Deir Yassin massacre remembered 69 years later .

Today the Palestinian people mark the time on April 9, 1948 when Commanders of  the Ergun (headed by future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin,) and the Stern Gang attacked in the early hours of the morning Deir Yassin, a village at the western entrance of Jerusalem containing 750 Palestinian residents. By the time  the villagers realized the intensity of the terrorist attack, hundreds were already dead, the Zionist militia  murdered over 250 - 360 Palestinian villagers in cold blood wounding  many others. Many of the bodies were tossed  in the village well,  and 159 captured women and children  were paraded  through the Jewish sectors of Jerusalem.
What happened in Deir Yassin prepared the ground for the ethnic cleansing of 70% of the Palestinian people. The same ethnic cleansing that occurred then is unfortunately going on today. In 1948 they used direct massacres, but today they use airstrikes in Gaza and shoot innocent young Palestinians in the West Bank.
Deir Yassin was not an isolated incident; such a heartbreaking tragedy was flagrantly carried out in conjunction with “Plan Dalet.” Based on a policy of ethnic cleansing and terror, “Plan Dalet” was implemented by the Haganah to force Palestinians to flee their homes and to destroy their villages with the deliberate intent of establishing the State of Israel on Palestinian soil.
For Palestinians and their supporters, the massacre is a symbol. that marks  their deep sense  of dispossession.It is remembered as the pivotal onset of the 1948 Nabka. Deir Yassin is the "other shoe that fell," sparking over 750,000 to flee from their homes, 80 percent of the population at that time, from their homes so that Israel, a colonialist settler state, could be created on their land.Over two million scattered in a far-flung diaspora today, in what remains at the heart of the Israel/Palestine conflict.
The village  lay outside of the area assigned by the United Nations to the 'Jewish State'. It had a peaceful reputation, the Deir Yassin villagers had signed a non aggression pact with the leaders of the adjacent Jewish Quarter, Giv'at Shaul and had even refused military personnel from the Arab Liberation Army from using the village as a base.An Israeli psychiatric hospital now lies on the ruins of Deir Yassin, the remainder of which was bulldozed in the 1980s to make way for new settlements  and incorporated as a neighbourhood of Jerusalem. These streets shamefully carry the names of the Irgun militiamen who carried out the massacre.
Sixty nine years later the Deir Yassin massacre still remains an important reminder of Israel’s systematic measures of displacement, destruction, dispossession, and dehumanization.In keeping with Simon Wiesenthal's observation that "Hope lives when people remember," the suffering of the Jews has been rightly acknowledged and memorialised. But there are few memorials for Palestinians who died in 1948 and since. Their history, in which the massacre at Deir Yassin is a very significant event, has been largely buried and forgotten. And yet, like the descendants of the victims in Armenia (1915-17), in the Soviet Union (1929-53), in Nazi Germany (1933-45), in China (1949-52, 1957-60, and 1966-76), and in Cambodia (1975-79), the descendants of Palestinians want the world to remember what they suffered, what they lost and why they died. The calculated efforts by Israel to completely erase the history, narrative and physical presence of the Palestinian people will not be simply ignored or forgotten. It also serves to ask ourselves the question what  turns a victim into an abuser,a bully that keeps blaming its victims? And over the years we've been taught many things, that invasion was not invasion, occupation was not occupation, apartheid was not apartheid,ethnic cleansing was not ethnic cleansing,and that land theft was not land theft and Palestine was not Palestine.
But many years later the Palestinian peoples collective voice can still be heard from the refugee camps of Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, to the towns of the West Bank and Gaza, to the ghettos inside the Israeli green line. This determination and resilience has earned them respect and support of an increasing number of people around the world. Despite the humiliation and pain of their  occupation, you can't kill their  indomitable spirit and struggle.

Phil Monsour featuring Rafeef Ziadah - Ghosts of Deir Yassin

The writing on the hands are the names of the original villages in Palestine that these people were ethnically cleansed

Ghosts of Deir Yassin
They pretend that it’s forgotten
But somewhere small flowers grow
On the weathered stones of destroyed homes
Somewhere the light’s still in the window
You see that we are rising our day is surely coming
No longer in the shadows
Of the ghosts of Deir Yassin
They change the names on the signs
But it’s in our hearts these words are written
Of the children who don’t know their homes
They will walk the streets from which they are forbidden
You see that we are rising our day is surely coming
No longer in the shadows
Of the ghosts of Deir Yassin

After an echo

                                         
The following poem dedicated to the memory of my beloved Jane Elizabeth Husband ( 9/5/ 60 - 8/1/17)  today marks 3 months since her passing.

After an echo

Last night, I heard an owl hooting 
from not that far away, 
releasing its comforting call 
I sipped calmly from a glass, 
before the time of sleep beckoned me
to paddle on the waves of dream, 
in the names of yesterday
and the chords of tomorrow,
in undulating scrawls, put pen to paper 
life is a memory, I thought, of days gone past,
songs in the sunshine,dances in the rain 
the smell of alcohol and smouldering devotion,
converging through darkness in sweet seduction
constructing sentences that flowed with wine.

But I don't believe in miracles any more 
because luck seems to run out all the time, 
yet outside the moonlight guided
and as thoughts got crowded and perplexed,
released some sense of power
carried me drifting, along meandering streams, 
swimming again with lullabies
and untethered emotions,
against the currents, thought of sunrise
as head went dizzy, I plunged under, closed my eyes,
let visions call that took me again, to a place of safety. 

Rejoicing in old image of the past, the magic released
allowed me to catch breathe, to look up to the the sky, 
and sigh as the beauty of an echo called 
sailing on another horizon, but still by my side, 
filled my soul with gladness, chased away the sadness
made my face glow, my heart to beat,
allowed me to listen once more
to the tranquillity of a deep blue sea,
the trees blowing gently in the breeze and clouds
faraway spirit, floating freely across a satin sky, 
in the distance there is a rainbow
a prism of colour, ever so wonderful,
as I row on into the world shining bright
with enough comfort and grace left to bestow.

Now is the time for diplomacy and restraint, not the time to be escalating the War in Syria.

Last Tuesday, images  of scores of Syrians whose bodies had been  ravaged by a chemical attack in the  Khan Shaykun area of Idlib, naturally horrified the world.Around 60 people were reported dead, many of whom were children and there were hundreds of further casualties. The use of weapons like this is obviously unacceptable to any right minded person. If  this was carried out by the Assad's  government, it would be an act of  brazen  impunity, coming during a major international meeting in Brussels where officials are debating whether the European Union and other countries will contribute billions of dollars for reconstructing Syria if it is presided over by a government run by Mr. Assad.
But while  fingers  pointed this way and that with who to blame for the use of chemical weapons, no one is absolutely certain, ( Both Syria and Russia vehemently deny that the Syrian military used chemical weapons, maintaining that the casualties were caused by gases released after an al-Qaeda-affiliated ammunitions depot was hit by conventional munitions in a government air raid. ) however this tragedy made people of  conscience respond with sadness and anger, yet with  little time for reflection or consultation with either Congress or the international community. the United States Government chose the way of war in response. Donald Trump  unilaterally ordered airstrikes on April 6, sending  59 Tomahawk cruise missiles into a Syrian government airbase which have reportedly killed nine civilians, including  four children to date. I agree with the President that " no child  of God should ever suffer such horror.” I disagree that the way to prevent  such horror is add more violence to violence and remember that only a couple of months ago he clearly demonstrated how much he cared about the plight of Syrian children when he attempted to introduce a totally unconstitutional ban on Syrian refugee children travelling to America, and now he's crying crocodile tears about their plight in order to justify lobbing even more bombs into Syria. He .had also ordered previously an airstrike on a mosque in Al-Jineh Syria March 16, killing 46 civilians.
The logic that  military strikes, like these,will deter and quell  the aggression taking place in Syria is a deeply flawed one. The situation in Syria is a deeply tragic one, a conflict which has been raging now for  six years, in what began as a citizen uprising in the spirit of the Arab Spring, and then  morphed into a complex proxy war involving foreign fighters, multiple regional powers, ISIS, Al Quada and Russia, which has resulted  in so much devastation, chaos and harm.According to United Nations reports, over 400,000 persons  have died due  to the conflict and millions have become displaced or fled Syria.Too many reports of horrors to mention. The U.S airstrikes though without any recourse to international law, without a proper investigation into what actually happened and in  violation  of the Chemical Weapons Convention,  according to the United Nations  simply adds fuel to the fire and any further unilateral action will only  escalate an already dire situation and inflame the terrible war that has already caused untold misery for the people of Syria country,threatening to widen the war even further.The long-term prospects for peace in Syria remain as grim as ever. While a ceasefire has technically been in place across Syria since the end of December between the moderate opposition and the government, both sides have continued to launch attacks, and a fifth round of peace talks in Geneva ended at an impasse at the end of last month.Tensions with Russia are already rising  as US says Assad must abide by deal not to use chemical weapons but fails to outline objectives Whatever happens next, now is the time for a level of diplomacy and to insist on a coordinated and global humanitarian  aid, food, shelter, medical care and assistance for refugees and displaced persons and search for avenues to end this conflict peacefully, rather than  rash decisions that could escalate this already tragic situation.
The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, has also urged restraint to avoid any escalation of the situation in Syria, in the wake of the U.S. airstrikes, he: “I continue to follow the situation in Syria closely and with grave concern.“Mindful of the risk of escalation, I appeal for restraint to avoid any acts that could deepen the suffering of the Syrian people.“These events underscore my belief that there is no other way to solve the conflict than through a political solution”, Guterres said in a statement.The UN chief called on the parties to urgently renew their commitment to making progress in the Geneva intra-Syrian talks.“The Security Council has the primary responsibility for international peace and security”, Mr. Feltman  he added. He also urged the 15-member body to unite and exercise that responsibility to investigate the alleged use of chemical weapons in Khan Shaykun.“Security Council resolution 2254 (2015) and the 2012 Geneva Communiqué remain the foundation of, and contain the core principles for, United Nations mediation efforts and ultimately a solution in this regard”, he said.
I do not support either Assad, Trump, Russia, or  ISIS, and  have been in unsettled by the amount of human rights abuses that have taken place across Syria, but I simply do not want to  hear of more death, bombs or destruction.The whole country is destroyed , there is no side to take, there is simply no winner. Civilians are paying the price in this deadly game of thrones. We must continue to show mercy on the people of Syria. We can't ignore there suffering  but we must also  concentrate on the world armourers and dealers who keep peddling and spreading their deadly trade, these profiteers of pain, misery, suffering, chaos and destruction,welcomed by all the leaders of the so called free world. Also the military industrial complex has to be fed with wars that never end , remember war is monstrous, its very nature is one of tragedy and suffering, oh  please , when will this perpetual madness cease.  

Bob Dylan - Masters of War - Lyrics

The Work Capability Assessment

The Work Capability Assessment (WCA) which was introduced in 2008 is the primary assessment for Employment and Support Allowance, the main social security payment for ill and disabled people. In the above documentary advocates, lawyers and claimants outline the fundamental problems with the (WCA), and the adverse effects it has on claimants. They show how the WCA fails the disabled and fails on the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) terms; it can worsen people’s health and does not help them return to work. The WCA is carried out by private companies (initially Atos now Maximus). Although some assessments can be carried out smoothly and professionally, others are in buildings that do not have disabled access, require people in pain to sit for hours on hard chairs, and are carried out by cold or even cruel assessors.
The film director Ken Loach  made a film "I Daniel Blake'  to show the harsh reality of applying for benefits .This month  the government plans to cut the new Employment Support Allowance (ESA) for ill or disabled claimants who are judged to be able to work in the future.The allowance will be reduced by a third to £73.10 per week, the same as Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) and is designed to give an incentive to disabled people to find work.
Ken Loach says the most vulnerable are being targeted by the new 'benefit reform'.His film "I Daniel Blake' followed two benefits claimants plunged into poverty.The Department of Work and Pensions says, "Our welfare reforms are increasing the support and incentives for people who move into work, while keeping an important safety net in place for those who need it." yet many people who rely on it, in their time of need find it degrading and cruel, and reducing disabled and vulnerable peoples incomes even further is only going to make life harder.
Legal advocates say the assessment system for benefits is getting to many decisions wrong, forcing thousands of claimants to go to court.More than 1,600 complaints have been made against nurses carrying out fit-for-work assessments in the last five years.Read more at http://thirdforcenews.org.uk/tfn-news/new-information-reveals-huge-number-of-complaints-against-pip-fit-for-work
These crude tests have caused horrifying suffering and led to homelessness, ill health , despair and tragically even suicides as people with serious health conditions are found fit for work and left without enough money to eat or keep the heating. There is also evidence that these tests have caused relapses in  claimants who also happen to be patients with serious mental health conditions. People witl long term mental health issues get very distressed about being assessed, because they don’t feel they are being listened to in their interviews or treated as  even as human, just as another tick on a box.There are also cases  of claimants who can barely leave their homes due to anxiety, depression, PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] or obsessive compulsive disorder being deemed fit for work and therefore having their benefits cut or removed, as a result there have been many reported cases of people relapsing as a consequence of getting distressed
Debbie Abrahams, the Shadow Work and Pensions Minister says 'it's a punitive system designed to get people off benefits, even if it has the effect of making people feel they have no choice but to take their own life'.The Work Capability Assessment is totally inhumane for people with invisible, but well documented mental health issues, especially for people with a factual  history recognised by their Consultants and General Practitioners.
It’s important to acknowledge that there are many people  who simply cannot work, and to force them through degrading assessments is simply appalling.I personally live in a state of fear and anxiety , just waiting to see if a brown  letter will  arrive, ordering me for re-asseesment. It is of many peoples opinion that  the Work Capability Assessment (WCA), no matter how much it may have been rejigged and  re-designed, is deeply flawed and  is simply not fit for purpose, and that no-one has any faith in it because of the appalling damage already inflicted on so many vulnerable claimants across the land. Many also  believe it needs to be scrapped, but the Tory's with no soul would never agree to this, and will probably as I write be thinking up more draconian measures, in which to inflict their brand of conscious cruelty.
The people who made the above video would like to thank everyone who their time to talk about the WCA. Some people have requested anonymity, therefore they have either used their voice only or got actors to record what they said (a lot of claimants are scared of the DWP).

(Music:http://www.bensound.com/ )

Here is a link to Disabled People Against Cuts Website ( a very valuable resource ):-

http://dpac.uk.net/ 

This post is dedicated to all those who are suffering , have suffered and those who have died whilst going through this inhumane process. 

Strength to Love - A poem for Martin Luther King Jr ( 15/1/29 - 4/4/68)

Just after 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr was  fatally shot while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennesse. The civil rights leader was in Memphis to support a sanitation workers’ strike and was on his way to dinner when a bullet struck him in the jaw and severed his spinal cord. King was pronounced dead after his arrival at a Memphis hospital. He was 39 years old.
 For his entire adult life, until the very day he was assassinated in 1968, he was under constant surveillance from the federal government, under constant threat from millions of people who actually hated the causes and ideals he stood for, and, in his last days on earth, seemed to frequently suggest to his closest friends that he was aware he wouldn't make it much longer.
King also  fought against police brutality and actually even mentioned it by name in his celebrated speech. Dr. King did not just vaguely fight against the idea of poverty, he fought for equal pay, he fought for better work conditions in cities across America, he fought to protect workers who were regularly abused by corporations.
He did not just vaguely fight for peace in the world; he stood up and spoke out against the Vietnam War when it was still tremendously unpopular for a man of his stature to do so. He did not, in fact, fight for integration, as much as he fought against segregation.
 In  the months before his assassination, Martin Luther King became increasingly concerned with the problem of economic inequality in America. He organized a Poor People’s Campaign to focus on the issue, including an interracial poor people’s march on Wahington and in March 1968 traveled to Memphis in support of poorly treated African-American sanitation workers. On March 28, a workers’ protest march led by King ended in violence and the death of an African-American teenager. King left the city but vowed to return in early April to lead another demonstration. On April 3, back in Memphis, King gave his last sermon, saying, “We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop…And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.”
One day after speaking those words, Dr. King was shot and killed by a sniper. As word of the assassination spread, riots broke out in cities all across the United States and National Guard troops were deployed in Memphis and Washington D.C On April 9, King was laid to rest in his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. Tens of thousands of people lined the streets to pay tribute to King’s casket as it passed by in a wooden farm cart drawn by two mules.Martin Luther King  is now best  remembered  for his ' I have a dream ' speech,but we owe him more than that,  this man  of great  purpose, humility and wisdom was also a radical and revolutionary by both deed and action. As injustice continues in this world of ours , we can still find the courage to stand up and say enough.

 " Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love  without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is  love implementing the demands of justice,  and justice at its best is power
correcting everything that stands against love.”- Martin Luther King Jr

Strength to Love

Martin Luther King had a dream
That still today stirs our conscience,
He rejected violence to oppose racial injustice
Spread a message of peace, love and understanding,
His only weapons were his words and faith
As he marched in protest with his fellow man,
A force for good, but radical with intention
Pursued civil disobedience  but was not afraid
                                            of confrontation
We are all born equal under skin
This noble struggle never stops within,
The causes of division must still be eradicated
There is so much more room for change,
As fresh iniquities call, lets keep hope alive
Standing firm let our voices ring out,
Keep sharing deeds of deep principle
In the name of pride and in the name of love,
We are all still citizens of the world
Let's stand up for the voiceless all around us
As Martin Luther carries on reminding
His words echoing down the corridors of time
“Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever.
The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.”
We must continue to resist and overcome,
One day soon, all our dreams will be realised.

One Hour of Spanish Republican Music

In 1931, Spanish King Alfonso XIII approved elections to decide the government of Spain, and voters overwhelmingly chose to abolish the monarchy in favor of a liberal republic. Alfonso subsequently went into exile, and the Second Republic, was proclaimed. During the first five years of the Republic, organized labor and leftist radicals forced widespread liberal reforms, and the independence-minded Spanish regions of Catalonia and the Basque provinces achieved virtual autonomy.
The landed aristocracy, the church, and a large military clique increasingly employed violence in their opposition to the Second Republic, and in July 1936 General Francisco Franco led a right-wing army revolt in Morocco, which prompted the division of Spain into two key camps: the fascists and the Republicans. Franco’s  fascist forces rapidly overran much of the Republican-controlled areas in central and northern Spain, but Catalonia became a key Republican stronghold.
During 1937, Franco unified his  forces under the command of the Falange, Spain’s fascist party, with the aid  of Nazi Germany and Italy who supplied them with  an abundance of planes, tanks, and arms, while radical men and women  took up arms to defend Spanish democracy against the right-wing uprising, rallying to the Republican cause forming what is known as the International Brigades.The most significant contribution of these foreign units was the successful defense of Madrid until the end of the war.
In June 1938, however the fascists managed to cut  the Republican territory in two, and later in the year, Franco mounted a major offensive against Catalonia. In January 1939, its capital, Barcelona, was captured, and soon after the rest of Catalonia fell. With the Republican cause all but lost, its leaders attempted to negotiate a peace, but Franco refused. On March 28, 1939, the fascists entered Madrid in triumph, and the Spanish Civil War came to an end. Sadly many  members of the International Brigades were lost  fighting for the noble cause they believed in.
The  music above though is not lost and hopefully still inspires and resonates deeply within, still capable of igniting passion, enduring flames in our continuous battle against the dark forces of fascism. A companion piece to a few earlier posts, that are also sources  of constant inspiration.To this day, generations later, these songs of the Spanish Civil War are still sung across the world, and are no less urgent, as we continue to follow liberty's breath and stand up to the enemies of freedom that are no less dangerous. 

http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/one-hour-of-iww-music.html

 http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/one-hour-of-yiddish-communist-music.html

Seeking Nirvana- Jane Elizabeth Husband (9/5/60 - 8/1/17)

The following poem is the only piece of writing that I have left of my beloved faithful departed, and reminds me that she had a deep creative bent  and a rather cynical sense of humor, this was written back in the day, before i'd encountered her, after she herself  had come to Wales seeking something, ironically she discovered me, a Welshman who never escaped, who had somewhat dropped out myself, adrift in  a haze of dope and brew, before she helped me move slightly in another direction, well she certainly awakened my senses . I miss her incredibly. Cheers mighty furbster x.

Seeking Nirvana

They came from the East in their Buses and Vans
Seeking fate in the bottom of stale Beer cans,
Over the border belching woodsmoke and pot
This place is cool man, here we must stop,
Pagans, witches and God knows what
Long hair and beards all in a knot,

The great unwashed clad in Rainbow hues
The Welsh very wisely took to their pews,
For 30 odd years and it's still not over,
The hippy invasion still trampling Welsh clover,
"Hey man it's heavy, that rat race at home,
Here's hill and coast where we might roam,
Let's move to Wales the New Age Eldorado
The Welsh have considered a complete embargo,
"Seal the borders! No more must come here
Stoned out of their heads and reeking of beer,
The hippies pursued by personal fear
Many of them shedding the occasional tear,
A different problem chasing each one
Their grip on humanity almost gone,
They came to forget and sort out their heads
Now they just spend all day in their beds,
Passing their time sloshed or stoned out their mind
Nothing gets done, not a brain cell to find,
It only takes 2 minutes to have a wash
And now they're all complaining they've got no dosh,
They're not happy here and trying to move on
Can't raise the money, motivation gone,
Because they're all followed by personal ghosts
And now the Welsh are sick of playing the host,
The Benefit agency have had enough
Of all this New Age Hippy stuff,
The problems they will never solve
Because their world will always revolve,
Around blotting out their troublesome pasts
And still they haven't found a solution that lasts,
If they'd just stay sober and face their Karma
They'd have no need for Eden and feel a lot calmer. .

Burger King - King of Destruction

Burger King, the company that sometimes thinks that crispy chicken is a vegetarian option, that poses as a good corporation citizen is now having to contend with a scathing report by environmental protection group Mighty Earth.
Entitled "The Ultimate Mystery Meat," Mighty Earth investigated the impact of soy crops used to feed the animals that go into 11 million Whoppers, Crispy Chickens Jr., Bacon Kings, and other sandwiches every single day.
Turns out that the global burger chain is flame-grilling more than just beef patties. According to the report, the company’s two main soy suppliers—Bunge and Cargill (Cargill which  has also sponsored Burger King’s annual convention in 2015, and donated a five-figure sum to the Burger King McLamore Foundation in 2014.) are "systematically" burning tropical forests in Brazil and Bolivia,  to make way for industrial soy farms to feed cattle leading to the disappearance of more than 1.7 million acres of forest land between 2011 and 2015.
The trees of tropical rainforests make up critical habitat, for an incredible diversity of amazing wildlife like sloths, jaguars, golden lion tamarins, macaws and many others.This alleged rampant deforestation is a devastating impact on these species that rely on the rich ecosystem for survival.
The connection might not be immediately apparent, since Burger King sources its beef regionally. Nevertheless, your local Burger King restaurant is also driving deforestation.As one of the world’s biggest fast food corporations, Burger King has the clout to demand that its suppliers produce soy feed without harming nature – but it doesn’t.
Instead, it is granting them a 13-year grace period during which they can continue to destroy forests. 13 years! Not a single tree will remain standing in many regions by then.We  simply can't wait another thirteen years to save crucial rainforests and habitat.
By using aerial drones, Mighty Earth claims that they witnessed tractors "ripping up" the ancient savannah as well as soybean farmers using "systematic fires to burn the debris and clear the land—sending acrid smoke across the whole region."
Burger King are not the only corporation currently raping our planet, so, why target Burger King when so many other fast food chains rely on soy crops? Apparently, Burger King is the worst of the pack, scoring a big, fat zero on the Union of Concerned Scientists' 2016 scorecard of major beef sellers' deforestation profiles, way behind Wal-Mart, McDonald's, and Wendy's.
"Unlike many of its competitors, Burger King has repeatedly turned down requests from civil society organizations to commit to only buying from suppliers who don't engage in destruction of forests, or to provide information about where its commodities originate," the report states.Burger King, which is owned by the Brazilian investment firm 3G Capital, does not disclose details of its suppliers but has refused to rule out buying products produced on deforested land.
Last year, nearly 2m hectares of land was deforested in Brazil – up from 1.5m in 2015 – while an estimated 865,000 hectares of forest was cleared in Bolivia, compared to 667,000 a year in the 2000s.
Not all of the forest clearing was linked to soy production, but Mighty Earth says food companies are not doing enough to prevent deforestation in areas they operate in, and offer financial incentives that spur the process in the first place.

 Burger King - King of Destruction

Burger King sells 11 million burgers daily at the cost of the environment. It is systematically  destroyng  rainforests and with it, its wildlife, including endangered species. Although protesters have urged the burger giant to stop using these suppliers, it has refused. Their actions are simply irresponsible, wrong and unacceptable and smacks of pure greed, we urgently need to get the word out to  Burger King and tell them they can't get away with it.
Please tell burger King to get deforestation out of its supply chain now.

https://www.rainforest-rescue.org/petitions/1091/tell-burger-king-to-get-deforestation-out-of-its-supply-chain

Waiting to go go ( some reflections on Death)

(I am currently grieving deeply for a loved  one, but in the meantime thought it would be cathartic to release the following poem that has recently arrived.)

Waiting to go go ( some reflections on Death)

What is it about Death
That makes us hold our breath,
We are all waves of consciousness
Passing through the corridors of time,
From the moment of birth you and me
All of us waiting to go go,
It can't be hidden, sadly there's no escape
Try not to pretend not to see, or be afraid,
It might be tonight or some time tomorrow
So while we can, best laugh and smile,
Until it's time for our very last dance
When the music and lights start to fade,
In the meantime lets talk about the weather
Cling on to Love and peace and all things nice,
Seize the day and carry on resisting
Show some allegiance to noble causes here on earth,
Until that fateful day Mr Reaper man comes
And releases our grip makes us take that final bow.

Palestine land day

Today, 30th March, is Land Day in Palestine and is marked by Palestinians wherever they live. Land Day is held on the anniversary of March 30, 1978,when Palestinian villages and cities across the country witnessed mass demonstrations against the states plans to expropriate 2,000 hectares of land in and around the Arab villages of Araba and Sakhnin as a part of a plan to "Judaise the Galilee".Israel's Galilee region. In coordination with the military, some 4,000 police officers were  dispatched  to quell the unrest. At the end of the day, six Palestinian citizens of Israel were killed, and over one hundred injured by state security forces.
The Day of the land - or Land Day marked the first mass mobilization of Palestinians within Israel against internal colonialism and land theft. It also signalled the failure of Israel to subjugate Palestinians who remained in their towns and villages, after around 700,000 of them were either expelled or forced to flee battles or massacres committed by Zionist armed groups in 1948.It's commemoration is a reaffirmation that the Palestinians who remained in the area on which Israel was declared in 1948, are an inseperable part of the Palestinian people and their struggle.
This important day in Palestinian history commemorates the Palestinians sense of belonging to a people, to a cause and a country, to stand united against racial oppression and rules of apartheid,and the discriminatory practices of the Israeli government, giving continual potency to the Palestinians cause , its quest for justice and Palestinian rights, and its resistance to injustice,who never cease to fight for their land while holding passionately to their history and identity. It is the right of return, recognised in the United Nations Resolution 194, that drives Palestinians to continue with the commemoration of Land Day - regardless of their geographical location.
The day is commemorated  annually by Palestinians in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and further afield in refugee camps and among the Palestinian diaspora worldwide, with demonstrations, marches and by planting olive and fruit trees. Land Day is typically met with violent Israeli repression. Today many of the Land Day protests  against the theft of their lands focus on the Negev region, since much of the land that has been marked for appropriation in the Galilee has already been confiscated. The Palestinian Bedouin citizens of Israel also now face the appropriation of 800,000 dunams of the Negev by the Israeli state.The housing situation for the Bedouin remains dire. Settlements that house 160,000 people are deemed "illegal" by Israel, and risk demolition. The issue of land allocation and housing for Palestinian citizens of Israel has now reached crisis point.
Land Day therefore  continues to be poignantly relevant as Israel continues to confiscate land, expand their colonies, and continue to build their illegal settlements in flagrant violation of all international conventions, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention and international humanitarian law.Land day is  a Palestine day, a day for its people to  proudly declare that they are one from the River to the Sea.
The Land Day strike  inspired the following powerful poem by Tawfiq Zayyad, Palestinian poet, writer, scholar and politician, that continues to resonate across the Palestinian generations.

Here we will stay - Tawfiq Zayyad ( 7/5/ 29 - 5/7/ 94)

In Lidda, in Ramla, in the Galilee,
we shall remain
like a wall upon your chest,
and in your throat
like a shrad of glass,
a cactus thron,
and in your eyes
a sandstorm.
We shall remain
a wall upon your chest,
clean dishes in your restaurants,
serve drinks in your bars,
sweep the floors of your kitchens
to snatch a bite for our children
from your blue fangs.
Here we shall stay,
sing our songs,
take to the angry streets,
fill prisons with dignity.
In Lidda, in Ramla, in the galilee,
we shall remain,
guard the shade of the fig
and olive trees,
ferment rebellion in our children
as yeast in the dough.

Link to poem by Mahmoud Darwish on the same theme :-

https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/to-our-land-mahmoud-darwish-13309.html 

Article 50 - Not in my name

So Theresa May has now signed the official letter, article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, which formally begins the process of leaving the European Union. For many milllions of people, this appears to be a colossal act of self harm. Ending decades of integration with our neighbours. May has also chosen the hardest and most divisive form of Brexit, choosing to take us out of the Single Market before she has even tried to negotiate.Membership of the Single Market was not on the ballot paper last June, yet without a mandate she has chosen to rip Britain, our businesses and our people out of the world’s biggest market. I was always a Euro sceptic,always thought that it was in need of reform, but thought we should stay, these were my own thoughts on the subject earlier :- https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/europe-should-we-stay-or-should-we-go.html
The following is from our unelected Tory Prime Minister. Who with her party have now taken us back 60 years.The following words if they don't scare you, well you need to look up what the Tories have done so far.
"This is an historic moment from which there can be no turning back - Britain is leaving the European Union - we're going to make our own decisions and our own laws, we're going to take control of the things that matter most to us. And we're going to take this opportunity to build a stronger and fairer Britain that our children and grandchildren are proud to call home."
We  already live in a divided nation run by an incompetent government that is encouraging  the rich to become richer, and the poor to becoming poorer, while trying to kill our NHS and welfare state. Once out of Europe they will feel they have mandate to do anything they damn well like.I do not stand by a Brexit deal that will punish the most vulnerable in society even further, I do not stand by a Brexit deal that will put more people into poverty, I do not stand by a Brexit deal that will destroy our country, and take away our already basic human rights! It is simply a failure of epic tragic proportions and a sad day for Britain as we leap into the abyss and become a poorer, small-minded xenophobic place to live. Britain has  now officially stepped into the worst decision its ever made as Donald Tusk receives UK's article 50 letter.
A new European Parliament report though  shows that the UK can still change its mind on Brexit, so if Theresa May’s deal is not good enough, the people of the UK should have the chance to say so.We should remember too, that it was not a mere minority who declined to support this event that we are all supposed to be celebrating now, it was nearly half of the country, many of whom will today be experiencing an immense feeling of sadness. Brexit is simply not the will of the people. As May continues to refer to the 48% ( of which I was one) in her quotes about unity, we must resist. We must  say NO, Theresa. Not only do we not see or support your chaotic views, we don’t support this callous, needlessly extreme Brexit  one bit and we never will. Now more than ever we must stand with migrants and continue our fight to defend the freedom of movement for all .Brexit. Not in my name. Please sign the following petition and show Theresa that she is not speaking for you!

https://www.change.org/p/theresa-may-mp-article-50-not-in-my-name

To the Politicians

The following poem can also be found here :-

https://iamnotasilentpoet.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/to-the-politicians-by-dave-rendle/

They will offer you
a handful of inflated emotion,
tie you up in knots
having eaten their fill,
will not do anything you ask for
whilst continuing to deliver soundbites,
eager to show that they do really care
will carry on giving you handshakes,
full of lies and deceipt
with warped sense of logic,
as the pain frosts over our breaths
offer us scraps of austerity,
whilst  hours draw by keep us unsatisfied,
continue their games to bend and shape us
apart from a few, most of collassal self-importance,
with their rhetoric full  of emptiness
deliver to us, utter complete disrespect,
it is up to us to stir their will
in sweet sheer defiance,
carve a new domain
into which, us they must serve,
instead of corporations and lobbyists
and others with a lust of power,
deliver us human foundations.
built on concepts of truth
that can be seeds of future's rebirth.

Good morning Britain

Aztec camera/ Mick Jones Good morning Britain.


Brilliant piece of culture and art - The powers that be make this song so relevant , many years since this record came out, fair gain for the elites, this song sums up Britain so much.
Here in Britain, politics is racing at breakneck speed. We have Theresa May as an unelected prime minister.The PM also stands  accused of closing the door on child refugees after reneging on a pledge to allow 3,000 stranded in Europe into Britain.The Tory's are ploughing on  with the benefit cap and other measures which are driving working-class families into the dirt, and no plans to seriously tackle this were made in Hammond's autumn statement. It is planning £22 billion-worth of savage cuts to the NHS, using the mechanism  of the so called ' sustaainability and transformation plans' (STPs). The end result, if they are allowed to get away with it, will be the wholesale closure of local hospitals. We are also wirnessing the rise of the  far-right and xenophobia on the rise again, combined  with  Post Brexit we could be living in a nightmare  that we can't escape, it will see many people waking up to the political economic consequences of leaving Europe, and realising they have been duped.We are currently sailing into a  future that does not look too rosy.Scary times indeed.
Yet the Tories will be screwed if Scotland and Northern Ireland still decide to remain in the EU. Scotland, having previously voted to remain in the UK and the EU, cannot now do both. The irony if the unintended consequence of Brexit could be a break up of Britain , with the result  a new Anglo-Welsh world super power that we could call Wengland.We are certainly  facing more days of shock and waves of uncertainty.
In the immediate future, the defense of migrants, including those yet to come, celebrating diversity is fundamental to opposing the swing to the right post-Brexit. Let or future not be steeped in shame..Only saying.
.

Refugee Mother And Child - Chinua Achebe ( 16/11/36 - 21/3/13)

Chinua Achebe was a great Nigerian novelist. poet and short story writer of global significance.  He is best known for his first novel “Things Fall Apart” which has been translated into 45 languages.  His poem “Refugee Mother and Child” is a celebration of motherhood. It is set in  a refugee camp somewhere in Africa. The representation of human suffering  and the picture of a mother's tenderness for her son, that she soon will lose,  is truly moving and compelling..

Refugee Mother And Child

No Madonna and Child could touch
that picture of a mother's tenderness
for a son she soon would have to forget.
The air was heavy with odours

of diarrhoea of unwashed children
with washed-out ribs and dried-up
bottoms struggling in laboured
steps behind blown empty bellies. Most

mothers there had long ceased
to care but not this one; she held
a ghost smile between her teeth
and in her eyes the ghost of a mother's
pride as she combed the rust-coloured
hair left on his skull and then -

singing in her eyes - began carefully
to part it… In another life this
would have been a little daily
act of no consequence before his
breakfast and school; now she

did it like putting flowers
on a tiny grave.                           

Unity against hate and division

After the tragic attack in Westminster on Wednesday. night, many are now expressing their shock. It  was terrible because people lost their lives or were horribly wounded,due to the actions of a sick and depraved individual fuelled by hate, Kent-born Khalid Masood, 52, who ploughed a car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before smashing it into railings and then running into the grounds of Parliament, armed with a knife.There he stabbed PC Keith Palmer, 48, before being shot dead by armed police.Pedestrians British national and mother of two Aysha Frade, 43, and US tourist Kurt Cochran, 54, died in the incident on Westminster Bridge, while 40 people remain hospitalised, with seven in critical condition. There has  naturally been an outporing of gfrief and anger .
In light of all of this though  I  recommend the following clip from journalist Simon Jenkins talking sense on Newsnight about how the media irresponsibly creates frenzies of publicity around incidents of terrorism. It feeds racism and Islamophobia, it feeds a climate of relentless fear, when there is no justification for such fears, and it gives the terrorists what they want - the oxygen of publicity, the very climate of fear the media stirs up, and, they hope, the disruption of normal, everyday life.https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/status/844903739324555264
Also it is worth pointing out what  did not make the headlines, only the day before this cowardly attack, an airstrike by the US-led coalition on a school in Syria killed at least 33 people.And last Thursday another US strike on a mosque complex in the north-west of the country killed at least 43 people, are not all lives of rqual value. In addition  Palestinians, Syrians, refugees, those fleeing war certainly do not feel safe every minute of their days,  remember also the  many governments  that could be defined as terrorists, but rarely are by the media, and arms companies on a daily basic  who aid and fuel  murder and war, in their blood lust thirst for profit
Now more than ever we can not let these attacks be used by the racists to divide us. Already, the far right group Britain First have used this attack as an excuse to call a 'march' in London to spew their racism, hatred and division.An additional attempt to capitalise on the events came from Tommy Robinson,former leader of the English Defence League, who while ambulances and other emergency vehicles dominated scenes, had appeared within minutes of the incident occurring seeking to exploit the tragedy and the victims of the attack for his own propoganda purposes, shouting aggressively at those who challenged him and launched into a scathing analysis of the incident for his own personal camera crew. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/23/far-right-exploit-westminster-attack-london-wont-let-it
Stand Up To Racism has called a unity vigil in London today.There Co-Convenor Weyman Bennett said in a response to the attack: “Our thoughts are with those killed or injured in the Westminster attack and their families. We need to stand together against all those who seek to divide us. We are black, white, Muslim and Christian living together.We have to remain vigilant against those who want to profit from division, especially the far right. It is crucial that we stand united in such difficult times. I urge people who feel the same to join Friday’s vigil.”
Dr Shazad Amin, CEO of http://mend.org.uk/,(Muslim Engagement and Development) said: “We are shocked and saddened by the act of mindless violence that took place at Westminster and our thoughts and prayers are with those who have lost loved ones and with those that were injured during this incident. This act of violence is utterly deplorable and one that will find no room in any community.
“We stand firmly against anyone who wishes to use this tragic incident to create fear and divisions in our society. Only last weekend over 30,000 people marched in solidarity against all forms of hate, and we reiterate our commitment to Stand Up to Racism, Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and all forms of hate.”
In a statement last night, shared on Twitter yesterday, HOPE not Hate the anti-fascist charity in a statement  said on twitter yesterday https://twitter.com/hopenothate?lang=en:“Resolve can be shaken in the aftermath of such incidents. Calls for revenge can abound. But we mustn't let the terrorists win. Nor those who welcome the hatred they bring.In the coming hours and days, there  will be some who call for more hatred. Who want nothing more than to meet violence with violence. That is the path to ruin. Please don’t be intimidated. Don’t give in. And don’t listen to haters.We’ll stand firm against all those who call for division; and with your help, we’ll expose those who call for terror too.”
In an apparent reference to people who might have double standards on political extremism, it adds:“London won’t be cowed, and neither will we. Please help us stand firm.Help  us expose those in ALL communities who want  to sow division and terror. In the face of tragedy and violence, help us bring hope and unity.”
Brendan Cox the partner of Jo Cox, a Labour MP, who died after being shot and stabbed outside  her constuency surgery in Birstall, West Yorkshire on 16 June by far-right extremist Thomas Mair has also urged Britain not to let itself be divided by the Westminster attack  saying the assailant no more represents British Muslims than his wife’s murderer represented the people of Yorkshire.Also saying‘ that the person who did this wants us to be fearful and divided , let’s show that we are neither’. So let's not let the racists divide us. Now more than ever we must stand in solidarity and diversity in these difficult times. and must reiterate our commitment to Stand Up to Racism, Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and all forms of hate and try and focus on what unites us.

 Stand Up To Racism unity vigil against hatred and division, Friday, 6pm, Downing Street, www.facebook.com/events/192258647941643/ Unite Against Fascism counter-demonstration:  Don't let the racists divide us - no to fascist Britain First! Saturday 1 April, central London. Details tbc go to www.facebook.com/events/1291586427589114/
There  will also be peace vigils across the country.

Shadow World

Quick plug for this film, on tonight at Small World Theatre , Cardigan a jaw dropping yet hopeful anti-arms trade documentary with panel speakers.Based on the book The Shadow World, vy Andrew Feinstein this feature length documentary is an investigation into the multi-billion dollar international arms trade.
Exposing the global arms trade, the vast sums of money that are made and the corruption that creates. Fascinating interviews reveal the shocking realities of Britain’s central role in this dirty trade that counts its profits in billions and its losses in human lives. Based on Andrew Feinstein’s globally acclaimed book this is extremely good at clearly presenting information and then showing the consequences. Masterfully edited and well illustrated with pertinent clips, this deftly weaves the multiple strands of its global story into a compelling case against the guilty parties. In the hope that if we better understand what really goes on, we can see through the horror, and create a better future.
The arms trade spreads its tentacles far and wide, ensnaring politicians in a web of malpractice that rarely comes to light. This film deserves to be seen by anyone who wants to see light shining on such a shadowy world. The timing is impeccable  because it comes ahead of  the DPRTE arms fair which will return to the Motopoint Arena in Cardiff  on March 28, 2017for the third time. Join a day of action against the arms fair on 28 March, and show the arms industry there’s no welcome for it in Wales.
In 2016, huge protests and a successful day of action caused havoc for the DPRTE arms fair, forcing organisers to claim it “was not an arms fair”. However, with many of the UK’s biggest arms companies in attendance and the event geared towards “showcasing products and services” along all parts of the supply chain, it seems that’s just a difference of language: the event is designed to help arms industry networking in order to make business deals, and the effects of these deals are felt across the world as UK weaponry plays a leading role in conflicts which destroy homes, school and communities from Yemen to Gaza.
Campaign groups Cardiff Stop the Arms Fair, Campaign Against the Arms Trade and Welsh language group Cymdeithas y Cymod (Fellowship for Reconciliation) will be among those protesting against the Defence Procurement, Research, Technology and Exportability (DPRTE) event. We have to stand together against this immoral trade. One anti-militarist campaigner has said: “This event is unacceptable in so many ways. It totally blurs the boundary between government and the arms trade and uses taxpayers’ money to promote unethical profiteering in the private sector.“These ruthless businesses build their wealth on the rubble of schools and hospitals and on the dead bodies of the children targeted by the weapons of mass destruction they manufacture and sell across the world.
“DPRTE has no place in Cardiff and the city should be ashamed of hosting these dealers in death. We call on anyone with a conscience to join us on 28 March to shut down this arms fair!”

“ . . . superb, gut-punching exploration of the global arms trade is the sort of catalyst to energize politically-minded viewers.” Variety

Winner of the Best Documentary Award Edinburgh International Film Festival

Please book tickets in advance, thanks. £6 Concesion £5
Please bring proof of concession. For information on this year’s WOW Film Festival and participating venues, please visit wowfilmfestival.com

Dare to dream

                                            " reality and dreaming
                                                  are different things.
                                               dreaming is beautiful
                                                  because dreams are
                                                   nearly always the
                                              predecessors of what
                                         is to come, but the most
                          sublime is to make life beautiful,
                                     to mould life beautifully."

- Nosrotos, Anarchist Daily, Spain, March 1937.

Have been trying to deal with a bout of depression, but dealing with daily battles  can give us at the end of the day some  kind of hope, we can all build new pages, a society where all people are equal and free,  our dreams do not need revision, they can reinvent, bring a new logic of existence, where chains and bondage are broken, can overthrow constraints, forge a new order, lands full of promise, wild ambition, shifting sands.
Where reality  is always negotiable, today I caught a  glimpse of sunshine in the rain, life can  be bittersweet, but allows us all to live the dream, my mind is like a garden, overgrown but free. Be careful to avoid alienation try and find sustenance , but beware of the weight of consensus prohibitions , follow kindred spirits rather than governments that can lead you feeling isolated  or powerless. Keep on  believing, embrace diversity, follow the paths of liberation, take refuge among people that care,  and  continue to dare to dream.

Spontaneous rhapsody

 

( following written in ten minutes, have a go)

Every star in the sky is beautiful
all the pebbles on the beach atone,
for what we all have lost
every moment of life is precious,
fill it with cherished emotion
keep on releasing as much as you can,
sharing, caring, keep on believng
we are  all a mixture of deep devotion,
from different walks of life
sometimes cools or intense like fire,
a collective roar in the universe
along the streets keep on wondering,
try to tear down bridges and walls
clasp hands together in unity.

Artist Ai Weiwei slams 'shameful' politicians ignoring refugees

'Chinese  trailblazing dissident artist Ai Weiwei launches his largest single work ever,focused on refugees. Called "Law of the Journey", the 70-metre-long (230-foot-long) inflatable boat with 258 oversize refugee figures is on display at Prague's National Gallery. Called Law of the Journey, the show features a 70-metre-long inflatable boat with 258 oversize refugee figures.

It is a tribute to the thousands who have drowned crossing the Mediterranean, the piece is Ai’s biggest-ever installation.A topic Ai has been particularly vocal about in the past. It will be on display until the end of the year. It certainly makes a particularly powerful statement. The site-specific installation that went on exhibit last Thursday and was made in a Chinese factory that produces dinghies used by actual refugees,

“My message is very clear: being a politician or a political group, you cannot be so short-sighted, you cannot have no vision, you cannot sacrifice human dignity and human rights for political gain,” Ai said.“My message is very clear: being a politician or a political group, you cannot be so short-sighted, you cannot have no vision, you cannot sacrifice human dignity and human rights for political gain,” Ai added..
The Czech Republic and the other post Communist central European members have rejected EU plans to allow Muslim refugees on their territories throughout the migrant crisis. According to the European Commission, the Czech Republic has so far accepted 12 migrants for relocation. Data from the International Organisation for Migration shows that over 1.2 million people have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe since 2015.

“If we see somebody who has been victimised by war or desperately trying to find a peaceful place, if we don’t accept those people, the real challenge and the real crisis is not of all the people who feel the pain but rather for the people who ignore to recognise it or pretend that it doesn’t exist,” said Ai.

“That is both a tragedy and a crime,” said the 59-year-old painter, sculptor and photographer.

Ai spent the last year visiting such migrant and refugee hotspots as the US-Mexican border badlands to the Turkish-Syrian frontier and crowded holding camps on Greek islands.

An outspoken critic of the Chinese government, Ai was detained in 2011 for 81 days and had his passport confiscated for four years.He later travelled to Berlin where his wife and son live.Recently he has staged several high-profile exhibitions inspired by migrants, including decking out the columns of Berlin's Konzerthaus with 14,000 orange life jackets from Lesbos, which is.an entry point for many migrants trying to reach western Europe from Turkey.
Last month, he said he looked on in dismay at the Trump presidency, the US entry ban on Syrian refugees, the attempt to deny visas to citizens of several mainly Muslim nations, the pledge to build a wall with Mexico and invoke mass deportations.
 People are already finding it a particularly powerful statement.

Comments underneath Ai’s Instagram posts of the installation show how much of an impact his work has made.https://www.instagram.com/aiww/?hl=en
They include “Deeply moving! The enormity and profound silence” from @moniqueloveringstudio and “An astounding and emotionally charged work, it’s beautiful too, which it has to be to represent the sad story. Thank you as always for what you do,” from @michaelbirtphoto.

Ai Weiwei slams 'harmful' politicians ignoring refugees

 

Derek Walcott (23/1/30 - 17/2/17) RIP - Love after Love

 
Derek Walcott, a Nobel-prize winning poet known for capturing the essence of his native Caribbean who became the region’s most internationally famous writer,  died early Friday at his home in the eastern Caribbean nation of St. Lucia, aged 87,according to his son, Peter after battling a long illness. “Derek Alton Walcott, poet, playwright, and painter died peacefully today, Friday 17th March, 2017, at his home in Cap Estate, Saint Lucia,” read a statement the family released later in the morning. It said the funeral would be held in St. Lucia and details would be announced shortly This was confirmed by his publishers who noted on social media: "Derek Walcott was a true presence who filled  the literary landscape and did so with a delicacy of touch. We  have lost a giant of literature."
In “Omeros” (1990), an epic poem considered his most ambitious and accomplished work, he invoked Caribbean voices through Greek myth, drawing on Homer’s “Iliad” and “Odyssey”.Two years later,  this prolific and versatile poet was awarded the Nobel Prize, after being shorlisted for many years and in its citation, the Swedish Academy said: “He has both African and European blood in his veins. In him, West Indian culture has found its great poet. He would later win the TS Eliot prize for poetry in 2011, followed by the Griffin Trust For Excellence In Poetry lifetime recognition award in 2015.Born in 1930, he studied at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, before moving to Trinidad in 1953, where he worked as a theatre and art critic.He first attracted attention on St Lucia with a  book of poems that he published himself when he was 18 entitled 25 poems.Walcott’s  breakthrough came with the collection In a Green Night: Poems 1948-1960 (1962), a book which celebrates the Caribbean and its history as well as investigating the scars of colonialism and post-colonialism. Walcott, who was of African, Dutch and English ancestry, said his writing reflected the “very rich and complicated experience” of life in the Caribbean.His ancestry wove together the major strands of Caribbean history, an inheritance he described famously in a poem from 1980's ' The Star-Apple Kingdom' as having "Dutch, nigger, and English in me,/ and either I'm nobody, or I'm a/ nation." Both of his  grandmothers were said to have  been descended from slaves, but his father who died when Walcott was only a year old, was a painter, and his mother the headmistress of a methodist school - enough to ensure that Walcott received what  he called in  the same poem a' sound colonial education.' His  work earned him a reputation as one of the greatest writers of the second half of the 20th century. He compared his feeling for poetry to a religious evocation. Derek Walcott found that he was often defined as a black writer. That is not how he saw himself. He was, he said, first and foremost, a Caribbean writer.  “I am primarily, absolutely a Caribbean writer,” he once said during a 1985 interview published in The Paris Review. “The English language is nobody’s special property. It is the property of the imagination: it is the property of the language itself. I have never felt inhibited in trying to write as well as the greatest English poets.”He was also an accomplished painter and playwright.
His life though was marred with controversy.He taught at US universities, where two female students accused him of interfering with their academic achievements after they rejected his advances. This was said to have counted against him when he was passed over for the post of poet laureate in 1999. He was also forced to withdraw his candidacy for the post of Oxford professor of poetry in 2009 in a case which also forced the resignation of his rival Ruth Padel only nine days into her term.
Prior to his retirement in 2007, Walcott taught for decades at Bostom University and spent time in New York and Boston as well as St Lucia. He married and divorced three times, and he had  three children - Peter , Elizabeth and Anna. He is survived by his children, grandchildren and his companion of many tears, Sigrid Nama. The world has lost one of its most noted literary icons. He helped illuminate the world,  RIP. The poetry society described his death as terrible news and encouraged others to read his poetry in memoriam.https://poetrysociety.org.uk/news/a-tribute-to-derek-walcott/ A full -length obituary has been published by the Guardian newspaper.https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/17/nobel-laureate-poet-and-playwright-derek-walcott-dead-aged-87

Love after Love

 The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
 

Happy St Patrick's day: Christy Moore - If they come in the morning (AKA no time for love)

Dedicated to all the people of the world who still search for freedom, in all our different struggles against oppression, we must continue to hold on to our humanity.
Thank you Linda for reminding me, let us continue to endure and overcome and keep spreading seeds of possibility and hope. Continue to support peoples pride, in waves of solidarity.

Rachel Corrie, still not forgotten ( 10/4/79 - 16/3/03)

It has become customary of me to mark the passing of  Rachel Aliene Corrie a 23 year old American Peace activist  from Olympia, Washington who was crushed to death by an Israeli military, caterpiller D 912 bulldozer in 2003, while undertaking non-violent direct action trying to protect the home of a Palestinian family from demolition in Rafah in the Gaza strip.
Justice has never been served for her, along with others killed under the Israeli occupation.
Today I reflect upon Rachel's brave stand in Gaza 14 years ago today and her courage to resist and all  those who continue to live and struggle there, and all those passionate change makers across the globe who each day act with conscience, work tirelessly to try and make a difference.
Remember that what is happening in Palestine which we keep on witnessing  is an equal  cycle of violence as seen in apartheid South Africa. Being against  this injustice  is not anti-Jewish anymore than being against a British governments military aggression marks you as as anti-British. Rachel Corrie understood these links and connections and would have known about an active Israeli peace movement, and of the hundreds  of Israeli soldiers who refuse to serve in the occupied territories, many of whom have been jailed for their stance. Israel has invaded Palestinian land in breach of international law. Rachel died while attempting to prevent a demolition of a home, a common practice of the Israeli army's collective punishment that has left more than 12,000 Palestinians homeless since the beginning of the second uprising in September 2000. A practice that violates International Law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention.The struggle against demolition and occupation of Palestinian  homes and lands continues unabated.
So here's to the memory and bravery of Rachel Corrie  a true American hero but another pointless death.Bulldozed and suffocated  her memory though will remain.

http://www.rachelcorrie.org