Some positivity today, here is one of my favourite poets Benjamin Zephaniah's passisonate, defense of the strength of Britain's multicultural cohesion.It reminds us that anyone with a fixed idea of what Britain is, is actually anti-British.
Britain has always been multicultural, right back to settlers in
medieval times. I will add that the world is a melting pot blended with various attributes, qualitities and culture, the following recipe simply explores the diversity and richness that we all share.
Take some 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.
This sticker sticks fascists!
The world is currently experiencing an escalation in racism and xenophobia with an increase in a wave of hate crime and racial abuse following the EU referendum. Violence and intimidation and calls of 'go home' directed against minorities, racist graffiti daubed on community centres, we must condemn all those that try to stoke up division in our society, prevent bigotry from spreading and becoming the new norm.
It is our duty to reaffirm that everyone is welcome in our communities, apart from rascists and fascists of course.We should offer genuine solidarity with victims of any racist incident
that occurs – and feel bold enough to intervene when they happen.We must seek to challenge and defeat the politics of hate within our local communities , building continuing resiliance and resistance to the politics of hate and fear, The fascists may spread fear and division but we can counter them with unity and hope, spreading a vision of peaceful co-existence and intercultural respect. The destructiveness of fascism – and racism more generally – is not
limited to its principal enemies. Far from affording privileges to large
swathes of society as some suggest, the oppression of marginalised
groups hurts us all.We have the abilities to stand united against our common enemy, to show refugees
that they are welcome, and to show the fascists that we are not afraid. Beyond support for their toxic ideas, fascists also have a long history of physically attacking people and communities.
Solidarity against fascism is not an altruistic option; it’s a rational necessity. With our resolve and determination we can beat fascism. We cannot allow sieg heiling Nazi
scum any space, and we will not sit back and watch their racist, hateful
attacks on refugees and migrants. Now is the time to get involved, get
active and get organised to take the fascists off our streets. Take a look at these stickers hot off the #stickittothetories
presses – printed for Aberystwyth Anti – Fascists. They’ll soon be on
their way to be stuck all over the genteel, and soon to be fascist free,
seaside town of Aberystwyth and its Hinterland(!) in mid Wales.
Oh yes- there are hundreds more of them too.
If you have a problem with fascists where you live, then get some of
our bespoke stickers, especially printed with your town/city /whatever
name – and along with other anti-fascist activities – you too can become
a fascist free zone. http://stickittothetories.org.uk/p…/anti-fascists-your-town/
Terrible, tragic news from yesterday after monstrous killing of 84 innocent people on Bastille day a symbol of freedom and liberty in what was an undeniable act of terrorism. This latest retaliatory, reactionary manifestation of hate in Nice coming eight months after the Islamist militant shootings and suicide bombings in Paris that killed 130 people.
Each atrocity has been used to expand police and intelligence
powers. Following the Paris attacks, the Hollande government instituted
an unprecedented “state of emergency,” providing authorities with the
power to ban demonstrations and detain suspects without charge. Over
recent months, millions of French workers and students have defied the
laws, engaging in mass demonstrations and strikes against the Socialist
Party’s regressive labour legislation.
The latest
attack comes amid mounting social tensions and escalating French
participation in US-led military operations in the Middle East, like the US, the French government has
actively backed Islamist groups in a bid to topple the Syrian regime of
Bashar al-Assad.However, Washington viewed Islamic State’s
advance into Iraq during 2014 as a threat to the US-backed government
and its dominance of Iraqi oil and resources. The US and its allies,
including France, have waged an air war on the Islamic State, while
continuing to back other Islamist forces within Syria.
The French government immediately announces an extension on the
clampdown on civil liberties and further military action in Syria and
Iraq. Francois Hollande gave no explanation as to how these
might prevent a further atrocity. Because he has no evidence that they
will. On the contrary.
Moreover, although it is not known at this time whether the
attacker was aided in any way by a group based in Iraq or Syria,
Hollande has already vowed to employ yet more violence in those
devastated countries. Again we are watching a Western leader adopt the
same failed policies of the past while expecting those policies to yield
different results. This is the definition of insanity.
Clearly religiously driven terrorism is a phenomenon that our ideals
of democracy, openness and free trade find it difficult to come to
grips with short of resorting to elements of the police state. But if we
allow the horrendous acts of a few to fundamentally change our society
for the worse then the terrorists will have achieved one of their
principal goals - so clamping down on hysterical demands to either 'hit
back' or 'shut our borders' must be seen
for what they are: expressions of panic and grief. These must be
resisted, and those who express them need to be given time to engage
their brains. Only by firmly carrying on with our way of life and
working to counter the bigoted mindsets can we prevail. It will never be an easy task. Our Governments attempts to try and neutralise the threat is
going to be a difficult one, but they must try to do so without curtailing civil liberties too
much or allowing the public to become fundamentally divided. Otherwise those who carry out these attacks in the name of whatever twisted ideology have won and the swamp that terrorism breeds in will grow.. I cannot help feeling great sadness for the world that we live in right now and feel lucky that I am not in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the meantime we must continue to stand together in this difficult time and show our solidarity with the victims and their families and all those innocents who fell victimised by several decades of US led,
UK, NATO illegal, immoral invasions, occupation, mass destruction, unwinnable wars part of the military industrial complex for corporate profit alone, combined with, western aggression in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe,
etc where the seeds of this awful nightmare have been sown. We must not lose our shared humanity
Dadaism was an art movement founded by Hugo Ball in 1916 in Zurich, Switzerland hundred years ago this year that became an international art movement. They had one
rule which was to never follow any known rules. It arose because they
were against the culture and values of the early 20th century which it
was believed had caused and supported the carnage of the First World War
in 1914-18. On the following link http://arthistoryunstuffed.com/tag/dada-manifesto/ Dr Jeane Willett explains how Dada was a reaction to the "psychological catastrophe" that was Word War 1 and a reaction to the futility of war.They saw the unremitting slaughter as the undeniable proof that the
nationalist authorities on both sides had failed society and that the
system was corrupt. United in their protest against the war and in their
opposition to the establishment, 'they banded together under the battle cry of DADA!!!!'
The Dadaist's aimed to destroy
traditional values in art and to create a new art to replace the old. Dada's weapons of choice in their war with the establishment were
confrontation and provocation.Art in revolt., anti-establishment, provocative that refused to be categorised into any ideological group, crazy, wild and free. They attacked traditional artistic
values with irrational attitudes and provoked conservative complacency
with outrageous statements and actions. They also launched a full scale
assault on the art world which they saw as part of the system. It was
considered equally culpable and consequently had to be toppled. Dada
questioned the value of all art and whether its existence was simply an
indulgence of the bourgeoisie.It was an “anti-movement movement dedicated to anti-art,” with
deliberately nonsensical tactics and a Nihilistic message, i.e. that
life is essentially meaningless.
The great paradox of Dada is that they claimed to be anti-art, but even their most negative attacks on
the establishment resulted in positive artworks that opened a door to
future developments in 20th century art. The effect of Dada was to
create a climate in which art was alive to the moment and not paralysed
by the traditions and restrictions of established values.It lay the groundwork to abstract art and sound poetry, a starting point for
performance art, a prelude to postmodernism, an influence on pop art, a
celebration of antiart to be later embraced for anarcho-political uses
in the 1960s and the movement that lay the foundation for Surrealism.
' Dada signifies nothing,’ declared one of Dada’s main players, Tristan Tzara.https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/tristan-tzara-441896-251263-radical.html
‘Not even the Dadaists know what Dada is,’ concurred one of his key collaborators, Johannes Baader.
The word itself was enigmatic: a word picked randomly from a French-German dictionary, in French meant hobby horse, in German it means ‘good-by,’ Get off my back,’ ‘Be seeing you sometime.’” Dada meant all of this, and nothing at all.
During World War 1 many Anarchists, revolutionaries, pacifists,artists,writers and intellectuals who were
opposed to the war sought refuge from conscription in neutral Switzerland.
Zurich was a melting pot for these exiles and reviled the political and cultural norms of the time. For them, the bloodshed of World War One didn’t just
mark a futile loss of human life, it confirmed other forms of expiry –
the failure of the entire project of Western philosophy, the death of
the human “spirit”, and the inadequacy of language, which had been
abused for politically corrupt ends and defiled by jingoism.
Born 1886 in Pirmasens, the writer Hugo Ball who was the inspiration for the classic Talking Heads song I Zimbra with his poem "Gadji beri bimba studied German literature, philosophy,
and history at the universities of Munich and Heidelberg (1906-1907).
In 1910, he moved to Berlin in order to become an actor and collaborated
with Max Reinhardt and worked as a director and stage manager for
various theater companies in Berlin, Plauen, and Munich. He also started
writing, contributing to the expressionist journals Die Neue Kunst and Die Aktion, both of which, in style and in content, anticipated the format of later Dada journals At
the beginning of the First World War he tried joining the army as a
volunteer, but was denied enlistment for medical issues. After
witnessing the invasion of Belgium, he was disillusioned saying: "The
war is founded on a glaring mistake, men have been confused with
machines". Considered a traitor in his country, he crossed the frontier
with the cabaret performer and poet Emmy Hennings, and settled in Zurich. Here, Ball continued his interest in
anarchism, and in Mikhail Bakunin in particular; he also worked on the
book of Bakunin translations, which never got published. Although
interested in anarchist philosophy, he nonetheless rejected it for its
militant aspects, and viewed it as only a means to his personal goal of
enlightenment.It was in Zurich on February
5th, 1916 that he and his partner
opened the 'Cabaret Voltaire', a rendezvous for the more radical element
of the avant-garde. This venue was a cross between a night club and an
arts centre where artists would exhibit their work to a explosive mixture of
experimental music, poetry, readings and dance and political theater.
— poetry shorn of intelligible words, where melodies and
statements in which the message was cannibalized by the absurdity of the
language. His intentions regarding the Caberet Voltaire are defined in the following words " It is necessary to clarify the intentions of this
cabaret. It is its aim to remind the world that there are people of
independent minds - beyond war and nationalism - who live for different
ideals." (from the contribution entitled "Lorsque je fondis le Cabaret
Voltaire" ["Why I founded the Cabaret Voltaire"], in the publication "Cabaret
Voltaire," Zürich, 1916).
The Dadaists were in there own way the very first performance artists, who besides sound poems also
invented the simultaneous poem (whereby verses are read out in different
languages and at different speeds at the same time) and were the
precursors of modernn-day slam poetry.
Among the original contributors to the 'Cabaret Voltaire' were Jean
(Hans) Arp, Tristan Tzara, Marcel Janco and Richard Huelsenbeck. Although the Dadaists were united in their ideals, they had no unifying
style. Between 1917-1920 the Dada group attracted many different types
of artists including Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Höch, Johannes Baader,
Francis Picabia, Georg Grosz, John Heartfield, Max Ernst, Marcel
Duchamp, Andre Breton, Kurt Schwitters, and Hans Richter.
At the first public Dada-Soirée, at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich, a hundred years ago today on
July 14, 1916, Hugo Ball read aloud his Dada manifesto and summed up his absurdist nature: ‘How
does one achieve eternal bliss? By saying Dada. — and recited several of his sound poems, including
"Karawane," reënacted below consisting of nonsensical words.The meaning however resides in its meaninglessness, reflecting the chief principle behind Dadaism.
Hugo Ball - Karawane
.
’
Hugo stayed active in Dada movement for another six
months, but the manifesto created conflict with his friends, notably
Tristan Tzara because he was at odds over Tzara's ambition to make Dada into an international movement with a systematic doctrine Some of Hugo Bell' other best known works include the poem collection 7 schizophrene Sonette, the drama Die Nase des Michelangelo, a memoir of the Zurich period Flight Out of Time: A Dada Diary, and a biography of Hermann Hesse, entitled Hermann Hesse. Sein Leben und sein Werk (1927). Hugo would retire to Ticino, where he completely devoted himself to
mystical Catholicism.He died in 14 September 1927.d in' Abbondio, Switzerland, 14 September 1927.
After the war, the face of Dada began to change. Many of the
Dadaists who were exiles in Zurich began to drift back to their home
countries and found that life was quite different there. As they
relocated to Berlin, Cologne, Hanover and some as far as New York,
Dada developed an international reputation but each of these venues had
its own distinctive style inspired by the artists who settled there.In post-war Berlin, Dada became less anti-art and
adopted a more political stance. Reality bit hard as the war-weary
population struggled to survive the effects of economic meltdown. There
was social and political disorder as Left fought Right for control of
the government. In this climate the irreverent posturing of Zurich Dada
would have been totally inappropriate, so Dada in Berlin emerged with a
harder hitting punch.Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Höch, John Heartfield and George
Grosz were the main artists who developed the strident political satire
of Berlin Dada.
Dada would ultmately self destruct,the internal squabbling brought Dada to an abrupt
end. And even though it would not last it still endures, it has become a state of mind. In their subversiveness and experimentation, the Dadaists were forging
modes of working and forms of art that would either anticipate or
directly influence the shape of much art to come and.the heart of dada still to be found in its poetry and provocations, its polemics and experiments with chance.... maybe the time for Dada is right now?
Dada Manifesto ( 1916, Hugo Ball) read at the first public by Dada soiree, Zurich, July 14, 1916.
" Dada is a new tendency in art. One can tell this from the fact that
until now nobody knew anything about it, and tomorrow everyone in Zurich
will be talking about it. Dada comes from the dictionary. it is
terribly simple. In French it means "hobby horse." In German it means
"good-by," "Get off my back," "Be seeing you sometime." In Romanian:
"Yes, indeed, you are right, that's it. But of course, yes, definitely,
right." And so forth.
An international word. Just a word, and the word a movement. Very
easy to understand. Quite terribly simple. To make of it an artistic
tendency must mean that one is anticipating complications. Dada
psychology, dada Germany cum indigestion and fog paroxysm, dada
literature, dada bourgeoisie, and yourselves, honored poets, who are
always writing with words but never writing the word itself, who are
always writing around the actual point. Dada world war without end, dada
revolution without beginning, dada, you friends and also-poets,
esteemed sirs, manufacturers, and evangelists. Dada Tzara, dada
Huelsenbeck, dada m'dada, dada m'dada dada mhm, dada dere dada, dada
Hue, dada Tza.
How does one achieve eternal bliss? By saying dada. How does one
become famous? By saying dada. With a noble gesture and delicate
propriety. Till one goes crazy. Till one loses consciousness. How can
one get rid of everything that smack of journalism, worms, everything
nice and right, blinkered, moralistic, europeanized, enervated? By
saying dada. Dada is the world soul, dada is the pawnshop.
Dada is the world's best lily-milk soap. Dada Mr. Rubiner, dada Mr.
Korrodi. Dada Mr. Anastasius Lilienstein.
In plain language: the hospitality of the Swiss is something to be
profoundly appreciated. And in questions of aesthetics the key is
quality.
I shall be reading poems that are meant to dispense with conventional
language, no less, and to have done with it. Dada Johann Fuschgang
Goethe, Dada Stendhal. Dada Dalai Lama, Buddha, Bible and Nietzsche.
Dada m'dada. Dada mhm dada da. It's a question of connections, and of
loosening them up a bit to start with. I don't want words that other
people have invented. All the words are other people's inventions. I
want my own stuff, my own rhythm, and vowels and consonants too,
matching the rhythm and all my own. If this pulsation in seven yards
long, I want words for it that are seven yards long. Mr. Schulz's words
are only two and a half centimetres long.
It will serve to show how articulated language comes into being. I
let the vowels fool around. I let the vowels quite simply occur, as a
cat miaows... Words emerge, shoulders of words, legs, arms, hands of
words. Au, oi, uh. One shouldn't let too many words out. A line of
poetry is a chance to get rid of all the filth that clings to this
accursed language, as if put there by stockbrokers' hands, hands worn
smooth by coins. I want the word where it ends and begins. Dada is the
heart of words.
Each thing has its word, but the word has become a thing by itself.
Why shouldn't I find it? Why can't a tree be called Pluplusch, and
Pluplubasch when it has been raining? The word, the word, the word
outside your domain, your stuffiness, this laughable impotence, your
stupendous smugness, outside all the parrotry of your self-evident
limitedness. The word, gentlemen, is a public concern of the first
importance."
A
demonstrator protesting the death of Alton Sterling is detained by law
enforcement near the headquarters of the Baton Rouge Police Department
in Baton Rougue, Louisiana, US July 2016, Copyright, Jonathan Bachman,
Reuters. Woman who was captured in above iconic photo has
been revealed as 28- year old Ieshia Evans, a licensed practical nurse
and mother to a five-year-old son, who was attending her first protest
on Saturday.We must stand in solidarity with the #Black Lives Matter movement in the US and their struggle against deeply grained institutional racial prejudice. Fierce Calm ( For Ieshia)
After violence had rained down on communities,
and storms had spread across country,
fierce calm boldly entered the lion's den,
stood firmly in elegant defiance,
silently posed on cracked asphalt,
summer dress billowing in the breeze,
as a phalanx of riot police surged,
and tempest's blew, was not phased,
continued brave stance,in peaceful composure,
didn't say anything, didn't resist,
with determined dignified power,
looked over the next horizon,
and never once looked back,
frozen in time, a vessel of justice,
freedoms flower releasing hopefulness,
amplifying pathways of change.
The MPs and Lords of both major parties are currently effectively in the process of launching a coup against the electorate. All the Brexiters leaders have, gone, disappeared, done a runner. And
what a shambolic mess our country is in now, we are left picking up the pieces, and Farage, Gove, Grayling,
Duncan Smith and co ,who led us off a cliff, then legged it, they should all join Blair , in prison for lying to the
country. Andrea
Leadsom now abandoning her bid to become Tory leader, another leading Brexiter jumping ship, she claimed abuse, but perhaps a case of her lies not holding up to scrutiny allowing Theresa
May to become next Prime Minister uncontested - not chosen by
the public, or even by members of the Conservative Party. Our Prime
Minister will have been effectively selected after a chaotic process of
elimination by Tory MPs alone. A pantomine to distract us from Brexit, Tax Avoidance,
Trident, Chilcot, MP's expenses, Private Deals, Austerity and all their
other little scams. Don't believe the BS. Labour meanwhile who are meant to be fighting off the Tories, at a time when Tories are in crisis instead are stabbing their leader in the
back, and are going against the whole membership, basically giving the
Tories a golden ticket for them to throw more austerity onto us.172 MPs in defiance of the 250,000
members who voted for that leader. These are dispiriting and retrograde
actions, but they are also the desperate and chaotic actions of weak
reactionaries who have seen their political assumptions destabilised by
the the mass
participation of a new rank and file in the British Labour Party joining becaue they recognie the need for a more fairer society. Backstabbing Angela Eagle is
currently flapping around launching what may be an equally uncontested bid to become Labour
leader. Party rules that were not designed to cover the eventuality of a
challenge to an incumbent leader may be abused to bar the elected
leader from standing. Eagle wants to 'save' the Labour Party... from the democratic will of the party membership. A huge distraction at the moment, when the Tory' currently regrouping. Lets hope that the huge mandate given to Jeremy by Labour party members is respected through the upholding of his right to automatically appear
on the ballot. And we now have an unelected prime minister,Theresa May, this reluctant remainer, Queen of the snoopers charter, a clone of Margaret Thatcher for God's sake, after a career of opposing legislation that guarantees equality and human rights. well known for her scarily authoritarian, anti-democratic and anti-free speech views,who not only supported scrapping the Human Rights Act and leaving the
European Convention on Human Rights - both of which have protected and
promoted human rights in the UK and internationally - but has also
backed the introduction of employment tribunal fees (making it costly
and difficult for people to take rogue employers to court if they face
discrimination), and she has done little to reform the appalling way our
asylum system treats people fleeing persecution and one of May’s very first acts in the role of Home Secretary: in 2010, she
ensured that public bodies no longer had to actively try to reduce
inequality. Who will she carry on doing the bidding for? It wont be for the marginalised or the voiceless, slim chance. Unfair and cruel austerity policies will continue, our public services will carry on being plundered for private profit, combined with the cruel targeting of the mot vulnerable in society, the sick, the unemployed and the disabled. The Tory dream of dismantling the welfare state, privatising healthcare
and turning all educational institutions into academies will continue to
be implemented, as well as a more ardent neoliberal stance toward big
business. Good news for corporations, bad news for the rest. Cameron called an unnecessary referendum
simply to mollify the right wing of the Tory Party, the result of which
has divided the country as never before and which might result in the
break up of the UK. Never before, except perhaps in 1930s Germany, has a
country been so badly served by a government. We need a general election as soon as possible now because we can't have a PM elected by the small amount of people in the
Tory party (in fact even they didn't vote for her; she won by
default!), we need one elected by the electorate. Whatever happened to democracy? We seem to be screwed in all directions.
Having already suffered an almost total wipe-out in Scotland, the Labour
Party seems to be entering a very dangerous period in its history. The
rebels in the PLP don't seem to realise that they are isolated between
the leadership, the members and the unions. If a leadership contest is
announced tomorrow and, through some procedural machinations, Corbyn is
kept off of the ballot paper, the PLP will have pushed the nuclear
button, and will transform this crisis into an extinction level event for the
Labour Party.
However I watched this interview this morning and in one of his best interviews,
Jeremy Corbyn answered questions from Andrew Marr about the forthcoming
UK Labour leadership contest with Angela Eagle,the Chilcot report, Tony
Blair, and Trident and as much as Andrew Marr probed, JC was ready
with answers that showed clearly had had thought deeply about things and
was not prepared to denigrate people who disagreed with him. If this is
the new politics, then let's be having it..
Imagine what could be achieved if every member of the Parliamentary
Labour Party spoke as confident and eloquently as their democratically
elected leader and united to attack the tories and
got on with the job of pointing out our societies ills and
inequalities that hurts so many ordinary people, the road to a better
society could be achieved.
For
the last ten years the densely populated Israeli occupied Gaza strip
has been besieged by Israel, by land, sea and air, 1.8 millions, the
vast majority of whom are refugees, are effectively trapped in an area
of land, just 40 kilometres long and 9.5kilometres wide. Two years ago last week the world witnessed Israel's brutal military attack on Palestinians in Gaza in which more than 2,300 Palestinians were killed including 300 children and 100,000 people were displaced after Israel deliberately attacked entire civilian areas in Gaza and inflicted as much human suffering as it could. The explosives that were dropped on Gaza continue to claim lives.The UN and human rights organisations have documented Israel's war crimes during the massacre. Amnesty International has denounced the lack of accountability for crimes committed during the assault on the Gaza strip in 2014, in a new briefing the global human rights group says the impunity enjoyed by those responsible for violations is " indefensible"https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2015/07/justice-victims-war-crimes-gaza-conflict/ The siege continues and has almost entirely prevented meaningful
reconstruction since the 2014 attack and only a slight improvement in
the humanitarian situation has occurred, the Gaza strip remains a
disaster area, people are living in tents or caravans that cannot
protect them from the heat in the summer, or from the very cold weather in the winter time. The longer Israel maintain its siege of the world's largest open-air prison, the more the international community adapts and accepts Israel's deliberate reduction of Gaza into an uninhabitable prison camp which the Palestinian confined within has to daily endure. The blockade has caused grinding poverty resulting in more than two-thirds of Gazan families being dependent on aid. Due to fuel shortages and damaged or destroyed electrical infrastructure, there are power shortages for up to 16 hours per day in most areas of Gaza. 70 percent of households in Gaza receive running water for only 6 to 8 hours once every two to four days. Over 90 percent of the water extracted from the Gaza aquifer is unsafe for human consumption, while needed filtration equipment cannot be imported to Gaza. Nearly 90 million liters of untreated or partially treated sewage is dumped into the sea off Gaza every day, while equipment needed to build new or maintain existing treatment facilities are banned from entering Gaza. As a result of the blockade the economy, education, medical care, agricultural and fishing industries have worsened, in some cases in near-collapse. Gaza's wealth is largely unreachable as a direct result of Israel's occupation and blockade. Most agricultural land is located in places declared closed military area ("no go" zones or has been destroyed during military attacks. Access to traditional fishing grounds is restricted by the Israeli Navy. Development of their natural gas reserves is forbidden by the Israeli government. All of this while the movement of people into and out of Gaza is seveely restricted and both the import of goods and the export of products fom Gaza is strictly limited. Israel though is not only oppressing Palestinians - it is also exporting its ruthless model of militarized repression to the world. As thisLinks that Kill fact sheetsets out, Israel is only able to do this because of the massive weapons trade and miltary coperation, including research, it maintains with countries across the world. Over the period 2009-2018, the US is providing military aid to Israel worth $30 bn. EU arms exports to Israel during 2014 alone were worth over $1bn. Money used to maintain oppression. If the world cares about Gaza's plight, the blockade must not be allowed to continue, it amounts to collective punishment illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention. As the occupying power, Israel has obligations to the people of Gaza, under international law. In the fall, world leaders are meeting to discuss next steps on Gaza. This or chance to take action to ensure Gaza is completely rebuilt and that people are treated with dignity. The blockade must end.
We must continue to support the Palestinian people's non violent struggle for freedom, justice and equality, we can do this by supporting their call for BDS ( Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) we can make a difference, and please consider signing the two following petitions, cheers.
During the First Battle of the Somme, one of the most brutal battles
of the First World War, the 38th (Welsh) Division was given the job of
attacking Mametz Wood on 7th July 1916 a 100 years ago today, but were forced to retreat
because of the intensity of German machine gun fire from the wood.
They were ordered to regroup and attack for a second time on the 10th
July and succeeded in reaching the wood. By the 12th July the Germans
and their machine guns had been cleared out of the woods but the Welsh
Division had lost more than 4,000 men. Whole Welsh communities reeled from losing their young men in this slaughter and it came to symbolise the futility of war.
The poet-artist David Jones,
a Londoner of Welsh extraction the son of a Welsh father and an English-Italian mother who had trained as an artist in
Camberwell School of Art, Jones joined the newly formed London Welsh Battalion of the Royal Welch
Fusiliers in January 1915 and, after a prolonged period of training,
much hampered by a lack of equipment, finally embarked for France the
following December. After a period in and out of the Line in the La
Bassee sector, Jones marched south for the Somme in the summer of 1916 serving as a private.
Here, he took part in the attack on Mametz Wood on the 10th/11th July,
was wounded in the thigh and was subsequently returned to England to
convalesce. On his eventual return to the Line, his unit had been moved
to the Ypres salient. Jones would have taken part in the initial stages
of the prolonged Passchendale offensive, had he not been held back as
part of the battalion’s reserve ‘nucleus’.It would have a profound effect on him because of it's scarring effect. In all Jones spent 117 weeks atthe front,longer than any other war poet and in his adult life he
suffered severe bouts of depression, nervous breakdowns and inactivity
which could be traced back to his war years in what today would be considered post traumatic stress. In World War 1 the enemy
became the war itself in dehumanised form.
His epic prose poem ‘In Parenthesis’ is virtually unique in First World War
literature, evoking the horrors, carnage, camaraderie and heroism of the
ordinary soldier, his hopes and fears, laughter and tears. The poem covers the progress of a unit from December 1915 to the Somme offensive in July 1916.At it's most basic level it is a fictionalised account mirroring his own service as a foot-soldier in the First World War. In Parenthesis though graphic in its depiction of the horrors of
war, of the mindlessness of much of the violence resulting from
nationalistic pride, it also manages to speaks with an aesthetic voice and
wonders if some beauty can be found even in the very instruments of
human destruction. Jones is skeptical that this will be possible but
sees the attempt as part of his responsibility as a poet in the
twentieth century, an age that now must live with “increasingly exacting
mechanical devices; some fascinating and compelling, others sinister in
the extreme. Jones’s poem speaks with a profoundly humanistic voice, transcending
the grotesque suddenness of individual deaths in battle and finding in
history a common thread connecting all soldiers to the nobility of being
a man or a woman.He focuses on the lives of bottom ranking soldiers, adding a dimension to his heroic epic that both elevates the lowly and critiques the lofty. In Parenthesis deals with powers that tap
into the life force itself, the incomprehensible energies that bring
humans into existence and dispatch them just as quickly. The poem might
be said to be basically religious,using the war as a metaphor for life
itself—to Jones, each is a parenthesis.Throughout the prose poem he applies religious terminology and symbolism to his characters, and makes frequent references to religious rituals, holy days and biblical allusions.He also has numerous allusions to what we’d consider of as medieval romances: Malory’s Morte d’Arthur is often referred to, as is the Welsh poetry of the Mabinogion and Y Gododdin.
His poem suggests that war helps
people become more aware of that larger parenthetical condition called
life, a condition ultimately as sudden and individually. Despite what he has witnessed throughout he remains alert to the flashes of humanity that light up the wasteland of war. Complex in organization, rich in vocabulary, In Parenthesis demonstrates the rich intricacies of Jones’s work.
In it's climax, Part 7 the protagonist John Ball along with his unit attacks Mametz Wood.
As he goes forward, he watches as most of his fellows around him being
ripped apart, but Ball somehow makes it through unscathed until that
evening. When ordered to take part in a subsequent, follow-up attack,
Ball is knocked down, hit in the legs by machine-gun fire, and is greviously wounded begins his
long crawl back to some place of safety - as Jones himself did. Along the way he discards most of his equipment
(except for his gas mask, which he thinks might come in handy). However, his rifle
has special meaning: as any soldier knows, a warrior and his weapon are
one: it defines who he is, lose it and he loses his identity. As he
retreats, Ball carries on a conversation with himself: should he leave the rifle?
He hears the voices of his drill instructors driving home the
importance of care of arms, the individuality of each soldier's weapon,
the intimacy that he should share with it. .
The assault on Mametz
Wood took three days and the British forces succeeded in pushing back
the enemy lines — but at huge cost. Jones's battalion alone lost a third
of its men, killed or wounded.
The
poem watches them as they fall. A private who married his sweetheart
when last on leave is pierced through by a razor of shrapnel. One man,
even as he bleeds to death, still fumbles with the wretched straps of
his uniform, trying to loosen the choking buckle of his tin hat. Not far
from his prone body lies the severed head of a private grinning "like
the Cheshire cat". It was images like this, grotesque, absurd and
brutal, that would haunt Jones for decades.
The poem ends with Mametz Wood, but for Jones the war went on.On his eventual return to the Line, his unit had been moved
to the Ypres salient. Jones would have taken part in the initial stages
of the prolonged Passchendale offensive, and so the routine of sandbags and shelling continued.
In mid-February 1918, Jones came down with
trench fever and was evacuated to a base hospital with a 105-degree
temperature. There he came closer to death than he ever had in the field. He would
not return to the front. Nor would he recover from those three years.
Though he never called it shell shock, Jones was diminished and unmanned
by all that he had seen. Jones was evacuated and saw out the rest of
the war in Ireland. He never saw action again and was released from the army in the January of
1919, aged 23.
After the war Jones would have a conversion to Roman Catholicism and joined a small community
of Catholic artists headed by craftsman Eric Gill, first at Ditchling, East Sussex then resettling at Capel-y-ffin, near Hay-on-Wye among the Black Mountains in Wales, where he began
to develop a unique concept of art and the function of the artist. The monastery where he stayed I have been fortunate to visit after numerous visits to the area where Jones took comfort from the singularity of the place as his weakened lungs
drew in the mountain air. While resident at the monastery there he painted and
illustrated prolifically and later reflected that the landscape had
allowed deeper understanding of his Welsh identity.
Capel-Y-Ffin , 1926-27- David Jones
Jones never
married, never had children. He lived a monkish existence in a series
of guest rooms and bedsits, which he referred to as his "dug-outs". His
prints, paintings and poems brought a small income but financially he
relied on his parents and then on the generosity of friends and patrons.
To the end of his life the clatter of a tea-tray or a foggy day would
rend his nerves. Each July the horrors of the Somme and Mametz Wood
would return, triggering debilitating insomnia. It is more than likely he was still suffering from shellshock, which today we would call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which leaves many ex soldiers with nightmares, flashbacks and feelings of dissociation or intense anxiety, afflicted by an inner wound from which they never recovered. David Jones remembers breaking down : '‘all gone to pieces and not pulling himself together not making the best of things’and was himself unable in fact to write In Parethesis until many years later. Many soldiers like Jones were not able to settle back into their home life afterwards or make sense of their experiences. Some people carrying this mental ‘shrapnel’ in their minds committed suicide.
If In Parenthesis
was an attempt to exorcise these demons, it failed. The completion of
the poem in 1932 brought a shattering nervous breakdown. It took five
years for Jones to summon the courage to have it published. T.S. Eliot,
who oversaw its publication by Faber, called it "a work of genius". He would retire to Harrow and devoted himself mainly to calligraphic inscriptions in the Welsh language and continued painting until his death in May 1974, a few months after he had been made a Companion of Honour. Often overlooked nowadays, I would urge people to discover this book it, it remains a work of great vision,it remains forever a profoundly moving piece of work. A masterpiece of First World War poetry and literature that we should not forget.
sketch by David Jones
From In Parenthesis, part 7 And to Private Ball it came as if a rigid beam of great weight
flailed about his calves, caught from behind by ballista-baulk
let fly or aft-beam slewed to clout gunnel-walker
below below below.
When golden vanities make about,
you've got no legs to stand on.
He thought it disproportionate in its violence considering
the fragility of us.
The warm fluid percolates between his toes and his left boot
fills, as when you tread in a puddle--he crawled away in the
opposite direction.
It's difficult with the weight of the rifle.
Leave it--under the oak.
Leave it for a salvage-bloke
let it lie bruised for a monument
dispense the authenticated fragments to the faithful.
It's the thunder-besom for us
it's the bright bough borne
it's the tensioned yew for a Genoese jammed arbalest and a
scarlet square for a mounted mareschal, it's that county-mob
back to back. Majuba mountain and Mons Cherubim and
spreaded mats for Sydney Street East, and come to Bisley
for a Silver Dish. It's R.SM. O'Grady says, it's the soldier's
best friend if you care for the working parts and let us be 'av-
ing those springs released smartly in Company billets on wet
forenoons and clickerty-click and one up the spout and you
men must really cultivate the habit of treating this weapon with
the very greatest care and there should be a healthy rivalry
among you--it should be a matter of very proper pride and
Marry it man! Marry it!
Cherish her, she's your very own.
Coax it man coax it--it's delicately and ingeniously made
--it's an instrument of precision--it costs us tax-payers,
money-I want you men to remember that.
Fondle it like a granny--talk to it--consider it as you would
a friendöand when you ground these arms she's not a rooky's
gas-pipe for greenhorns to tarnish.
You've known her hot and cold.
You would choose her from among many.
You know her by her bias, and by her exact error at 300, and
by the deep scar at the small, by the fair flaw in the grain,
above the lower sling-swivel--
but leave it under the oak.
Slung so, it swings its full weight, With you going blindly on
all paws, it slews its whole length, to hang at your bowed neck
like the Mariner's white oblation.
You drag past the four bright stones at the turn of Wood
Support.
It is not to be broken on the brown stone under the gracious
tree.
It is not to be hidden under your failing body.
Slung so, it troubles your painful crawling like a fugitive's
irons.
At the gate of the wood you try a last adjustment, but slung
so, it's an impediment, it's of detriment to your hopes, you
had best be rid of it--the sagging webbing and all and what's
left of your two fifty--but it were wise to hold on to your
mask.
You're clumsy in your feebleness, you implicate your tin-hat
rim with the slack sling of it.
Let it lie for the dews to rust it, or ought you to decently
cover the working parts.
Its dark barrel, where you leave it under the oak, reflects
the solemn star that rises urgently from Cliff Trench.
It's a beautiful doll for us
it's the Last Reputable Arm.
But leave it--under the oak.
Leave it for a Cook's tourist to the Devastated Areas and crawl
as far as you can and wait for the bearers.
From In Parethesis, David Jones: London: Faber & Faber. 1937 part 7, pp. 183-86.
Picture of David Jones in later life
Animals going to the Ark - David Jones
The Greatest Poem of World War 1: David Jones's In Parenthesis
Poet Owen Sheers will be tracing the story of David Jones poem tracing its inspiration from the English military parade ground to the carnage of the Somme, on a programe on BBC 2 Wales this, Saturday July 10th at from 9.00 pm to 10.30 pm.
This will be followed at 10.30 by In Parenthesis: The making of the Opera
Further reading :-
Tate Gallery, David Jones (1981)
David Jones: Vision and Memory - Ariane Banks and Paul Hills, Lind Humphries 2015
David Jones: The Maker unmade, Jonathan Miles and Derek Shiel, Seren, 1995.
Blair is currently being decimated thank goodness after the much delayed report by the Chilcot Inguiry into the Iraq war has finally been released
.The UK went to war in Iraq before
all peaceful options for disarming Saddam Hussein were exhausted, the
long-awaited official report has concluded.The invasion was not the "last resort" presented to MPs and the British public, chair Sir John Chilcot said.The 2003 invasion was based on "flawed intelligence and assessments" that "were not challenged", it argues.
Tony Blair underestimated the impact it would have on Iraq and the wider region despite "explicit warnings", it adds. It seems in no doubt that yes Tony Blair was and remains a war criminal at large and needs to be bought to justice for all his victims, for us now to truly move forwards. He and and all that were compliant with him need to be held accountable and tried for their crimes for all the horror and pain that they wrought, an enduring painful legacy that many still suffer the impact from many years on. Amnesty International UK director
Kate Allen said: "It's a tragedy that politicians and their advisers
failed to properly assess the human rights consequences of such a
massive military operation, including the horrible sectarian violence it
helped unleash, and it's also a tragedy that the horrors of Abu Ghraib
and cases like Baha Mousa all followed."Hundreds of thousands of people died in Iraq, during the invasion
and its extended aftermath, including UK service personnel. It's
therefore vital that lessons are learnt after Sir John Chilcot has so
comprehensively pointed towards what some of those are."One way of showing that the Government has tried to learn lessons
from Iraq would be for it to ensure that all credible allegations of
unlawful killing, torture and unauthorised detention at the hands of the
UK armed forces in Iraq are properly investigated."Unite union general secretary Len McCluskey said: "Chilcot confirms
what millions of us knew in 2003 - the case for war had not been made.
It was an unnecessary conflict, launched on the basis of flawed
intelligence, secret diplomacy and with no sound legal basis."It has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and made both the Middle East and the wider world less secure."Today our thoughts must be with those who lost loved ones, and with
the people now living in the wretched insecurity that followed this war,
but it is long past time that those responsible were held to account."
By the most scientifically respected measures available, the war killed 1.4 million Iraqis, saw 4.2 million injured, and 4.5 million people have become refugees. The 1.4 million dead were 5% of the population. The invasion included 29,200 air strikes.
An Iraqi who helped topple a statue of Saddam Hussein in 2003 echoed
majority Iraqi opinion this week when he said he'd rather have Hussein
back than continue with the catastrophe that the U.S.-led war created.
The U.S. and its allies targeted civilians, journalists, hospitals and ambulances. They used cluster bomds, white phosphorous, depleted uranium, and a new kind of napalm
in urban areas. Birth defects, cancer rates, and infant mortality have
soared. Water supplies, sewage treatment plants, hospitals, bridges, and
electricity supplies were devastated, and not repaired. .
It seems that the many millions like me who demonstrated and marched for peace were right and we have been vindicated in ways that we have always dreamed off. It seems that Blair with his colluders have been found guilty as charge.Our patience and persistence seems to have borne fruit.
This post dedicated to Reg Keys and Rose Gentle and all others who never gave up their pursuit of justice and campaigned tirelessly to prove the war was illegal and to all those who suffered and were killed because of Blair's lies. No apology will be enough from his hollow breath at this moment in time for the pain he clearly caused to the bereaved families that he continually chose not to listen to.
Never again must so many mistakes be allowed to sacrifice British lives
and lead to the destruction of a country for no positive end.
Blair will probably be getting the oxygen of publicity today that he always seems to bask in despite any criticism, always seems to carry on, regardless with that irritating smile off his, may he get the karma that he so deserves.
Rose Gentle and Reg Keys
Here is a link to the website of the Iraq war inquiry :-
Nye Bevans legacy came into the world 68 years ago this morning,when he
opened Park Hospital in Manchester at a time of rationing and shortages,
when we were nearly bankrupt, a jewel that the war generation left us
with, a proud legacy, for us to all to continue to share. It offered for
the first time a free healthcare system for all, and has since played a
vital role in caring for all aspects of our nations health. My own
father served it well for nigh on 40 years. It has become a source of national pride and is envied around the world.
Remember we paid for it, so it is owned by us, it is our precious
commodity, it must survive, we must tear the vultures hands from it. We cannot reach the day again where people make a profit out of our sickness.It is one of the pillars of UK society. From helping us
when we are in need, to providing employment to over 1.7m people (one of
the largest employers in the world), the NHS is the result of what can
be possible when we work together for the common good.
But our NHS is currently under attack, facing a massive threat from the
Tories and is in grave danger. Dedicated, compassionate staff under increased pressure, leading to low
moral. Recent figures have emerged that 2/4s of hospitals have been
warned about dangerous staff shortages.
This combined with creeping privatisation, major budget cuts and attacks
on staff pay and pensions,..
We should however be proud, that since 1948 that we actually have one of
the best health systems in the world, regardless of age, social status,
ethnic background or belief. It is ours, and belongs to us, from the
cradle to the grave. We own it and pay for it,providing local medical
cover, available free to all, but slowly the Tory's are ripping it from
our grasp. In the long term those that need it most, the chronically
ill, people with mental health problems,the vulnerable and those from
lower socio economic groups and older people will be the ones losing out.
We must defend and protect it with all our might, so that it can continue to care for us,that puts people first not profit. We must
stop this valuable resource from being plundered in front of our eyes.
In the words of Nye Bevan " It will last as long as there are folk left with faith to fight for it."
I went to a rally last night for Jeremy Corbyn in Swansea was pleased to see so many there,packed to the rafters, young and old who I am sure will not only defend their leader, their movement, when the time comes I have faith that people like this will continue to fight for our NHS too.
Jeremy Corbyn this morning paid tribute saying that Labour "will never abandon the NHS, patients or the staff that work in it." I have taken to the man, and believe in the sincerity of his words.
Trespassing over our days
casting splintered division,
vulgar voices of opportunity
transmit conscious ideology,
to pull tomorrow's hope down
abandoning us as days get harder,
because they cannot play out
the role that they promised,
dreams within our reach they steal
taking back all that they see,
storming off with plotted intention
lining grubby pockets with silver,
vacuous morality exposed
wearing gilded smiles,
entrenched deeply
in their deceit and lies.
Have just heard the sad news that British Poet Sir Geoffrey Hill has died at age 84, on Thursday
Hill, who had often been referred to as the “greatest living poet in
the English language”, leaves behind him an extensive amount of poetry
extending back into the Fifties that is both inspired and inspiring. Oxford University’s Professor of Poetry
from 2010-2015, Hill was also a respected critical essayist, winning
the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism in 2009 for his Collected Critical Writings. I first became aware of his work from the edition of Penguin Modern Poets8, which he shared with the poets Edwin Brock and Stevie Smith.
He has been described as a difficult poet, a reputation he gained because he used his intellect to make a continuous engagement with the English language often in his work there are references to fairly obscure people, equally obscure texts plus his facility for Latin and half a dozen European languages which at tmes can seem daunting. His
obsession with violence and corruption in history and politics, he was drawn to the life of martyrs, the saints and poets whose word became their bond, their baptism in
blood: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Charles Péguy, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Simone
Weil. and this combined with his
darkly Christian sensibility made him somewhat unfashionable, his foreign phrases and allusions were resented by some yet his interest and strong attachment to words placed him among a long intellectual tradition. Anyway what the hell is s actually wrong with being clever, and whatever a poet chooses to do with their skill is in the end up to them. Has not much of the greatest poetry throughout history been difficult? Is it not the the poets duty to make us think, scratch our heads, question? Is not life difficult and complex? Do we not try and reflect this in our work? Anyway the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, described him as “in poetry, a
saint and a warrior who never gave an inch in his crusade to reach
poetic truth”.
Hill had a fantastic range though from dark meditations on morals, philosophy, religious faith and political violence to
rapturous evocations of the English landscape of his native
Worcestershire and wonderful poems about love. He was an uncompromising visionary and his work reveals his towering intellect and an emotional complexity that was unrivaled by many of his contemporary's.
Geoffrey William Hill was born in Worcestershire, England in 1932, to William, a police constable, and Hilda Hill, and grew up in the nearby village of Fairfield. where he grew
up in constant view of the landscape that is Housman’s Shropshire. He identified himself as working class
After earning a first degree in English at Oxford, entering the world of academia meaning a family tradition of joining the police force was closed to him because
of deafness in one ear, the result of a childhood illness. he taught for many years, entering first at the University of Leeds for more than twenty years, then at Cambridge.He had married Nancy Whittaker in 1956, and had four children with her. The marriage was dissolved in 1983.He left for for
Boston University in 1988, where he remained on the faculty of the
University Professors Program. In this year he married Alice Goodman, 26 years his junior.Since 1998, he had also served as
codirector of that university’s recently founded Editorial Institute. He
made his home in nearby Brookline, returning each summer to England,
where he kept a cottage in Lancashire. He eventually moved back to Britain in 2006 and settled in a rectory near Cambridge. He received a knighthood in 2012 in the New Years honors list..
Something I shared with him was his struggle with chronic depression and anxiety, which first emerged for him when he was at Cambridge. It was not until he moved to Boston University that he was able finally to seek treatment for his debilitating depression with the use of lithium and Prozac which he described as a ' signal/ mystery, mercy of these latter days.' His political views though could not be further than mine he has described himself as a 'hierarchical Tory, his views were idiosyncratic but
you don't
need to share these in order to get a lot from his work, his poetry is
immensely varied in form and subject matter (he was also our most
accomplished
nature poet). One of the key features of Hill's politics is his
patriotism and his nostalgia for a Britain that never actually existed.
His Toryism doesn't sit well with his anger at the poverty of his
grandparents which demonstrates a keen solidarity with those who are
impoverished by the forces of Capital.
Hill's aesthetic has proved to be controversial owing to the use of
violent language, but he maintains that the controversy he creates is
unintentional: "I don't ... write poems to be polemical; I write to
create a being of beautiful energy."
He is survived by his wife, their daughter, and three sons and a daughter from his previous marriage.
Geoffrey William Hill R.I.P a shining light of fierce intelligence who immersed himself in the complexities and richness of the world, a voice of moral imagination.
Some final words from Hill and King Offa from Mercian Hymns, 1971
"He
divided his realm. It lay there like a dream. An ancient land, full of
strategy. Ramparts of compost pioneered by red-helmeted worms. Hemlock
in ambush, night-soil, tetanus. A wasps’ nest ensconced in the
hedge-bank, a reliquary or wrapped head, the corpse of Cernunnos
pitching dayward its feral horn."
I will end with these three that I particularly appreciate :-
On seeing the Wind at Hope Mansell - Geoffrey Hill
Whether or not shadows are of the substance
such is the expectation I can
wait to surprise my vision as a wind
enters the valley: sudden and silent
in its arrival, drawing to full cry
the whorled invisibilities, glassen towers
freighted with sky-chaff; that, as barnstorming
powers, rammack the small
orchard; that well-steaded oaks
ride stolidly, that rake the light-leafed ash,
that glowing yew trees, cumbrous, heave aside.
Amidst and abroad tumultuous lumina,
regents, reagents, cloud-fêted, sun-ordained,
fly tally over hedgerows, across fields.
Ovid in the Third Reich - Geoffrey Hill
non peccat, quaecumque potest peccasse negare, solaque famosam culpa professa facit.
Amores, III, xiv
I love my work and my children. God
Is distant, difficult. Things happen.
Too near the ancient troughs of blood
Innocence is no earthly weapon.
I have learned one thing: not to look down
So much upon the damned. They, in their sphere,
Harmonize strangely with the divine
Love. I, in mine, celebrate the love-choir.
Turtle Dove - Geoffrey Hill
Love that drained her drained him she’d loved, though each
For the other’s sake forged passion upon speech,
Bore their close days through sufferance towards night
Where she at length grasped sleep and he lay quiet
As though needing no questions, now, to guess
what her secreting heart could not well hide.
Her caught face flinched in half-sleep at his side.
Yet she, by day, modelled her real distress,
Poised, turned her cheek to the attending world
Of children and intriguers and the old,
Conversed freely, exercised, was admired,
Being strong to dazzle. All this she endured
To affront him. He watched her rough grief work
Under the formed surface of habit. She spoke
Like one long undeceived but she was hurt.
She denied more love, yet her starved eyes caught
His, devouring, at times. Then, as one self-dared,
She went to him, plied there; like a furious dove
Bore down with visitations of such love
As his lithe, fathoming heart absorbed and buried.
Today marks the centenary anniversary of the battle of the Somme. At a conference held in December 1915, the decision for a new offensive
on the Western Front had been taken jointly by French
commander-in-chief, Gen. Joseph Joffre, and his British counterpart,
Gen. Sir John French (replaced on Dec. 19, 1915, by Gen. Sir Douglas
Haig). It was to be part of a larger strategic offensive by the Allies
attacking simultaneously on several fronts to prevent the Germans from
switching resources.
The Somme was the first major offensive mounted by the British. By
the end of the 18-week-long battle, British and French forces had
penetrated only 12 kilometres into German-held territory in one of the
bloodiest military operations in history. The British never even reached
their first-day objectives. The battle continued long after it had
achieved its stated and limited aim of drawing off German forces from
Verdun.
Many
of the units that went over the top on July 1, 1916 were Pals
Battalions, volunteer units raised the previous year from men who lived,
worked and socialised together in the same cities, towns and villages
across Britain. The 1st of July 1916
was a bright summer’s day in Picardy, N. France. At 7.30am the sun was
well up. Suddenly whistles sounded. Soldiers rose from the trenches and
the Battle of the Somme began and and one of military history's greatest
disasters and one of the most devastating and bloodiest moments in British history had unfolded before the disbelieving eyes of the Allied High
Command. In the next 141 days of horror, although reliable figures are hard to confirm, at a conservative
estimate more than a million and a quarter men became casualties of all
types on the Somme: perhaps 420,000 British Empire, 195,000 French and
650,000 German. Canadian losses numbered 24,000, nearly 8,000 of them
fatal in the middle of a protracted hell. In the opinion of British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, the
Somme was “the most gigantic, tenacious, grim, futile and bloody fight
ever waged in the history of war.”
For some of the thousands killed on the Somme, the battle lasted for mere
seconds. For their loved ones, the pain lasted a lifetime. The following was said by a Canadian nurse who treated the wounded at the Somme :- " Some terrible cases, oh so much the better dead. One young lad with eyes and nose all gone - one blur of mangled flesh - and body whole and sound ... All are so brave, and yet those who are not badly wounded are so tired of the war, tired in such a hopeless way."
An aerial view of the shell pocked landscape surrounding trenches on the Somme, fall 1916.
All this alone should counter the argument now taking hold among some historians,
politicians and media commentators that the Somme centenary
commemorations should be used to glorify this pointless mass slaughter
as a necessary "sacrifice".
So why did Haig persist, especially in the face of such huge losses?
Haig’s detractors—of whom there are many—accuse him of being an
unimaginative commander who could see no other alternatives to costly
battles of attrition. One of his own justifications for the Somme was
that the enemy’s strength had been considerably worn down, a conclusion
that was neither accepted at the time nor afterwards. Today, the Somme
is generally regarded as a costly failure, and one for which Haig must
bear the lion’s share of responsibility.
The Battle of the Somme finally ended in late November, when rain, snow and sleet made operations impossible. It was difficult to tell victor from vanquished.The Battle of the Somme should be remembered today for epitomising the horror and
waste of the Great War.
Following his bestseller No Glory: The Real History of the First World War, historian Neil Faulkner's new pamphlet, Have You Forgotten Yet: The Truth About the Somme,
sets the record straight and stands with the victims of imperialism and
war – with the workers and peasants of Europe, and with the colonial
people of Africa and Asia. It argues that the Somme, by any rational
assessment, represents a world gone mad.
It is our duty to remember the futility and tragedy of this occasion, and to remember those who died
so senselessly, sacificiced on the altar of imperial stupidity to ensure that the lessons learnt live with us forever. Sadly No time for glorification time to focus on the horrible realities and the many lives that were affected by this horrific event in the years that followed it. This battle that has come to symbolise the horror, waste and futility of war, it's pity and enduring tragedy this pornography of violence should not be used as propoganda for todays wars..
Siegfried Sassoon - Aftermath
Have you forgotten yet?... For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days, Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways: And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you're a man reprieved to go, Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare. But the past is just the same--and War's a bloody game... Have you forgotten yet?... Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.
Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz-- The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets? Do you remember the rats; and the stench Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench-- And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain? Do you ever stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen again?'
Do you remember that hour of din before the attack-- And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men? Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back With dying eyes and lolling heads--those ashen-grey Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?
Have you forgotten yet?... Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you'll never forget.
