Marking 100th Anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party

 

The Chinese Communist party  has been celebrating  its 100th anniversary of its 1921 founding today with nationwide festivities and fanfare.At 100 years old this year, the CCP is one of the few communist parties to have maintained power into the 21st century.

There will be operas, films and nearly 100 tie in television dramas. Few official speeches will fail to mention the anniversary. Across China, newspapers and buildings alike have been blanketed in red party propaganda. Three Chinese astronauts in space beamed back congratulations to the party. And online censors and police have been working overtime for the past month to ensure no disturbances mar the heavily scripted ceremonies held in Beijing today.

Beijing's celebrations began with a patriotic show in Tiananmen Square. As helicopters and fighter jets flew overhead, hundreds of school children, party members, and front-line health care workers sang songs like, "Socialism Is Good" and "Without the Chinese Communist Party, There Would Be No New China." 

 

 

But the centerpiece of the celebrations was a fiery speech given by Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping.

"The Chinese people will never allow any foreign forces to bully, oppress or enslave us. Anyone who dares will have their heads cracked and their blood will flow before the steel Great Wall built with the flesh and blood of 1.4 billion Chinese people," said Xi, as he stood in front of Beijing's imperial palace on Thursday morning.

Wearing a grey Mao suit and flanked by party leaders past and present, Xi spent more than an hour laying out the Communist Party's achievements over the past century while making the case that it remains the only political force capable of governing China.

"The Communist Party of China and the Chinese people, with their bravery and tenacity, solemnly proclaim to the world that the Chinese people are not only good at taking down the old world, but also good at building a new one," Xi proclaimed. "Only socialism can save China, and only socialism with Chinese characteristics can develop China."

The CCP is the second-largest political party in the world — it is half the size of India's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The party had 91.9 million members in 2019, many of them grassroots cadres  and ordinary civil servants and has ruled China since seizing power after a civil war in 1949. Internally, its policies color every sector of a nation with the world’s largest population, or 1.4 billion people. Externally, its model is having an impact and influence on distant economies and leaders worldwide not to mention the everyday shopper looking for a new pair of shoes.

The CCP was founded as both a political party and a revolutionary movement in 1921 by revolutionaries such as Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu. Those two men and others had come out of the May Fourth Movement (1919) and had turned to Marxism after the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the turmoil of 1920s China, CCP members such as Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, and Li Lisan began organizing labour unions in the cities.

It is a monolithic, monopolistic party that dominates the political life of China. It is the major policy-making body in China and oversees the central, provincial, and local organs of government to carry out those policies. 

The party's journey started in 1921 when CCP was formed. China at that time was driven by feuding warlords, deeply mired in poverty, and powerless on the international stage. The Republic of China was established in 1912, but its government was weak and largely unable to solve China's problems.

In what is now called the May Fourth Movement,  on 4 May, 1919, more than 3,000 students from 13 colleges in Beijing held a mass demonstration against the decision of the Versailles Peace Conference, which drew up the treaty officially ending World War I, to transfer the former German concessions in Shandong province to Japan.

The Chinese government’s acquiescence to the decision so enraged the students that they burned the house of the minister of communications and assaulted China’s minister to Japan, both pro-Japanese officials. Over the following weeks, demonstrations occurred throughout the country; several students died or were wounded in these incidents.

It wasn’t until October 1949, after years of political turmoil and civil war, that Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong declared the creation of the People’s Republic of China, setting in motion more than 70 years of change.

Getting to that moment in Beijing took the party decades of battles. In its early days, the party allied with the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, in an effort to reunify and modernize China so it could ward off further encroachment by Japan.

The two parties also collaborated to “rid the nation of warlords that prevented the formation of a strong central government,”

In 1925, Sun Yat-sen, the Nationalist’s leader and a revered CCP figure, died of cancer on March 12. On May 30, a series of strikes and protests throughout China left 11 demonstrators dead as British police responded to the anti-foreign eruption on May 30. Anti-imperialist outrage benefited the CCP which grew from a few hundred members to more than 20,000.

Sun’s successor, Chiang Kai-shek, instigated a slaughter of communists in 1927, and despite Moscow’s efforts to engineer cooperation, the two parties fell into a civil war.

By 1931, when Japan invaded Manchuria, the CCP had established itself in rural central China in part by expropriating land from wealthy owners and redistributing it to peasants.

Chiang pursued the CCP and its army, pushing them onto the Long March and off to dusty the caves of Yan’an in China’s central province of Shaanxi giving the party its foundational myth.

In Yan’an from 1935-47, Mao Zedong rose to power, building rural support for the party and expanding it from an initial force of less than 10,000 to nearly 2.8 million members as the CCP adopted a constitution that enshrined Marxist-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. The party’s rapid expansion led to more political and ideological education for newcomers, an indoctrination process that came to include even Long March veterans. Known as the Yan’an Rectification, the effort allowed the party, and Mao, to purge thousands of people suspected of disloyalty.

That was only the beginning of decades of political turmoil and internal strife. After World War II, what had been the two parties’ united front against Japan dissolved as the full-scale civil war returned. “Eventual Communist victory seemed more and more likely,”

On Oct. 1, 1949, Mao Zedong announced “The Chinese people have stood up” in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, ending the civil war and dispatching the Nationalists “backed by U.S. imperialism” to Taiwan.

For some, the moment seemed like a new hopeful beginning. Chinese then living in the West, many of them intellectuals, professionals and scholars, returned to China to participate in its rebirth.

A decade after the Communist party took power in 1949, one of the largest manmade disasters in history struck an already impoverished land. In an unremarkable city in central Henan province, more than a million people – one in eight – were wiped out by starvation and brutality over three short years.

The ironically titled "Great Leap Forward", a five-year economic plan, was supposed to be the culmination of Mao Zedong’s program for transforming China into a Communist paradise.

The campaign was undertaken by the Chinese communists between 1958 and early 1960 to organize its vast population, especially in large-scale rural communes, to meet China’s industrial and agricultural problems.

As per the BBC, the drive produced an economic breakdown and was abandoned after two years. Disruption to agriculture is blamed for the deaths by starvation of millions of people following poor harvests.

Tibet’s incorporation into the People’s Republic of China began in 1950 and has remained a highly charged and controversial issue, both within Tibet and worldwide. Many Tibetans (especially those outside China) consider China’s action to be an invasion of a sovereign country, and the continued Chinese presence in Tibet is deemed an occupation by a foreign power.

In 1950, Chinese troops entered Tibet, and a year later, the Chinese government formally gained control over the region and its devoutly Buddhist Tibetans. The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959, to India, following a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

The Dalai Lama and the exiled government, also known as the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), has proposed what they call a "middle way" approach that would allow the exiled Tibetans to return to China on the condition of "genuine autonomy" for Tibet, though not full independence.

In 2008, anti-China protests escalated into the worst violence Tibet had seen, just five months before Beijing was to host the Olympic Games. Pro-Tibet activists in several countries focussed world attention on the region by disrupting the progress of the Olympic torch relay.

However, since 2010, the CCP has rebuffed attempts by the CTA to reopen dialogue and maintains that the Dalai Lama is a separatist. 

The Great Proletarian  Cultural Revolution was a decade-long period of political and social chaos caused by Mao Zedong’s bid to use the Chinese masses to reassert his control over the Communist party.

Fearing that China would develop along the lines of the Soviet model and concerned about his own place in history, Mao threw China’s cities into turmoil in a monumental effort to reverse the historic processes underway.

In response to Mao’s admonishments, the Red Guard Movement was formed. The Red Guards was a mass student-led paramilitary social movement mobilized. While they sought to reinforce the Maoist standards of Communism, they were largely undisciplined and caused violence among those they saw as capitalists.

They formed under the auspices of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1966 in order to help party chairman Mao Zedong combat “revisionist” authorities—i.e., those party leaders Mao considered as being insufficiently revolutionary.

The Revolution marked Mao's return to the central position of power in China after a period of less radical leadership to recover from the failures of the Great Leap Forward, which contributed to the Great Chinese Famine only five years prior.

The Cultural Revolution lasted for at least 10 years until Mao’s death on Sept. 9, 1976, which was followed by the transformative reforms crafted by then-CCP Chairman Deng Xiaoping.By orchestrating China’s transition to a market economy, Deng Xiaoping left a lasting legacy on China and the world. After becoming the leader of the Communist Party of China in 1978, following Mao Zedong’s death two years earlier, Deng launched a program of reform that ultimately saw China become the world’s largest economy in terms of its purchasing power in 2014.

Xiaoping was one of the most powerful figures in the People’s Republic of China from the late 1970s until his death in 1997. He abandoned many orthodox communist doctrines and attempted to incorporate elements of the free-enterprise system and other reforms into the Chinese economy.

Under him, China undertook far-reaching economic reforms. The government imposed a one-child policy in an effort to curb population growth. With the "open-door policy", the party also opens the country to foreign investment and encourages development of a market economy and private sector.

The Chinese Communist Party's international influence, appeal and attraction have continually increased, placing it at the forefront of world politics," Guo Yezhou, deputy head of the party's external liaison department told reporters at a press event this week.

The CCP has steered China through a century of wars, famine and social upheaval. In the last 20 years, millions of impoverished, starving Chinese who lived in the countryside have been lifted from extreme poverty. This social mobilization has helped  create the second largest economy in the world.

However, the party's concentration of power and expansive foreign policy under President Xi Jinping has raised concerns that China is turning more towards authoritarianism. 

                        

                                     
                                              President Xi Jinping

Criticism of the party  and its policies is quickly censored, there is no room for dissent, the country is ruled by law, but it is the party that decides what the law is and interprets it as needed. As Xi Jinping declares, the main feature of the New Era is the unquestionable leadership of the party in all aspects of life. He is fond of quoting Chairman Mao’s adage: “The Party, the government, the army, the people, the education; East West South North and the centre—the Party leads it all." 

At the same time Chinese military expansion in the South China Sea has drawn international condemnation, as has a crackdown on civil liberties in Hong Kong and the treatment of the Uyghur Muslim minority in the western Xinjiang region. where a million Turkic Muslims in the Xinjiang region are now being detained solely because of their ethnic identity, while many of their children are forcibly housed in state-run boarding schools. It is the China where millions of women have suffered the trauma of forced sterilizations and abortions, and where children cannot go to school because they were born outside of the One-Child or Two-Child policies.This other China  is the one whose existence the Communist Party denies and forbids anyone to speak about.

These points of criticism will, of course, not be mentioned during the celebrations.

 In February, Xi issued a revised version of "A brief History of the Communist Party of China" — the official party history — to coincide with the centenary. The printed version contains over 500 pages.

The latest edition of the CCP's official history condenses the decade-long turmoil of the Cultural Revolution into three pages and downplays Mao's atrocities, softening the party's 1981 condemnation of the revolution. In the Cultural Revolution, Mao unleashed the Red Guards to torment anyone suspected of disloyalty or bourgeois tendencies. Millions were banished to the countryside, and over the Mao years unknown millions of Chinese died

The section on The Great Leap Forward is also shortened and only mentions "economic difficulties." In comparison, the textbook from the CCP's 90th anniversary still used the words "famine" and "famine deaths."

The Great Famine — during which tens of millions of people died under Mao's economic policies —  is mentioned only once in the new textbook as a "natural disaster."

The 1989 Tiananmen Square protest is "dealt with very briefly," and is described as a counterrevolutionary uprising seeking to abolish the socialist system and had to be put down by the government. The protests grew, with demands for greater political freedom. In May 1989, nearly a million Chinese, mostly young students, gathered in Tiananmen Square, initially to demand the posthumous rehabilitation of former CCP General Secretary Hu Yaobang, who was forced to resign in 1987.

But soon the protest spiraled to demanding greater democracy and call for the resignations of Chinese Communist Party leaders, who were deemed too repressive. For nearly three weeks, the protesters kept up daily vigils.

On June 3 to 4, 1989, however, Chinese troops and security police stormed through Tiananmen Square, firing indiscriminately into the crowds of protesters. At the end of June 1989, the Chinese government said 200 civilians and several dozen security personnel had died

The purpose of the text is to convey the message that "even though there have been crises … the party has always been able to rebuild itself and lead China on the road to prosperity," 

The "crowning finale" of the book is Xi's "ideas for the new era,"  which will be defined by surpassing the US as the world's largest economy, and China establishing itself as a first-rank military and technological power.

It is striking that the section on Xi Jinping takes up about a quarter of the entire book, although he has only been in power for eight years, given 100 years of party history,.

The revised textbook will also become part of university examinations. Millions of Chinese will be expected to memorize standardized questions and answers based on the book.

In March 2012, Chongqing Communist Party chief and potential leadership hopeful Bo Xilai  was dismissed on the eve of the party's 10-yearly leadership change, in the country's biggest political scandal for years. Bo was considered a likely candidate for promotion to the elite CCP Politburo Standing Committee in 18th Party Congress in 2012.

His political fortunes came to an abrupt end following the Wang Lijun incident, in which his top lieutenant and police chief sought asylum at the American consulate in Chengdu.  Wang claimed to have information about the involvement of Bo Xilai and his wife Gu Kailai in the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood, who allegedly had close financial ties to the two.

In the fallout, Bo was removed as the CCP Committee secretary of Chongqing and lost his seat on the Politburo. He was later stripped of all his positions and lost his seat at the National People's Congress and eventually expelled from the party. In 2013, Bo was found guilty of corruption, stripped of all his assets, and sentenced to life imprisonment. He is incarcerated at Qincheng Prison.

In June, 2019, China unveiled details of its new national security law for Hong Kong, paving the way for the most profound change to the city's way of life since it returned to Chinese rule in 1997. Hong Kong was always meant to have a security law, but could never pass one because it always hotly debated.

The law came into effect at 23:00 local time on 30 June, 2019, an hour before the 23rd anniversary of the city's handover to China from British rule. It gives Beijing the power to shape life in Hong Kong it has never had before.

China's move to impose the law directly on Hong Kong, bypassing the city's legislature, came after a year of sometimes violent anti-government and anti-Beijing protests that mainland and local authorities blame "foreign forces" for fomenting.

At the time of the handover, China promised to allow Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy for 50 years under what is known as the "one country two systems" formula of governance.

Soon after, Hong Kong started seeing months of anti-government and pro-democracy protests, involving violent clashes with police, against the proposed law, allowing extradition to mainland China.

The last year, 2020,  will be forever linked with China. In December 2019, the first cases of a mysterious new pneumonia were detected, prompting Chinese officials to play down the danger and stifle news of the outbreak.

Even after they acknowledged the scale of the crisis in January 2020, some analysts in the West wondered, briefly, whether the novel coronavirus would threaten the Communist Party itself, as per The Economist.

In February, the death from COVID-19 of a whistleblowing doctor caused an outpouring of rage in China over the ruling party's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the virus spread worldwide, global leaders came together, condemning China over its mismanagement of the pandemic and its attempts to divert attention from early cover-ups of the coronavirus outbreak seem to be backfiring.

 As celebrations herald  the hundredth anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, China's leadership will highlight the elimination of extreme poverty, rising living standards, and economic growth, among the nation’s other successes. A quinquennial party congress—the country’s top political gathering—will be held in the fall of 2022, setting key policies that will define China’s future path and deciding the top leaders for the next decade. The Winter Olympics will be held in Beijing later that year.

At the center of all this is Xi Jinping, who has established himself as China’s most powerful and ambitious leader in decades and is expected to break political norms and stay on for at least a third five-year term at next year’s twentieth Party Congress. Xi’s decision to abandon former leader Deng Xiaoping’s mantra of tao guang yang hui, or “keep a low profile and bide one’s time,” and push much more rapidly for national glory is the driving force behind China’s actions—from its bellicose diplomats to the angry pushback against international criticism of the horrendous human-rights tragedy in Xinjiang. In Xi’s vision, China must replace the West as a global model by “blazing a new trail for other developing countries to achieve modernization” and by offering “Chinese wisdom and a Chinese approach to solving the problems facing mankind,” as he put it in 2017.

 Party cadres and intellectuals are unhappy with Xi’s unprecedented power grab,  but for now, Xi’s unrivaled power has cowed any serious opposition and his push to raise China’s global influence is widely supported.

With the major caveat that limits on free expression affect the Chinese people’s willingness to openly criticize their leaders, polls show growing support for the party in China . And that is understandable. People’s lives have gotten much better over the last few decades, and it is natural for the Chinese to take pride in the growing strength of their country after years of feeling like a little brother to an often hectoring United States. Progress on combating the pandemic has also lifted support for the Chinese regime, and a barrage of propaganda from China’s press constantly reinforces the idea that life in China is now better than it is in the rest of the world.

Many analysts say CCP is at the peak of its power on its centenary, but the party faces a new host of challenges, both at home and abroad.

They include economic inequality, environmental degradation, and tensions with the United States and other developed nations over trade, politics and human rights.

For Xi and other leaders at the helm of the party, this year's birthday is an important chance to recast an organization originally designed to foment revolution among rural peasants into one that can be seen as a powerful government overseeing an increasingly sophisticated global economy.

Party leaders must do so in a world that is now largely hostile to its global ambitions. The latest Pew Research polling shows negative views on China remain at historic highs around the world. After over seventy years of  Chinese Communist Party’s rule, millions of people now live in the China that promises material comfort and convenience, and projects political unity. But they all live in fear of “the other China”— a reality the party’s top brass relies on to maintain control.For many Chinese people especially ethnic and religious minorities a succession of ideological crackdowns carried out by Xi  and his hardline supporters despite the celebrations cast a dark shadow over their futures whatever the propoganda and. jingoism on display today, getting rid of oppression  would certainly restores peoples faith.

Remembering Stonewall

 

Today marks the  anniversary of the Stonewall riots. In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, the New York City  police department carried out a raid on the Stonewall Inn, a  popular Gay Bar in the Greenwich Village .The move was a clear condemnation by law enforcement officials of the city's underground gay population.

Yes it was a dive bar, but even that characterisation was optimistic, since it couldn't get a liguor license. It's drinks were bootlegged and heavily watered down. The contents of no bottle ever matched its label. There were no fire exits and there was no running water. But in that Greenwich Village Tavern, there was music, there was dancing, and there was freedom. It was a place of sanctuary, and one of the only places for New York's gay community to socialise and truly be themselves.

Prior to 1962, same sex relationships were a felony in every state, making it illegal for people of the same sex to show affection towards one another, dance with each other or even just be together. often punished by lengthy prison sentences. Same-sex loving men and women met in secret, fearing the long-term consequences of exposure. Gender nonconforming individuals and cross-dressers might find themselves shunned to the fringes of society. Early efforts at LGBTQ activism had smoldered for years before Stonewall. There had been riots in other gay spaces before. And there had certainly been plenty of police raids at the Stonewall in the past. But the anger that erupted on this day when police attempted to arrest patrons of the Stonewall Inn, sparked a uprising that galvanised the  LGBTQ civil rights movement as we know it today.

It was a raid like so many others, but this time after some patrons and local residents witnessed  police barging into the bar, slamming people against the walls, calling them derogatory names, and then taking money from their wallets. When police finally let patrons out of the bar and ordered them to disperse they refused, and after an officer struck a prisoner on the head, they spontaneously fought back against years of oppression and state violence by hurling rocks and bottles at the police, anything in fact within arm's reach. A number of people even wrestled a parking meter from the ground and tried to use it as a battering ram. The police, fearing for their safety, locked themseles inside the Stonewall Inn as the angry mob outside grew into the thousands. Some were attempting to set the property on fire.Following media coverage of the event, thouusands protested and clashed with riot police over the next six days,.Reinforcements were eventually able to get the crowd under control, well for one night at least. But people had discovered a power that they were not even aware they had, releasing a sense of pride and liberation.

Shouts of 'gay power' and 'we shall overcome' could be heard down the street as support spread.It was a watershed for the worldwide gay rights movement, because it was the first time LGBT+ people had forcibly resisted the police. On Saturday, the windows of the Stonewall were boarded up and painted with gueer liberation slogans like 'We are Open,' 'Support Gay Power- C'mon in girls.' Hostile press coverage was also pinned to the boards, That night the crowd of protestors returned and were led in 'gay power; cheers by a group of gay cheerleaders. There was sustained handholding, kissing, and posing which had appeared only fleetingly on the street before.

Soon the crowd got restless "Let's go down the street and see what's happening girls," someone yelled. They did and were confronted by the Tactical Patrol Force, (originally set up to stop anti-ietnam war protests) However, the TPF failed to break up the crowd, who in defiance sprayed them with rocks and other projectiles. The third day of rioting fell five days after the raid on the Stonewall Inn. On that day 1,000 people congregated at the bar and again took the cops on in the streets.

Once the riots had subsided, protestors were filled with motivation to organise for their rights, th aftermath saw an explosion in gay movement organisation, pride and political activism. A year after the  riots, residents began marching on Christopher Street and Sixth Avenue. The date, June 28 was dubbed Christopher Street Liberation Day. Thousands of people marched the street while thousands of other people lined up alongside them to protest the treatment of the LGBT+  community at the hands of the law. With Stonewall, the spirit of 60's rebellion spread to LGBT+ people in New York and beyond, who found themselves liberated and part of a community, sparking a new sense of urgency about demanding tolerance for persecuted communities.Inspired by New Yor's example, actiists in other cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston and Chicago, organised gay pride celebrations that same year. The Stonewall uprising changed the state of play, and sent out a clear message that enough was enough and that it was time fir the harassment and discrimination to end.

It is important to recognise the fact the gay rights movement did not begin at Stonewall, there were gay activists  and calls for "gay power"well before that early morning of June 28, 1969. What was different about Stonewall was that gay activists around the country ad the world were prepared to commemorate it publicly. It was not the first rebellion, but it was the first to be called "the first" and that act of naming mattered, the uprising did mark a turning point, igniting a new atmosphere of militant gay liberation. Radical groups like the libertarian left wing Gay Liberation Front (GLF)  and the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA), were formed  in New York and beyond who sought links with the Black Panthers, the Women's Liberation movement and anti-war organisations. Similar organisations were soon created around the world including Canada, France, Brtain, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Australia and New Zealandin, becoming a lasting force that would carry on for the next half-century and beyond.

Stonewall marked a sharp break from the past and a qualitative turning point in the LGBTQ+ movement,,not only because of the continuous rioting in the streets against police, but because activists were able to seize the moment and give an organized expression to the spontaneous uprising that encapsulated the militancy of the era. While the homophile movement made steady, if limited, progress throughout the 1950s and 60s and laid the basis for the gay liberation movement, Stonewall broke the dam of political and social isolation and catapulted the gay movement from the margins and into the open.

 

The Stonewall Inn made headlines again in 2015, when its story came to the silver screen,  but critics at the time said that Stonewall depicted brave, cisgender white males as the unsung heroes of the moement, but in reality it was trans women of color, homeless queer people, sex workers, gay bi and pansexual people who were the riots heart and soul.

 The uprising was multiracial, diverse, and reflected a broad spectrum of the LGBTQ+ community. Many eyewitnesses commented specifically on the important role played that night by the most marginalised sections of the community — street kids, trans women, and queer youth of colour.

 

The resisters who stood up to the police on this day could hardly have imagined that within 50 years, the United States and other Western countries would go from criminalising homosexuality to guaranteering the equal right of same sex couples to marry. Despite the gains made since and why we celebrate Pride in June, ( beyond the sequins and the glitter, it remains a protest, not just an excuse to party) half a century on from the Stonewall Riots, the global LGBT+  community still faces significent problems.

The Stonewall Inn uprising marked a turning point n the visibility of the gay rights movement, with the first  pride parades in 1970. It is however important to remember that many transgender people were discriminated against and discouraged from participating.and the Gay Activist Alliance (GAA), which formed in response to Stonewall, frequently rejected the role transgender people , the majority of whom were of color, rights had played.

On 28 August 1971, the year before the first London Pride March, members of the Gay Liberation (GLF) Youth Group organised the first LGBT+ public march  in the UK. Beginning with a mass gathering in Hyde Park, GLF Youth Group marched through central London to their rally point of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square. 

What many also forget is that it was only as recently as 2017 that the UK Government finally issued a posthumous pardon to all gay or bi men who were convicted under pernicious sexual offences laws in the last century which enabled police to criminalise people for being gay or bi. In many South Asian and Middle Eastern, in fact around 70 counties  homosexuality is still illegal and in around 70 countries ,as far as the law goes punishable by death.Anti-gay bullying is still prevalent in schools and workplaces and anti LGBT+ sentiment is still being combatted across the world, Sadly there is still to much stigma attached for being who we are. But for many that fight has its roots in those dramatic riots in Greenwich all those years ago.

The LGBT+  movement is still a work in progress, so any single acronym is just a working title. Many other groups could be added to the acronym, including queer, intersex, and loving people of all kinds who just don't fit in the conventional pink and blue boxes of gender. This movement is a rainbow coalition of communities.The struggle will continue as long as governments do not fully respect and protect the "inherent dignity" and "equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family",as the preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights so eloquently pronounces, regardless of their gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation. The struggle will continue while many in the LGBT+ community are still fighting for their lives, a community that till faces hostility and horrendous, unexplained violence.

When we remember the Stonewall Rebellion, we should also commit to common memory, think of the many rebels who thought they might be alone but found common ground in movements of popular resistance.We still have so much further to go in the fight for equality. With on going solidarity with other oppressed people across the world, with rage and love we can firmly find  our pride. 

The Stonewall uprising began a process of militant LGBT+ struggle that continues to this day, whose early years were characterized by an anti-racist, anti-war and anti-capitalist, fightback against both heteronormative patriarchy and transphobia. The legacy of Stonewall remains as important as ever  reminding us that rebellions work.

Change does not come because politicians introduce piecemeal legislation or because NGOs organise black-tie fundraisers. It happens when ordinary people take matters into their own hands, when we continue to  challenge institutions of state repression and become active participants in shaping their own world,  By  necessity, we  must  keep  striving  towards a  future grounded in human liberation and solidarity and love. I dedicate this post to the heroes who fought back,so that those that came after could have better lives.

Farewell to Poet 'Dave Datblygu': David R Edwards, a unique voice of Welsh music (3 September 1964 – 19/20 June 2021)

 

A very difficult post to write it is with much sadness to announce my dear friend, Poet and musician David Rupert Edwards, the frontman of legendary Welsh band Datblygu, has died. I heard the tragic news last night that he had passed away in Carmarthen over the weekend, aged just 56. He had been suffering from health issues including epilepsy and diabetes.

David was born in Aberteifi Cardigan and became one of the giants of modern Welsh culture whose uncompromising, challenging and individual talent as a poet, vocalist, and musician made him one of the most idiosyncratic and influential Welsh artists of his generation. His attitude towards the artistic bourgeoisie and politicians in Wales, and his work in his own language at a time when Welsh bands were expected to sing in English, liberated and influenced a whole generation of bands such as Super Furry Animals, Gorkys Zygotic Mynci, Y Ffug  and many more who certainly owe a debt to the work done of the band. They were, in their own words, “non-conforming non-conformists.”

His brilliant group Datblygu, (Welsh for ‘progress’, ‘evolution’ and/or ‘development’) started in 1982 while David was still at school in Aberteifi, Ceredigion  emerging from the tail end of the post-punk period, and the horrors of Thatcher's Britain, becoming a universe unto themselves.. At first, it was him and instrumentalist T Wyn Davies before Patricia Morgan joined in 1984 whose vital musical contribution cannot be understated. Datblygu’s music was, as their name suggests, often experimental.

In their time they played in such diverse styles as experimental post punk, disco, country, nursery rhymes, crooning and just about anything else. The NME described them as “Kraftwerk with a hangover”. Their debut EP ‘Hwgr Grawth-Og’ was released in 1986 on Anhrefn. Datblygu were a firm favourite of the late great John Peel, who became one of their most loyal fans. Davids band managed in their time to record 5 brilliant sessions for Peel between 1987 -1993 and they communicated regularly.over the years.

All this led to them being referred to somewhat reductively as 'The Welsh Fall'.a band incidentally David loved passionately.As handy as that descriptor is as a marketing tool for newbies, the truth is Datblygu's work draws on an entirely distinct and separate tradition, interweaving left-wing politics, Welsh history, and science fiction in a framework that moves from angular guitar led songwriting to off piste synth pop and beyond.

As a poet, a label that  David did not like he existed in hostile opposition to the traditional establishment and with his music he was determined to drag the ‘Sgymraeg’ culture and music screaming into the modern age in the 1980s.Three of Datblygu's most important works, the albums –  Wyau (1988), Pyst (1990), and Libertino (1994) – are recognised to be the pinnacle of modern Welsh language rock culture. A body of work that crossed cultures, languages and borders..They sang in Welsh, but that in itself does not really matter.
A unique acerbic point of view, a singular voice with a masterly command of language ( which just so happens, was in the medium of Welsh) . His live performances were legendary and incendiary, a real tour de force, I was lucky to see him in full flight a couple of times, unforgettable . His uncle Gwynfor  used to live down the road from me  when I was younger, so I'd see a lot of Dave (my sister became his nephews godmother)... he'd mention bands that sounded exciting, and had me searching furtively at night for John Peel. Daves' musical influences  were very wide and ranged from the mighty Fall, Joy Division.  the mekons, to the outer limits of Can, Beefheart  to Frank Sinatra, Nick Drake, Leonard Cohen  .to emerging Welsh bands. Willfully ignored by the Welsh establishment of the time, he raged too hard you see. His music always seemed to convey a pissed- off, phlegmatic menace. Fucked up on Thatcherism, mass unemployment and general shitty Politicianism , he could be provocative and brilliantly funny at the same time, a real peoples' poet he spoke for everyone, and the people loved him  Unflinchingly was not afraid to speak his truth  and put his two fingers up to anyone.David also performed with Tŷ Gwydr and electronic pioneers Llwybr Llaethog, and worked for some time as a secondary school teacher in the mid-90's but was deemed unfit for work, for among other issues, smoking in front  of the pupils. Years into long term unemployment, he would comment, ' I don't see how anyone who's done a day's work in thrir lives can fail to be left wing.'

At the height of  his creativity in the late  nighties, David withdrew from performing and releasing music and began a painful period of treatment for mental health problems. After the death of his father who he adored I would spend many a Saturday afternoon in his pleasant charming company in his living room in 7 Y Rhos, Cardigan  discussing everything  under the sun, subjects ranged from books and  music to Tony fucking Blair to the bloody Tory party.It was a beautiful friendship that meant not judging one another.and over the years have witnessed his strength, his friendship and love, that has carried and lifted  me, kept me afloat  in my own periods of darkness. 

David's battle with health problems and alcoholism was chronicled in an O Fllaen dy Lygaid documentary produced by BBC for S4C,rg programme also featured his friend, actress Rhian Rees Davies.As he weight of mental health issues iimploded David had to go away for a while, but we kept in touch and at the beginning of the new century, it was wonderful to see his health improve and David once again living an independent life in Carmarthen and once again releasing music as Datblygu with his lifelong friend and musical soul mate Patricia Morgan.

He also published his autobiography in 2009 – ‘Atgofion Hen Wanc’ – which he described as ‘no fflim fflam, no repetition, no boring bits that will send you to sleep’. Here he could share his feelings about Aberteifi, the love he felt for his parents and his musical heroes like Mark E.Smith, Captain Beefheart, Frank Sinatra and Ryan Davies and hs friendships with the likes of John Peel and Attila the Stockbroker. It also featured his loathing of authority and the disciplinarian nature of school and work, and also the nature of his life-long love/hate relationship with Wales and the Welsh which fed so much of his creativity,,an honest account of his life ,told with humour and candour. David released a collection of English poems called Dave Datblygu's Search in English for the House of Tolerance in 2017 and another last year called Davey Datvlygu;s  Policy of Company,

David's  band’s legend grew during this, and when they played their first gig in 20 years, at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff in April 2015, they were finally accorded the reverence that was deserved but lacking during their heyday.

In the press release for his last album ‘Cwm Gwagle’ released last year,in the height of the pandemic he again re-iterated the unique nature of the band and his work – ‘Datblygu have only one thing in common with other Welsh bands and that is their shared use of the language, nothing else.’

Following the news of his passing people from across Wales and beyond took to twitter to pay their respects and tributes.

 In a post on Twitter, Datblygu bandmate and friend Patricia Morgan offered: “It’s a huge pain for me to think that David is no longer with us. He was one of the best friends you could ever have. A huge and generous personality; a bear of a man. His writing touched people, to give succour, love, anger and humour.” 

Among those to pay tribute to David were Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys, who told Welsh news outlet Nation.Cymru  “Devastated, Dave was and is a gigantic figure. His contribution to the Welsh language can’t be overestimated and his work with Datblygu serves as a focal point for its vibrant counter-culture. I’ve no doubt his influence will grow and his songs will continue to serve as moral compasses and as sources of light to guide us through the darkness down the ages.” 

A statement from Datblygu’s record label Ankst read: “Since the 1980s the existence of Datblygu made it clear that there was much more to Welsh-language culture and music than some pale copy of Anglo-American culture.

Wichita Recordings co-founder Mark Bowen told Nation.Cymru it was difficult to accurately explain the impact of hearing Datblygu for the first time on the John Peel show in the mid-’80s.

“To hear Peel play a record in Welsh that stood head and shoulders above anything else he played that night was a stunning moment for a teenager who had never felt ‘cool’ for his nationality before.”

On Twitter, The Charlatons Tim Burgess said that a special edition of his Twitter Listening Party series would be held in Edwards’ memory. The band’s compilation 1985 – 1995 will be the featured album on July 2.

 First Minister Mark Drakeford, also paid tribute who tweeted: "Incredibly sad news - Wales has lost a cultural giant."

An Early Day Motion has also been presented to paliament poposed by  my local Plaid Cymru MP Ben Lake that reads ' That this House mourns the passing of David R. Edwards (Dave Datblygu), musician, poet and and frontman of legendary Welsh band Datblygu at 56 years old in his home in Carmarthen; celebrates the legacy of Mr Edwards, originally from Cardigan, whose radically original music and lyrics including on albums such as Wyau, Pyst and Libertino, paved the way for a whole generation of Welsh alternative musicians; notes that through their music and art, Datblygu, who formed in 1982 and released their most recent album in August 2020, have been especially influential in shaping the diverse and vibrant culture we enjoy in Wales today; and sends its condolences to his family and friends as they come to terms with the sad news of his passing.' https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/58687

Ii is somewhat ironic that David in passing is only now getting the attention and warm accolades that he so richly deserved. I was fortunate to forge a friendship  with David  spanning  over 3 decades, that has left me with so many happy memories,  I will remember David as a loving, faithful, creative, kind,caring,wise individual and endearing friend whose loss to us all will be immense. A passionate sports fan,  he'd often tell me of latest win on the horses, after a flutter at the bookies, he held a myriad of interests, a decent cook too,  his music illustrated a determination to propel Welsh language culture and music ever forward. Without David, there would not have been any Ankst Records or Cool Cymru and without his friendship, talent and love over the decades life here in Wales would have been so much poorer and duller. His voice and his words will definitely live on and continue to astonish.

My debt to David is enormous and I thank him from the bottom of my heart for sharing his life and talent with me. I will treasure all the letters  over the years he faithfully sent me, he used to phone me regularly too and could be incredibly humorous. His death so heartbreaking since in his last one he talked fondly of a loved one, how he an her had both left the Labour Party  due to the way that Mr Corbyn was treated and  the direction that  the party is now taking. at end of the day David was a man of deep principle, whether supporting animal rights, cnd or the miners  never conforming , never compromising, He ended his most recent letter about  how he was looking forward to life beyond lockdown, sent me his love and best wishes, was in the process of replying alas to my regret I left it too late, but I know he knew the depth of my affection and fondness was genuine and real. My  condolences go out to his family and friends as we deal with this heartbreaking news.

 David was a magnificent  poet, a trailblazer  who must be remembered for his colossal impact on Welsh music, who even  in the bleakest of moments managed to show his incredible way with language and his inherent love of words in all their forms, while encouraging my own voice. The sheer depth of his intellect was awe inspiring. I  for one will continue to love  Dave and his music and words ureservedly,  if you want hear  some truth. switch off the mainstream news, seek out his records full of lyrical beauty, of  musical depth, and emotion, carried in the medium of the Welsh ,a  message that will  also enable you  to fall in love with this rich language, like me and his friend the late John Peel. Genius is an overused word. But he was a true genius. His lyrics and delivery are as good as it gets. .I will end  with a quote from Mr Edwards  - "there's no need to analyse, feelings so pure."  

Nos Da David, diolch yn fawr brawd, cariad mawr you will not be forgotten, your legacy is secured x

 

 Y TEIMLAD ( The Feeling) - David R Edwards

Y teimlad sy'n gyrru pobl
i anghofio amser
y teimlad sy,n gyrru ti feddwl
nad yw'r dyfodol mor fler
y teimlad sydd yn dod
ac yn sbarduno gobaith
t'in gweld y tywod llwch
ond ti'n gweld fod yna flodau

Y Teimlad
beth yw y teimlad?
Y Teimlad
sydd heb esboniad
Y Teimlad
beth yw y teimlad
Y teimlad
Sy'n cael ei alw,n gariad
Y teimlad

Mae Hapusrwydd yn codi ac yn troi
yn wir rywbryd
ac mae'n dangos fod yna rywbeth
mewn hyd yn oed dim byd
a pan mae'r teimlad yno
mae bywyd yn werth parhau
ond yn ei absenoldeb
mae'r diweddglo yn agosau

Y Teimlad
beth yw y teimlad?
Y Teimlad
sydd heb esboniad
Y Teimlad
beth yw y teimlad? 

 

The feeling that makes people forget time

The feeling that makes you think the future isn't so bad

The feeling that comes before sparking off hope

You see the sand dust but you see that there's flowers

 

The feeling, what is the feeling?

The feeling that's inexplicable

The feeling, what is the feeling?

The feeling that is called love

Love, love, the feeling

 

Happiness rises and turns true sometimes

And it shows that there's something even in nothing

And when the feeling is there, life is worth continuing

But in its absence the end approaches

 

The feeling, what is the feeling?

The feeling, which is inexplicable?

The feeling, what is the feeling?

The feeling that is called love

Remembering Albert Parsons : Haymarket Martyr

On June 20, 1848, early-American socialist,  and later anarchist newspaper editor, orator, and labor activist. Albert Richard Parsons was born in Montgomery, Alabama, one of the ten children of the of a shoe and leather factory owner originally from Maine.  His parents both died when he was a small child, leaving him to be raised by his eldest brother who was married and the proprietor of a small newspaper in Tyler, Texas.  In 1859, at the age of 11, Parsons left his brothers to go live with a sister in Waco, Texas. Parsons attended school for about a year before leaving to become an apprentice at the Galveston Daily News. 

The coming of the American Civil War in 1861, at 13 years old, Parsons volunteered to fight for the Confederate States of America.  His unit was the "Lone Star Greys." Parsons' first military exploit was in an artillery company.  After his first enlistment, Parsons left Fort Sabine to join the 12th Regiment of the Texas Cavalry and saw battle during three separate campaigns.  After the war, Parsons returned to Waco, Texas and traded his mule for 40 acres of standing corn.  He hired ex-slaves to help with the harvest and netted a sufficient sum to pay for six months' tuition at Waco University, today known as Baylor, a private Baptist University. 

After college, Parsons left to take up working in a printing office before launching his own newspaper, the Waco Spectator, in 1868.  In his paper Parsons took the unpopular position of accepting the terms of Reconstruction measures aimed at securing the political rights of former slaves.  In this supercharged political atmosphere, Parsons' paper was soon terminated.  In 1869, Parsons got a job as a traveling correspondent and business agent for the Houston Daily Telegraph, during which time he met Lucy Ella Gonzales (or Waller), a biracial woman who I've written about previously here :-. https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2021/03/lucy-gonzales-parsons-more-dangerous.html  The pair would marry in 1872 and his wife would later become a political activist and one of the founders of the Industrial Workers of the World..

In 1870, Parsons was the beneficiary of Republican political patronage when he was appointed Assistant Assessor of United States Internal Revenue under the administration of Ulysses S.Grant. 

He also worked as a secretary of the Texas State Senate before being appointed Chief Deputy Collector of the Internal Revenue at Austin, Texas.  In the summer of 1873, Parsons travelled extensively through the Midwestern United States as a representative of the Texas Agriculturalist, while initially living in Texas, conservative general disapproval and further pressure from the Ku Klux Klan caused the two to move to Chicago. 

He became a correspondent for the Chicago Times, worked for aid societies, and, believing there to be strong parallels between Chicago’s urban poor and dispossessed blacks and whites in his native South, and became active in union politics with both the dying National Labor Union and the emerging Knights of Labor.  He ran for various local and national offices, including United States Congress, on the Workingman’s Party ticket. Both Albert and Lucy joined the Socialist Labor Party in 1876. They also helped to found the International Working People Association (IWPA), a labor organization that promoted racial and sexual equality.

He backed the railroad strikers in 1877, championed the 8-hour workday, and was instrumental in May Day marches and strikes in Chicago and elsewhere.At this time Parsons was one of the foremost speakers in the English language on behalf  of the socialist cause, but growing disenchanted with the corruption he saw as inherent to the mainstream political process, Parsons abandoned democratic socialism for anarchism in the 1880s, and opened his own anarchist newspaper, The Alarm.  Endorsing a national walkout in support of the 8-hour work day and protesting violent police intervention against the striking workers of the McCormick Reaper Works.

On May 1, 1886, Parsons, with his wife Lucy and two children, led 80,000 people down Michigan Avenue, in what is regarded as the first-ever May Day Parade, in support of the eight-hour workday. In the midst of the labor strike for an eight hour work day, and in protest to the police brutality that caused the deaths of four workers,   Parsons addressed a rally at Haymarket Square on May 4. which was set up in protest of what happened a few days before.  

Parsons originally declined to speak at the Haymarket fearing it would cause violence by holding the rally outdoors but would change his mind. The mayor of Chicago was even there and noticed that it was a peaceful gathering, but he left when it looked like it was going to rain.  Worried about his children when the weather changed, Parsons, his wife Lucy, and their children left for Zeph's Hall on Lake Street and were followed by several of the protesters.  The event ended around 10 p.m. and as the audience was already drifting away, policemen came and forcefully told the crowd to disperse.  

A bomb thrown into the square exploded, killing one policeman and wounding others. Gunfire erupted, resulting in 7 deaths and many others wounded. Witnesses identified Rudolph Schnaubelt as the bomb thrower, though arrested, he was released without charge. He soon fled to Argentina and was never heard from again. It would later be suspected and claimed by some that Schnaubelt was actually paid by the police to throw the bomb to start the pandemonium and break up the demonstration. After Scnaubelt's release, the police arrested Samuel Fielden, August Spies, Adolph Fisher, Louis Lingg, Oscar Neebe, Michael Schwab and George Engel. Knowing that the police would immediately search for him, Parsons left Chicago by train at midnight, heading for Geneva, Illinois to stay with compatriot William Holmes. Parsons further evaded the police, shortly after his arrival in Geneva, by traveling to Waukesha, Wisconsin, where he stayed with the Hoan family, whose father sympathized with Parsons’s beliefs. 

 Parsons stayed in Wisconsin until the first day of the Haymarket trial, June 21, 1886. He surrendered by dramatically and unexpectedly entering the court. He, along with six others, were convicted at trial and sentenced to death. Despite pleas to do so, Parsons did not write to Governor Oglesby to have his sentence commuted. Many believed that, had he asked, Parsons would not have been executed. Parsons felt that the only way to save the others was to align himself with them.

During the trial, a number of witnesses were able to prove that none of the eight convicted had thrown the bomb. At this point, prosecution set towards charging all eight with conspiracy to commit murder, arguing that speeches and articles written by the individuals influenced the unknown bomber to his actions. Written works, as well as conversations reported by infiltrators (the police had spies that infiltrated anarchist meetings), were used to show that the men thought violence could be used as a revolutionary tool. Sadly, despite the lack of evidence and the preposterous charge, all eight men were found guilty. Parsons, Spies, Fisher, Lingg, Engel were sentenced to death. Neebe, Fielden and Scwab were sentenced to life imprisonment.

On November 10, 1887, condemned prisoner Louis Lingg killed himself in his cell with a blasting cap hidden in a cigar. Parsons likely could have had his sentence commuted to life in prison rather than death, but he refused to write the letter asking the governor to do so, as this would be an admission of guilt. While awaiting execution he wrote his memoirs and edited a collection of writings, Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis, which included some of Marx’s writings on political economy, essays on anarchism by Peter Kropotkin and Elisée Reclus, and the trial speeches of himself and his fellow defendants. His references to anarchy being the next step in progressive evolution illustrate the influence of Kropotkin and Réclus.  

The next day Engel, Fischer, Parsons an Spies were taken to the gallows in white robes and hoods. They sang the Marsellaise, then the anthem of the international revolutionary movement. According to witnesses , in the moments before the men were hanged .Spies shouted, " The time will come when our silence, will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today!" As Parsons himself  was about to be hanged he cried out,“Will I be allowed to speak, O men of America? Let me speak Sheriff Matson! Let the voice of the People be heard!”Witnesses reported that the condemned men did not die immediately when they dropped, but strangled to death slowly, a sight which left many speakers visibly shaken.
The Haymarket affair is now generally considered significant as the origin of the International May Day observances for workers,  when in July 1889, a delegate from the American Federation of Labor recommended at a Labor conference in Paris that May 1  be set aside as International Labour Day in memory of the Haymarket martyrs and the injustice metered out to them, and has become a powerful reminder of the international struggle for workers rights, that I for one try not to forget.
Rather than suppressing labor and radical movements the events of 1886 and the execution of the Chicago Anarchists,  actually mobilised and galvanised a new generation of radicals and revolutionaries. Emma Goldman a young immigrant at the time later pointed to the Haymarket affair as her political birth. Lucy Parsons widow of Albert Parsons , called up on the poor to direct their anger at those responsible - the rich. In 1938 , fifty-two years after the Haymarket riot , workdays in the United States were legally made eight hours by the Fair Labor Standards Act. It is up to us to keep the memory of the  Haymarket martyrs and Albert Parsons alive. to learn the lessons of their struggle so that they did not die in vain, acting as enduring symbols of labors struggles for justice.

With the following link you can read  the enduring  brief autobiography of Albert Parsons, Haymarket martyr, written from prison, it's well worth it. http://www.anarkismo.net/article/31404.

Remembering the Battle of Orgreave

 

  .

 

Today I remember of one of the 20th Century's most brutal attacks by the state on its own citizens.The Battle of Orgreave,  which took place during the1984 Miners strike,which resulted in an all out paramilitary operation aided by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative cabinet. The miners' strike of 1984-85 was the longest lasting and most brutal and bitter industrial disputes of the second half of the 20th century in Britain. It had a huge impact on virtually every subsequent industrial and political development.

 In 1981, Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher launched a war on unions by announcing the closure of 23 coal pits, starting an on-going industrial dispute which crescendoed at Orgreave 3 years later. On March 1, 1984, the state owned National Coal Board under American Ian MacGregor announced  that it planned to close 20 coal pits with the loss of over 20,000 jobs. This decision was to go and pit Mrs Thatchers government against the NUM and its then president, Arthur Scargill.
The year-long strike  that followed would change the political, economic and social history of Britain forever. The courage and determination of  the striking miners, their families and communities would charge and inspire the political consciousness of hundreds of thousands of people, as it did for me, aged 16 and a half at the start of the strike.

In the early months of the strike the mass picketing and flying picket tactics employed by Arthur Scargill had proved devastatingly effective and police had responded with road blocks to turn traffic back.So on  June 18th  1984, the National Union of Miners (NUM) mobilized 10,000  striking miners to picket Orgreave  cokeworks  near Rotheram in South Yorkshire. The miners wanted to stop lorry loads of coke leaving for the steelworks. They thought that would help them win their strike, and help protect their pits and their jobs and communities  However the police were determined to hold them back. 

 A force of 5,000 police officers descended onto Orgreave to break the pickets, armed with riot equipment, armoured vehicles, attack dogs and military horses. Unprovoked, baton-wielding police charged the miners on horseback and the fleeing picketers were chased through the terraced streets of Orgreave; many were badly beaten and dozens were arrested.The number of officers was unprecedented. The use of dogs, horses and riot gear in an industrial dispute was almost unheard of. Some of the tactics were learned from the police in Northern Ireland and Hong Kong who had experience dealing with violent disorder.

During the subsequent court case a police manual was uncovered which set out the latest plans to deal with pickets and protests. Police vans and Range Rovers were fitted with armour so they could withstand the stones being thrown by some in the crowd. The miners suspected the whole operation was being run under government control.

Many believe Orgreave was the first example of what became known as “kettling” – the deliberate containment of protesters by large numbers of police officers. It marked a turning point in policing and in the strike. Police directed  pickets to an area of land which left them  hemmed in on three sides.Before this event the miners had been stoically out on strike for about 12 weeks, during which they had  been assaulted on picket lines, with individuals being handcuffed and beaten without  any cause or provocation.

At Orgreave  the miners after being herded together. were savagely attacked by Police cavalry  in full riot gear under the jurisdiction of Thatcher's Government attacking fleeing miners with long swaying batons as Miners ran for safety. It saw the police  going berserk under state orders, repeatedly  attacking  individuals  wherever they sought refuge,  as they fled into a nearby Wheat field and into the community of Orgreave, where the police  carried on their pursuit through the streets. It resulted in scenes of ugliness, fear and menace, as  all concepts of Law and order that  the constabulary  were supposed to withhold were abandoned, that left skulls cracked, bloodied and beaten, bodies littering the ground. The police frenzy at Orgreave was consciously designed to batter the NUM into submission.

Far from the liberal ideal of a politically neutral body serving the public the police were used at Orgreave to further the anti-socialist rampage which dominated Thatcher's 1980's. As Michael Mansfield QC wrote :"They wanted to teach the miners a lesson, a big lesson, such as they wouldn't come out in force again." 

 

 At the end  the day  95 people were arrested, for no crime whatever, detained without ready access to medical treatment, denied bail altogether or only granted it on terms equivalent to house arrest, and charged with the grave offence of riot, which carried a substantial prison sentence.The aim was to ruin the strikers’ reputations, by presenting them as a group of thugs.At least 79 people were injured with some never recovered from, wjile others never ever recovered their jobs, families were scarred, and most saw their workplaces and communities decimated.

To add further injury the BBC reversed the order of events in its news footage to corroborate the police cover-up, that violent miners launched an unprovoked attack Yet later admitted that it, “made a mistake over the sequence of events at Orgreave. We accepted without question that it was serious, but emphasised that it was a mistake made in the haste of putting the news together. The end result was that the editor inadvertently reversed the occurrence of the actions of the police and the pickets.” The BBC also neglected to film a picketer being attacked by a police officer while offering no resistance, which they later blamed on a “camera error”. 

This dishonest reporting by the broadcast and printed media—that it had been a riot by miners against the police, rather than the other way around—set the false narrative for the rest of the Miners’ Strike, with Margaret Thatcher calling striking miners and their supporters ‘the enemy within’.to frame arrested miners  for one of the most serious events  on the statute book - the offence of Riot. No police officer has ever been prosecuted or even disciplined for their role in the terrible events that occurred.

 Orgreave revealed the true intentions of Thatchers government, with the full collusion of the police ,it was noticed that they had no intention of finding reconciliation or settlement to this industrial dispute. The sole intention was an ideological one, to mortally wound the National Union of Mineworkers, to defeat it with military force and with naked violence ,by any means necessary.

 Just over a year later, in July 1985, the trial of 15 miners charged with riot and unlawful assembly collapsed with cases against a further 80 miners being subsequently dropped. The ‘enemy within’ were all acquitted,and eventually police paid out more than £400,000 compensation to 39 people who had taken action for wrongful arrest and false imprisonment. but the state machinery that had assaulted them and subsequently fitted them up has never been held to account. 

Immediately following Orgreave  there were calls for an inquiry into how the cases ever came to trial and the actions of the police, not just into the unprecedented violent and military-style policing deployed on the day, policing that resulted in many serious injuries to miners, but into the subsequent manufacturing of evidence that was presented at trial. Several Labour MPs, MPs who had supported the miners throughout the year strike, including Tony Benn, Martin Flannery, Dennis Skinner and Jeremy Corbyn along with the NUM called for an inquiry back in 1985.

In October 2016 the Home Secretary Amber Rudd announced that there would be no statutory inquiry or independent review and some Government papers will not be released until 2066, when those involved will almost certainly be dead.

The  miners strike lasted until March 1985, during which it politicised a generation of people, sadly however at the end hundreds of mines closed afterwards and many miners faced redundancy. And dizzy with her own success, Thatcher began a policy of deindustrialisation of British industry and further impoverishment of working class  people, and a government assault upon unions has continued since.

 

The  miners  strike of 1984 saw a heroic community fighting for jobs and survival was wholly denigrated and depicted as violent by the majority of the British media, at the time. Orgreave marked a turning point in the policing of public protest. It sent a message to the police that they could employ violence and lies with impunity. 

It was only a year after Orgreave that the so-called “Battle of the Beanfield” took place ,https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2018/06/battle-of-beanfield-anniversary-lest-we.html with violent and unprovoked  attacks by the police on New Age travellers, followed by large-scale wrongful arrests. And more recently there have been examples of police “kettling” demonstrators in London for several hours – a kind of pre-emptive imprisonment.

In 2012, the  Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign (OTJC), was formed to campaign for a public inquiry into the policing of events at Orgreave following the success of the Hillsborough Justice Campaign and revelations about corruption in South Yorkshire Police.An  inquiry alone will not be able to provide justice for the miners. An inquiry would simply be one section of the ruling class investigating another, which (at best) would result in Orgreave being put down to rogue police officers and irresponsible government ministers. But we  already know what happened. South Yorkshire Police used violent tactics to break the pickets and dutifully served as foot soldiers in Thatcher’s broader class war, the police riot at Orgreave was the work of the whole state apparatus; the government, police, and media working in tangent to crush the working class and the most militant sections of the labour movement. Similar events and state tactics were seen later in the same decade in the case of the Wapping print strike and the Hillsborough disaster. 

On April 15, 1989 at the Hillsborough football stadium in Sheffield, inadequate crowd safety practices lead to crushing deaths of 96 people at a match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. A recent inquiry concluded that South Yorkshire Police, who were responsible for crowd safety, were not only accountable for the deaths due to gross negligence, but were also guilty of manipulating witness statements and giving false evidence to shift the blame onto the fans and the victims themselves, as had happened at Orgreave.

Unlike the violence at Orgreave, this  tragedy was not intended. Yet the police perception of the football fans as hooligans who needed to be contained (rather than kept safe) and the subsequent attempts to smear the victims and their families, showed a blatant disregard for the lives of the people they were supposed to protect, suggesting contempt for the working class at the South Yorkshire Police.

Whilst it is hard to say how integral the battle between police and miners was to stoking this animosity, the subsequent establishment cover-ups were undoubtedly linked. Thatcher was indebted to the South Yorkshire Police for their assistance with crushing the unions and in return provided them with immunity for their failings at Hillsborough.There is also complling evidence that thee same senior officers involved in the politically motivated brutality at  Orgreave were also reponsible for the cover up of Hillsborough

The police powers used at Orgreave and throughout the miners’ strike were about policing people exercising their right to protest. Democracy is not only about parliament and elected representatives. Protest and the right to assembly are a human right and have a fundamental role to play in a democratic society, to be part of the debate and influence and change the agenda.

Protests often challenge the status quo, encourage people and governments to think differently on fundamental issues and provide an essential voice for minority or marginalised groups.

The determination and success of the Shrewsbury 24 Campaign having their convictions overturned after 47 years and plans by the Scottish government to pardon miners convicted for matters relating to the ’84-5 strike reminds us that the freedom to campaign and protest in a democracy is essential. If the government does not respect the law, why should we?

Many years later and the lies and massive injustice still remain but  the truth will be heard, and the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign continues, please show your support for their campaign for truth and justice and to defend our right to protest.

Refugee Week 2021 : We Cannot Walk Alone

 

At the end of 2020, there were 79.5 million people forcibly displaced from their homes due to war, conflict or persecution for just being who they are. Whilst the majority are internally displaced within their home country there are 26 million who have sought protection as refugees in other countries, with around 4.2 million asylum seekers still waiting to hear whether they will be given legal protection in their new homes. The few thousands that arrive in the UK face a whole new set of barriers within our own bureaucratic asylum system facing a culture of disbelief from officials, being denied the right to work whilst waiting for claims to be processed and having to get by with minimal levels of support of little more than £5 a day. This is not to mention the trauma of finding yourself in a new country, separated from the people you love and where you may not speak the language.

Refugee Week is a UK-wide festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary. Founded in 1998 and held every year around World Refugee Day on the 20 June, Refugee Week is also a growing global movement.

Through a programme of arts, cultural, sports and educational events alongside media and creative campaigns, Refugee Week enables people from different backgrounds to connect beyond labels, as well as encouraging understanding of why people are displaced, and the challenges they face when seeking safety.  Refugee Week is a platform for people who have sought safety in the UK to share their experiences, perspectives and creative work on their own terms.

 Refugee Week started in 1998 as a direct reaction to hostility in the media and society in general towards refugees and asylum seekers, to try and look  beyond the stereotypical ‘refugee’ label and work  to counter this negative climate, defending the importance of sanctuary and the benefits it can bring to both refugees and host communities.

Refugee Week’s vision is for refugees and asylum seekers to be able to live safely within inclusive and resilient communities, where they can continue to make a valuable contribution.

 The aims of Refugee Week are:
1. To encourage a diverse range of events to be held throughout the UK, which facilitate positive encounters between refugees and the general public in order to encourage greater understanding and overcome hostility.
2.To showcase the talent and expertise that refugees bring with them to the UK.
To explore new and creative ways of addressing the relevant issues and reach beyond the refugee sector.
3.To provide information which educates and raises awareness of the reality of refugee experiences
The ultimate aim is to create better understanding between different communities and to encourage successful integration, enabling refugees to live in safety and continue making a valuable contribution.
Refugees are a real, current and terrible problem that we have in our world and possibly one that will get worse as war continues to devastate and uproot people, for instance since the conflict in Syria began more than six years ago, over 4.8m Syrians have fled from their country because of violence, conflict, and a complete collapse of Syria’s economy and infrastructure. Then there are those who have to leave low lying islands of the world as a consequence of climate change, and  people fleeing for their lives as a consequence of famine, violation of human rights, physical, political or religious persecution.

 Many refugees and asylum seekers face severe difficulties once they arrive in the UK. Unable to work or support themselves, many struggle for basics such as food and shelter. Some of the key issues they encounter are the possibility of detention, living in destitution and contending with negative stereotypes.Most of those who are granted asylum are given leave to remain for only five years, making it difficult for them to make decisions about their future, including finding work and making definite plans for their life in the UK while it remains unsafe for them to return to the country they escaped from. As fellow humans we have a responsibility to respond to their specific needs in times of crisis. Many of these asylum seekers come to us as a last resort, having exhausted all alternatives, with nowhere else to turn. We should also remember  all those suffering abuse in detention centres and those facing repatriation despite the dangers that they face.
Refugee Week is an umbrella festival, with events held by a wide range of arts, voluntary, faith and refugee community organisations, schools, student groups and more. Past events have included arts festivals, exhibitions, film screenings, theatre and dance performances, concerts, football tournaments and public talks, as well as creative and educational activities in schools.

 The theme of Refugee Week 2021 is ‘We Cannot Walk Alone’, a phrase used by Martin Luther King in his historic ‘I Have a Dream’ speech when he turns his attention to the White people who, realising their destiny and that of their Black fellow citizens was intertwined, joined the movement for equal rights.

“They have come to realise that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom,” he said. “We cannot walk alone.”

Life is tough for many of us right now, and the future feels very uncertain. Looking after ourselves, our families and communities takes time and energy. There is so much to do.

The challenges of the past year have exposed the deep inequalities between us, including in housing, income and access to healthcare. But the crisis has also shown how interconnected we are – that the wellbeing of each of us depends on the welfare, safety and hard work of others. We are part of a shared ‘us’.

Martin Luther King may have been speaking during the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, but his words resonate across space and time. Here in the UK and across the world today, we know that it is on by coming together that we will move forward. That when we choose to walk side by side, to share networks and resources, or make space for others to lead, we create deeper and longer-lasting change than is possible alone.

The theme of Refugee Week 2021, ‘We Cannot Walk Alone’, is an invitation to extend your hand to someone new. Someone who is outside your current circle, has had an experience you haven’t, or is fighting for a cause you aren’t yet involved in. We cannot walk alone, which means we choose to walk side by side. To share networks, resources, and support each other.

  While the government plans to introduce new hostile policies towards people seeking safety – we  should support groups across the UK giving the welcome everyone deserves. From food  and emergency accommodation to LGBT+ support, legal aid and psychological support to help people on the road to rebuilding their lives.

 Whoever and wherever you are, I hope you’ll join in making Refugee Week 2021 a bold, collective act of reaching out; a space for us all to listen, to exchange and connect. To find out what we can learn from each other, and what we can build together. To continue to stand in solidarity with displaced people and grow our understanding of refugee experience.

Here is a link to an old poem. https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2015/06/i-am-poem-to-mark-refugee-week-15-21.html.

While our politicians often try to paint a small number of people seeking safety as a threat, we know this only serves to distract us from the real issue, politics without empathy. We know a better, fairer, kinder alternative is possible.Please add your name for the call for a UK that truly makes refugees welcome. 

https://action.helprefugees.org/page/82534/petition/1?utm_medium=email&utm_source=engagingnetworks&utm_campaign=refugee_week_pledge&utm_content=F.11+Refugee+week+newsletter&ea.u