Inspiring music video from the Gaza strip which allows us to see this place from a different perspective. In this place where electricity flows for just eight hours each day, in this open prison where 1.8 million Palestinians are now contained. Many young Gazan musicians and singers are starved of permanent performance spaces,but despite bombardment, explosions, rockets, violence, struggle, terror, borders, all these restrictions, increasingly many are now using the internet ,when that is they can access it ,to display their talents and share their messages of hope, peace and freedom to the world. Awesome. May they keep on singing.
Director Yousef Nateel Art Supervisor
Abd Alrahman Alsabbah Director of photography Hussien Jaber Camera Cast Hussien Jaber Khalid Tuaima Youssif Almashharawi Camera Assistant Marwan Alsawaf Mohammed Nateel Khalil Nateel Drone Rushdi Alsarraj Editing Yousef Nateel Color Correction & Grading Mahmoud Abu Zayda Music arrangement Mohammed Salem Music Supervision Alaa Shublaq Mohammed Albaz Mixing and Mastering Ali Aljojo Recorded at Mashael Studio Oud Player Mussa Abu ZanounaReem AnbarGuitaristMohammed AlbazAya Mghamis Cajon DrumSaid Fadel Performers by order Khaled Abu Ramadan Ameer Abu Mualiq - CAMP’S SON Mahmoud Salman - INTIFADA Iyad Zorob - RIOTS Mohammed Lafi - RIOTS Zina Abu Al Ouf Abd El Monem Awad AKA FAWDA Mahmoud Almughrabi – Almughrabi Mohammed Alaidi – Handala Sari Ibrahim Ayman Mghamis – Abu Joury Hadeel Fawzi Mohammed Albaz General Supervisor & Coordinator Ayman Mghamis aka Abu Joury Special Thanks Montaser Alsabe Hazem Alabyad Hussein Owda Anas Alnajjar Mohammed Almadhoun Fares Anbar Special Thanks To Marna House Hotel Produced by Riksteatern logo Funded by Postkodlotteriet logo
On June 27th, 1905, The Industrial Workers of the World , also known as
the wobblies was founded at a twelve day Convention in Chicago.In the belief that industrial unionism, could it come into being, would tend to be revolutionary.The wobbly
motto is ' An injury to all is an injury to all.'
They were noted for their use of poetry and song to promote their
radical ideas, publicise strikes and other protests and generally
present the case that still holds up today,
that there can be no solution to industrial warfare, no end
to injustice and want, until the profit system itself is
abolished.In striving to unite labor as a class in one big union. The
IWW also seeks to build the structure of a new and better
social order within the shell of the old system which fails
to provide for the needs of all.Combined with a commitment to workers solidarity which they have a rich history off, along with their militant tactics.
Their work was designed to provoke thought,
and was deliberately immediate in its message, in order to get it across
to as many people as possible. In the present moment progressives- and in fact, all people of good will- need to reassert and embrace the political, social and economic case for, “An injury to one is an injury to all.” We need to explicitly and loudly embrace a movement across the divides
of race, religion, ethnicity, gender and sexual identity against hate
and greed.
The wobblies are still going strong , still organising, still resisting.In these divided times,of economic despair, they continue to be a strong radical voice that stands defiantly, on
behalf of the people, following an old tradition of solidarity that does
not seperate along lines of nationality, race or gender, speaking too
to the unemployed, the sick, and the marginalised spreading messages
of hope among the carnage that is currently being unveiled.
I happen to be a member, an organisation that I believe does not condemn the actions of its membership, that listens and understands.
One of Woody Guthrie's greatest protest songs,is Deportees.It details the tragic event of January 28, 1948 and the crash of a U.S Immigration Service plane near Los Gatos Canyon, 20 miles (32 km) west of California, carrying undocumented
immigrants who were being deported from California to Mexico. During World War II there was a shortage of farm workers in California
so the federal government set up the braceros program which allowed
Mexican immigrants to legally come to California and relieve the
shortage. A common trick of the time was to bring the low-paid workers over the
border from Mexico with contracts that were intentionally flawed (in
English) so that they would have no legal force.Following a season of
backbreaking work in California's orchards and fruit fields, the braceros would at times be rounded up as illegals because of the invalid contracts and deported without being paid at all. Once their contracts were up, they were, in a sense, taken back to the border.The Mexican workers were fine to be used as cheap labour and then simply cast aside when they were not needed anymore.After the war, the California growers liked the cheap labor so
much that they encouraged (bribed) congress to keep it in place. It
wasn't ended until 1964.
Subsequently all 32 people on board this plane
were killed. But while news accounts listed the names of the four people
in the flight crew, the 28 undocumented victims were just listed as
Mexican deportees.
This upset folk musician Woody and inspired by what he considered the racist mistreatment of the passengers before and after the accident, (who were buried in a mass grave and not given individual
gravestones, just marked by a single plaque, which read only : “28 Mexican Citizens
Who Died In An Airplane Accident Near Coalinga California On Jan. 28,
1948 R.I.P.”) to explode into anger and write a poem entitled "Plane Wreck at Los Gatos." It wasn't until nearly 10 years later that a Martin Hoffman , a teacher put the words to music.Becoming known the world over as "Deportee".Woody humanised the dead migrants as only he could.To Guthrie, they are not merely deportees: They have names (Juan, Rosalita, Jesus, Maria) and families.
Tim Z. Hernandez, a California poet and author, was also offended. In
late 2010, while researching archives for his novel “Mañana Means
Heaven,” he came across the headline “100 Prisoners See An Airplane Fall
From the Sky.” A story about the crash, and it changed the
course of his career. He grew up in the farming communities of the San
Joaquin Valley, and he connected with Guthrie’s poem because it echoed
his own feelings of injustice for the 28 Mexican men and women who were
left unnamed. As he continued to read about the incident, Hernandez realized that this
plane crash and the crash mentioned in Guthrie’s song were one and the
same.But instead of simply lamenting the loss, Hernandez embarked on a nearly two-year quest for the long-forgotten names.Teaming up with the Diocese of Fresno to track down the workers' names,
their family members and their stories. While the diocese's church
register had partial, misspelled names, the writer and diocese officials
pulled death certificates for all the workers and reconstructed their
full names. With the help of Carlos Rascon, Director of Cemeteries for the Diocese
of Fresno, he obtained lists from the Fresno Hall of Records, the Deparment of Labour and St.
John’s Cathedral, where the original funeral mass was held. The lists
matched, and the two worked to adjust misspellings of the names. Hernandez also decided to write “All They Will Call You,” a book about the
tragedy to try to bring attention to those who were forgotten which hopefully will come out next year.
Also with the solidarity and help from the folk and grassroots community was able to amass enough money for a new headstone to mark their memory. Like Woody Guthrie before him he knew that immigrants were more than just labels like “illegal” or “deportee,” they were human beings that deserved to be treated with respect and dignity.The victims were honored in September 2013 by more than 600 people who had gathered at Holy Cross Cemetery in Fresno for an elaborate memorial service and the
unveiling of a large headstone that lists each victim.Renditions of "Deportee" were performed at the memorial.
Their names read thus :-
Miguel Negroros Alvarez
Francisco Llamas Duram
Santiago Garcia Elizondo
Rosalio Padilla Estrada
Tomasa Avena De Garcia
Bernabe Lopez Garcia
Salvador Sandoval Hernandez
Severo Medina Lara
Elias Trujillo Macias
Jose Rodriguez Macias
Tomas Padilla Marquez
Luis Lopez Medina
Manuel Calderon Merino
Luis Cuevas Miranda
Martin Razo Navarro
Ygnacio Perez Navarro
Roman Ochoa Ochoa
Ramon Ramirez Paredes
Apolonio Ramirez Placencia
Guadalupe Laura Ramirez
Alberto Carlos Raygoza
Guadalupe Hernandez Rodriguez
Maria Santana Rodriguez
Juan Valenzuela Ruiz
Wencealado Ruiz
Jose Valdivia Sanchez
Jesus Meza Santos
Baldomero Marcas Torres
Others aboard the flight:
Francis “Frank” Atkinson, Long Beach, pilot
Marion Harlow Ewing, Balboa, co-pilot
Lillian “Bobbie” Atkinson (married to Frank), Long Beach, stewardess
Frank E. Chaffin, Berkeley, immigration guard
It is the power of a song that has kept this tragedy of this incident alive, long after all the participants and witnesses have died.After stealing Mexican and Native American land for years, despite this history of injustice a certain
politician now wants to build even more walls of oppression. This song continues to reminds us that the immigration problem isn't new, but has a long history. Woody's song, and the wide variety of musicians who have covered the song over the years reflects the sense of loss inspired by the story, and serves to remind us of the many immigrants who have
worked, suffered, been deported and continue to do so.Mexican farm workers, both legal and
illegal, still being used in great numbers. Many of them commute between
Mexico and California annually as work comes and goes. Woody's words can still move us, raising attention of the many neglected, disadvantaged, downtrodden people who are effected by American Governmental policies in our present times.
I am currently delighted however that every morning I wake up I get to read about the fantastic anti Trump demos taking place across the U.S and the amazing people that still manage to find the courage to stand up and speak out for a world where security is based on cooperation and community. And a world where all people are able to reach their full human potential and are treated with respect. No human is illegal. Love trumps hate and so does human dignity.
Here is a link to Tim Z Hernandez own website that offers much more additional information to the event that inspired Woody Guthrie's poem and song :- https://timzhernandez.com/
Deportees
Words; Woody Guthrie
Music; Marty Hoffman
The crops are all in and the peaches are rott'ning,
The oranges piled in their creosote dumps;
They're flying 'em back to the Mexican border
To pay all their money to wade back again
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won't have your names when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be "deportees"
My father's own father, he waded that river,
They took all the money he made in his life;
My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees,
And they rode the truck till they took down and died.
Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted,
Our work contract's out and we have to move on;
Six hundred miles to that Mexican border,
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.
We died in your hills, we died in your deserts,
We died in your valleys and died on your plains.
We died 'neath your trees and we died in your bushes,
Both sides of the river, we died just the same.
The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon,
A fireball of lightning, and shook all our hills,
Who are all these friends, all scattered like dry leaves?
The radio says, "They are just deportees"
Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To fall like dry leaves to rot on my topsoil
And be called by no name except "deportees"?
Here are some of my favourite versions of this song.
Pete Seeger - Deportee
Christy Moore - Deportee
Ani di Franco and Ry Cooder - Deportee
Outernational with Tom Morello and Cuentame - Deportee with moving video that highlights the continuing struggle of migrants and deportees cross this great nation.
the
moon above me so calm, still and tranquil, shedding beams of light among flickering candles of the stars, clearing away cobwebs from my
head so far away and distant perhaps,
but in this moment within my grasp I feel her awesome power, when I fall asleep in surrender later between dream and awakening, she will cling on and wait continue to release her strength. .
In the spring of 2003, ex-corporate executive and political scientist Lawrence W. Britt published an essay in Free Inquiry magazine entitled “Fascism Anyone?”
In his work, Britt examined the traits of the two governments that
formed the original historical model for fascism, Nazi Germany and
Fascist Italy, and five other proto fascist regimes that imitated that
model, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal, Papadopoulos’s Greece,
Pinochet’s Chile, and Suharto’s Indonesia. He identified 14
characteristics that were common to all of them.
These traits have since been widely accepted as the 14 defining characteristics of fascism.
Nearly three generations removed from the horrors of Nazi Germany,
all of these regimes may have been overthrown, but fascism’s principles can
still be found in many nations. History tends to repeat itself because
many leaders and nations fail to learn from history, or they draw the
wrong conclusions. Surely we are living in frightening times when a individual like Donald Trump with his extremist views, can sway enough voters to allow him to get into his position of power and authority, whose tactics aren’t unlike those of the fascists who came before him. It goes something like this:-
First, they isolate and attack marginalized people with little
political power, like Muslims and undocumented workers. Later, they
graduate to other opponents of their dangerous right-wing
populism. Finally, they play the victim and deny adamantly that they’ve
done anything wrong.Trump's campaign’s overt demagoguery, vicious misogyny, racism, violent speech, and complete disregard for truth and values of human decency combined with his macho cult of personality have released plausible shouts of fascism from every corner.
The following then considers, in fourteen points, the things which may happen to a culture when it is heading towards a fascistic regime, that can potentially threaten our civil
liberties.As Donald Trump becomes President of the USA by rattling the cages of
racial anxiety,with his incendiary rhetoric it still serves as a
powerful warning and wake up call,.
1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread
domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.
6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.
9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
( thank you Glen Johnson for the lines no 14 and 15)
Over the years, habits can change
but we must continue to have desire,
to express and be free
to be true to one's self,
seeking change for others
stopping humanities foolishness,
with rebel hearts allow the meek
to inherit the earth,resist their orders,
the jungle of superiority
and privilege, we will overthrow,
beyond voices of consensus
all obstacles will simply be removed,
our hearts in abundance carry freedoms torch
even when there seems to be a glitch in the matrix
and everything seems to be getting worse
we will keep pushing in another direction
with an inner craving full of resilience
to hard to be torn apart as they try to stop us
divide us into a million pieces
our rebel hearts will keep on resisting
beyond life's negations keep on beating.
Dear world, there is much darkness
but you at least contain many glories,
things for us to reach out and share
wine, music and beautiful words,
the hurrying, bursting veins of hope
carried in starlight away from misty clouds,
the caressing of hands, companionship and laughter
that can cancel out this age of grief and sorrow,
can help light a path through the dark,
and though everything feels stormy now
these days of confusion, history standing ashamed,
you still allow us to wear compassion on our lips,
thank you then earth, keep allowing us to look ahead
in the unity of consciousness, our weeping will cease;
beyond frustration, we can reverse the process and befriend.
