Vaslay Nijinksy Igor Stravinky's The Rite of Spring, (Le Sacre du Printemps) caused a riot when it was first performed in Paris on the evening of 29 May 1913 in Paris at the brand-new Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, in front of a glittering audience. The piece was commissioned and produced by the noted impresario of the Ballets Russes, Serge Diahilev who had earlier produced the young composer’s The Firebird (1910) and Petrushka (1911). Stravinsky developed the story of The Rite of Spring, originally to be called The Great Sacrifice, with the aid of artist and mystic Nicholas Roerich,
whose name appears with the composer’s on the title page of the
earliest publications of the score. The production was choreographed by the brilliant Vaslay Nijinksy (photo above).
Details surrounding the events on this evening remain hazy. Official
records are scarce, and most of what is known is based on eyewitness
accounts or newspaper reports. To this day, experts debate over what
exactly sparked the incident , was it the music or the dancing, a publicity stunt or
social warfare? Though most agree on at least one thing: Stravinsky’s
grand debut ended in mayhem and chaos. As the crowd arrived on opening night, expectations were high.The Théàtre des Champs Élysées had just opened, and audience
members came to see and be seen. Stravinsky was nervous because he knew
that avant-garde pieces were risky in Paris.Decades before, Wagner’s opera Tannhäuser had been
booed off the stage at the Opera. But Stravinsky had had great success here in the past with his The Firebird and Petrushka.
IgorStravinsky
According to accounts I have read as the curtain went up and not long after the opening notes were heard, a
ruckus broke out in the auditorium. The opening bassoon solo was set so
high that the audience didn’t know what instrument they were hearing. As the lights came up on the first tableau of dancers, people
began yelling, and a wilder shouting match began, and it became increasingly difficult to hear the music, and amidst the noise the dancers could not stay in sync.Stravinsky had taken the orchestra, which was associated with high society and culture, and brought it to a carnal, bestial, earthy level. As he heard the roar of the audience begin to build,
Stravinsky panicked and ran backstage to intervene. By the time he
reached the wings, things were in complete chaos.
But the performance continued. Diaghilev may have expected
there would be some kind of ruckus at the performance. Unbeknownst to
Stravinsky and Nijinsky, he had instructed the conductor, Pierre
Monteux, to keep going no matter what happened.
As some in the audience booed and shouted during the performance, others as loudly and energetically defended the performance, resulting in fist fights and eventually a riot that required police intervention. In the second half , police were unable to keep the audience under control and rioting resumed. Stravinsky was so taken aback by the audience's reaction, and he fled the scene before the show was over.
Musically, in addition to its provocative harmonic character what was that most shocking to the audience was Stravinksy's abandonment of classical melodic and harmonic development in favour of the rhythmic and tonal properties of the music. The music itself was unlike anything that came before it, primitive and savage , celebrating the raw, the physical, the elemental.
This combined with imaginative scenes of “pagan” Russia,and the evocative, sometimes violent dancing, sharp and unnatural choreography (dancers danced with bent arms and legs
and would land on the floor so hard their internal organs would shake), was considered shocking to some, though exciting, brilliantly creative and innovative to others. It should hardly have come as a surprise given the ballet's
thematic content. The ballet's title and subtitle alone hint that
something darker lurks behind the velvet theater curtains: The Rite of Spring: Picture of Pagan Russia in Two Parts. It's essentially a story that centers around ancient Russian tribes and their pagan celebration of
Spring. That offers a remorseless human sacrifice to their gods, choosing a young girl
who is forced to dance to death.
The writer Jean Cocteau described a certain amount of manipulation of the whole thing, writing in a pamphlet called Cock and Harlequin "All the elements of scandal were present, the small audience in tails and tulle, diamonds and ospreys, was interespersed with the suits and bandeaux of the aesthetic crowd. The latter would apply novelty to show their contempt for the people in the boxes.... uniumerable shades of snobbery, super-snobbery and inverted snobbery were represented... The audience played the role that was written for it."
A drawing by Jean Cocteau of Stravinsky playing his music
I will end with a 1987 Joffrey Ballet performance of the work, and you can seen for yourselves how this work might have looked and sounded in 1913.Many years later, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring whichforeshadowed rock, punk and jazz, managed to destroy the old order and still has an edgy, intense, almost
out-of-control feeling that makes it so exhilarating, liberating and engaging, this I believe is the immense power that good music carries.The composer Pierre Boulez said "The Rites of Spring serves as a point of reference to all who seek to establish the birth certificate of what is still called "contemporary" music." Sometimes new music is born, and new births can be violent.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assangehas detailed the repressive conditions he faces in Britain's Belmarsh Prison and called for a campaign against his threatened extradition to the United States in a handwritten letter to independent British journalist Gordon Dimmack who decided to make it public following last Thursday’s announcement by
the US Justice Department of additional charges against Assange accusing him of violating the Espionage Act.
Assange in the letter says he is being denied a chance to defend himself and
that elements in the US that “hate truth, liberty and justice” want him
extradited and dead. The letter also acts as a critique of Washington’s attempts to crush media freedom, and is a call to action from his supporters.
The WikiLeaks publisher had sought refuge in Ecuador in 2012, claiming –
correctly, as it turned out – that trumped-up charges in Sweden would
be used to get him extradited to the US.
The new 18-count indictment handed down in the Eastern District of
Virginia alleges that Assange actively solicited classified information,
goading former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning Manning to obtain thousands of pages of classified material and
providing Assange with diplomatic State Department cables, Iraq
war-related significant activity reports and information related to
Guantanamo Bay detainees.
In April, prosecutors in Virginia
revealed that Assange had been charged with a single count of conspiracy
to commit computer intrusion related to helping Manning obtain access
to Defense Department computers in 2010.
Assange's initial indictment spared a debate overthe
First Amendment and whether Assange's alleged role in procuring secret
US material constituted protected journalistic activity. Press freedom
advocates have expressed concern that a conviction of Assange could
undermine protections for journalists to challenge government secrecy.
The U.S. government charged Assange with: one count of
conspiring to violate the Espionage Act; three counts of violating a
provision of the Espionage Act that targets individuals who obtain
information they’re not authorized to receive; and four counts of
violating a provision of the Espionage Act in which prosecutors allege
Assange “solicited” information.
Prosecutors assert Assange “aided, abetted, counseled, induced,
procured, and willfully caused [Chelsea] Manning, who had lawful
possession of, access to, and control over documents relating to the
national defense” to “communicate, deliver, and transmit the documents”
to WikiLeaks. He faces nine charges under two provisions of the
Espionage Act for this alleged conduct.
The Justice Department focused on a list published to the WikiLeaks website in 2009 that was titled, “Most Wanted Leaks.”
“Assange personally and publicly promoted WikiLeaks to encourage
those with access to protected information, including classified
information, to provide it to WikiLeaks for public disclosure,” the
indictment argues. And, “WikiLeaks’ website explicitly solicited
censored, otherwise restricted, and until September 2010, ‘classified’
materials.” The new charges against Assange have alarmed even the mainstream media
outlets that have spent years pouring vitriol on WikiLeaks, as they
began to realize his prosecution along these lines would essentially
criminalize all journalism. Assange's crime was doing his job, informing us, having shown us the brutality of collateral damage and the cruelty of war amongst other sinister illegal activities by politicians and governments.
Assange is currently serving 50 weeks in Belmarsh prison for skipping bail – a sentence WikiLeaksdescribed as “shocking and vindictive”. The UN working group on arbitrary detention also said it was a “disproportionate sentence” for what it described as a “minor violation”. Assange’s next hearing is set for Thursday May 30 at Westminster
Magistrates Court in London.
'The indictment carries serious implications for WikiLeaks
publishing partners, numbering over one hundred across the globe,
including The New York Times, The Telegraph and The Guardian, who
collaborated on the publications and may now face co-defendant charges.
The final decision on Assange’s extradition rests with the UK Home
Secretary, who is now under enormous pressure to protect the rights of
the free press in the U.K. and elsewhere. Press rights advocates have
unanimously argued that Assange’s prosecution under the Espionage Act is
incompatible with basic democratic principles.This is the gravest attack on press freedom of the century.'
Below is the full text of Assange’s letter to Gordon Dimmack:
'I have been isolated from all ability to prepare to defend myself, no
laptop, no internet, no computer, no library so far, but even if I do
get access it will be just for half an hour with everyone else once a
week. Just two visits a month and it takes weeks to get someone on the
call list and the Catch-22 in getting their details to be security
screened. Then all calls except lawyer are recorded and are a maximum 10
minutes and in a limited 30 minutes each day in which all prisoners
compete for the phone. And credit? Just a few pounds a week and no one
can call in.
A superpower that has been preparing for 9 years with hundreds of
people and untold millions spent on the case. I am defenceless and am
counting on you and others of good character to save my life.
I am unbroken albeit literally surrounded by murderers. But the days
when I could read and speak and organise to defend myself, my ideals and
my people are over until I am free. Everyone else must take my place.
The US government or rather those regrettable elements in it that
hate truth liberty and justice want to cheat their way into my
extradition and death rather than letting the public hear the truth for
which I have won the highest awards in journalism and have been
nominated seven times for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Truth ultimately is all we have.'
Mr Julian Assange DOB: 3/07/1971 HMP Belmarsh Western Way London SE28 0EB UK
You may send mail to the address above (you must include Julian’s
date of birth in UK format, DOB: 3/07/1971. Do not include his prisoner
number.
You must include your full name and address on the back of the envelope, or else the letter will not be delivered.
Include a blank piece of paper with a self-addressed envelope for
Julian to write back. It must be pre-stamped (UK stamps only). Do not
send loose stamps. Click here for stamps. Include 2 UK first class stamps for international mail.
All letters are read by Belmarsh & security. Do not send letters containing sensitive matters.
You may send paper items only, such as letters, photos &
drawings. Please do not attempt to send other items. Postcards are not
allowed.
Thousands of Kurdish activists have announced the end of their hunger strikes on
Sunday after a call from imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan
issued through his lawyers after a rare visit.
Ocalan, the co-founder of the outlawed Kurdish revel group the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) who has
been in prison on Imrali island since his capture in 1999, issued a
letter through his lawyers on Sunday four days after they visited him for the second time this month, to activists taking part in hunger
strikes against his prison treatment.
“Dear comrades,
In light of the wide-ranging statements my two lawyers will be
making, I expect the protests, especially of the comrades who have
committed themselves to hunger strikes and death fasts, to come to an
end. I would like to express that your intentions with regards to me
have been realized and I present to all of you my deepest affections and
gratitude.
In fact, after this point, I diligently hope and expect you to accompany me with adequate intensity and will power.
With lasting affection and regards,
22 May 2019, Imralı Prison
Abdullah Öcalan”
Following the announcement, a representative of imprisoned hunger strikers said that they would be heeding Ocalan's call.
"After the call...we are ending our hunger strikes," Deniz Kaya said in a statement, quoted by pro-PKK news agency ANF.
Previously, Ocalan had been kept in what his supporters called
"isolation" since 2016, and no statements or visits were allowed. Until
the visit on 22 May, he had not met with his lawyers in eight years.
Since 2018, close to 3,000 people had joined the hunger strike in some 90
prisons in protest at his treatment. Hunger strikers in Turkey traditionally refuse food but take
vitamins and salt and sugar solutions, which prolong life. A hunger
strike is not a form of protest to be undertaken lightly. It is a last
resort when other methods have become impossible. The fact that this has
become a regular resort for Kurdish activists is an indication of the
extent to which the Kurds have been made to suffer.
Kurds in Turkey, where they have survived through a century of
Turkish ethnic nationalism, tie their hopes for a better future to
their imprisoned leader. His political ideas have
inspired the grassroots, feminist, multicultural democracy that is being
created in Northern Syria, and that briefly flowered in the Kurdish
autonomous movements of Eastern Turkey, before being brutally crushed by
the Turkish army. Öcalan is pivotal to any hopes of a peaceful settlement between the
Turkish state and its large Kurdish minority.
The longest-running hunger strike has been by Leyla Guven, an MP for
the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democracy Party (HDP), who stopped eating on 8 November 2018, beginning a historic wave of hunger strikes which today have claimed victory. Ms Güven argued that by isolating Mr Ocalan and by refusing to allow
visits from his family or lawyers, theTurkish government has placed major
impediments towards maintaining peace in Turkey. Before being transported to hospital by ambulance on Sunday, Guven said the hunger strike had achieved its goal.
"But our struggle against isolation and our struggle for social peace
will continue in all areas. This struggle must lead to an honourable
peace," she said in a written statement.
The HDP said seven people, six in Turkish prisons and one in Germany,
had killed themselves in March in protest against Ocalan's isolation.
Ocalan's lawyers said that though the hunger strikes should end, it
was necessary to apply pressure to the Turkish government to get them to
restart the peace process that originally began in 2013 and collapsed
in 2015.
"Our client stated that if talks were not held in the future, it
could be protested by a political struggle, but actions such as hunger
strikes and death-fasts should be avoided," they said during a
news conference on Sunday.
"He [Ocalan] stated that the main thing is a culture of democratic
political struggle and that it is more important for the strikers to be
physically, spiritually and mentally healthy."
finally ended their hunger
strike.
Politicians, political prisoners and activists around the world
had been starving themselves to protest the isolation of their leader a key figure in the Kurdish people’s struggle against their oppressor,
After his capture, Turkey initially sentenced Öcalan to the death penalty. But this was later dropped when Turkey wanted to join the EU. Öcalan now serves life imprisonment in solitary confinement on the heavily fortified İmralı prison island.
In a massive international campaign, solidarity activists around the world have demonstrated, occupied buildings, and contacted politicians and European institutions.There were reports of ill-treatment of hunger strikers at Silivri, Şakran
and Tekirdağ prisons. Other reports indicated that, in some cases,
authorities had unlawfully limited the hunger strikers’ access to
drinking water, sugar, salt, and vitamins.
Despite this people successfully lobbied the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT),
asking it to take action and visit Öcalan in prison. All of these
actions amplified the voices of the hunger strikers, making their
demands heard, and putting pressure on Turkey.
Turkey has imprisoned Abdullah Öcalan for the last twenty years, keeping him
in solitary confinement for much of that time, without access to his
family or lawyers. The hunger strikers’ demand was simple: for
Turkey to abide by its own law and to lift the isolation.
Turkey finally allowed Öcalan two visits from his lawyers in May. And after months of seemingly ignoring the hunger strikers’ demands, the CPT visited Imrali prison where Öcalan is held. On 16 May, Turkish justice minister Abdulhamit Gül announced that the ban on visits to Öcalan had been lifted.
Imam Sis, 32 who lives in Newport, Wales who based himself at the Kurdish Community Centre on
Chepstow Road, had refused food for 161 days. has also announced that he will end his hunger strike, and said “I would
like the Welsh Senedd, which was the first parliament in the world to
give full support to the hunger strikers.
“Also to Plaid Cymru Assembly Members Delyth Jewell, Leanne Wood and
Bethan Sayed, and party leader, Adam Price, for all their support.
“Ending the hunger strike does not mean the end of the struggle
against isolation, we will continue to struggle in other forms to ensure
isolation is definitively brought to an end.”
Mr Sis - who has lost 25kg (55lb) during his hunger strike - will now be assessed in hospital.
Now that Turkey has agreed to meet the protestors’ core demands,
Plaid Cymru – who supported the hunger striker and pressed the Welsh
Government to intervene – have hailed a foreign policy victory.
The Welsh Government wrote a letter to Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt,
with Mr Hunt also contacted directly by a group of 50 MPs and Assembly
Members, which included all Plaid Cymru elected members, and appealed to
him to intervene.
The Foreign Secretary replied to Plaid Cymru’s Westminster Leader, Liz
Saville Roberts, saying he had asked Turkey to comply with the findings
on a report by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment into the conditions in
which Mr Öcalan was held.
Plaid Cymru’s Shadow International Relations Minister, Delyth Jewell
AM, said: “I am delighted that the Kurdish hunger strikers have secured
victory in their campaign to end the solitary confinement of Abdullah
Öcalan.
“Many of them have sacrificed their long-term health in order to
secure justice for their cause; it’s such a relief that they will not
have to sacrifice their lives as well.
“My constituent, Imam Sis, has gone 161 days without food and faces a
difficult battle to recover, but I know he will gain strength from the
support of well-wishers from across the UK.”
Delyth Jewell AM, who represents South Wales East in the Welsh
Assembly, added: “While the campaign was an international one, we in
Wales played a crucial part by putting pressure on the relevant actors
to do the right thing.
“I’d like to thank everyone who played a part in this campaign, from
the Plaid Cymru activists who have been supporting Imam, to politicians
across the board who have saved lives by acting decisively.
“My hope is that formal peace negotiations can now resume between
Turkey and representatives of the Kurdish nation in order to bring
long-term peace for a people who have spent centuries fighting for their
lives.”
The Kurdish hunger strikers courage and determination has been an inspiration to many, as their strike ends in victory lets continue to stand in solidarity with the Kurdish people in their struggle, for peace and
to ensure that the isolation is not broken again.
Leonora Carrington who was born on the 6th of April 1917 spent her childhood on her family
estate in Lancashire, England. There she was surrounded by animals,
especially horses, and she grew up listening to her Irish nanny's
fairytales and stories from Celtic folklore, sources of symbolism that
would later inspire her artwork. Carrington was a rebellious and
disobedient child, educated by a succession of governesses, tutors, and
nuns, and she was expelled from two convent schools in acts of rebellion against the Catholic Church and her family
whose excessive piety she loathed. Carrington also despised the
capitalist ideals of her father Harold Carrington, a wealthy textile manufacturer in Lancashire, and broke free to artistic and personal freedom.
In The Tempation of St Anthony Carrington
brings these two things together. When he was 20 years old St Anthony's
father died leaving him a large sum of money. After subsequently
reading Mathew's Gospel in which the reader is encouraged to sell
ones's possessions in exchange for treasures in heaven, St Anthony
disposed of his inheritance and embraced asetticism, becomming a hermit.
In the desert he was subjected to temptation by demons in much the same
way as Jesus had been. Having resisted these temptations , St Anthony
went on to found a monastery based on his own ascetic life. Carrington's
interpretation is iconclastic, defying the conventions of Renaissance
paintings that depict St Anthony resplondent in a red cloak. Although
St Anthony is given a physical presence in Carrington's painting he
appears as an emaciated hermit, the resplondent red cloak given instead
to his tormentor.
When Carrignton continued to rebel, she was sent to
study art briefly in Florence, Italy. Carrington was impressed by the
medieval and Baroque sculpture and architecture she viewed there, and
she was particularly inspired by Italian Renaissance painting. When she
returned to London, Carrington's parents permitted her to study art,
first at the Chelsea School of Art and then at the school founded by
French expatriate and Cubist painter Amédée Ozenfant.
Before Leonora Carrington became one of the most representative faces of the surrealist movement, she went mad. In the late 1930s, the English debutante was
living with her lover Max Ernst (more than 20 years her senior) in a
farmhouse in Provence, when Ernst was imprisoned on a visit to Paris and
sent to a concentration camp. As the German army advanced, Carrington
fled across the Pyrenees into Spain, where, after exhibiting
increasingly deranged behavior, she was interned in an insane asylum in
Santander. Down Below is Carrington’s brief yet harrowing account of her journey to the other side of consciousness.
It was André Breton who encouraged Carrington to write down her
experience. Liberation of the mind was the ultimate aim of surrealism,
and Carrington, already consecrated as a surrealist femme-enfant,
a conduit for her much older lover to the realms of youth and mystery,
had now traveled further than any of them and lived to tell the tale.
While she was predisposed to find artistic merit in her experience of
madness, Carrington’s reasons for telling her story seem more personal
and therapeutic: “How can I write this when I’m afraid to think about
it? I am in terrible anguish, yet I cannot continue living alone with
such a memory…I know that once I write it down, I shall be delivered.”
Carrington would often look back on this period of mental
trauma as a source of inspiration for her art. Just as in Carl Gustav Jung’s famous psychosis,
Carrington emerged with a firmer stance on her individual purpose.
Thus, on your journey you should embrace abnormalities and
eccentricities; trusting that your mind will lead you to a greater path.
In 1941 Carrington
married the Mexican poet and diplomat Renato Leduc, a friend of Pablo Picasso. In their short-lived partnership, Carrington and Leduc traveled to New York before eventually requesting an amiable divorce.
In 1943, after a short stay in New York, Carrington moved to Mexico,here she met the Jewish Hungarian
photographer Emeric ("Chiki") Weisz, and the darkroom manager for Robert Capa during the Spanish Civil War. whom she married and with whom she
had two sons, Pablo and Gabriel. Carrington devoted herself to her
artwork in the 1940s and 1950s, developing an intensely personal
Surrealist sensibility that combined autobiographical and occult
symbolism. She grew close with several other Surrealists then working in
Mexico, including Remedios Varo and Benjamin Péret.
A central theme for many of the women Surrealists was alchemy and their possession of its secret powers, which for them was linked to the mysterious cylcles of nature. Andre Breton had already put forward the proposal that women possessed these Hermetic powers and suggested that men could unlock these secrets by means of love. Some women Surrealists sought their own enpowerment of this resource for picture making believing that the origins of their own creativity were rested in Hermetic tradition.
Sharing her enthuiasm for alchemy with Vara (1908 -63), also a European exile, although their
depictions are somewhat different they shared a common exploration in
paint and poetry, of life's mysteries and its resolution using alchemy
in her one-act play, Une Chernise de Nuit de Flanelle, written in
1945, Carrington developed characters that would later populate her
paintings. One character, Prisne, populates the world of the living and
dead, a theme that is used in Again the Gemini are in thee Orchard, the twins representing the same duality.The paintings allusion to fertility, through the allegory of the garden, suggests that this duality is part of the life cycle of humanity.
There are two constant motifs in Carringtons work after 1945, the partridge and other bird and the egg. the parttridge makes a number of appearances in Carrington's work, most famously in Portrait of the late Mrs Partridge from 1947 is seen walking with a partridge that is not to scale and appears incongrous. In one hand the woman carries an egg, while the other gently rsts on the back of the overgrown partridge.
The incongruity of scale also appears in Baby Giant. This time the central figure is surrounded by normal scale birds, resembling geese, flying around her and from inside her cape. However, she is standing within two Liliputian worlds. The first is a hunting scene at the bottom of the picture, redolent of a Hieronymus Bosch painting, the other is a seascape in which appear Viking ships, whales and various sea creatures. The central figure has a mane of wheat that replaces her hair and is carrying an egg very carefully with both hands. These symbols of the generative and regenerative powers of nature, as exemplified by the egg, are key motifs in the work of many of the Surrealist women artists. For Carrington in particular, the egg also represented the alchemist's oven.
Women artists, however even those within the Surrealist coterie, still found themselves outside the circle that formulated Surrealist theories, though they nevertheless contribued significantly to its language. The erotic biolence in the art of thir male conterparts was replaced by an art of magical fantasy that still managed to shift the depiction of the female within a male dominated movement. In place of depicting women as 'other' as her male counterparts had done, women artists like Carrington depicted women as self'anticipating the female artists of the 1970's by some 40 years or so.
In 1947 Carrington
was invited to participate in an international exhibition of Surrealism
at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York, where her work was
immediately celebrated as visionary and uniquely feminine. Her work was
also featured in group exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art and at
Peggy Guggenheim's Art of this Century Gallery in New York.
Carrington's
early fascination with mysticism and fantastical creatures continued to
flourish in her paintings, prints, and works in other media, and she
found kindred artistic spirits through her collaboration with the
Surrealist theater group Poesia en Voz Alta and in her close friendship
with Varo. Her continuing artistic development was enhanced by her
exploration and study of thinkers like Carl Jung, the religious beliefs of Buddhism and the Kabbalah, and local Mexican folklore and mysticism.
It is worth noting that she was very aware of and supported
feminist issues. In particular she championed the newly established
women’s movement: In the early 1970s she was responsible for co-founding
the Women’s Liberation Movement in Mexico; she frequently spoke about
women’s “legendary powers” and the need for women to take back “the
rights that belonged to them” ”Surrealism has/had a very uneven
relationship with women, as has been discussed by many scholars
throughout the years.” Andre Breton and many others involved in the
movement regarded women to be useful as muses but not seen as artists in
their own right. As Angela Carter once said, voicing the concerns of
many women artists of her time, “The Surrealists were not good with
women. That is why, although I thought they were wonderful, I had to
give them up in the end.” Leonora Carrington was embraced as a
femme-enfant by the Surrealists because of her rebelliousness against
her upper-class upbringing. However, Carrington did not just rebel
against her family, she found ways in which she could rebel against the
Surrealists and their limited perspective of women.
The student protests of 1968 revealed a further facet of
Carrington’s beliefs, her political militancy. In support of the
left-wing activists and as a remonstration, she left Mexico for a while
and returned in 1969 continuing to make her views heard in a series of
public appearances.
Today Carrington's
style is ecognizable worldwide, a combination of anthropomorphic
whimsy and an undercurrent of shadowy darkness. Yet she often rejected
the label "Surrealist," insisting instead that she painted what she
observed in the magical space between the corporeal world and the
subconscious.
Chilean
filmmaker and actor Alejandro Jodorowsky, a later Surrealist, wrote of
Carrington as one of his "witch" muses, yet she once remarked: "I didn't
have time to be anybody's muse; I was too busy rebelling against my
parents and learning to be an artist."
Carrington
was a prolific writer as well as a painter, publishing many articles
and short stories during her decades in Mexico and the novel The Hearing Trumpet (1976). Inspired by the country's
rich pre-Hispanic civilizations and the mythologies and occult knowledge
of cultures from around the world. One of her best-known works is an
enormous mural titled "The Magical World of the Maya," commissioned in
the early 1960s for the National Museum of Anthropology.
She also collaborated with other members of the avant-garde and
with intellectuals such as writer Octavio Paz (for whom she created
costumes for a play) and filmmakerLuis Bunuel.
In 1960 Carrington was honored with a major retrospective of her work
held at the Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno in Mexico City.
After a battle with pneumonia, Carrington died in Mexico City on May 25,
2011, aged 94. Her work continues to be shown at exhibitions across the
world, from Mexico to New York to her native Britain. In 2013,
Carrington's work had a major retrospective at the Irish Museum of
Modern Art in Dublin, and in 2015, a Google Doodle commemorated what
would have been her 98th birthday. By the time of her death, Leonora
Carrington was one of the last-surviving Surrealist artists, and
undoubtedly one of the most unique. Carrington's life was a whirlwind tribute to creative struggle and artistic revolution, that still is of great interest to me.
It's the end of May
No tears for Theresa
Strong and stable she never was
Her deceit and neglect still resonates
our tears fall for her defencless prey
Windrush Brits deported, Grenfell victims
Disabled people systematically abused
Benefit claimants, the sick and marginalised
Four million children in poverty
Avoidable death victims of DWP
No tears fall now for her cowardly stance
Let's hope we see no more attempts to dance'
As her trade in Machiavelian deceit ends
Her nefarious flagitious poison still flowering
Among the seeds of pain she's sown
Her legacy will for long be known
May her departure precipitate
The induction of pragmatic change.
Isabella Ormston Ford born on May 23 1855. was a Quaker, Pacifist , Suffragist, Socialist,. Labor organizer. Speaker. Writer. Who was the youngest of eight children. Her parents, Robert and
Hannah, were Quakers and the young Isabella was brought up in a family
greatly concerned with women’s rights and humanitarian causes, an
upbringing which would affect her entire life’s work. Isabella became,
arguably, one of the most important women ever to write about women’s
rights, and women’s working conditions, bringing to the masses, through
her pamphlets, speeches and Union aions, the true plight of
working-class women, and the conditions they faced in the workplace.
The family home at Adel Grange near Leeds became a place where radicals could meet and discuss politics. As a young woman, Isabella Ford met prominent feminists such as Josephine Butler and Elizabeth Garret Anderson. In 1875 Isabella met Edward Carpenter, a former Anglican
priest who had began to question conventional ideas on politics and
sexuality.His book 'Towards Democracy is like a Bible to me. Carpenter introduced Ford to socialist ideas and in 1883 they
both joined the recently formed Fabian Society
an organisation which aimed to "reconstruct society in accordance with
the highest moral possibilities through political means".
In 1885 Isabella helped Emma Patterson, President of the Women's
Protective and Provident League, to form a Machinists' Society for
tailoresses in Leeds.
This was the start of a long campaign by Ford to improve the pay and
conditions of women working in the textile industry in Leeds. In 1889
she established the Leeds Tailoresses' Union and the following year she
was elected president of the organisation.
Isabella became, arguably, one of the most important
women ever to write about women’s rights, and women’s working
conditions, bringing to the masses, through her pamphlets, speeches and
Union actions, the true plight of working-class women, and the
conditions they faced in the workplace. She railed against the accepted convention which suggested that a woman
should in no way revolt, but instead should accept any injustice shown
to her. To be a woman and to complain was in some way almost
irreligious, a woman should accept her lot, no matter how bad.Isabella truly believed, however, ‘that a better day is dawning’, and
that the movements she was seeing in the burgeoning women’s trade union
movements.
In 1890 helped form the Leeds Women's Suffrage
Society with her sister Bessie and their sister-in-law, Helen Cordelia.
Three years later, Isabella was involved in forming a Leeds branch of the Independent Labour Party (ILP). The two organizations worked closely together .. By the early 1900s Isabella Ford
had developed a national reputation for her talents as a speaker and
organizer. Ford was also an important writer of books on the struggle
for equality. This included Women's Wages (1893), Industrial Women (1900) and Women and Socialism (1904).
In 1903 Isabella became a member of the national executive committee
of the ILP. She played an important role in persuading leaders of the
ILP to support women's suffrage. Isabella argued that the emancipation of
women and the emancipation of labour were strongly linked and that
"socialists should support the struggle of women, just as women should
support socialism." In 1904, she was the first woman to speak at a Labour Party Conference, when she supported the motion that women should be given the right to vote on the same terms as men.
Some suffragists disapproved of Isabella Ford's socialism but it
1907 it did not prevent her being elected to the executive committee of
the NUWSS ( National Union of Womens Suffrage Movement.) In 1912 she upset members of the Liberal Party when she persuaded the NUWSS to support Labour Party candidates in parliamentary elections.
Isabella Ford, a life-long pacifist, was deeply concerned by the growing hostility between.Britain and Germany. the summer of 1914, Ford helped organise a peace rally in London. During the meeting at the
Kingway Hall held on the 4th of August they heard the news that Britain had declared war on
Germany.The women's movement was split over the issue of what role women should play during the First World War. She was however quite capable of making fighting speeches. At the annual
conference of the NUWSS in 1914 she spoke against any co-operation with
the government for war purposes “with a pugnacity of word and gesture
which took everyone’s breath away, and then, having had her say, stamped
off the platform and down the hall in almost ferocious style”. (New Leader, 25 July, 1924)
With the outbreak of war Isabella once again found herself working
closely with friends and comrades from the ILP in the peace movement. not forgotten As the war went on Isabella found herself more and more isolated and
in 1915 was forced to resign from the executive committee of the NUWSS. After the end of hostilities she continued her efforts to help the movements of peace, socialism and feminism.
In the years, 1919, 1920, 1921 and 1922 Ford was a
delegate to the Women's International League Congress. Isabella Ford was a woman who fought her entire life for the causes of socialism and feminism and peace who recognised the need of both women and men to realize their full potential as equal human beings
At the end of her days age and ill health curtailed her public activities and she
never recovered from the death of her sister Bessie in 1919 who had
given her so much practical and emotional support. In 1922 she moved
with her sister Emily to a small cottage, Adel Willows, and it was here
that she died in her sleep on 14 July 1924. She is buried in the Adel Friends Burial Ground, Leeds, England. Long may we remember her and her valuable contribution for the advancement of social justice and equality that remains an inspiration for us because she addressed such important issues that are still relevant to the modern era , particularly the relationships between peace, socialism and feminism.
I will leave you with her words :-
" Justice is to be the foundation on which we must build, not the kind of justice we have hitherto considered for us, and which many countries pride themselves is their watchword and standard, but a justice that demands freedom for all."
Brexit has recently got very messy. Especially for Nigel Farage, one of the leading advocates of the United Kingdom's wthdrawal from the European Union, was doused with a milkshake on Monday in Newcastle, England, by a man who said he was protesting Farage;s "bile and racism.The Northumbria Police said on Tuesday that Paul Crowther, 32 had been charged with common assault and criminal damage for throwing the banana and salted caramel shake from Five Guys on the Brext leader.
Farage's suit was left covered by the milky treat during a campaign stop ahead of tomorrow's European Parliament election..As Farage gets his suit cleaned for all those that are outraged about milkshakes being thrown on right wing politicians stirring up division, think of all the Muslim people who have been abused on the streets and try and remember where the outrage was for them.
Poor old Farage this jokey, man with a pint, this so called man of the people, who rails aganst the elites, denounces the establishment, then has to face a barrage of criticism on social media for his claims that he is
“skint”, despite many pointing out he lives in a £4m townhouse in Chelsea
and has been taking a £100,000 salary plus a €300-a-day living allowance, as an MEP for south-east England since
1999. And with further brazen hypocricy. said he would still take his annual £73,000 EU pension after Brexit. However much he attacks the so-called EU gravy train, is more than happy to cash in when it suits him.
It's worth noting that he is ranked 748 out of 751 for attendance and, following an investigation
by financial controllers at the parliament, will reportedly have to
repay about €95,000, with a fellow Ukip MEP, for alleged misuse of
public funds intended for staffing his office. And now the European Parliament's advisory committee will look at whether Mr Farage broke rules by accepting funding from Leae cmpaigneer Arron Banks.
Farage said he did not declare the £450,000 sum to the European
Parliament because he was about to leave politics and had been seeking a
new life in the US.The committee will examine the case before advising the European Parliament President Antonio Tajani.The committee can meet on 4 June.
MEPs
found to have acted improperly can be reprimanded, their parliamentary
allowance can be withheld or they can be banned from some activities.
The payments from Arron Banks to Nigel Farage were revealed by a Channel 4 News investigation.
Mr
Farage confirmed that he was not talking to Channel 4 News, describing
them as "political activists", and said he would not allow the
broadcaster to attend Brexit Party events.
The editor of Channel 4 News, Ben de Pear, said on Twitter he hoped "to resolve our access ban... ASAP".
Separately,
the Electoral Commission has defended visiting The Brexit Party's
offices to review the party's online fundraising activities.As party leader Farage then accused the watchdog of acting "in bad faith" and "interfering in the electoral process".But the watchdog said there had been "significant public concern" about the way the party raises funds.
Farage for many is simply a vain, shallow hypocrite, serving his own self serving agenda, who as a divisive figure in the Brexit debate has often been accussed of 'peddling racist nonsense'. It's not only recently that he has developed a public relations problem. Let's take a look at his previous history.
In 1981, when Farage was appointed as a prefect at his school, an English teacher wrote to the headteacher asking him to reconsider his decision,
citing his fascist views. Another said that on a Combined Cadet Force
(CCF) camp organised by the college, Farage and others “marched through a
quiet Sussex village very late at night shouting Hitler-youth songs.” Of course his defenders will say this was either youthful antics or a
bogus claim from an unverifiable sources.
Skip forward to 2006 – when Farage became the leader of UKIP, the UK
Independence Party. The party is on the far right, and campaigned for
the UK to leave the EU. Policies included strict caps on immigration, a five-year ban on unskilled workers, and a five-year wait before migrants could claim benefits.
In 2013 Farage said he supports Muslim immigrants who “integrate” into society, but not those that are “coming here to take us over”. In a 2014 interview on LBC, Nige said he felt “uncomfortable” when he heard people speaking in other languages on London transport.That same year, he said the “basic principle” of Enoch Powell’s infamous anti-immigration “Rivers of Blood” speech was correct.
In 2014 Nigel also said he would be concerned if Romanian immigrants moved in next door to him.
The same year, he blamed immigrants for making him late
to an event where he was speaking. He said his lateness “has nothing to
do with professionalism, what it does have to do with is a country in
which the population is going through the roof chiefly because of
open-door immigration and the fact that the M4 is not as navigable as it
used to be”.
Nigel defended a UKIP candidate who used a racist slur against Chinese people. Referring to the incident, he said: “If you and your mates were going out for a Chinese, what do you say you’re going for?”
In June 2016, Nigel unveiled an anti-immigrant poster that
suggested that immigration was at “Breaking Point”, as part of the leave
campaign. The poster was reported to the police on the grounds that it aimed to incite racial hatred. Comparisons were quickly made in the media to Nazi propaganda. Farage stood in front of a poster of desperate refugees, whose plight was and is entirely irrelevant to the Brexit cause, and exploited their misery for his own shallow gain.
When Britain left the EU in 2016, Nigel boasted that the campaign had been won “without a bullet being fired”. This was eight days after Labour MP Jo Cox was fatally shot.
In 2016 he was also accused of giving "legitimism to racism" by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The Most Reverand Justin Welby said Farage was " accentuating fear for political gain", which he said was "absolutely inexcusable."
Farage also supports Trump's Muslim ban, and has had “absolutely no hesitation” in backing the gun-flashing, homophobic religious zealot and alt-right darling Roy Moore
in the US Senate special election in Alabama, endorsed Marine Le Pen
and the far-right Alternative für Deutschland, and defended Donald
Trump’s retweets of racist Britain First hate posts, arguing that “the
level of outrage from the liberal elite” in Britain was “out of all
proportion” – although he was surely aware that the MP Jo Cox had died
hearing the words “Britain First” from her killer’s mouth.
For several weeks now, Farage has been visiting every part of the
country, delivering a stump speech on Brexit that is a lie from start to
finish, and no politician has done anything to stop him, aided strangely by a fawning media, that seems to be doing his bidding. Baring in mnd that the Brexit Party was only launched last month, Farage has roared back into the
frontline of British politics, and despite his past history.and despite having no idea what the party stands for, with nothing contructive to offer beyond a call for the hardest Brexit possible, the Brexit Party looks set to
dominate the European Elections in the UK.The Conservatives and Labour are widely expected to be punished by both Remain and Leave voters.
All over Europe extremist political forces are on the march,
threatening the cohesion of our communities and undermining our values.
This campaign was an opportunity for Labour and the Tories to reject
the nihilism of the Brexit Party. It has no manifesto because it does
not want to create, only to destroy. Farage says it won't publish it's manifesto until after the EU elections. The party represents the politics of hate
and division. It is the ultimate manifestation of Project Fear. It has no programme to stop austerity, and while many are calling for a properly funded NHS and other services, in contrast Farage has previously raised that there should be an insurance based health system run by private companies.
The big
parties could have used their campaigning clout and their media heft to
hold Farage and his acolytes to account, to challenge their all too
often bigoted views and to scrutinise their funding.The sum total of the resistance he has thus far met is £5.25’s worth of salted caramel milkshake. The mind truly boggles!
Upon closer examination, the Brexit Party who are running seems to be providing a
good hiding place for more insidious political beliefs, particularly
when it comes to the rights and equal treatment of women and minority
groups.Here's everything about the Brexit Party Candidates they eather you wouldn't know. https://medium.com/@SJHolloway/this-is-everything-i-discovered-about-all-of-the-brexit-party-mep-candidates-2a59f8f850c5
Stand Up to Racism co-founder Weyman Bennet recently said "The City
trader Nigel Farage, formerly of UKip, has always sown division in this
country by looking to blame other communities for problems of austerity
and privatisation.
"He has nothing to offer but racism and bigotry. We should unite to
oppose Nigel Farages vision whether we are leave or remain. Unity for us
should be the key."
Farage and his rightwing backers know only too well that winning a sweep of MEP seats will be interpeted as a mandate for the Brexiters, as they set about implementing the most extreme political ideology seen in this country. We must say no to his grim vision,a place where he and his rich friends and right wing backers with hidden agendas will be able to amass ever greater fortunes, as they relax rules, regulations for their own dubious purposes. As Farage sets about re-shaping our world with Mr Trump, it ccrtainly won't be a good idea to be a member of a minority faith or weak or old or foreign.
It's also striking . to those who care to look , just how much his agenda is about class interest, this former city trader. He also opposes extended maternity leave, raising the minimum wage and reducing the retirement age, anything that inconveniences his noveau rich confederates. If he had his way,many of his own supporters would be working harder, longer, for less money, with less protection. That indeed is the reality of his Brexit dream.
Don't be fooled in handing your vote to Farage and his,Brexit party, that is continuing to try and sell people an idea of Brext that doesn't exist, never has and never will.If you choose to vote tomorrow, do it wisely, vote progressive and not for the far right, and if in doubt vote tactically.We have no guarantee that the Lib Dems or CHUK will work with the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (which Labour is a part of) and other left-wing blocs to effectively fight the incoming bands of right-wing extremists.
There are a variety of left and progressive options to choose from in
the European election, but a vote for the Liberal Democrats, as in
domestic elections, is essentially a vote for the Tories
Tactical voting requires considerable thought and a one sized fit all approach is not going to work.. Here's a handy list though.
The following new satirical tune from Captain Ska arrives rather timely, best enjoyed with a nice cold milkshake.
Captain Ska - Nigel Farage is a Racist
[Chorus]
Nigel Farage is a racist
Don't be fooled by the laughing face
Nigel Farage is a racist
A vote for Nigel is a vote for hate
[Verse 1]
He's rather picky 'bout who's living next door
Homegrown neighbours he likes more
Hatred he's been whipping up
With racist posters full of lies
Remember where this went before?
[Chorus]
Nigel Farage is a racist
Don't be fooled by the laughing face
Nigel Farage is a racist
A vote for Nigel is a vote for hate
[Verse 2]
Have you ever wondered why he's on so much TV?
Ratings go up with a pub bore
Normalised intolerance
Supported by the BBC
Not what our licence fee was for!
Oh no!
All together now!
Here we go!
[Chorus]
Nigel Farage is a racist
Don't be fooled by the laughing face
Nigel Farage is a racist
A vote for Nigel is a vote for hate
A vote for Nigel is a vote for hate
A vote for Nigel is a vote for hate
