santas, representing hope at Christmas, were being arrested and hauled away by the police against the will of the people.

The performance exposed the radical implications of the myth of Santa Claus’ boundless generosity, demonstrating that true generosity is impossible within the narrow terms of capitalist society.

 Solvognen’s spectacles were powerful, among other reasons because they appropriated images from popular culture and ascribed these images a new meaning: Father Christmas handing out gifts to children became a critique of hypocrisy in consumerist society. The well-known imagery drew the audience quickly into the performances and, further, equipped them with a key to interpret what was going on

A debate raged in Copenhagen newspapers for weeks following the arrest of the Santas. It focused on the treatment of the Santas during the arrest, as well as the freedom of speech and democracy. The political theatre of Solvognen was successful: it got people talking about the issues of the day through humour and spectacle, not to mention Christmas cheer.

 Most of Solvognen’s actions were surprise performances for unsuspecting audiences in unlikely public spaces. Through performances that were playful, bold and easy to understand, Solvognen managed to spread its political ideas beyond the circle of true believers: most Danes knew about Solvognen and its activities. Legend has it that people even started seeing them when they weren’t there: at a public viewing of an American F-16 jet fighter, three real security guards were arrested on suspicion of being members of Solvognen!

The film  above was premiered as part of Mark Thomas' Christmas Show. If you enjoy this video and are able to contribute to helping people eat over the winter period, please follow this link: https://www.trusselltrust.org/ 

 

 The Santa Clause Army  -  Commoners Choir

 

Intro  

SANTA 1: Have you been good this year? 

SANTA 2: Radically good? 

 

 Verse 1 

 

The year that no-one wished for 

Is drawing to a close 

The year when all our ho ho ho’s

Turned into oh oh ohs – 

 

This time of fear and misery 

Of loss and excess death

Of blood and sweat and many tears

It isn’t over yet 

 

Chorus

 

So we dance and we sing 

Bringing cheer to the neighbourhood

And we do, oh we do 

Acts of radical good 

 

And we sing and we dance 

We’re a modern-day Robin Hood 

And we do, oh we do 

Acts of radical good 

 

Verse 2 

 

This year has been a big one 

For ostentatious gifts 

A badly-broken Track & Trace 

And faulty drive-through tests 

 

A privatised economy 

A holly jolly spend

As contracts in their millions 

Are gifted to their friends 

 

Chorus 

 

Verse 3(Child solo)

 

Hark the herald populists 

Despots in disguise 

U-turn after U-turn 

From men who aren’t that wise 

 

They weaken and fragment us 

They shit on all our dreams 

Confusing and dividing us 

Hear the angels scream – 

Aaaaagh!

 

Chorus

 

Interlude 

SANTA 1: Joy to the world? We’ll see what we can do.

SANTA 2: Goodwill to all! Not just for the few.

SANTA 1: We know who's been bad and we know who's been good – we come with a message of peace.

SANTA 2: We're the Santa Claus Army, we always have the last laugh – and we know which chimneys to miss!

SANTA: And to be clear: we do not support fizzy drinks companies, nor do we ever ride on their transportation.

SANTA 2: All together now –

BOTH SANTAS: ho ho ho! 

 

Verse 4 

 

For the givers and the carers 

And those who were born in barns 

Gather round We'll turn that crown 

Upside down 

 

The elite have taken over

It’s time for us to act 

Steal from the rich Give to the poor 

We're taking Christmas back

 

Chorus repeat to fade with clapping, laughing, ho-ho-ho-inghhhhh