Natural Sanctity

Beyond the shambles of our age
That leaves many with tears of rage
Natures glory still a wonder to behold
Far more precious than silver and gold
The virgin forests glowing with purity
Secrets dense with mystical mystery
Containing richness to heal the world
The sap of ancient treasure unfurled
Untarnished by man's destructive hand
Sanctifying balms as sun rises across the land
Infinite energies can be garnished
To stop humanity delivering carnage
Among soft green climes, sounds of comfort
Permutations symbiotically magically exert
Rainwater percolating the fertile soil
Dispensing a downfall, sating it's thirst
Quenching the earth and replenishing rivers
Releasing a deluge of fortuitous sustenance.

My Seditious Heart - Arundhati Roy

My Seditious Heart, is an ucompromising collection of essays  that collects the work of a two decade  period when Arhndhati Roy devoted herself to the political essay as a way of opening up space for justice, rights and freedoms in an increasingly hostile environment. Taken together, these essays trace her twenty year journey from the Booker Prize winning The God of Small Things to the extraordinary The Ministry of Utmost Happiness: a journey marked by compassion, clarity and courage." Radical and readable, they speak always in defence of the collective, of the individual and of the land, in the face of the destructive  logic of financial, social, religious, military and government elites." said the publisher in a statement.
When taken together these essays trace Roy's journey from her first book  to her last "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness"- a journey marked by compassion, clarity and courage, it added.
Since her debut novel  she has concentrated her writing on political issues.A vocal, visible, and courageous activist, who often takes on unpopular, underwritten causes and is unafraid to challenge the ruling elite. She has campaigned against the Indian nuclear weapons program, in response to India's testing of nuclear weapons in Pokhran, Rajasthan, Roy wrote The End of Imagination, a powerful critique of the Indian government's nuclear policies. It was published in her collection The Cost of Living, in which she also crusaded against India's massive hydroelectric dam projects in the central and western states of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. She also spoke out against the barbarity of her government’s repression of the Kashmiri and Naxalite insurgencies, and the environmental and human costs of India’s hydroelectric dam projects, and also opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Born in northeast India, Roy was the daughter of a tea plantation manager and a women’s rights activist. When aged two, her parents divorced and Roy’s mother took her young children back to her hometown of Kerala, in south India. At 16, she left the south for Delhi where she lived in a small tin-roofed hut and sold empty beer bottles.
Her first novel  published in 1997.told the devastating story of twins Rahel and Estha and in doing so, examined India’s caste system, its history and social mores. It explored the ways in which the ‘Untouchable’ caste is derogated and ostracised from society, and the consequences of breaching the caste’s longstanding codes. The narrative deftly illustrated how the personal is indeed political.
Her political campaigning has caused clashes with the state on a number of occasions. In 2002, she served a “symbolic imprisonment” of one day due to her opposition to the contentious Narmada dam project, the largest river development scheme in India which was set to potentially displace 1.5 million people at great environmental cost. In 2010, she faced threat of arrest, and charges of sedition, after she remarked that Kashmir, a disputed territory, was not an integral part of India. In 2015, she received a contempt notice from the Bombay High Court on writing an article in support of Professor Saibaba, a severely disabled academic at Delhi University, imprisoned for ‘anti-national activities’.
 Among her prestigious awards, she is the recipient of the Lannan Foundation’s Cultural Freedom Award (2002), the Sydney Peace Prize (2004) for her work in social campaigns and advocacy of non-violence and the Norman Mailer Prize for Distinguished Writing (2011). In 2003 she was awarded special recognition as a Woman of Peace at the Global Exchange Human Rights Awards in San Francisco. In June 2005 she took part in the World Tribunal on Iraq. In January 2006 she was awarded the Sahitya Akademi award for her collection of essays, 'The Algebra of Infinite Justice', but declined to accept it. Roy came out with her second work of fiction "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness" in 2017 after a hiatus of 20 years. She lives in Delhi, India
In constant conversation with the themes and setting of her novels, the essays in this collection form a near-unbroken memoir of Arundhati Roy's journey as both a writer and citizen of both India and the world, from 'End of Imagination'  which begins the book to "My Sedititious Heart', with which it ends. She presents  interlocking network of ideas, attitudes and ideologies that emerge from the contemporary social and the political world and steps into "the very heart of insurrections" raging against globalization, privatization, and neoliberal capitalism in India and around the world, and the abuses of power that pit economic profit over human lives. She asks her readers to emulate the rebels whose resistance she chronicles to;

"find the courage to dream. To reclaim romance. The romance of believing in justice, in freedom, and in dignity. For everybody," she writes. "We have to make common cause, and to do this we need to understand how this big old machine works—who it works for and who it works against. Who pays, who profits."

These essays,  are united by Roy's unflinching assessment of the violence and inequality around her, and her search for alternatives to the world we've inherited. Roy reminds us that silence and inaction are choices. Trying to crawl out of the moral "crevasse" of the world as it exists is also a choice
These  studies are trenchant, still relevant and frequently alarming. Roy reveals some hard truths about modern India and makes powerful analytical forays into American and British foreign policy, aid, imperialism and attitudes. Roy's essays about the environmental and human costs of late-capitalist development read as dispatches from a recent past that will also be our future. Climate change threatens to displace more than 140 million people by 2050—another example of the "fascist math" Roy describes operating during the construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam. The project's planners dispassionately recommended displacing millions to dangerous urban slums where they had no means of sustaining themselves and might well perish. The danger of "fascist math," Roy argues, is that it "strangles stories ... [and] bludgeons detail." It blunts our ability to empathize with those who bear the brunt of environmental injustice—a category that will soon encompass many more of us.
 Roy writes in her foreword that “Not one iota of my anger has diminished” since the time of writing these essays. Yet they do not come across as angry, instead, their impact comes from their precision, research and damningly clear reportage. Roy refuses to accept the inevitability of development, of globalization, of fascism, of sacrifice by the poorest people for "the greater common good." Instead, she argues:

"Our  strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay seige on it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music our literature, our stubborness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness - and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we're being brainwashed to believe.
The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling -- their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.
Remember this:We be many, and they be few. They need us more than we need them.
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."

From the shadows of our grotesque world ,on quiet days, we too can hear another world breathing. I thank  Arundhati Roy for her rebellious political conscience, and for delivering weighty truths and her willingness to discuss the difficult and those that have been previously  silenced, and continuing to speak truth to power and for reminding us that our world is still worth fighting for. Her voice is vital, we need many more writers like her, and quite frankly the urgency of her message is simply impossible to ignore.

Remembering the injustice of Aberfan and the dirty price of Coal.

 

Today I  once again mark the tragic day when  on Friday 21 October 1966, a terrible disaster struck the close-knit and thriving  coal mining village of Aberfan in  the South Wales Valleys, a tragedy which still stuns those of a certain age, and which has lessons still very relevant to new generations.
For decades leading up to 1966 excavated mining debris from the National Coal Board's Merthyr Vale Colliery had been deposited on the side of Mynydd Merthyr, directly above Aberfan in the South Wales valleys.
At  approximately 9.14am on the last day before half-term at the Pantglas schools below, after several days of heavy rain, liquified  waste poured down the coal tip, sliding down the mountain slide into the mining village of Aberfan, This black tidal wave would engulf everything in its path in this catastrophic tragedy. It would smother a farm, around twenty houses, demolish Pantglas Junior School and severely damage the Secondary School. It is a mercy that lessons in the secondary school did not start until 9:30, meaning that many of those children were still walking towards the building at the time of the landslide. The eye-witnesses report that when the landslide stopped there was complete silence: for example a local hairdresser who witnessed the landslide reported that “In that silence you couldn’t hear a bird or a child”
Immediately desperate parents rushed to the scene, many digging through the rubble with their bare hands, trying to rescue the buried children. Police from Merthyr Tydfil arrived on the site, volunteers rushed to the village including miners from local collieries and other pits across South Wales. Conditions remained treacherous with a large amount of water and mud still flowing down the slope. Some children were pulled out alive in the first hour, but no survivors were found after 11 am. Emergency services workers and volunteers continued their rescue efforts but it was nearly a week before all the bodies were recovered.

 
 The final death toll was 144, including 116 children between the ages of 7 and 10. It was a whole week before all the bodies were recovered. Most of the victims were interred at Bryntaf Cemetery in Aberfan in a funeral held on 27 October 1966, attended by more than 2,000 people.
The shock  that was felt  went beyond South Wales too. The television coverage allowed a collective witnessing of the disaster and turned it into a national tragedy. Parents, children, mining communities, Welsh exiles, people who had been evacuated to the area during the Second World War – so many people across Britain and worldwide felt a deep personal empathy and sympathy with those who suffered in the disaster. The surviving 50,000 letters of condolence sent to the village are a testament to that sympathy.The writings show of the warmth of the nation and its people.
This horror was made even more poignant as news emerged of previous warnings and previous slides that had been brushed aside. The National Coal Board (NCB) had been repeatedly been warned to move the slag heaps to a safer location, because the loose rock and mining spoil had been piled over a layer of porous sandstone that contained many underground springs. Local authorities had already raised concerns about the tip pointing out that it posed a risk to the village primary school. The NCB's area management did not adequately act upon these concerns.
Did the NCB have the decency to acknowledge their blame, to bow their head in shame, like hell no, but we were to  learn sadly far too late that the NCB was ostensibly a capitalist organisation more concerned with profit than lives.  The Rt. Hon. Lord Robens of Woldingham, a former trade unionist and Labour politician whom the Macmillan government had appointed chairman of the National Coal Board, arrived 36 hours later, having first gone to Guildford to be installed as chancellor of Surrey University. He announced that the cause of the disaster was an unknown spring underneath the tip. This was immediately challenged by villagers who had known it all their lives.
Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who had reached Aberfan 24 hours before Robens, ordered an inquiry under the Tribunals of Inquiry Act 1921, headed by a judge assisted by an engineer and a planning lawyer.
The subsequent tribunal placed blame for the disaster upon the National Coal Board stating in its damning conclusion: 'The Aberfan disaster is a terrifying tale of bungling ineptitude by men charged with tasks for which they were totally unfitted'.
Nevertheless, the top management of the NCB tried to give the impression at the inquiry that they had 'no more blameworthy connection than the Gas Board'. The NCB wasted up to 76 days of inquiry time by refusing to admit the liability that they had privately accepted before the inquiry had started. The tribunal called this 'nothing short of audacious'. This may be the strongest language ever used in a tribunal report about a UK public body.
The chairman of the National Coal Board (NCB) at the time was Alfred Lord Robens. When he eventually arrived in Aberfan on the evening of the day after the disaster, he told a TV reporter that the slide had been due to 'natural unknown springs' beneath the tip and that nothing could have been done to prevent the slide. This was not true, the springs had been known about and were marked on maps of the area. Yet the NCB had continued to tip on top of these springs. The potential danger posed by the tip to Pantglas school had also been previously acknowledged. There had also been previous incidents of tip instability in South Wales that would have given clear information on the very real dangers posed.
 Lord Robens  also claimed that it was too expensive to remove the tips, with an estimated cost of £3 million pounds.  In response, the community of Aberfan formed a Tip Removal Committee to actively seek out contractors for estimates to remove the tips.  Eventually the tips were removed by the NCB, but using £150,000 that Lord Robens appropriated from the disaster fund.  Understandably, this caused long-term resentment in the community.  In 1997, this sum (but without interest) was repaid to the fund by the UK government.
The Aberfan inquiry of 1967 stated: ‘Our strong and unanimous conclusion is that the Aberfan disaster could and should have been prevented’.Blame  for the disaster rests upon  the National Coal Board. The legal liabilities of the National Coal Board to pay compensation for the  personal injury  fatal or otherwise) and  damage to property is incontestable and uncontested."
A section of the report condemned the behaviour of Lord Robens:"For the National Coal Board, through its counsel, thus to invite the Tribunal to ignore the evidence given by its Chairman was, at one and the same time, both remarkable and, in the circumstances, understandable. Nevertheless, the invitation is one which we think it right to accept."
A few weeks later,  Lord Robens offered to resign. The minister, Richard Marsh, refused to accept his resignation. The Commons debated the disaster in October 1967. The debate was painful and inconclusive. But at least Aberfan made the dangers of ignoring workplace risks and the catastrophic effects on both occupational and public health and safety all too obvious.
 The Wilson government found the NCB guilty, but the price they placed on each small head was just £500.  Worldwide, people were less insensitive, donations poured in daily and a trust fund was set up, that attracted donations of £1,750,000 (equivalent to about £30 million today), with money being received in the form of more than 90,000 contributions from over 40 countries.  This fund distributed the money in a number of ways, including direct payments to the bereaved, the construction of a memorial, repairs to houses, respite breaks for villagers and the construction of a community centre.  However, the fund itself attracted considerable controversy.  First, when the fund was created it did not include any representatives from Aberfan itself;  and another insult ensued. The bereaved families were not thought to be competent enough to distribute the funds. The grieving families were outraged. The villagers took it upon themselves to form a Parents and Residents' Association, and their solicitors eventually persuaded bureaucrats to include five representatives from Aberfan. The ten officials who were not from Aberfan accepted highly paid salaries from the fund.
The Government of the day was also extremely insensitive to the victims families, and people would have to wait for years for compensation. It was also to  the eternal shame of Lord George Thomas of Tonypandy that he did not do more to support the people of Aberfan, and it was the shame of the establishment that funds raised for the disaster were used to move the slag heaps from the school. Thomas many believed was more interested in toadying up to Royalty than supporting the people of the valleys. Perhaps what moved Welsh Labour to take some action were the fear of other voices speaking out. Plaid Cymru MP, Gwynfor Evans elected in 1966 suggested that had the slag heap  had fell on Eton or a school in the Home Counties more would have been done.
 The security of Labour’s hold on south Wales and the governments shameful marginalisation of the village’s needs after the disaster meant he was probably quite right. Indeed, the disaster played a key role in convincing some in Wales that both the nationalised coal industry and Labour governance were no longer operating in the interests of the working-class communities they were supposed to represent.
 Aberfan  at least added to a growing sense that the risks the public were exposed to by industry had to be controlled. This feeling eventually led to the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act (HSWA) 1974 which aims to protect both workers and non-workers from the risks of workplace activities.
Indeed, the HSWA notably requires that employers must safeguard people not in their employment. This includes members of the public, contractors, patients, customers, visitors and students. This may be seen as Aberfan’s legacy. Unbelievably, the committee which effectively led to the creation of the HSWA was chaired by none other than Lord Robens!
Earlier legislation such as the Factories Acts focused on specific industries or workplaces. This meant over 5 million workers had no Health & Safety protection – as well as the generally ignored public. The law was then more concerned with making sure machinery was safe!
One key feature of the 1972 Robens Committee Report that is echoed in today’s Health & Safety is the principle of consultation. So whilst we can be comforted by the fact that legislation is more demanding and the safety of people is put first, history tells us that we must never be complacent, take the example of Hillsborough for instance. .
Today though  we remember the people of Aberfan, their collective loss, a community that is still profoundly affected by this disaster and injustice, having paid the dirty price of coal,  one in three survivors still suffering  from Post traumatic stress,  over 50 years after this tragic event took place. The community of the Welsh town was deeply traumatised – the psychological and emotional effects rippled from one generation to the next, people felt guilty that they were left alive, they did not feel like survivors, cases of children not being allowed to play in the street, in case it upset other parents.
What happened at Aberfan on 21 October 1966 left an indelible mark on the valleys of south Wales. Even today, the name Aberfan evokes sadness and contemplation. Most British people born before 1960 remember what they were doing when they heard the tragic news.
The community suffered a second devastating blow with the closure of Merthyr Vale Colliery, Aberfan’s main employer, in 1989
The sores and wounds of this tragedy are now forever  engrained in the memories  and feelings of the people of Wales because of the whole collective loss of a generation that was wiped out.There are thousands upon thousands of Welsh people with personal or family connections to the coal industry, and for them the disaster is not simply something that happened in another time and another place. It is part of their own family history. So today again we  try not to forget  the children and adults who died, this human tragedy, that  many say could easily have been  prevented.
The disaster also summed  up the relationship Welsh society has with its coal mining heritage. At one level, there is an immense popular pride in the work miners undertook and the sacrifices they endured. There is also a recognition that it was coal that made modern Wales. Without it, communities such as Aberfan would not have existed at all. Indeed, the knowledge that it was their labour that created the waste above the village added guilt to the grief felt by some bereaved fathers.
Aberfan is now known  today as one  of one of Wales worst mining disasters in it's history,but brought back memories of the pit disasters of Senghennydd (1913 - 439 killed)  https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2016/10/senghennyd-mining-disaster-lest-we.htmland Gresford (1934 - 263 killed) https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2016/09/gresford-colliery-disaster.html
and the numerous less-known accidents that killed and maimed individual miners. Such fatalities continued to occur in the wake of 1947 but miners accepted the dangers inherent in their occupation. Aberfan however was different. This time it was their children that were killed, and by implication, a part of the future was lost,  because of mans greed.  It is important to note that no employee of the NCB was ever disciplined for the breaches that caused the disaster.
Now pupils in Carmarthenshire will hold a minutes silence every year on 21 October after councillors recently passed a motion. The chairman of Aberfan Memorial Charity said it was of "great comfort".
David Davies added: "The bereaved, the injured, the survivors and the wider community have always been touched that our fellow citizens in Wales, the UK and indeed around the world have not forgotten what happened in Aberfan.
"That wider empathy swept into our community like a huge wave of loving support most recently in 2016 and the 50th anniversary."
He added the annual silence "is a huge and ongoing source of great comfort to all concerned".
Here is an evocative poem written  at the time  by local poet Ron Cook. 

Where Was God - Ron Cook

Where was God that fateful day
At the place called Aberfan.
When the world stood still and the mountain
Moved through the folly of mortal man.
In the morning hush so cold and stark
And grey skys overhead.
When the mountain moved its awesome mass
To leave generations of dead.
Where was God the people cried
Their features grim and bleak.
Somewhere on their knees in prayer
And many could not speak.
The silence so still like something unreal
Hung on the morning air.
And people muttered in whisper tones
Oh God this isn’t fair.
The utter waste of childhood dreams
Of hope and aspirations.
A bitter lesson to be learnt for future generations

But where was God the people cried.
The reason none could say
For when the mountain moved its awesome mass.
God looked the other way.

Love Drug

Alcohol and drugs of variable degrees
Soaking, intoxicating every fibre of skin
Penetrating cycles, in sickness and health
Carried in the mind and deep within
Easing pain, but can be ineffectual
But strong enough can be a safety pin.
Love, however more resilient in nature
It truly is such a beautiful thing
As days grow dark and grey
Feel it's infinite touch, reel it in.
Vapors of necessity, soothing time
Allows our minds and bodies sing
You can't fake love, destroy its nature
Whiskey for a time  buys oblivion
Takes its victim as a mortal slave
Love's simple pleasures, keep on giving
Even while dark forces, unfurl their shit
Amours fragrance safer than heroin
May we be touched by its sweet warmth
Gives not takes, always forgiving.

Stand With Catalonia

Image Omnium

Human rights defender Jordi Cuixart and 8 Catalan political leaders have been sentenced to a total of 100 years in prison for sedition, a crime they did not commit. Cuixart will have to serve a term of 9 years in prison for having exercised fundamental rights like freedom of expression or the right to demonstrate. And the Catalan political leaders will have to serve from 9 to 13 years in prison for having organised a referendum on self-determination in October 2017 in defiance of the Spanish state, in which more than two million  people voted for independence that was dominated by brutal repression by the central state. At the time there was a sudden upsurge of self-organisation in defense of the right to vote, with the result being that  the  pro-independence political parties in the Catalan parliament  unilaterally declaring independence from Spain. In response, the Spanish government invoked Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution which effectively suspended the region’s autonomy.
The desire  for Catalan separatism, has been viewed with suspicion  by some on the left, seeing it as a bourgeois, nationalist, divisive phenomenon, though is generally sympathetic to the right of self-determination.It is a very complicated issue but there has been a growing clamour in the past decade for independence from those Catalans who believe their wealthy region, has a moral, cultural and political right to self- determination, and that  has long put more into Spain economically than it has received in return. Calls for independence grew as Spain  endured a painful and protracted economic crisis.
The fact remains whether you support the Catalan call for independence or not  is  largely irrelevent they should at least be given the choice and their right to vote on the matter. and should be supported as they reach their  own decisions and destiny.
 The representative of the Catalonian government to the EU, Meritxell Serret, demanded on Tuesday (15 October) that other political actors, including the European institutions, now intervene to pave the way for a political dialogue between Spain and Catalonia.
 However, the EU commission said on Monday that it fully respects the Spanish Constitutional order, "including decisions of the Spanish judiciary".
"Our position has not changed: this is and remains an internal matter for Spain," said a commission spokeswoman.
However, Irish MEP Matt Carthy (from leftwing GUE/NGL group) rejected that argument and tweeted that the ruling of the Spanish court is "a fundamental betrayal of human rights and democracy".
Many other MEPs stood up for the imprisoned leaders from Catalonia, pledging to bring this debate to the European Parliament (EP).
Scottish MEP Sheila Ritchie (from the liberal Renew group) said on Twitter that "the Spanish government has not handled this issue well".
"I will ask the Spanish government to engage in constructive dialogue to map out a way for Catalonia," she added.
Her compatriot MEP Alyn Smith, president of the European Federal Alliance (EFA) group described the sentences in a statement as "a travesty of justice which will only serve to worsen already difficult relations between Catalonia and Spain".
Some MEPs also supported the possibility of an amnesty for the jailed Catalan politicians.
The leader of the Spanish leftist party Unidas Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, also suggested a pardon of the sentence - a governmental decision used rarely in recent Spanish history.
However, Spain's interior minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, ruled out either pardons and amnesties. While Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez insisted on Monday on full compliance of the sentence with no special privileges - in line with other unionist parties like the liberals Ciudadanos, the People's Party (PP) and the far-right Vox.
The judgment has been widely condemned in Catalonia. “The Catalan government rejects this verdict as unjust and anti-democratic, for being a legal case against pro-independence ideology and Catalonia’s right to self-determination,” said the region’s president, Quim Torra.
 Carles Puigdemont, the exiled former president of Catalonia who remains a fugitive from Spanish authorities,who fled to Belgium to avoid prosecution. described the verdict  on twitter as an “atrocity”, " now more than  ever... it is time to react like never before... for the future of our sons and daughters. For democracy. For Europe. For Catalonia."
 Jordi Sànchez, former Catalan National Assembly president, also stated that preventative imprisonment of the kind he had suffered “is an enormous injustice, not only for me and for the other pro-independence prisoners but in general around Spain."
Jordi Cuixart argued that those who hoped the trial who put an end to the aspirations of the Catalan independence leader would fail, saying: "If police violence couldn't stop thousands of people voting in the referendum, how can anyone think that a sentence will stop Catalans fighting for their right to self-determination?"
"Self-determination is transcendental,” said Joseph Rull, the former Catalan environment minister. “There will always be more people after us. There are not enough prisons to lock up our desire for freedom."
 After and heavy-handed tactics and brutal aggression by the Spanish police saw innocent people hurt in the streets of Barcelona on October 1, 2017, Barca decided to play their league game at home to Las Palmas behind closed doors that day as a protest and the Catalan club released a statement on Monday in support of the jailed leaders.
"FC Barcelona, as one of the leading entities in Catalonia, and in accordance with its historical record, for the defence of freedom of expression and the right to decide, today, after the condemnatory ruling issued by the Supreme Court in relation to the open process against the Catalan civic and political leaders, states that:

"In the same way that the preventive prison sentence didn't help to resolve the conflict, neither will the prison sentence given today, because prison is not the solution. The resolution of the conflict in Catalonia must come exclusively from political dialogue," it said.

FC Barcelona announcement
"Prison is not the solution" pic.twitter.com/o0BWOaThgD

— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) October 14, 2019

The Catalan club also called for a "process of dialogue and negotiation" to resolve the conflict.

Proud to be part of this Club. https://t.co/RlkeYsyccS

— Gerard Piqué (@3gerardpique) October 14, 2019

"Now more than ever, the club asks all political leaders to lead a process of dialogue and negotiation to resolve this conflict, which should also allow for the release of convicted civic and political leaders," the statement continued.
"FC Barcelona also expresses all its support and solidarity to the families of those who are deprived of their freedom."
Several players also used their platform to back the jailed leaders. "Proud to be part of this Club," defender Gerard Pique wrote in a tweet which quoted Barca's statement. "All my support and solidarity," Sergi Roberto tweeted, while Xavi posted on Instagram with a list of the imprisoned politicians and the word "shame" – in Catalan, Spanish and English.
Barca's fans unfurled a banner at Camp Nou ahead of their Champions League group game at home to Inter Milan at the beginning of the month which read: "Only dictatorships jail peaceful political leaders."

A banner raised at Camp Nou ahead of Barcelona's Champions League clash against Inter Milan Photo: Getty Images

The Catalans' next match at home is the Clasico clash versus Real Madrid on October 26, for which another demonstration from fans is expected.
This sentence has created a highly worrying precedent for democracy in Europe, as it places in question several basic rights, as pointed out by the UN and Amnesty International. Today human rights are being violated in Spain; tomorrow it could happen in your country. All these political prisoners should be released now. Amnesty avoids using the term “political prisoner” as there is no accepted definition in international law. However, over 1,000 legal experts have signed a manifesto arguing that the Catalan leaders in jail are effectively that.
After the court announced its verdict in the morning, pro-independence demonstrators gathered in Barcelona and other towns and cities throughout the day. It has helped revive the national question in Catalonia,, stoking anger and  mass mobilisations.  Protesters blocked a number of road and rail links across the region and dozens of flights from Barcelona were cancelled in the evening as thousands of demonstrators converged on the city’s airport, many of them clashing with police there.The unrest is expected to continue in the coming days.
In their resistance to the Spanish authorities, Catalans are drawing on a long tradition. Today’s political prisoners, whether accurately labelled or not, are the latest in a long line who have fought against the perceived injustices of the Spanish state. Foremost among these is Lluis Companys, the president of the generalitat who was arrested for declaring the Catalan republic on October 6 1934 and was executed by firing squad on October 15 1940. In 1936, General Francisco Franco began (with the help of Germany) his coup d'état and the Spanish civil war that provoked the suppression of the Catalan nation and its language for many years. The historic parallel is not lost on the Catalan people.
Catalonia is the largest non-state European nation. The Catalans are aware and proud of having a history of more than a thousand years. The splendid Catalan literature and culture is an essential part of Europe. The Catalan language is the mother tongue of millions of Europeans, but supporters of independence argue that their language and culture is not being sufficiently respected  by the Spanish central government  and they worry that if something is not done their culture will be absorbed.,and many Catalans do not want to live in a centralised Spanish state under a monarchy for whom they have little affection.
The right to free, peaceful and democratic self-determination of nations is above the legal limits of a state that wants to impose its legal system on millions of people which feel treated as second-class citizens because they are catalans.. It is a shameful indictment of any democracy that men and woman in a democracy can be tried, convicted and imprisoned for exercising the right to vote, as  is the lack of condemnation by other European governments.
There are some who support the idea of  independence without a state. It's not a majority position, but I consider it a valid one, all radical , alternative, social and political options are welcome, in the meantime though solidarity with the Catalan  political prisoners.The yellow ribbon is the symbol for solidarity with Catalonia’s political prisoners and you will find it scrawled on pavements and hanging from balconies throughout the region in Spain’s north-east corner.This shutdown of democracy should not be accepted and will be resisted by  further mass mobilisations of workers and youth. Nobody should stay silent with this unacceptable verdict. Here is a link to two petitions you could sign to help end this injustice..

https://www.change.org/p/jean-claude-juncker-solidarity-with-catalonia-for-the-right-to-peaceful-self-determination

https://www.omnium.cat/en/signforcatalonia/?fbclid=IwAR3DIMvPxDVKEz5VKly3x0gnmx8EHkrilsEHBzSHF7Nlwafel2bSCr0hF9Y

Jordi Cuixart sentenced to 9 years for exercising fundamental rights. 

October Acrostic

                                                        Ours is an interesting world
                                                        Containing much confusion
                                                        Threads of indifference
                                                        Oh to return to the future
                                                        Be repelled by unkindness
                                                        Essence overcoming injustice
                                                        Rained minds, reeled from pain.

Unconventional Rebel Poet - e.e, cummings (14/10/1894 - 3/9/1962)

October 14th marks the birthday of unconventional American poet Edward Estlin Cummings, popularly known as e.e. cummings, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1894.His father, Edward, was a professor at Harvard University and later the nationally known minister of Old South Church in Boston, Massachusetts. His mother, Rebecca, who loved to spend time with her children, played games with Cummings and his sister, Elizabeth. It was Cummings's mother who introduced him to the joys of writing.

Cummings began writing poetry at the age of 8, developing a signature style of using grammar and syntax to give his work a distinct physical and oral shape which broke with poetic conventions of the time. Cummings was educated at Cambridge High and Latin School, and from 1911 to 1916 he attended Harvard. Cummings became an aesthete, he began dress unconventionally, and dedicated himself to painting and literature.At Harvard, he roomed with John Dos Passos; befriended Lincoln Kirstein; read Latin, Greek, and French; earned two degrees; discovered alcohol, sex, fast cars, and burlesque at the Old Howard Theater; and raged against the school’s conservative, exclusionary upper-class rule.
When the United States entered the war in 1917, Cummings made the decision to avoid the draft and volunteered to serve with the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Service in France. He was excited by the prospect of adventure and felt this service would best match his pacifist nature and intellectual upbringing.  Perhaps because of his experimental artistic personality or his political beliefs, Cummings did not seem to fit in well with his unit and tension began to develop. Cummings freely spoke of his distaste for the other men in the unit, and wrote numerous letters of complaint to his family back in the US. French authorities censored the letters of both Brown and Cummings and they soon found themselves under the heavy scrutiny of authorities. After being interrogated and refusing to turn his back on Brown, Cummings was detained and eventually interred in a French Prison Camp at La Ferté-Macéfor three months.Later, he found out he had been accused of treason, but the charges were never proven.
He was glad to escape the regimentation of army life for the artists' playground of Greenwich Village, which he would call his home for the rest of his life, Never enamored of the moneyed class or celebrity or authority, here he threw himself into writing, painting, and sexual adventure. (Cummings would run through two marriages and many love affairs before settling down with the former model Marion Morehouse, his companion for the last 30 years of his life.)
His first major literary success came with the publication of his prose memoir, The Enormous Room (1922), an account of his imprisonment in France. This was followed by collections of verse, Tulips and Chimneys (1923), which contrasted the evils of war to the 'sweet spontaneous earth', and XLI Poems (1925).
In his poems Cummings often expressed his rebellious attitude towards politics, and conformity,He was sardonic about organized religion, but maintained an almost transcendentalizing faith in human beings. He championed individuals against the power of the state, as with "i sing of Olaf glad and big," and as a result was drawn to the radical Left early on, even translating Louis Aragon's poem "Red Front" from the French, but a visit to the Soviet Union turned him against communism, Eimi (1933), his experimental diary recounting his Soviet experience. By temperament, he was in some ways more an anarchist ( ironically with somewhat politically conservative leanings) but a certain irreverance remained fundamentally central to his character.
There is the  the question of  Cummings’s anti-Semitism, which his biographer  Susan Cheever contrasts with Ezra Pound’s more virulent prejudice, and while nothing is excused away, quite the contrary ,Cheever argues that in Cummings’s case it speak more to a prevailing disgust with the world rather than a disgust centered on one group in it:
Cummings was an equal opportunity hater. He hated Hitler and he hated the Jews. He hated Roosevelt and he hated Stalin, he especially hated Stalin. He hated the critical establishment and he didn’t like the new restaurants on Tenth Street. He made fun of other poets who had once been his friends.
He had a somber side that craved privacy and what he called an "after breakfast" side that enjoyed running with the crowd. He never ran after the crowd. He could spend days isolated with his work, yet he loved travel. In the twenties Cummings made several trips to Europe and there met with Ezra Pound, Hart Crane, Ford Maddox Ford, Archibald MacLeish, and others. During visits to France, Spain, Tunisia, Mexico, Russia and Italy he enjoyed visiting the museums, attending concerts, viewing stage shows, or just watching the passing parade. his body of work includes almost 3,000 poems, two autobiographical novels, four plays and several essays, as well as numerous drawings and paintings, and was the recipient of many literary awards, Cummings was awarded the Academy of American Poets fellowship, 1950; he received a Guggenheim fellowship, 1951-52; and he was the Charles Eliot Norton Lecturer at Harvard, 1953. as well as earning an honorary professorial seat at Harvard.
Throughout his career he paid a great deal of attention to the visual appearance of the poem on the page, probably due to his painters eye. But Cummings is perhaps best known for his unorthodox usage of both capitalisation, punctuation and typography. “Grammatical anarchism” was his way of protesting the conformity of mass society. He varied text alignments, spaced lines irregularly, and used nontraditional capitalization to emphasize particular words and phrases. In many instances his distinct typography mimicked the energy or tone of his subject matter. He also revised grammatical and linguistic rules to suit his own purposes and experimented with poetic form and language to create a distinct personal style.He frequently used  colloquial language and material from burlesque and the circus and ignored conventional punctuation and syntax in favor of a dynamic use of language, even inventing his own words by combining common words to create new meanings.
Yet despite the nontraditional form of his poems, Cummings gained widespread popularity. His style may have been avant-garde, but his themes were more traditional: love, childhood, nature, his moods were alternately satirical and tough or tender and whimsical, combining powerful appreciations of the individual soul.
Edward Estlin Cummings died on Sep. 3, 1962 of a brain hemorrhage  His literary style marked him as one of the most revolutionary and innovative poets of the twentieth century.Cummings will be remembered as one of the more lasting poets America has produced. An extraordinary poet who simply rebelled in the act of noticing. An artist who never cowered from being his unconventional self, in the words  of his most incisive  biographer he "despised fear, and his life was lived in defiance of all who ruled by it"
 His body of work encompasses approximately 2,900 poems, two autobiographical novels, four plays and several essays, as well as numerous drawings and paintings.
The following is  a selection of  some of my favourite poems by him.

i sing of Olaf glad and big

i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or

his wellbelovéd colonel (trig
westpointer most succinctly bred)
took erring Olaf soon in hand;
but-though an host of overjoyed
noncoms (first knocking on the head
him) do through icy waters roll
that helplessness which others stroke
with brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl,
while kindred intellects evoke
allegiance per blunt instruments-
Olaf (being to all intents
a corpse and wanting any rag
upon what God unto him gave)
responds, without getting annoyed
"I will not kiss your fucking flag"

straightaway the silver bird looked grave
(departing hurriedly to shave)

but-though all kinds of officers
(a yearning nation's blueeyed pride)
their passive prey did kick and curse
until for wear their clarion
voices and boots were much the worse,
and egged the firstclassprivates on
his rectum wickedly to tease
by means of skillfully applied
bayonets roasted hot with heat-
Olaf (upon what were once knees)
does almost ceaselessly repeat
"there is some shit I will not eat"

our president,being of which
assertions duly notified
threw the yellowsonofabitch
into a dungeon,where he died

Christ (of His mercy infinite)
i pray to see;and Olaf,too

preponderatingly because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me:more blond than you


i carry  your heart with me (i carry it in) 

carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)


Humanity I Love you

Humanity i love you
because you would rather black the boots of
success than enquire whose soul dangles from his
watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both

parties and because you
unflinchingly applaud all
songs containing the words country home and
mother when sung at the old howard

Humanity i love you because
when you’re hard up you pawn your
life in your pants and forgetting
it’s there and sitting down

on it
and because you are
forever making poems in the lap
of death Humanity

i hate you


Seeker of Truth 

 seeker of truth

follow no path
all paths lead where

truth is here


you said is  

 you said Is
there anything which
is dead or alive more beautiful
than my body,to have in your fingers
(trembling ever so little)?
                          Looking into
your eyes Nothing,i said,except the
air of spring smelling of never and forever.

....and through the lattice which moved as
if a hand is touched by a
hand(which
moved as though
fingers touch a girl's
breast,
lightly)
        Do you believe in always,the wind
said to the rain
I am too busy with
my flowers to believe,the rain answered


the mind is its own beautiful prisoner  

the mind is its own beautiful prisoner.
Mine looked long at the sticky moon
opening in dusk her new wings

then decently hanged himself, one afternoon.

The last thing he saw was you
naked amid unnaked things,

your flesh, a succinct wandlike animal,
a little strolling with the futile purr
of blood;your sex squeaked like a billiard-cue
chalking itself, as not to make an error,
with twists spontaneously methodical.
He suddenly tasted worms windows and roses

he laughed, and closed his eyes as a girl closes
her left hand upon a mirror.


i have loved let us see if that is all - e.e cummings

 i have loved, let us see if that’s all.
Bit into you as teeth, in the stone
of a musical fruit. My lips pleasantly groan
on your taste. Jumped the quick wall

of your smile into stupid gardens
if this were not enough (not really enough
pulled one before one the vague tough

exquisite flowers, whom hardens
richly, darkness. On the whole
possibly have i loved….you)
sheath before sheath

stripped to the Odour. (and here’s what WhoEver will know
Had you as bite teeth;
i stood with you as a foal

stands but as the trees, lay, which grow


o sweet spontaneous - e.e.cummings

 o sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting

               fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked

thee
, has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy

          beauty     . how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
     (but
true

to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover

          thou answerest


them only with

                     spring)
 
since feeling is first

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
– the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says

we are for each other; then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis

Further Reading

e.e. cummings : A life by Susan Cheever, Pantheon 2014

 e.e. Cummings: The Complete Poems, 1904-62 edited by George James Firmage  Liveright,,  2013