Friday, 20 September 2024

What the herd hates most


What the herd hates most is the one who thinks differently; it is not so much the opinion itself, but the audacity of wanting to think for themselves, something that they do not know how to do. You weren't born on this rock hurtling through space just to smile politely and please people. Fight the system. 
Wander the wild and photograph nothing. Become something that the world cannot eat. Boycoit consensus reality. The same reality where Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza?  The same reality Israel is not running an apartheid state discriminating against non-white jews and muslims?  The same reality where Israel is not starving millions of Palestinians? The  same  reality that  is filled with lies and propaganda! Don't be sheeple people, but try and be kind.
The world twists dark shadows into light, calling evil good and good evil. Remember though there are still reasons to be cheerful, don't let the bastards grind you down. Take care of your emotional health. Social  media as well as the world can be a stressful place, try and keep smiling. Between the oceans  and the stars  follow your dreams  release thoughts of peace and love.
With every heartbeat write verses of soul  incantation. that they  don't want to  be written,  keep foraging through the  twists and turns of existence. Ride the winds moonlit breath and  be free, 

Monday, 16 September 2024

Loosening the Grip


Liquid breakfasts
Drenched inner senses,
Moistened parched lips
As I thirstily gulped, 
Poured down throat
Juices of oblivion,
Flowing deep inside
To numb emotion,
Hitting every spot
Brought intoxication,
Drowned all thought
Disabled depression,
Slowly she took hold
With strong grip so bold,
Made my head buzz and pound
And simply would not let go,
Caused anxiety, agitation
Tears of frustration unseen,
Obliviation swept the mind
In fevered nights of delirium,
I swam with darkness bold
Currents so hard and so cold,
In the end, had to leave behind
Ventured solo into fields of light,
Found less oppressive paths
For my bloody sake alone,
Turning again to a life of smiles
Far more expansive and meaningful,
Discovering things that fix and heal
That no longer keep me on my jack,
Tossing aside this destroyer of solace
Other obsessions now come to rescue me,
Though her temptation is ever so near
As she continues to call out my name,
Like a haunting ghost that tries to captivate
Time to shake her unyeilding chains from brain.

Tuesday, 10 September 2024

An Open Letter to Nick Cave


Dear Nick Cave 
Excuse me for disturbing  you, thought I'd  send you  a quick  message.You are a skilled songwriter, a idiosyncratic original who I truly have admired, your superb music has for a long time been part of the soundtrack of my life.your voice of  rich emotional depth a valuable source of inspiration to me, however, I have to tell you that I am currently really saddened to  have read that you are more than happy to continue to appease the Israeli regime, to the anguish of myself and your many fans. because at moment this state is now executing a genocidal war against 2 million Palestinians (most of them children) in besieged Gaza as I'm  sure you have not failed to notice.
I really thought maybe after seeing the continuing slaughter, carnage,with  over 40,000 murdered, that you  might change your  mind, but no. you still  support Israel and disapprove a boycott and in the face of a live-streamed genocide you gave this interview to The Jerusalem Post recently with an  astonishing moral bankruptcy .https://www.jpost.com/international/article-817074
It really was so disappointing to  read. I  have previously considered you as a warm, compassionate, sympathetic individual who back 2014, I remember that you supported 9 activists who had climbed onto the roof of the Elbit UK drone factory to protest the Israeli war on Gaza that was happening at the time, so  please could you  possibly tell  me what has changed since then, because the current situation in Gaza is far far worse.
You have also tweeted against the resistance of the indigenous people of Palestine and condemned them for making their own resistance to apartheid. Which implies to me, that you don't care about the oppressed and you are siding with a force that is currently genociding indigenous people.
I too am disgusted by antisemitism, but your current attitude towards the Israel/Palestine  conflict and lack of empathy for the Palestinian people, and your endorsement of the illegal Zionist murderous occupiers is not only dissapointing and  hypocritical, but inexcusable. 
Apparently it’s ok for you to ‘stand with Ukraine’, but it's too complicated to stand against the  genocide taking place in Gaza. So all things considered it  suggests to  me that you  think that the lives of Ukrainians  are more valuable than the lives of Palestinians.or have I misunderstood something ? I  really  hope I have. 
Additionally you have stated that playing in Israel is not an endorsement of the Netanyahu government, but remember that in  spite of this, your concerts in Israel and public positions on the boycott have been used  by Israel which openly uses culture as a form of state propaganda to justify its illegal occupation of Palestine, while  continuing to target civilians and carry out the wholesale erasure of the culture and identity of Palestinians throughout their ancestral lands. 
Just as South African anti-Apartheid activists called for an international boycott which led to the downfall of the Apartheid regime, Palestinians  for  years  have  been asking for a boycott of Israel as part of the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) campaign. Thousands of artists across the world now refuse to perform in Israel.
The cultural boycott of Israel continues to grow, in spite of the efforts by Israeli promoters to willfully ignore it. Thousands of  UK-based artists and cultural workers have signed Artists for Palestine’s online pledge to refuse to perform or exhibit in Israel. As with the boycott of South Africa, there is no “apolitical” choice. You are either with the oppressed or with the oppressor. I really hope you reconsider your  stance and please add your name to the list and respect the boycott.
You can either heed the cry, respect your brothers’ and sisters’ picket line and stand with them in their struggle for the basic human rights we all take for granted, or you can turn your backs on them.
On your new highly emotional record Wild God you continues to grapple with the all-consuming  traumatic nature of grief and  mourning which I  am  aware you know a lot  about. It’s impossible to contemplate your new record without considering the tragic loss of your two sons. It’s often said that the death of a child is an experience that nobody should ever have to go through. The pain that you  genuinely feel  must be immense. Yet you still  insist on defending Israel's abject cruelty, violence and ethnic cleansing , that  has caused so much  collective grief  for the Palestinian  people. your  current thoughts on the current conflict seem to me to be  totally lacking in empathy for  all those suffering in Gaza  right now?  .
I reach out to you as  a fan and admirer with all my heart and urge you as a man who uses  words to embody love, dignity and fairness, to  think again and  take a principled stand and choose humanity over genocide  and  apartheid. It  takes  courage  to change  a steadfast opinion. If  you were somehow  able to do this my utmost respect for you will return once more, as it  would  for so  many others who can see what’s happening in Gaza and refuse  to accept what is happening. In peace. Free Palestine. 

Yours sincerely,

Dave Rendle,aka teifidancer

West Wales

Wednesday, 4 September 2024

Palestinians have a right to exist and resist.

 

Massive protest have taken place in Israel over the death of  6 hostages. The death of one single innocent human being is sad, deplorable and unacceptable in this day and age, so yes, of course I grieve for the six hostages killed. but I am not sure exactly who was responsible. The Israeli military  have  said the abducted men and women were killed by Hamas, though the group has adamantly  claimed it was IDF fire that killed them.What benefit was it to them to murder hostages after a year of keeping them alive?
It does not make sense. Since journalists are not allowed in Gaza, we are asked to believe whatever the IOF says. It does not add up. Who would want these hostages dead in order to justify further leveling of Gaza, invasion of the West Bank, and a total genocide of the Palestinian people?
Aljazeerah has reported s that the hostages were killed by Israeli  airstrikes, despite indications that a deal for their freedom was near. It is alleged that Netanyahu chose not to negotiate with the group, leading to a targeted operation.. I  have two  questions . When have Israel ever told the truth?  Which international laws have Israel obeyed since Oct 23?
Anyway so much is being said about this by the likes of Srarmer and the press. but in contrast hardly any mention of over 186,000 Palestinians who have been műrderēd, thousands maimed, starvation as a genocidal tactic, permanently destroyed soil as a result of white phosphorus, everything decimated, while the ethnostate is now currently using polio as a weapon, but all anyone ever hears about are a few hostages. No  mention  of the 9000 Palestinian hostages  currently  being  held  by held in detention by an illegally occupying force without trial and in defiance of the Geneva convention..
How can people identify with the pain felt by Israelis over the fate of their hostages, when these same Israelis turn out to be cold-hearted and indifferent to the fate of the other side's hostages?  Why should the whole world take an interest and work only for our for Israeli hostages, and not for the Palestinian hostages, whose conditions of imprisonment and whose deaths in Israeli prisons should horrify everyone?
Incidentally five months ago, Hamas agreed to release all their hostages in exchange for all Palestinian hostages and prisoners. Instead of an all-for-all deal, Israel chose to carry out a genocide against the people of Gaza, killing many of its own civilians in the process. I dream of a day that Israeli leaders care more about saving the lives of their own people than they do about killing the lives of innocent Palestinian people. 
For their entire existence, Israel has brutally dominated every aspect of Palestinian life, and Israel has absolutely no right to do that, as a result of this systematic oppression Palestinians have the right to  exist and defend themselves and resist. Israelis in occupied Palestine don't.
As I write this, Gaza is still being bombed, its citizens massacred by a state that has dehumanised itself as well as its powerful supporters over the years, each decade worse than the one before. There is no moral, political, or military equivalence as far as the two sides are concerned. Israel is a nuclear state, armed to the teeth by the US. Its existence is not under threat. 
Today dozens of Palestinians have been killed in another deadly day as Israel continues its devastating assault on Gaza. The Gaza health ministry said on Wednesday that 42 Palestinians had been killed in the past 24 hours. This includes at least six people killed after Israel bombed and destroyed the building of Namaa College in Gaza City, while several homes and residential complexes have been targeted in areas including Nuseirat and Deir el-Balah. 
At least 40,861 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began its war on the Palestinian territory, the vast majority of whom are innocent civilians. Meanwhile, Israeli forces have continued deadly raids across the West Bank on Wednesday, with at least 33 Palestinians killed over the course of a week of military violence in the illegally occupied territory, including seven children, with over 130 wounded.
While Israel calls Palestinian resistance terrorism, the Palestinian people have a right to armed resistance. It is guaranteed to them under international law which is unambiguous in its endorsement of “armed struggle” for peoples who seek self-determination under “colonial and foreign domination.”  United Nations resolution 37/43, dated 3 December 1982, “reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle.” 
Moreover, the resolution’s preamble makes clear that it refers not to a hypothetical in the abstract, but rather specifically to the rights of Palestinians, stating, “Considering that the denial of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, sovereignty, independence and return to Palestine and the repeated acts of aggression by Israel against the peoples of the region constitute a serious threat to international peace and security.” 
Under international law, Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories is illegal, and Palestinians have a right to “armed struggle” against their illegal occupier – Israel - thus ipso facto Palestinians have a right to defend themselves against Israel, but Israel's right to defend itself against Palestinian resistance is not guaranteed in the same manner. A fact that is denied and violated by Israel and wilfully overlooked by the rest of the world.
A people living under foreign belligerent occupation may employ armed resistance against their oppressors. Palestinian people are an occupied nation and have the right under the  United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2625 which explicitly endorsed a right to resist "subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation". Palestinians are doing nothing illegal. The occupiers are. 
The issue for the Israeli state is indeed not the nature of the act of resistance by the Palestinians, whether peaceful or armed, or even its ideology, but that any challenge to the structures of occupation and colonisation must be criminalised and suppressed. Prior to Hamas and until today, PLO factions, from leftist organisations to Fateh, Palestinian progressives and democrats, and civilians without any clear ideology, have all suffered Israeli repression.
We shouldn’t be ashamed to declare our support for legitimate armed resistance. International law  allows it. Palestinians have a moral and legal right to resist their own genocide, the theft of their land and their heritage and their culture and their own extermination by the Apartheid State.
The word “resist” terrifies Israel, but for Palestinians, it is a matter of survival. It is a refusal to be subjected to physical, psychological, economic, social, and political violence and abuse. The fact that their occupiers are Jewish is deeply irrelevant - it is human nature to resist your own annihilation by whomever it is that murders your people, steals your land, and tortures your children. Palestinian people are fighting because they have to. They use the means they deem necessary because they have to. They fight as a means to an end, not as the end itself.
Jews in concentration camps had the right to resist their Nazi oppressors. Black folk in apartheid South Africa had the right to resist their white oppressors.  And the Palestinians have the right to resist their Zionist oppressors and also have the right to freedom, dignity, safety, and self-determination. It's really not complicated. Free Palestine.



Tuesday, 3 September 2024

Dance Upon September's Waves


While the land  lies wounded
Reach out for a sense of calm,
Dance upon September's Waves 
Leave behind broken spirit, 
Beyond  melancholic auras
Feel fractiously slip away,
The mind sobering down 
Heals tired shattered spirit,
As Dawn rises without a care 
Sway with rythms pulse, 
Fill heart with hues of love 
That make your soul leap, 
Inhale poetical vibrations
May music ignite peace,
In morning of deep serenity 
Cast away synergy of anxiety.

Wednesday, 28 August 2024

The last waves of Summer

 

Despite the darkest of times
Austerity still  manifesting,
More inequality and poverty 
Roads of fear, roads of death,
Every morning I am convinced
That in spite of everything,
There is still something 
Beautiful to live for,
The melody of heartbeats
The rhythm of time,
Dreams coming alive 
Floating out, soaring high,
Days brimming with peace 
New horizons flourishing,
Soul mates beaming smiles 
To take your breath away,
We  follow one another
To somewhere filled with justice,
As summer recedes and fades
Waves of insight releasing,
Truth still shining brightly 
Upon oceans of clarity,
Endless beginnings igniting
To dissipate paths of destruction,
Among the ebb and flow of tide
Waves of harmony refreshing,
With strength within restored
Breath by breath, keep sharing,
Not disregarding exploding bombs
Other voices trapped with sorrow,
Those betrayed, pain so deep
Trying to cope, soldiering on,
From the safety of our shores
Try keep caring for those forgotten,
Whose homes lie now in ruins
Gardens of sanctuary destroyed,
Let's  deliver to them some light 
Allow strained mortals to find respite.

Monday, 26 August 2024

Remembering Felicia Mary Browne (18 February 1904 – 25 August 1936) The only British woman combatant and volunteer to be killed in Spain defending democracy and fighting fascism.

 


Black and white photograph of Felicia Browne holding a child ([c.1936])

Felicia Mary Browne was an English artist , painter,  sculptor and Communist who  was the only British woman combatant and  volunteer to die in the Spanish Civil War , when  she  was killed in action  at  Aragon  on  25 August 1936.  
Felicia was born at Weston Green, Thames Ditton, Surrey, on 18 February 1904. Her family were middle class but her father, had progressive political ideas, and encouraged his daughter in her early artistic endeavors. Felicia had an older brother, called Harold, who was named after their father, and who died out in France in 1918 during the 1st World War. She also had two older sisters, Helen, and Edith, and a younger brother called Billy, who also tragically died fighting in the Spanish Civil War, two years later than Felicia, who after joining  the International Brigades in February 1938  lost his life in Aragón in the following month..  
Felica  studied at the St John's Wood Art School and the Slade School of Art between 1920–21 and 1927–28 and was awarded the Certificate in Drawing. Arriving at the Slade at the unusually young age of 16, she was a contemporary of William Coldstream, Henry Tonks, Clive Branson, Claude Rogers and Nan Youngman. 
In 1928 she went to Berlin, to study metal work and Sculptureat a state technical training facility in Charlottenburg, Berlin (she spoke several languages very well, In 1929. She became an apprentice to a stone mason whilst there, and witnessed the rise of fascism first-hand  and became politically active and dedicated much of her time to encouraging working women to fight for better conditions. She also actively participated in anti-fascist activities and was involved in anti-Nazi street-fighting. 
Having joined the Artists International Association, Felicia visited the Soviet Union in 1931,to see how people lived and worked under a communist regime. She also went to Hungary and Czechoslovakia, sketching the townscapes and the local people there.. She spoke at many meetings on her experiences in the Soviet Union on her return in  the early 1930’s where she continued to study at Goldsmiths College and the Central School of Arts and Crafts and contributed art to The Left Review. 
She donated her personal fortune to refugees, and, in a subsequent period of privation, took employment in a restaurant kitchen. Her ability to speak four languages eased her travels through some of the most remote parts of Europe.”  
In 1933 Felicia joined the Communist Party of Great Britain, attracting the interest of M15 and Special Branch. Whilst she was a patient at Guy’s Hospital, she distributed leaflets and attempted to convert some of the nurses to communism. As a result, a watch was established on her postal mail, and it became clear that her home, in Bessborough Gardens and then Guilford Street, London, were being used as cover addresses for foreign mail being sent to Communists in Britain.  
 In 1934 Felicia won a prize for her design of a medal for the Trades Union Congress, which commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Ironically, some of the future recipients of this medal, also turned out to be Communists. 
Felica's involvement in the Spanish Civil War was not directly planned. While many of the other fighters had to travel from Britain in secret after the British government declared it illegal to go to Spain to fight, Browne had, in fact, arrived just before the war  broke out,. In July 1936 Browne embarked on a driving holiday to France and Spain, accompanied by her friend Dr. Edith Bone, who was a left-wing photographer. Bone went on to become heavily involved with the establishment of the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia, (PSUC) in Barcelona. 
Their objective was to reach Barcelona in time to  attend the International  People's Olympiad, which had been organized as protest against the 1936 Olympics that were being held in Hitler's Berlin, however just  two days before the  the event’s scheduled date, on July 17, 1936, the fascist military rose up against the Spanish republic, and the Spanish Civil War began. Felicia  and Edith were immediately caught up in the violence that engulfed Barcelona.  and as Athletes either fled or were stranded; Browne decided to stay and fight.
The  Spanish Civil War had began after generals Emilio Mola and Francisco Franco instigated a coup aimed at overthrowing the country's democratically elected republic.At first, the efforts by Nationalist rebels to fire up military revolts throughout Spain succeeded only partially. In rural areas with a pro right-wing political allegiance, Franco's confederates generally succeeded, seizing political power and imposing martial law. In urban areas, particularly cities with leftist political traditions, such as Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao and Málaga, the revolts met with fierce opposition and were repulsed.
The Nationalists on one side were mostly composed of the military, large landowners, businessmen and the Roman Catholic church. The Republicans on the other side were urban workers, most agricultural labourers, the intelligentsia and the educated middle class. The two sides were partly composed of members from opposite extremes of the political spectrum, such as the fascist-oriented Falangists and the militant anarchists. 
The conflict pitted the leftist Republican government against fascist-backed Nationalists led by General Francisco Franco. With Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini already in power in Germany and Italy, anti-fascists around the world feared that Spain would be the next to fall, threatening the future of European democracy. When world powers like the United States and the United Kingdom refused to intervene in the Spanish Civil War, more than 35,000 anti-fascist volunteers poured into Spain from 52 countries to take up arms against the Nationalists. They included Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, idealist intellectuals like a young George Orwell and communists  like Felicia  committed to crushing an ideological enemy. 
At the same time as the Spanish Civil War was raging, Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists was gaining strength in Britain, marching and holding meetings in predominantly Jewish areas. In 1936, a clash between Mosley’s blackshirts and anti-fascist demonstrators in London’s East End – what was to become known as the Battle of Cable Street – spurred many people to scrutinise what was happening in mainland Europe. Fighting in Spain was seen by many as the only way to stop fascism spreading further across Europe, They saw in Spain the risk of allowing fascism to spread unchecked. For them, joining the struggle was about stopping that advance, which is reflected in many of the popular calls to action that echoed throughout the Spanish Civil War: “No pasarán” (They shall not pass), “This far and no further” and “If you tolerate this, then your children will be next.
The foreign volunteers who fought in the “International Brigades” of the Spanish Civil War hoped to ward off the coming nightmare of Franco’s brutal dicatorship and, in turn, arrest the insidious spread of fascism across the rest of Europe.   
 “The Spanish Civil War looked like it could be the moment when fascism was finally thrown back,” says Richard Baxell, an historian and author of Unlikely Warriors: The Extraordinary Story of the Britons Who Fought in the Spanish Civil War. “There was this feeling that perhaps people could go out armed with just a gun and political conviction and do their bit alongside the Spanish people to defeat fascism at last.”  The foreign volunteers who fought in the “International Brigades” of the Spanish Civil War hoped to ward off the coming nightmare of Franco’s brutal dicatorship and, in turn, arrest the insidious spread of fascism across the rest of Europe. Sadly  it didn’t work out that way.
Browne learned of a mission to blow up a fascist munitions train and boldly volunteered for it. However, the Communist party attempted to dissuade her participation. She defied the orders and went to the party offices, where she demanded to be enlisted to fight on the Saragossa front. According to the Daily Express correspondent Sydney Smith, she declared that "I am a member of the London Communists and I can fight as well as any man."  embodying the fearless determination with which many women travelled into the warzone with a readiness to lay down their lives. 
A desire for equality of the sexes underpinned the ideologies of many women volunteers. While a number claimed to have no political inclination or reason for entering the conflict beyond religion or humanitarianism, those that did were often also fuelled by the feminist sentiments spreading across the continents at that time. 
One of many female volunteers to fight – there were mixed-gender Spanish combat battalions on the front line and women-only rear guard battalions – Felicia  was the only known British woman.The Spanish Civil War was one of the first wars where women were allowed to participate in combat, which further cemented the Republic’s view of women as equals. 


Drawing by Felicia Brown of a Republican militia (1936)


Felicia Brown sketches

On 3 August 1936, Felicia  successfully enlisted in the PSUC (Catalan Communist) Karl Marx militia to fight in Aragon. Shortly after joining she wrote to her friend Elizabeth Watson in England, describing her desperation to get involved; "Apparently no chance of aviation school on account of my eyesight, God damn it."  
James Hopkins, the author of Into the Heart of the Fire: The British in the Spanish Civil War (1998) describes Felicia’s mission and tells how she met her death on 25 August 1936:  
 "A German comrade on the raid, George Brinkman, has left a fascinating typewritten report, describing their mission. According to Brinkman, the pudgy, bespectacled Browne was forced to clear a final gender hurdle before being allowed to accompany the raiding party. She went to its leader and asked if he would accept a woman comrade as a volunteer. After attempting to intimidate Browne by telling her of the dangers that awaited them, and failing, he accepted her as one of the ten who would attempt the hazardous mission. They left Tardienta by car and travelled to the farthest point of the front, where they disembarked walked about twelve kilometres to the rail line. Browne and two others were told to keep watch and signal if there was trouble. The remaining seven moved close to the tracks. They set the charges with only thirty seconds remaining before the train passed.
"On their way back, the group stumbled upon a macabre scene, a crashed plane with the remains of the pilot in the cockpit. As they hurriedly buried the dead man, a dog suddenly appeared, and with him an oppressive sense of danger. Brinkman moved quickly up a steep incline where he saw thirty-five or forty enemy soldiers nearby. He signaled to the rest to take cover. To re-join them, Brinkman had to run through heavy rifle fire. An Italian volunteer beside him fell with a bullet through his foot. Brinkman made him as comfortable as possible under the desperate circumstances and then ran to the others for help. Browne insisted on returning with first aid for the wounded man. When she reached him, the enemy concentrated its fire on the two of them, killing her with bullet wounds to her chest and back.”   
 As Angela Jackson pointed out in British Women and the Spanish Civil War (2002): "Her story has all the ingredients essential to heroic legend, the willing sacrifice of her life to save that of a comrade."
Browne's body could not be recovered, and had to be left there, but her comrades retrieved a sketchbook from her possessions, filled with drawings of her fellow soldiers, these stoic men and women all having been captured in Browne’s lyrical, romantic modernist style.


In her obituary in the Artists International Association journal it said:  “She had it in her to represent the very best type of the new woman, but the kind of upbringing to which she was automatically subjected  to, and the forces with which she had to compete in a society where commercial values are preeminent, seriously and unnecessarily delayed her in harmonizing all the remarkable powers within her”. 
  “She had most of the best human characteristics, but she conceived her own variety more as a source of opposition than of enjoyment. She was without guile, duplicity or vanity; painfully truthful and honest, immensely kind and generous, completely humane, loving any aspect of livingness, and as capable of enormous humour as she was deeply serious. She was gifted at every craft that she tried, a witty letter-writer, an amusing cartoonist, a vital and interesting companion, and socially much too gracious to belong credibly to the twentieth century.
  “But if her fighting was the expression of her deeply conscientious but less happy side, at least she had intellectual faith in the future. And she found happiness at the end, as far as one can judge from her letters, in a real sense of comradeship with her fellow militiamen. Intellectually she was quite clear about what was necessary for the next few years other life.”  
Felicia Mary Browne's  friend and colleague Nan Youngman, who was much affected by Felicia's death, organized a memorial exhibition for Browne in October 1936.
The  Spanish Civil War was one of the greatest  idealistic causes of the first half of the twentieth century, Of the roughly 40,000  selfless3 foreign volunteers who fought in the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939, an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 were killed and thousands more were recorded as missing. They paid the ultimate sacrifice for their ideals, 
Most of those who  fought in Spain  were men with left wing sympathies, motivated by the Europe-wide threat of fascism. British writers like George Orwell, WH Auden and Laurie Lee were just three of the men whose work now better informs our understanding of the war and British participation in it. Felica's story in contrast, is far less well known, but through her sketches and drawings, she documented her own experiences, as an unofficial war artist .
While some historians view the International Brigades as naive idealists or expendable pawns for the communist regime in the USSR, but  at the time  they showed the Spanish Republic and people around the world that Spain was not fighting fascism alone, Given what was going on in the world, that was a powerful message.
In her farewell address to what remained of the beleaguered International Brigades in 1938, the Spanish Republican leader Dolores Ibarruri, known as “La Pasionaria,” praised the foreign volunteers:  “Communists, Socialists, Anarchists, Republicans—men of different colors, differing ideology, antagonistic religions, yet all profoundly loving liberty and justice, they came and offered themselves to us unconditionally… You are history. You are legend. You are the heroic example of democracy's solidarity and universality.”
Sadly Franco , with help from Hitler and Mussolini, overpowered the Republicans, Franco mounted a major attack against Catalonia in January 1939, which proved a decisive moment because Barcelona, the region’s capital, was unable to fend off the superior power of the Nationalists. On March 28, 1939, the Nationalists triumphantly entered Madrid, leaving the Republicans little option but to raise the white flag over the city, bringing to an end the bloody threeyear struggle. Franco ruled as a dictator until his death in 1975.
Even in death Felicia Mary Browne  continued to help the cause she died for: Her  drawings made their way to Tom Wintringham, a journalist for the Daily Worker, who suggested to Harry Pollitt that they be sold by the Artists' International Association (AIA) to raise money for Spanish relief campaigns. The AIA presented Browne as being the epitome of an artist choosing to take direct political action. 
If painting or sculpture were more valid or urgent to me than the earthquake which is happening in the revolution,” she once told a friend who questioned why she didn’t simply concentrate on her art, “if these two were reconciled so that the demands of the one didn’t conflict … with the demands of the other, I should paint or make sculpture.”  
Felicia Mary Browne 's collection of drawings, prints, book designs, sketchbooks and correspondence were purchased by the Tate in 2010 and have  since thankfully  been fully digitalised. Now, with the Tate archive , we can at last get a fuller picture of the only known British woman to give her life to the Spanish civil war. Here is a link to the collection:
 The spectre of fascism still haunts and universal equality has not been achieved. We should not forget the likes  of Felicia Mary Browne and the other internatinalist  brigade  volunteers  who preceded us  who  gave their  lifes so selflesssly,, and we must continue to resist oppressive , fascist forces, with whatever  way  is  at our  disposale,.

Felicia Browne: Unofficial War Artist : Animating the Archives

The  following film uncovers the work and untimely death of Felicia Browne, an  event that reverberates through the work of artist Sonia Boue, here reflecting on the significance of British volunteers, like Browne, who helped republican exiles like her father.

co
Felicia Browne) is celebrated here in this evocative song composed by Patrick Dexter. 


The Road to Barcelona (Felicia Browne) 

Words and music by Patrick Dexter 
Vocal by Eilís Dexter

Oh the sweet sound of the guitar
Play on comrade, play on! 
Let the music flow like this cheap wine in my cup
while I sit here in my reverie
Every strum draws my mind back
to that journey we took together 
We packed the car and set off 
on the boat to France
Passion and ideas were our potion  

We sipped fine wine,
You and I 
As Eagles soared way up high 
The snow capped mountains in our rearview mirror. 
In café’s, through cobbled streets 
We shared our passions and our dreams 
Oh how I miss that sweet aroma 
On the Road to Barcelona   

Seized upon our chance 
Became volunteers at last war for us,
hell to those who doubt our gender 
My dearest friend Felicity you always had one up on me
Debating the world’s changes that were stirring 
“Anything is possible” you kept declaring 
You were going to change the world miss Brown 
Through vineyards and sweet smelling flower fields 
As we drove through sunshine with the rooftop down  

We sipped fine wine, 
You and I As Eagles soared way up high
The snow capped mountains in our rearview mirror. 
In café’s, through cobbled streets 
We shared our passions and our dreams 
Oh how I miss that sweet aroma 
Of the Road to Barcelona  

Now I am old I drink bad wine here all alone 
My thoughts a drift in this muddy river 
But what good is sweet reverie 
When you are gone, all is left is this memory 
I long to be back again the times we had there my dear friend 
But with the wind in our hair our ideals took over 
You died for your beliefs, a martyr for your dreams
all I can do now is sit here and remember  

Sipping wine, as Eagles fly
high above the snow capped mountains 
The Basque sunrise in our rearview mirror.
In café’s on cobbled streets
sharing our passions and our dreams 
Oh how I miss that sweet aroma 
On the Road to Barcelona   

And I miss you dear Felicity
and the time we had 
On the Road to Barcelona

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