On Saturday 11th April 1981, Brixton was set ablaze as hundreds of local youth fought with the Metropolitan Police. The country was in recession, unemployment amongst African Caribbean members of the community was high, and the quality of housing was poor. In the week preceding the Brixton Riots, Operation Swamp 81, saw over 1,000 people ( mainly from the young black community) being stopped and searched adding to the increased frustration of the local people. Tensions were high.
A house fire in January 1981, in nearby New Cross, saw 13 black youths killed.https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2017/01/linton-kwesi-johnson-new-crass-massahkah.html Some believed that the fire, far from an accident, had been the result of a racially motivated arson attack and anger quickly spread at the unwillingness of the police to investigate the possibility.
Then on April 10 , rumours of police brutality against a black man resulted in an angry crowd confronting police for a few hours before the disturbances were contained.
But what happened next in a battle between police and residents was to become one of the most significant outbreaks of civil disorder in 20th Century London. Police continued operating their hated 'sus' laws, where in order to stop someone, police only needed suspicion. At the time the police were exempt from the Race Relations Act, and many people targeted were from the ethnic community, which led to accusations of racial prejudice. It left many people feeling humiliated, with a sense of indignity and rage, many young men, had also been savagely beaten by the police. Police were said to have mounted a campaign of harassment against the black community in south London that one former officer claims amounted to "torture".There was a general feeling of bitterness and resentment, with many believing that the Conservative Thatcher Government were using the police as its military wing , and that they were under siege.
After arrests were made the following night tensions rose again, igniting violence which spread across the streets. The streets of Brixton became a battle zone. After police arrived in full riot gear, people started gathering to throw makeshift petrol bombs and set light to police cars. For three days, rioters - predominately young, black men - fought police, attacked buildings and set fire to vehicles.
By the time hostilities had ended, over 360 people had been injured, 80 of whom were bystanders,, 28 premises burned and another 177 damaged and looted. The police arrested 82 people. To the largely Afro-Caribbean demonstrators it was a “show of strength” against police brutality, deep rooted social and economic problems ,high unemployment and institutionalised racism, and perilous tensions exacerbated by discriminatory tactics by the police.
Brixton would act like a catalyst for copycat riots in Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Leicester, Leeds and other parts of inner-city London, and after the riots a police enquiry was held under Lord Scarman , his report issued on November 25 1981 placed the Brixton Riots into the context of racial disadvantage faced by young blacks. It also blamed the police for escalating the tensions and called on law enforcement agencies to in the future consult and co-operate with the Brixton community. But 4 years on 25 September 1985, police shot Mrs Cherry Groce in error while looking for a man in connection with a robbery. The incident fuelled a new wave of anger in the community, many of whom felt that the police had not learnt the lessons of 1981.
Rioters barricaded Brixton Road, setting fire to the cars. Shops in Brixton were firebombed and looted. One person was killed and 50 people injured. Over 200 people were arrested. Mrs Groce spent two years in hospital and was permanently disabled as a result of the shooting.
There have been many many miscarriages of justice since. the death of reggae singer Smiley Culture for instance and Roger Sylvester, a mentally ill thirty-year-old beaten to death by the police in 1999 while under hospital restraint (he had been detained for apparently wanting to kick down his own front door), lest we forget Mikey Powell who die in police custody in 2003 and the flawed investigation into the racist killing of Stephen Lawrence. Many Black lives too are still in danger in police custody.
40 years later Brixton, seems a transformed place, marked by gentrification,now teeming with boutique food stalls, starbucks, and restaurants and new bespoke housing developments.
But there are many lessons to be learned. Many of these new developments are simply out reach financially for most locals. Police racism continues, as does unemployment and poverty. And in spite of a government drive to bring more people into work, unemployment among ethnic minority communities is still twice the general rate.
Capitalist society still suffers from a sickness that breeds ,the big criminals of the land get rich and fat, get rewarded for their crimes (ie the bankers) whilst the poorer members of our communities are stigmatised, getting poorer, punished because of the greedy. And though Margaret Thatcher is long dead, her polices and ideas that helped ignite these past troubles still lingers on through our current incumbents.
Young Black men in London are 19 times more likely to be stopped and searched than the general population, a study of official data by University College London shows, with claims that trut and confidence in police ae under serious strain.The pandemic has also really highlighted the divide between rich and poor in Brixton in terms of digital access, housing space, and access to space study and work. Also the recent publication of the government;s controversial and divisive race report, also denied the existence of institutional racism in the UK, which whatever it says is still very real.You only have to look at how the Windrush generation were treated to see evidence of this, and the hostile environment for immigrants that the Government has created while stoking the flames of Britains culture war .https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/02/culture-war-government-race-report
It is significant that all these years later, we have another right wing Tory government that doesn't care about poor or marginalised communities or that Black lives matter. With the rise of the far right being racist is seen as acceptable. Unrest can easily be fermented, when conditions on the streets are ignored.The new Police Bill also fermenting much anger. Riots that have happened since, like those seen in Brixton do not happen without a reason. We have to renew our commitment to dismantling all the structures of racism more than ever.
Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, and husband of Queen Elizabeth II, has died this morning, Buckingham Palace announced. He was 99 years old. He had been discharged last month from hospital, after undergoing what Buckingham Palace described as a “successful procedure” for a pre-existing heart condition, and after being admitted for an infection in February.
The Queen and Prince Philip were married for an incredible 73 years.
Losing someone who has been by your side for most of your life - whoever
you are - must be unbelievably painful.
Nevertheless I would be a hypocrite if I chose to join in the chorus of platitudes that are sweeping the mainstream media across the nation and the world at this moment of time, so there will be no sychophantic gestures or deference from me.to a xenophobic dinosaur and relic from another age. .
The press will no doubt tomorrow carry page after page covering the life of Philip Mountbatten, and one cannot put on the television or the radio without some gushing tribute to the man who is currently being hailed as some kind of national treasure.At least Channel 4 have taken the decision to continue normal scheduling after Prince Philip's death.
But everywhere else his many “gaffes” are now being celebrated, as amusing eccentricities, but the fact remains he was as fine an example of the good old-fashioned traditional British racist and bigot as you could get.
On one occasion, he warned a British student he met in Hong Kong that if he stayed there too long, he’d go “slitty-eyed.”
He also once congratulated a young man who hiked across Papua New Guinea on not being eaten by the locals.In 2002, he asked Australian aboriginals whether they still “chucked spears at each other
The Prince once asked Filipina nurses working for the National Health
Service (NHS) if there was anyone left in their country, and told an
Indian businessman with the surname ‘Patel’ at an official event at
Buckingham Palace “there’s a lot of your family in tonight” in reference to the 400 Indian guests in attendance.
Some of the Prince’s comments on women have also attracted criticism.While receiving a gift from a Kenyan woman in 1984, the Duke saw fit to ask: “You are a woman, aren’t you?”
He also told the Scottish Women’s Institute that “British women can’t cook” during a visit in 1961.
When told by a female Sea Cadet that she worked in a nightclub in 2009, the interested Duke asked: “Is it a strip club?”
Although
he was the Duke of Edinburgh, Philip he certainly ruffled a few Scottish feathers
over the years. He once asked a Scottish driving instructor: “how do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?” during a 1995 visit.
Prior
to this incident, when Prince Philip had visited China in 1986, he had
told British students studying over there: "If you stay here much longer
you'll all be slitty-eyed."
In 1999, the Duke of Edinburgh made a racist comment on Indian
workers. While on a visit to an electronics factory in Scotland, he had
seen a messy fuse box and said it looked "as though it was put in by an
Indian." Within hours, the Buckingham Palace said: "The Duke of
Edinburgh regrets any offence which may have been caused by remarks he
is reported as making earlier today. With hindsight, he accepts what
were intended as light-hearted comments were inappropriate," the Independent reported.
In 1999, Prince Philip had reportedly asked black politician, Lord Taylor of Warwick: "And what exotic part of the world do you come from?"
According to the Telegraph,
in May 1999, when Prince Philip had visited Cardiff, Wales, he had told
children from the British Deaf Association, who were standing by a
Caribbean steel band: "If you're near that music it's no wonder you're
deaf".
In 2003, the prince told the President of Nigeria, who was in national dress: “You look like you’re ready for bed!”
In
2009, the prince asked a black dance troupe "Diversity" who had come at
the Royal Variety Performance: "Are you all one family?"
In 2010,
during a prize-giving ceremony for the Duke of Edinburgh Awards, a girl
told him that she had been to Romania to help in an orphanage. He
replied: "Oh yes, there's a lot of orphanges in Romania - they must
breed them".
The Palace has never apologised doe any of his bigoted comments mentioned above, and while I acknowledge their sense of loss, by accepting them and his behaviour in the eyes of those who take a more critical gaze are as tarnished and complicit,
Prince Philippos Andreou Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg was
born on Corfu on June 10 1921,Philip never liked to admit to his Greek origins, much preferring to
identify himself with the Danish royal family.An anti-monarchist uprising forced his family to flee, so Philip left the country when he was only a baby, and on top of that, his father was accused of treason and banished.
With Europe increasingly in turmoil throughout the interwar period, he ended up at school first
in Germany and then in Britain and when the Second World War broke out,
he became an officer in the Royal Navy. If he had remained at school in
Germany then he would certainly have ended up a Nazi, fighting for
Hitler.
Not only has he never shown any great liking for parliamentary
democracy, but three of his sisters married men who became senior Nazis.
His youngest sister, Sophie, was married to an SS Colonel who headed up
Goering’s special intelligence agency. After the death of his pregnant sister, Cecile, and her husband, George Donatus, the Grand Duke of Hesse (who were themselves members of the Nazi Party), Philip was photographed in a funeral march alongside his family members by marriage who wore full Nazi garb. Beside him marched his surviving German brothers-in-law: Prince Christoph of Hesse, husband of Philip's youngest sister, Sophie, conspicuous in his SS garb; and Christoph's brother, Prince Philipp of Hesse, in the brown shirt of the SA. Philip's uncle, Lord Louis ("Dickie") Mountbatten, followed just behind in British naval dress. As for Philip, when he was
preparing to marry the future queen Elizabeth, he too cunningly changed
his name from Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg to Mountbatten.
One of his great disappointments in life was never to have become king.
Instead he became the royal consort condemned to forever go through
the empty pretence of caring about the lives of ordinary people in order
to safeguard both the monarchy and the social order more generally.
Along the way he picked up a lot of titles, Prince Philip's full title was HRH (His Royal Highness) The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth and Baron Greenwich, Knight of the Garter, Knight of the Thistle, Order of Merit, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire, Companion of the Order of Australia, Companion of The Queen's Service Order, Privy Counsellor. He was also named a Knight of the Order of the Elephant in Denmark, a Royal Chief of the Order of Logohu in Papua New Guinea and a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Netherlands Lion." But wait, there's more. He's also received the distinction of being named "a Knight Grand Cross with Brilliants of the Order of the Sun by Peru," as well as been awarded "the Collar of the Order of the Queen of Sheba by Ethiopia, and the Collar of the Order of the Aztec Eagle by Mexico. Absolutely bonkers.
Over the years his casual racism, bigotry, class prejudice and reactionary views on just about
everything have all been either marginalised or suppressed. A man without any concern whatsoever for ordinary people and so out of touch with modern sensibilities,was somehow turned by the magic of PR into someone who has devoted himself
to charity.
Ok Prince Philip was the first President of the World Wildlife Fund-UK from its foundation in 1961 to 1982, and was International President of WWF (now World Wide Fund for Nature) from 1981 to 1996,but you would not have found him chaining himself to a tree . His approach was more of a practical one.
"If we've got this extraordinary diversity on this globe it seems awfully silly for us to destroy it. All these other creatures have an equal right to exist here, we have no prior rights to the Earth than anybody else and if they're here let's give them a chance to survive," he told the BBC. He also said he was more concerned with "the conservation of nature" rather than being a "bunny hugger," which is the term he used to describe animal lovers.Which he certainly was not because he killed animals for sport and fun. He also believed that the main environmental crisis the Earth faces is overpopulation, for which he once suggested a possible solution: voluntary family limitation. Bloody hell!.
Well now his time has finally come. And though no huge admirer, he might not have been captain of the ship he married into, but he steered the Crown through the turbulent years of the postwar years. He will be missed as a husband, a father, grandfather and great grandfather.
There will be no state funeral for the duke. The College of Arms, which is responsible for helping to arrange state events and ceremonials, said that his body instead would “lie at rest in Windsor Castle ahead of the funeral in St George’s Chapel”.
The death of the controversial divisive Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh certainly marks the end of a
chapter not just for the British royal family – but for European
monarchy itself. Surely it's now time for the Queen to retire and Britain to call a referendum of whether we really want Charles to be our head of state, or time to abolish the monarchy all together, and end these symbols of power and privilege once and for all.
Today I celebrate International Roma Day., celebrating and recognising, the rich history, culture, language of their communities.International Roma Day was officially declared in 1990 in Poland, during
the fourth World Romani Congress in honour of the first major
international meeting of Roma representatives, 7-12 of April, 1971 in
London.
My solidarity goes out to all Roma people worldwide who are still experiencing massive inequality and huge amounts of racism, discrimination and exclusion state sponsored and otherwise.
Romani people have suffered persecution throughout their history, having left Northern India/Pakisan around one thousand years ago. In the ensuring centuries they have spread across many countries across thee globe. Europe, North and South America, Russia, China and the Middle East. Some were nomadic people. Others tried to settle but were met with hostility and either abandoned their identities or became nomadic like their brothers and sisters. What remained however and strong, was that on the move or in settlements, was a tight knit community, but still faced ongoing discrimination and persecution.
Lest not forget,that though official figures do not exactly exist, it is is estimated that between
220,000 and 500,000 Romani and Sinti,from Central Europe were killed
in the 1930s and 1940s. the Nazis killing about 25 percent
of Europe's entire Roma (a.k.a. Gypsy) population, accounting for half
their total population at the time. This genocide, known in the Romani
language, as Porajimas
which can translate as “destruction.” It's remembered as the worst
event in their peoples' history. Other Romani people in the Balkans
prefer to use the term 'samudaripen,' translating as “mass killing,” but
there's still no general consensus in the community regarding how to
call this tragedy, sometimes even borrowing the word 'holokausto.'
Roma persecution by the Nazi regime began in 1933 and during the 1936 Olympic Games, the Roma and Sinti were forcibly
relocated to a camp on the outskirts and were not allowed to leave
unless they had a job. Their property was confiscated and sold; they
were never compensated. Between 1933 and 1945, more than 400,000 people
were forcibly sterilised by the Nazis, including thousands of Roma and
Sinti, In the late 1930s, the first deportations of Roma to concentration
camps began. While the yellow star worn by the Jewish victims of the
Holocaust is best known, the Roma had their own symbols, brown or black
triangles, symbolising their ethnicity and their inherent ‘anti-social’
status.
Today it is important to remember that many Roma continue to suffer from
systemic discrimination and violence. Discriminatory treatment and
stereotyping prevents Roma from fully participating in political, social
and economic life around the world. Roma experience exclusion, violence and repression in
the countries where they live. They are forced to live in conditions
that are degrading to human beings. They are discriminated against in
the labour market because of their ethnic identity.
Rather than seek to address the discrimination faced by these
marginalised communities, it appears the government plans to punish them
further by introducing legislation which includes proposals to
criminalise trespass and the act of setting up an ‘unauthorised’
encampment. The Police Powers and Protections Bill, which, seeks to implement a 2019
Conservative Party Manifesto pledge to “give the police new powers to
arrest and seize the property and vehicles of trespassers who set up
unauthorised encampment” and to ‘make intentional trespass a criminal
offence.’ Trespass is currently governed by civil law and upgrading
trespass to a criminal offence would have significant ramifications for GRT communities in particular, and must be opposed...
Aa I hope you share this day of remembrance, that continues to cast a light on the human rights issues and violations of so many, lets also show a gratitude to a beautiful community that so enriches our lives and continue to reject the negative stereotypes and bias that impacts and keep on defending their rights and way of life.
Easter used
to be the Festival of Eostre, originally a Anglo- Saxon word, denoting a
goddess of spring,
dawn, and fertility,in honour of whom sacrifices were offered about
the time of the Passover.According to St. Bede, a seventh and
eighth-century Northumbrian monk and historian, who reported that pagan Anglo-Saxons in medieval Northumbria held festivals in her honor during the month of April.
Rabbits, thanks to their tendency to have lots of babies very quickly, so they are a perfect animal to symbolically represent the fertility of springtime, that has been absorbed into Easter. But no
one is quite sure how the idea of an “Easter Bunny” that delivers eggs
and treats to good children came about. The egg tradition traces back to
Germany and eastern Europe, where painting eggs was popular in the
spring, and the Osterhare, or Easter bunny has a curious relationship with the Goddess that gave the holiday her name.
In Germanic mythology,
it is said that Ostara a.k.a. Eostre “healed a wounded bird she found
in the woods by changing it into a hare. Still partially a bird, the
hare showed its gratitude to the goddess by laying eggs as gifts.” Eostre, originally a Anglo- Saxon word, denoting a
goddess of the Saxons, in honour of whom sacrifices were offered about
the time of the Passover.
The origins of Easter are wrapped up in a celebration of seasonal
renewal that has taken place in numerous cultures for thousands of years
around the time of the Spring Equinox. Some argue that even the
Christian version of Easter merely perpetuates an age-old, familiar
theme of resurrection rather than honoring an actual person or event in
history.
Ishtar, was the Assyrian and
Babylonian goddess of fertility and sex. Her symbols (like the egg and
bunny) were and still are fertility and sex symbols. After
Constantine decided to Christianize the Empire, Easter was changed to
represent Jesus.
For obvious reasons, eggs have been a symbol of fertility for many
cultures since antiquity. The egg is literally new life, so what better
representation of the spring, when the time of winter, scarcity and
darkness had ended. Eggs, like many traditions that were tied to the
fertility of the earth and cycles of the season, became associated with
Easter as pagan traditions were absorbed.
Easter Eggs or painted eggs are a Middle Ages tradition which is
borne out of the Lenten fast. Since people were fasting, eggs weren't
being eaten and were stored up until Easter Sunday. During this time,
people began to decorate them to give to children. They were often
painted red to symbolise the blood of Jesus, and the shell used to
represent the empty tomb of the resurrection.
Chocolate eggs first appeared in the 17th century in France in the
court of Louis XIV based on this tradition and in 1725, solid chocolate eggs were produced. The
first chocolate Easter egg appeared in Britain in 1873 and then in 1875,
Cadbury’s created the modern Easter egg we know today.
According to an ancient “Sumerian legend of Damuzi (Tammuz) and his wife
Inanna (Ishtar), [...] Tammuz dies, Ishtar is grief–stricken and
follows him to the underworld.” Here, “‘naked and bowed low’ she is
judged, killed, and then hung on display. In her absence, the earth
loses its fertility, crops cease to grow and animals stop reproducing.
Unless something is done, all life on earth will end.”
Inanna is missing for three days after which her assistant seeks help
from other gods. One of them goes “to the Underworld” gives Tammuz and
Ishtar “the power to return to the earth as the light of the sun for six
months.
After the six months are up, Tammuz returns to the underworld of the
dead, remaining there for another six months, and Ishtar pursues him,
prompting the water god to rescue them both. Thus, were the cycles of
winter death and spring life.” Since this myth
was discovered on tablets dating back to around 2500 BC, Tammuz and
Ishtar might be the protagonists of the first pagan Easter story.
Commentators have cited numerous reasons why cultures have chosen to
celebrate Easter in some form. Popular themes have included,light conquering darkness; barren winter giving way to spring birth
life conquering death;good vs. Evil, virgin birth and sacrifice
Often,
these themes are regarded as part of recurring cycles, like the
seasons. Every spring, the world comes back to life. Flowers emerge.
Birdsong fills the air. Animals give birth to their young. Death always
leads to new life. Some elements, such as the three-day timeline and the
hero going to Hell, are also scattered among the myths.
One
writer draws “parallels between the story of Jesus and the epic of
Inanna.” This “doesn't necessarily mean that there wasn't a real person,
Jesus, who was crucified, but rather that, if there was, the story is
structured and embellished in accordance with a pattern that
was very ancient and widespread.”
Other sacrificial heroes have included Attis,
lover of Cybele, both of them gods, but Attis “was born of a virgin.”
“Attis was Cybele’s lover, although some sources claim him to be her
son.” Attis “fell in love with a mortal and chose to marry.”
In response to Cybele’s rage,
Attis “fled to the nearby mountains where he gradually became insane,
eventually committing suicide.” She regained her sanity, and “appealed
to Zeus to never allow Attis’s corpse to decay.” Every year, “he would
return to life during the yearly rebirth of vegetation; thus identifying
Attis as an early dying-and-reviving god figure.”
Other gods associated with resurrection include Horus, Mithras, and
Dionysus. “Dionysus was a divine child, resurrected by his grandmother.
Dionysus also brought his mum, Semele, back to life.” The Sumerian
goddess Inanna, or Ishtar, was hung naked on a stake and was
subsequently resurrected and ascended from the underworld.
Hot cross
buns are related to “Israelites baking sweet buns for an idol, and
religious leaders trying to put a stop to it.” Eventually, “defiant
cake-baking pagan women” were successful and a cross was added to the
buns to Christianize them.
The only time the word “Easter” is found in the Bible (Acts 12:4), it is
there by mistranslation. The word in the original Greek is “Passover.”
Jesus died at the time of the Passover feast, but the Passover is
not Easter and Jesus did not die at Easter time. Passover is the historical and still-celebrated Jewish festival commemorating the
exodus led by Moses of the Hebrews from Egyptian captivity.
Passover traditions include the consumption of unleavened bread, and Jesus distributed the same to his disciples at the Last Supper.
The Passover celebrations also included the sacrifice of lambs. (Hebrew slaves in Egypt marked their doorsteps
with the blood of such sacrifices so that the angel of death would
pass-over their families.) Similarly, mankind can be saved from
spiritual death through the blood spilled by Jesus through his sacrifice
on the cross
Unlike Christmas,
which is always on the same day each year, Easter is a moveable
celebration where the date is set by the Church and computed according
to the cycle of the moon.
There have been several attempts to have a fixed annual date, but like many other things tradition has prevailed and the old Pagan calculation remains to this day.
Since the 10th century, there have been 15 attempts by senior Church leaders to regulate the date of Easter.
In 1928 the UK Parliament passed an act that allowed for Easter
Sunday to be always the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April,
but there was neither agreement with other governments, nor the Roman
or Eastern Churches.
In 1990 the Vatican agreed to a fixed date, but there was still no
general consensus. And as recently as 2016, the Archbishop of Canterbury
Justin Welby launched an attempt by the Anglican Church.
Anyway whatever your beliefs I hope your having a wonderful blessed, peaceful weekend, am sure Cadbury's and other confectionary merchants are very happy.
Gilbert “Gil” Scott-Heron was an American soul and jazz poet, musician, and author, known
primarily for his work as a spoken word performer in the 1970s and ’80s.
Born in Chicago, Illinois on April 1, 1948 to parents Bobbie Scott
Heron, a librarian, and Giles (Gil) Heron, a Jamaican professional
soccer player who played for Celtic. He grew up in Lincoln, Tennessee and the Bronx, New York,
where he attended DeWitt Clinton High School. Heron attended Lincoln
University in Pennsylvania and received an M.S. in Creative Writing from
Johns Hopkins University.
By age 13, Scott-Heron had written his first collection of poems. He published his first novel, The Vulture,
a murder mystery whose central themes include the devastating effects
of drugs on urban black life, in 1968 at age 19. Four years later,
Scott-Heron published his second novel, The Nigger Factory
(1972), which, set on the campus of a historically black college (HBCU),
focused on the conflicting ideology between the more traditionally
Eurocentric-trained administrators; the younger, more nationalistic
students—founders of Members of Justice for Meaningful Black Education
(MJUMBE); and the more moderate students and their leader, Earl Thomas.
Scott-Heron, is however, best
known as a musician and songwriter. In 1970, he released his first
album, New Black Poet Small Talk at 125th and Lennox,. The liner notes of that first album credit the influence of Malcolm X
and Black Panther leader Huey P. Newton alongside that of Billie Holiday
and John Coltrane. Gil Scott-Heron’s art grew out of social movements
and fed back into them.
Then came. Pieces of Man (1971), Free Will (1972) and Winter in America
(1974). These albums include such classic signature works as “The
Revolution Will Not be Televised,” “Lady Day and John Coltrane,”
“Whitey on the Moon,” “No Knock On My Brother’s Head,” and “Home Is
Where the Hatred Is.”
One of his most critically acclaimed albums, Winter in America, was
released as the strongest waves of the revolutionary tide of
the ’60s and ’70s were already ebbing into the Nixonian Reaction. The
U.S. military had finally withdrawn from Vietnam, and other
institutional gains from the movement could be seen in the form of
legislation like the Clean Air Act of 1970 or the formation of the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). But following the
capitalist recession of 1973, the Western world was mired in
stagflation: inflation coupled with economic stagnation and high
unemployment. The title track laments those dynamic parts of America
that “never had a chance to grow.”
Known for his oral word performance, Scott-Heron walked onto the
international stage simultaneously as did many of the Black Arts
Movement poets, including Amiri Baraka,https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2014/01/amiri-bakara-lee-roi-jones-71034-9114.html Haki Madhubuti, Sonia Sanchez,
and Nikki Giovanni.https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2016/06/happy-birthday-nikki-giovanni-7643.html He shared their conviction that art must be
functional and, therefore, as artist and communal leader, he must
embrace his role as a significant political voice inevitably committed
to the liberation of black people. Scott-Heron’s cacophonous voice
resonated as well with that of Malcolm X, the militant prophet-leader of
the Nation of Islam who inspired a generation to address the needs and
condition of the urban black masses. The electric, edgy, angry sounds
he created with his fusion of soul, jazz, blues, and poetry—often in
collaboration with musician Brian Jackson—make him a forerunner to a
later generation of rap artists, particularly such socially conscious
rappers as Tupac Shakur, Jay Z and Dr. Dre.
The author of songs dealing head-on with the abuse of drugs and alcohol,
songs like “The Bottle” and “Angel Dust,” went through his own
struggles with substance abuse in his later years. It is difficult not
to see this personal struggle as an expression of the historical
demobilization and depoliticization that overtook the movements that
meant so much to him
Small Talk at 125th
and Lenox, featured the first version of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. The track has since been referenced and parodied extensively in pop culture.A diatribe against mass media’s trivialization of social upheaval and the seeming paralysis of those who watch via television.
Regarding the song, he said: "The revolution takes place in your mind.
Once you change your mind and decide that there's something wrong that
you want to effect that's when the revolution takes place. But first you
have to look at things and decide what you can do. 'Something's wrong
and I have to do something about it. I can effect this change.' Then you
become a revolutionary person. It's not all about fighting. It's not
all about going to war. It's about going to war with the problem and
deciding you can effect that problem. When you want to make things
better you're a revolutionary."
Gil Scott-Heron wrote this song when he was 21
years old. He would perform and release several reworkings of "The
Revolution Will Not Be Televised" in his lifetime.The lyrics build a strong, intelligent and humorous case against American consumerism:
"The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal."
"The revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner."
These
words remind us that big business owns almost everything we see on
television. Scott-Heron contends that if the common people were to rise
to rebellion, there will be no news coverage of the event.
Gil
Scott-Heron spoke on the poetry in this song:
"All of those poems do
not just represent me. They represent the people I know and the people I
see. You have to separate the problems that effect the whole community
from the problems that effect just the individual person. A good poet
feels what his community feels. He feels what the organism that he's a
part of feels. And one of the problems that our community was facing as a
whole was the fact that we were being discriminated against and there
was something that needed to be done."
The electric, edgy, angry sounds
he created with his fusion of soul, jazz, blues, and poetry,often in
collaboration with musician Brian Jackson, make him a forerunner to a
later generation of rap artists, particularly such socially conscious
rappers as Tupac Shakur, Jay Z and Dr. Dre.
In 1975 Scott-Heron became the first artist to sign with Clive Davis’s new Arista label. His second Arista release, From South Africa to South Carolina , contained the energetic “Johannes-burg,” a proclamation of solidarity with blacks in then apartheid white-ruled South Africa that reached the Top 40. “Our
vibration is based on creative solidarity: trying to influence the
black community toward the same kind of dignity and self-respect that we
all know is necessary to live,” Scott-Heron said “We’re trying to put out survival kits on wax.” Gil Scott’s 1976 song would become an anthem against
white minority rule in South Africa and the struggle for
liberation in that country.
By the late 1970s Scott-Heron had developed a serious cocaine habit, and
he later progressed to freebasing. Drugs were his escape from the
pressures of the music business, and they were also a refuge from
difficulties in his personal life. He had a turbulent marriage to
actress Brenda Sykes that ended in divorce, as well as several on-again,
off-again romances, and he had four children from different
relationships. “Love is a difficult thing for me to experience,” he once
wrote poignantly. As his addiction took its inevitable toll on his
body, his career, and his life, he was unable to admit the seriousness
of his problem or accept help from anyone, even those who cared about
him deeply.
Scott-Heron parted company with Jackson in the early 1980s and
explored jazzier territory as well as the techno-funk that had begun to
dominate black pop. As well as exploring more personal issues, he
continued attacking specific political targets. The U.S. presidential
election of conservative Republican Ronald Reagan.“Ray-gun,” as Scott-Heron was fond of calling him,unleashed a further torrent of musical scorn.
In 1980 Scott-Heron also released his anti-nuclear anthem “Shut ‘Em Down” on the all-star No Nukes concert album. However, as the decade advanced, Scott-Heron was increasingly isolated in his political militancy.
In 1984 Arista released The Best of Gil Scott-Heron, but would drop the artist the following year. He collaborated with jazz legend Miles Davis on “Let Me See Your I.D.” for the anti-apartheid benefit album Sun City,
but otherwise stopped recording for several years, though he continued
to tour and a documentary film was made about him. Unfortunately for
fans, most of his albums went out of print. With the exception of the Best of collection and the earlier The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, much of his work would not be available on CD for many years. The re-release in 1988 of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised reintroduced to a new generation the Scott-Heron classic “Whitey on the Moon,” a satirical comment on American socioeconomic values,
He shunned conventional pop stardom but nevertheless became a star,
playing to large crowds and winning abundant critical praise. I
was lucky to be able to see him perform on a number of occassions in
the late nineteen eighties, once at Glastonbury, can't remember the
correct year, perhaps someone could remind me, and 3 times more in
London at C.N.D and anti apartheid rallies one I think in Hyde Park? .
Apparently the era I saw him perform, his talent was on the wain, but I
did not notice, I did not care, all I remember was a powerful,
incendiary, sweet , soulful, smoky voice , gently rallying us against
the cruelty of the world. He became a bit of a hero to me, so it was sad
not to have him around for a while, but the thing is, for some of us he
never did go away. His songs of freedom lifting us through our sombre
histories, stirring and always inspiring.His sad songs and his
melancohly somehow reaching and getting through.
He briefly returned to the studio for 1994’s
Spirits. That album featured the track “Message to the Messengers,” in
which Scott-Heron cautions the hip-hop generation that arose in his
absence to use its newfound power responsibly. “I ain’t comin’ at you with no disrespect/All I’m sayin’ is you damn well got to be correct/Because if you’re
gonna be speaking for a whole generation/And you know enough to handle
their education/Be sure you know the real deal about past situations/And
ain’t just repeating what you heard on a local TV station.”
He used his voice to chart the injustices and cruelty of American society for
years, raging against its hypocricy,with wit, empathy, and justified anger, the irony being, it was
this very same system that turned on him, culminating in jail sentences
and stretches due to simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time,
found with too much gear in his pockets, labelled and spat out. Sure he
had problems, but when this man needed help, what did they do? They
locked him up, that was really going to cure him, no I don't think so,
just another sad reflection of a cold stinkin' rotten system.Anyway in my opinion a brave, charismatic figure, He never stood on fences, his language and honesty apparent to all who witnessed him..
He continued to perform, and he received new attention thanks to the
rise of hip-hop, but he was in no shape to work regularly, and his last
years included several stints in jail for drug possession. Followng After his release from prison in 2007, in 2010 released a new album, I'm New Here, to widespread critical acclaim. Although he
was on good terms with his children, he died alone aged 62, on May 27, 2011, in a New York hospital, where he apparently told the staff he had no next of kin. His
daughter Gia, saw this as typical of her father’s
self-protective pride: “Maybe he didn’t want people to see him in that
weak and vulnerable position.”
In 2012, he posthumously received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
and two years later was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for “The
Revolution Will Not Be Televised.”
Gil Scott-Heron’s voice and songs continue to project the strength, the anger,
the humanity and the beauty of struggles in our own time whose deeply political words continues to inspire many. In the tapestry of musical history, Gil Scott-Heron occupies a unique and enduring place. His life and work stand as a testament to the transformative potential of artistry, as well as a rallying cry for justice and social change. Gil should remind us of the profound impact that one individual can have in shaping the cultural zeitgeist and challenging the status quo. .His legacy as a musician, poet and activist is immeasurable.
It's Your World - Gl Scot Heron
The ground beneath my feet
I know was made for me
There is no any one place where I belong
My spirit's meant to be free
And soon now everyone will see
Life was made for us to be what we wanna be!
And it's your world
It's yours and yours and yours
And what you see
Was not meant for me
It's your world
But you don't have to be lonely
'Cause in your world
You are truly free!
The thoughts that fill my mind
Are a very special kind
Because they're home to me and me alone
And then I realize
That we all have a home inside
That was meant for us to be what we wanna be
And it's your world
It's yours and yours and yours
And what you see
Was not meant for me
It's your world
But you don't have to be lonely
'Cause in your world, you are truly free!
Music of life fills my soul
Music of love makes me feel whole
As human history unfolds before my eyes
My spirit's meant to be free
And soon now everyone's will be
It's your right to be whatever you wanna be!
And it's your world
It's yours and yours and yours
And what you see
Was not necessarily meant for me
It's your world
But you don't have to be lonely
'Cause in your world
You are truly free!
And it's your world
It's yours and yours and yours
And what you see
It was not meant for me
It's your world
But you don't have to be lonely
'Cause in your world
You are truly free!
And it's your world
It's yours and yours and yours
And what you see
It was not meant for me
It's your world
But you don't have to be lonely
'Cause in your world
You are truly free!
You are truly free
(So go 'head) Be what you wanna be
You are truly free
(So go 'head) Be what you wanna be
You are truly free
(So go 'head) Be what you wanna be
You are truly free
(So go 'head) Be what you wanna be
The World - Gil Scot Heron
The world! Planet Earth; third from the Sun of a gun, 360 degrees. And as the new worlds emerge stay alert. Stay aware. Watch the Eagle! Watch the Bear! Earthquaking, foundation shaking, bias breaking, new day making change. Accumulating, liberating, educating, stimulating change! Tomorrow was born yesterday. From insde the rib or people cage the era of our firdt blood stage was blotted or erased or TV screened r defaced. Remember there's a revolution going in in the world. One blood of the early morning revolves to the one idea of our tomorrow. Homeboy, hold on! Now more than ever all the family must come together. Ideas of freedom and harmony, great civilizations yesterday brought today will bring tomorrow. We must be about earthquaking, liberating, investigating and new day making change in the world.
The Revolution Will Not be Televisised
You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out foreeer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.
There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.
Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.
There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be right back after a message
About a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution WILL put you in the driver's seat.
The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.
I Think I'll Call it Morning - Gil Scot Heron
'm gonna take myself a piece of sunshine
and paint it all over my sky.
Be no rain. Be no rain.
I'm gonna take the song from every bird
and make them sing it just for me.
Be no rain.
And I think I'll call it morning from now on.
Why should I survive on sadness
convince myself I've got to be alone?
Why should I subscribe to this world's
madness
knowing that I've got to live on?
I think I'll call it morning from now on.
I'm gonna take myself a piece of sunshine
and paint it all over my sky.
Be no rain. Be no rain.
I'm gonna take the song from every bird
and make them sing it just for me.
Why should I hang my head?
Why should I let tears fall from my eyes
when I've seen everything that there is to see
and I know that there ain't no sense in crying!
I know that there ain't no sense in crying!
I think I'll call it morning from now on.
Today is the 45th anniversary of Palestinian Land Day,
which also happens to coincides with the third anniversary of the Great March of
Return in Gaza, and is marked by Palestinians wherever they live. Land Day is held on the anniversary of March 30, 1978,when Palestinian
villages and cities across the country witnessed mass demonstrations
against the states plans to expropriate 2,000 hectares of land in and around the Arab
villages of Araba and Sakhnin as a part of a plan to "Judaise the
Galilee".Israel's Galilee region. In coordination with the military, some 4,000
police officers were dispatched to quell the unrest. At the end of the
day, six Palestinian citizens were Killed by occupation forces, Kheir Mohammas Salim Tasin, Khadija Qaeem Shavaboch, Raja Hssein, AbuRayva, Khader Eid, Mahmoud Khalayleh, Muhsin HasanHasan, Said Taha and Raafar Ali-Zheir, as they defended their land, and over one hundred injured by state security forces..
The Day of the land - or Land Day marked the first mass mobilization of
Palestinians within Israel against internal colonialism and land theft.
It also signalled the failure of Israel to
subjugate Palestinians who remained in their towns and villages, after
around 700,000 of them were either expelled or forced to flee
massacres committed by Zionist armed groups in 1948.
Today's commemoration of Land Day is an emblematic reminder of the countless human rights violations that have characterised more than 72 years of Palestinian land confiscation and dispossession. Forty-five years on, Israeli land theft continues unabated.
Settlements are expanding; land confiscations for military, security,
or industrial purposes are increasing; and, especially unsettling,
measures to rid Jerusalem - the aspired capital of a future Palestinian
state.
The Israeli policy of land theft and expropriation has never ended. The
Annexation plan of the occupied Palestinian territory is being
implemented with more land being seized and more people becoming forcibly displaced. In the
last few days Israeli confiscated lands in the South, East and West of
Bethlehem, and on on.06/01/2021 alone, the Israeli occupation forces
uprooted more than 3400 olive trees in Deir Ballut village in the Salfit
Governorate .for settlement expansion and
for military purposes, a clear violation of the international
Humanitarian Law.The Palestinian Bedouin
citizens of Israel also now face the appropriation of 800,000 dunams of
the Negev by the Israeli state.The housing situation for the Bedouin remains dire. Settlements that
house 160,000 people are deemed "Illegal" by Israel, and risk
demolition. The issue of land allocation and housing for Palestinian citizens of Israel has now reached crisis point.
This important day in Palestinian history commemorates the Palestinians
sense of belonging to a people, to a
cause and a country, to stand united against racial oppression and rules
of apartheid,and the discriminatory practices of the Israeli
government, giving continual potency to the Palestinians cause , its
quest for justice and Palestinian rights, and its resistance to
injustice,who never cease to fight for their land while holding
passionately to their history and identity. It is the right of return,
recognised in the United Nations Resolution 194, that drives Palestinians to continue with the commemoration of Land Day - regardless of their geographical location.
The day is commemorated annually by Palestinians in the West Bank, the
Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and further afield in refugee camps and among
the Palestinian diaspora worldwide, with demonstrations, marches and by
planting olive and fruit trees, as a symbol of their resilience to daily occupation..This year, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, which has left much of the world’s
populations under lockdown and curfew. Being confined to their homes or their villages and towns is not a new experience for Palestinians which is perhaps why so many have taken it in their stride, and continue to show show incredible strength, courage
and sumud (steadfastness) in the face of great adversity. While Israeli
settler colonial expansionism does not rest, neither does Palestinian
perseverance and Palestinians are continuing to mark Land Day with anti-Israel protests around Israel, West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Land Day continues to be poignantly relevant as Israel continues to
confiscate land, expand their
colonies, and continue to build their illegal settlements in flagrant
violation of all international conventions, particularly the Fourth
Geneva Convention and international humanitarian law. Land day is a
Palestine day, a day for its people to proudly declare that they are
one from
the River to the Sea. It serves to remind the world that
the Israeli denial and suppression of Palestinian resistance and their
right to self-determination is a policy intended to squash the
Palestinian people’s will and dominate them to expand Israel’s settler
colonialism.
The Keep Hope Alive - Olive Tree Campaign
works to support the Palestinian farmers to protect their land, to
restore their hope, to empower them and to strengthen their
steadfastness, by providing them with olive trees and share with them
actions of solidarity and support from partners and friends worldwide.
In 2018, the Day of the Land once again bore witness to the popular organizing of the people, as thousands upon thousands gathered in Gaza for the Great March of Return, and occupation foces again shot down Palestinians defending their land and upholding their rights, 47 years after the first Land Day massacre. Israel occupying forces killed 16 martyrs of the land and return, with over 200 more shot down in the marches in the months and days to come.
In the Palestinian reality, every day is Land Day. Today and tomorrow I continue to stand side by side with my sisters and brothers in solidarity with their struggle
for peace, justice, equality and an end to the illegal occupation of
their land.I would urge others who may read this to do the same. The Land Day strike inspired the following powerful poem by Tawfiq Zayyad, Palestinian poet, writer, scholar and politician, that continues to resonate across the Palestinian generations.
Here we will stay - Tawfiq Zayyad ( 7/5/ 29 - 5/7/ 94)
In Lidda, in Ramla, in the Galilee,
we shall remain
like a wall upon your chest,
and in your throat
like a shrad of glass,
a cactus thron,
and in your eyes
a sandstorm.
We shall remain
a wall upon your chest,
clean dishes in your restaurants,
serve drinks in your bars,
sweep the floors of your kitchens
to snatch a bite for our children
from your blue fangs.
Here we shall stay,
sing our songs,
take to the angry streets,
fill prisons with dignity.
In Lidda, in Ramla, in the galilee,
we shall remain,
guard the shade of the fig
and olive trees,
ferment rebellion in our children
as yeast in the dough.
Link to poem by Mahmoud Darwish on the same theme :-
