Wood Green Madrigal.

Anonymous
asks for spare change
Enemy: power
closes ranks
keeps secrets locked
Jesus laptop in hand
shares his thoughts under false name.
Poets get lost in poundshop
local mujahadin sell their wears
in top shop.
Down the street
boarded up windows
offer glimpse  of youths impulsiveness
the games kids play when pushed.
Strange things often happen
when we're simply not looking.
Got the late train back
into the station
looking now for a
souvenir shop
that sells freedom
where the electricity
costs nothing.
On the pavements outside
all that glitters is illusion
plastic smiles and forgotten prayers
hope rains down from passing windows.
Moralty is firm,
 lets us sit still  for a moment
Underneath the cracks of division
melt away and dissapear
dreams buried deep underneath
battered streets
laminate and reappear.
The purpose of all journeys
is one of discovery
please don't turn out the lights.

SABRA & SHATILA MASSACRE 9/16 Remembered

Almost 20 years before 9/11, an event took place that was just as barbaric, but does not seem to have  become rooted in our collective consiousness, a truth which is rarely mentioned in the September of our lives.
For 3 days in September 1982, Israeli forces in collusion with the Lebanese Militias, slaughtered, raped and massacred thousands of unarmed civilians, inside the sealed Palestinian refugee camp of Sabra and Shatila in Beirut, while Israeli forces surounded the camp.
To this day , amidst many attempts to seek justice, no one has been held accountable for this genocidal act.
The slaughter occured just days after the P.L.O had withdrew its fighters from Beirut after receiving guarantees from U.S led Multi National Forces that Palestinian civiliansin the camps would be safe.
The incident is considered perhaps the worst of the entire Middle Eastern conflict.
Hopefully justice will one day come, and may it not happen again, to anyone , anywhere.

Sabra and Shatila Massacre - A film by Robert Fisk

The following is a poem by the Morrocan poet  Tahar Ben Jelloun on the incident

Fatima Abou Mayyala - Tahar Ben Jelloun

They came in through the roof
They closed the doors and windows
They stuffed a fistful of sand into her mouth and  nostrils, Fatima
Their hands ripped her stomach
blood pooled
they urinated on her face
Fatima took the statue's hand
                                                     and walked lightly between the trees and the
                                                     sleeping children.
                                                     She reached the sea
                                                     her body rised above death.

                                         
      Poem reprinted from :-
      ' Rising of the Ashes - Tahar Ben Jelloun (2010)
      Translated by Cullen Goldblett                                                   
                                                                                                              

What is the true cost of the Afghanistan war? Narrated by Tony Benn. Music by Brian Eno...

Don't Execute Troy Davis.

Hi there, have you got 5 minutes to try and stop a death row execution? If so cheers , regards and all that .
Troy Davis has been on death row for 17 years for a murder he maintains he did not commit.
He was convicted in 1991 for the murder of 27 year old Officer Mark Allen MacPhail, white, who was shot and killed in the car park of a Burger King restaurant in Savannah , Georgia, in the early hours of August 19th 1989...
Amnesty International has been opposing Troy Davis's execution unconditionally regardless of questions of guilt or innocence for a while, as it does all use of the death penalty.
A judge has ordered Troy's execution to take place on Wednesday 21 September 2011 at 7 p.m, US time.
On Monday 19th September, 2 days before he is scheduled  to be executed, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles will hold a clemency hearing to decide whether Troy Davis's sentence should be commuted, or whether the execution should be carried out as scheduled. This is Troy's last chance to avoid execution.

Video below examining Troy's case.

It is vital that you take action as soon as possible,
his execution is not inevitable.

PLEASE USE THE LINK BELOW TO EMAIL THE GEORGIA STATE BOARD OF PARDONS AND PAROLES TO EMAIL THE GEORGIA STATE BOARD OF PARDONS AND PAROLES ASKING FOR CLEMENCY FOR TROY.

.http://action.amnesty.org.uk/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1194&ea.campaign.id=11962&utm_source=aiuk&utm_medium=content&utm_campaign=deathpenalty&utm_content=troy_page_to_action

11'9"01 September 11 - Ken Loach

THE OTHER SEPTEMBER 11th

SELF EVIDENT....... some musical reflections on anniversary of 9/11

                                          Ani Di Franco - Self Evident

                                       

Billy Bragg - The price of Oil

Wolfgang Gartner - illmerica

Pete Seeger - Last Night I had the strangest Dream

and perhaps
between the silent spaces
and  winding paths
objectives will  one day
be shared
Action  is louder than words
future shadows will not forget
time alone........
lasts forever.

R.I.P

to the 2,976 Americans who lost their lives on 9/11and the 48,644 Afghans and 1,690,903 Iraqis and over 30,000 Pakistanis who died for a crime they did not commit.

SAVE DALE FARM

This post is a bit late,soon the weekend will be upon us. But tomorrow wherever you are spare a thought for all the people at Dale Farm in Essex, at this moment waiting  for the Baliffs to arrive to commit one of the greatest acts of state endorsed violence against an ethnic group ever seen in the U.K.
The proposed eviction planned has already been roundly condemned by Amnesty International. Dale Farm is home to 90 familes, which could mean up to 400 people being left homeless, and actions to evict them might actually break international law. Is their not room for negotiations. In a time of recession , is it right that about £9.5 million  should be wasted kicking people out of their homes. Let us remember that the Irish Travellers who live  at Dale Farm actually own this land, they are not squatting this patch of earth belongs to them, for 10 years a strong and vital community has belonged here but time after time have been denied repeated requests to build on the land because of bueracratic measures.
So  soon Basildon council and the Coalition Government will have to explain why they have made 100 children homeless, which will result in them being removed from their schools...
If this eviction goes ahead , the world will see our government as a bully who refuses to listen, draconian, punitive and oppressive.

More info below

http://dalefarm.wordpress.com/ 

Petition to Support the U.N call to delay the eviction
at Dale Farm
here
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/dalefarm