I'd urge you to watch BBC Panorama's The Universal Credit Crisis , especially if you’re a Tory that’s hellbent on forcing through
Universal Credit. Some revelations will shock people outside of their normal political bubble. Hard to watch and upsetting.
A complicated system leaving the vulnerable behind, mission accomplished as far as the government is concerned. These decisions will come back and hant them and cost them more votes than
they think.
Universal Credit combines six benefits, including housing benefit, into one monthly payment.
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Housing
benefit now goes directly to the claimant, but the Local Government
Association is calling for it to be paid directly to landlords – as it
was under the old system.
The programme finds people owe two and a half times more than on existing benefits. Universal Credit claimants are forced to sell their possessions
in order to survive.
Universal Credit was introduced in 2013 and continues to cause hardship,
debt and food bank use across Britain - while the Tories and DWP remain
in denial.
As the government's controversial new benefits system, universal credit,
is rolled out, Panorama is with families as they struggle with their
claims. The programme follows one council as it deals with mounting rent
arrears and tenants in crisis. The government has responded to
criticism of the new system by announcing more funding, but is it too
little too late?
I don’t think there’s any question that it is, food bank use has already gone up 13% due to problems with
universal credit. And the top reason for people using food banks has
been delays and problems with getting benefits. lets be honest nobody seems to know what's going on anymore. Claimants
across the country are finding their payments being arbitrally cut month
in, month out, with no explanation. Random debts are imposed and
retrieved with minimum information. Already as it is claimants, living
on a shoestring, this process I fear will make things far worse.The
Conservatives claim UC is designed to help help people into work by
ensuring they are better off working than the unemployed but whatever
they say the number of families who are in work but still living below
the poverty line is continuing to rise. As a result, inequality
increases too, with the poorest among us being left behind. All because
of their policies.
The programme reveals that in Flintshire in North Wales, one of the
first areas in the UK to receive the new system, the amount of rent owed
to the council by people on Universal Credit is £1,424 in average – or
six times the amount owed by those on the existing system.
The
local authority says evictions in the county are up by 55% compared to
the same time last year, and it has spent an extra £270,000 on advice
staff to cope with the increasing numbers of people needing help. The figures were based on Freedom of Information responses from around 130 councils that manage social housing.
The programme really scraped the surface on the design faults within this policy, many things are changed as an after thought because the policy wasn't properly thought through and the administration is so bad as is the training which means that those that should be helping have not got a clue about the constant changes and are misinforming claimants causing further chaos with long waits on the phone which campaigners call the 'Vivaldi Line.'
Currently too.Esther McVey and her department are trying to make charities and private contractors that work
with the DWP sign gagging orders preventing them from criticising McVey
or damaging her reputation, but Universal Credit is a disgrace especially as we are one of the richest countries in the world.It is simply a recipe for disaster that is only fit for the waste basket.The government is coming under very serious pressure because of universal credit, and I hope this programme adds to it even more.
If you missed the programme, here it is.
In fields of horror
the poppy flower now grows,
as superficial patriotic threads spread
profiteers fill their bellies on the dead,
bereft of life, cruel futility flows
cities of blood built, destruction grows,
fresh graves tended, full of nameless corpses
peaceful branches torn, children left as orphans,
salted tears soak the earth on the edge of memory
in every sense of direction, the screaming roars,
on fields of slaughter, visceral anathema shed
but the white bird of peace flies, lest we forget,
fluttering on the winds, it's seed will always blossom
showering the world with gentleness,
high above the ruins, reason grows strong
choruses sing in unity, embracing humanity,
touching, stirring beyond the futility of it all
an enduring battle of survival, to make us secure,
away from indiscriminate killing, the slaughter of war
primal forces degenerating, a new age is born,
lessons learnt, history provides the ammunition
with hope we can turn swords into plowshares.
To many people the very name of Jacob Epstein is synonymous with
controversy. He was seen as an untamed man systematically destroying all
that was traditional in art. No sculpture of the twentieth century in
England aroused so much interest, certainly none articulated such
vehement discussion and opposition to his work. His work was such that
even the most untrained were unable to see his work without a definite
reaction. Eccentricity alone could not produce such an emotion. I t is
the test of great art. Epsteins work imprints itself vividly on the
imagination. It is disturbing. It cases the artistically lazy to
readjust their values. You either like Epsteins' work, or hated it.
Neutrality was out out of the question.
Born in 1880, on the East Side of New York to Polish-Jewish parents who had escaped anti-Semitic pogroms in Poland.
When the family moved to a more respectable neighbourhood, he chose to
remain amongst the ‘Russian, Poles, Italians, Greeks, and Chinese’ who
clustered in what was then a very unfashionable part of the city.It was here that
the earliest formative influences made themselves felt on his art. He
attended the School of Students League, and did modelling in the
evening. His first work was a book dealing with Jewish types in New York.
In 1902, he moved to Paris, then the world capital of art. to study at the city's famous art schools/ Yet in 1905 a trip to the British museum in London, with its treasure trove of art from all parts of the globe, persuaded him to settle in Britain. The country became his home, and in 1911 he acquired British citizenship.
His first two years in
London remain relatively obscure, but in 1907 the architect Charles Holden
invited him to execute a major commission for the new headquarters of the
British Medical Association in The Strand (now Zimbabwe House). He was given forteen months to do eighteen colossal figures.
This was the first time his work was described as dangerous and immoral.
the BMA apparently had envisaged decorative, allegorical figures or famous names in medical history. However Holden and
Epstein were united by their enthusiasm for Walt Whitman’s poetry, and
they agreed that 18 large figures celebrating the seven ages of man should be carved for the building’s
façade, celebrating nakedness in the spirit of Whitman’s poems. Epstein
himself announced that the scheme would celebrate ‘the great primal facts
of man and woman’, and he managed to fuse the ‘medical’ side of the
commission with his own most personal preoccupations: erotic delight,
mortality, motherhood, virility and above all an uninhibited celebration
of humanity in dignified nakedness.He was ever an outsider, as one critic described him "a sculptor in revolt."
It’s hard to track down images of the originals but above is a
shot taken at the Henry Moore Institute, where the plaster casts were
exhibited.
The statue representing Maternity came in for severe criticism.One Father Bernard Vaughan, a member
of the moralistic National Vigilance Society, led the attack against the
statues, a member of the moralistic National Vigilance Society, led the
attack against the statues. ‘As a Christian citizen in a Christian
city’, he pontificated in the Evening Standard, ‘I claim the right to
say that I object most emphatically to such indecent and inartistic
statuary being thrust upon my view’. While ‘the sacred subject of
maternity has been treated a thousand time with idealistic beauty’, he
complained in another article, the Strand mother (shown here) suggests
‘merely brutal commonplace’. With tabloid self-righteousness, the
Evening Standard warned that Epstein had erected ‘a form of statuary
which no careful father would wish his daughter, or no discriminating
young man, his fiancée, to see’. Inevitably, people came flocking to see it . London, declared Epstein, ‘had become sculpture-conscious’. Most people deemed them immoral, with the fact they were nude being one of the mainprovocations.
The complaints also disliked the fact they were too sexual, but at the
same time too ugly, the depictions were humans at different stages of
life so it seemed that the image of sagging skin was too much to bear. The sculptor himself wanted to portray figures with realism, to
have them contain deep human feeling rather than just being decoration
on architecture.
He said “The Study of the human being is frightfully important.” However an equally vehement press campaign in Epstein’s defence saved the
statues from immediate demolition. Eminent artists and critics praised
his innovations, and after some deliberation, the British Medical
Association decided to stand by him and preserve them, but a combination of
two events sealed their fates.In the 1930s The Rhodesian High
Commission bought the
building and were not fans of their new home’s decoration and in 1937 a
section of the Portland Stone (worn by acid rain and London’s smog) fell
onto the street, conveniently giving a pretext to destroy the
sculptures.
They could undoubtedly have been repaired, but in the reactionary
political mood of the 1930s, Epstein’s Jewishess, and his reputation for
outlandishness, weighed against him. The art establishment may not
deliberately have persecuted him, but nonetheless, they washed their
hands of him. Now to our loss,we can only see the butchered remains.
The resulting scandal damaged his reputation, discouraged potential
employers, and threatened the very works themselves. It disrupted
Epstein’s life, forcing the persona of provocateur on a man who
preferred, as he claimed, to work in peace. Yet the volcanic eruptions
of disapproval also deposited a fertile soil for the growth of a British
school of avant-garde sculpture, sown with Epstein’s pioneering ideas,
and sheltered by his willingness to face the critics first. His
originality made sculpture newsworthy in Britain to an extent it had
never been before. The vandalism still visible on the front of Zimbabwe House serves now as
a prominent warning against artistic censorship, and a reproach against
the British for their failure to cherish Epstein’s work.
Epstein's friends campaigned for him to become a government war artist during the First World War
This idea was rejected by the authorities and in 1917 he was
conscripted and became a private in the Jewish 38th battalion of the
Royal Fusiliers. He was discharged in 1918 without leaving England,
having suffered a mental breakdown.
The Risen Christ, produced as a result of his experiences in the war
caused problems when it was exhibited in 1920. Epstein considered the
figure to be an anti-war statement and declared that he would ideally
like it to be remodelled and made hundreds of feet high as a "mighty
symbolic warning to all lands." In his autobiography Epstein wrote :"It stands and accses the world for its grossness, inhumanity, cruelness and beastliness, for the First World War...The Jew- the Galilean - condemns our wars, and warns us that Shalom, Shalom, must still be the watchword between man and man. By pointing a finger towards the stigma on his palm, he brings the viewers attention to the idea of suffering, Neither his face, nor his body, bears any emotion. The Christ depicted here could be any human being. In a metaphorical way, the "Risen" Christ here "rises" against the cruelty of war.
The Risen Christ
The
Oscar Wilde memorial at Pere La Chaise Paris, was his next difficult
task, for cemetery sculpture imposes severe restrictions. Epstein
worked in England on a 20-ton block of Horston wood stone, and
conceived a vast winged figure, a messenger swiftly moving with
vertical wings, giving the feeling of forward flight.
Jacob Epstein - The Tomb of Oscar Wilde
One might expect
the city of the can-can, a city teeming with sex
traffic, to be more open-minded than the uptight metropolis of London.
However, nothing causes the upright authorities to take quick action
than the sight of an uncovered male member. The order of the Préfet of
the Seine and the head of the École des Beaux-Arts was sent out to
fashion some kind of fig leaf and someone was given the unenviable task
of slathering the exposed genitalia with plaster, covering the
offensive sight. The act of censorship happened even before Epstein had
completed the finishing touches on the memorial. The eighteen figures of
1908 had been protected from such incursions by their height from the
street, but the Winged Sphinx was at ground level, easily reached.
Epstein had to witness at first hand the fear of full frontal male
nudity, a fear still present in society today. He said, “Imagine
my horror when arriving to the cemetery to find that the sex parts of
the figure had been swaddled in plaster! and horribly.” Worse
was to come, the tomb was covered with a tarpaulin, with a gendarme on
patrol to prevent its removal. Although Epstein attempted to complete
his work, he was not allowed to remove the cover. Without the artist’s
consent, a bronze fig leaf was fixed to the offending member and the
tarp was whisked away. The bronze butterfly covering did not last long,
stolen by “a band of artists and poets from the Latin Quarter,” and the
penis and testicles were soon revealed to the world, at which point,
the Great War began and the authorities had better things to do with
their time.
After the War, the world had changed and Epstein’s statue was now quaint
and old-fashioned and receded from art world concern. The tomb became a
place of pilgrimage and thousands of fond fans of Wilde fondled the now
exposed parts until they shone like jewels. According to urban legend,
two (English) ladies, offended by the unseemly shine, attacked the
hanging genitals of the unfortunate Sphinx and severed the penis, a
strange impulse for 1960. Existing photographs of the original sculpture
indicates that there was nothing offensive or even remotely obscene, but
this sculpture had the power to move people very powerfully. Now shorn
of its proud possession, the statue’s appeal only
increased–coincidentally or not–and over the years, thousands of
visitors began kissing its surfaces.
In 1922 Epstein
was commissioned to create the Hyde Park memorial to the naturalist
writer W.H. Hudson. The memorial was unveiled to the public in 1925;
carved in Portland Stone the relief represented Rima, a character
from Hudson's book Green Mansions who was both human and bird. Rima
highlights Epstein's thoughts on humanity, sexuality, and gender as
well as his ideas on how the concept of 'beauty' was subjective and
often restrictive.
The panel likewise was roused in a storm of contoversy, though today it's difficlt to see what people found wrong with it. At the time Rima was the subject of
hostility from those opposed to what they viewed as his 'ugly' and
'unfeminine' portrayal of the female body. His sculpture was defaced
and the Daily Mail campaigned for the removal of the sculpture.
Epstein was also subjected to antisemitic abuse and in 1935 the
Independent Fascist League defaced Rima with swastikas. Much of the
opposition to Rima as a piece of artwork went hand-in-hand with
racist formulations of Epstein as an 'alien' outsider and his artwork
as unEnglish. The storm of abuse eventually died away and the strange elusive beauty of this small panel blends perfectly in its green sanctuary.
Rima
Night and Day likewise set the critics baying. The entire work merged easily into the horizontal courses of St James' Park Station. They were not meant to be seen in isolation. Divorced from their context and viewed at a wrong angle, it was natural for them to appear distorted. Night came in for major criticism through the poplar naturalistic conception that Epstein should have portrayed it by an attractive lady with a sad face and dressed in flowing black drapery.
Epstein commented that
he always turned to Egypt for inspiration for architectural or
monumental sculpture and the influence of Egypt and other cultures is
clear in these abstract figures. Egyptologist Flinders Petrie
protested about the style of the sculptures, denouncing them as 'part
of the modern system of Jazz' and racialising them as a 'primitive
product of a race'. Petrie was only one of a number of people who
publicly protested; the classical archaeologist Percy Gardner felt the
sculptures lacked 'morality' and there was consternation about the
length of the boy's penis on Day.
Night and Day
His religious subjects, including the Madonna and Child, 1927; Riverside Church, New York, Jacob and the Angel, 1940-1; Tate, Genesis, 1929-31; Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, and Adam, 1938; Harewood House, provoked particular ire as being created by a Jewish sculptor. Genesis flooded the art world with comment. The statue carved in a block of Servezza marble, portrayd the symbolic truth of the eternal primeval feminine, the mother of the race. A storm of protest rose from women who complained that their sex had been insulted. It was tantamount to saying that art should be clad in the demure habilments of a Mother Superior. To refuse Epstein the right to create Genesis in the way he did would have denied sculpture the right to exist. In elementary terms, sclpture is the form given to a thought... the sculpture's thought, not that of the moralist or the art critic.
Genesis It is amazing to recall the virulent hostility (and anti-Semitism) that
his work aroused. Even the Royal Academy participated in the mutilation
of his public commissions. Following the exhibition of his controversial
Adam (1938) the statue was sold off for next to nothing and
later displayed in a Blackpool funfair. Visitors were charged a shilling
entry to view its enlarged genitals as a form of pornographic
amusement. It is now a prime possession of the Tate Gallery. As history has shown
us, that which is ridiculed in one era is hailed in another.
Adam
The same fate befell his next major work, Jacob and the Angel (1941), his most famous
creation. Rendered in glowing alabaster, streaked with veins of pink and
brown, it depicts two muscular figures locked in a sensual embrace, it has since been rescued and is now in the relative safety of the Tate Gallery.
Jacob and the Angel
From 1912 onwards, Epstein was inundated with portrait commissions, and
portrayed distinguished subjects throughout his career including Albert
Einstein, Joseph Conrad, Winston Churchill, Ralph Vaughan Williams and
Lucian Freud.He participated in the Festival of Britain 1951 but by this time he
was being outflanked by younger contemporaries such as Henry Moore,
Eduardo Paolozzi, and Lynn Chadwick.
When Jacob Epstein completed the following sculpture in 1928, Paul Robeson was
enjoying huge success in London, both in the English production of Show
Boat and in a series of triumphant concerts. Lionized by English
society, he was experiencing an acceptance hardly imaginable by blacks
in America: "Everyone wanted to know Paul and to be seen with him," said
a fellow cast member, "especially some of our so-called society
ladies." His wife wrote to a friend that they both were feeling "as
though at last we are at the end of a long journey. Paul . . . is
tickled to death and greatly relieved."
Paul Robeson
Epstein was a pacifist and he joined with other left-wing artists and writers, including David Low, Henry Moore and Eric Gill
to form a National Congress organised by the British section of the
International Peace Campaign. He was also involved in the Artists'
International Association's efforts on behalf of the Poplar Front government during theSpanish Civil War. He was furious when the Foreign Office refused Epstein a visa when he wanted to visit Spain in 1937.
He completed further commissions
for religious figures, notably on the re-built Coventry Cathedral, but
his final secular work was the magnificent war memorial that stands in
front of TUC headquarters at Congress House in London. The work is a memorial to Trade Union victims of the two World Wars A mournful evocation of loss, a lone woman supports the limp naked
body of a dead soldier. It was carved from a 10 ton block of Roman stone and was
originally backed by green Carrara marble running up to the roof; this decayed and
has been replaced by green tiles as an economy measure. The statue was unveiled and the building opened on 27th March 1958.
Despite being married to and continuing to live with Margaret Dunlop, whome he had wed in 1906, Epstein
had a number of relationships with other women that brought him his five
children: Peggy Jean (born 1918),Theo (1924–1954), Kathleen (1926–2011), Esther (1929–1954) and Jackie (1934–2009).
Margaret generally tolerated these relationships – even to the extent
of bringing up his first and last children. In 1921, Epstein began the
longest of these relationships, with Kathleen Garman, one of the Garman sisters,
mother of his three middle children, which continued until his death.
Margaret "tolerated Epstein's infidelities, allowed his models and
lovers to live in the family home and raised Epstein's first child,
Peggy Jean, who was the daughter of Meum Lindsell, one of Epstein's
previous lovers. Evidently, Margaret's tolerance did not extend to
Epstein's relationship with Kathleen Garman, as in 1923 Margaret shot
and wounded Kathleen in the shoulder.
Jacob Epstein was knighted in 1954, but his later years were marked by personal
loss. His son died of a heart attack in 1954, and his daughter committed
suicide later the same year.
When Jacob Epstein died of a heart-attack on 19th August 1959 in Kensington, the sculptor Henry Moore wrote: " . .
. I first met Jacob Epstein in the mid-Twenties, a time when I was
unknown and he was the most famous sculptor in Britain . . . He took the
brickbats, he took the insults, he faced the howls of derision with
which artists since Rembrandt have learned to become familiar. And as
far as sculpture in this century is concerned, he took them first."
He is buried in Putney Vale Cemetery. Major retrospectives of his work have been held at the Tate, 1953,
Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, 1980, and a touring exhibition in
1987, which included Leeds City Art Galleries and the Whitechapel Art
Gallery. His work is held in major public collections around the world
including Tate, National Portrait Gallery, the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, MoMA, and the Pompidou Centre.
Jacob Epstein remains one
of the most significant British artists of the twentieth century;
specialising in sculpture, particularly public sculpture, his pieces
both challenged and influenced British art conventions. Despite
having a number of supporters, Epstein's work though was often criticised by
the public and the media; often this opposition was purely antisemitic and
nationalist. Despite this his life, like his art, might have been the stuff of myth, but in his
large works, shaping the endless struggle of human life, Jacob Epstein
was at his best. Any attempt to gauge the full value of Epstein's art forces us to realise how imperfect a vehicle of expression is language when it attempts to explain the significance of another art medium. This much we can say. Epstein introduced a new creative intelligence with his uncompromising, radical sculptural vision. His art is still capable of provoking.
I sum up in his own words : I rest silent in my work .... words superb in finality.
The above is from Banksys 2004 pamphlet Cut it Out in which he lashes out at public advertising, condemning bullying advertisers for making their consumers feel inadequate and small, telling us and them we don't owe them everything, and we need our right to choose for ourselves.
Though I like his ideas and his work, I do find his message kinda ironic, after all he does also thrive off the same thing that advertisers do on a daily basis. He copyrights his images, is a brand in his own right.A marketing machine, that is just doing it in a more subtle way than your average brand.
Advertising daily is simply used daily, as a tool of capitalism, to sell s things that we do not necessarily need , that simply reinforces a consumerist ideology, that for many cannot escape or afford. .Everywhere we go we are influenced by advertisements that have an
ideological message to persuades us to 'buy mass-produced commodities.
It is clear that our capitalist society is shaping our culture, and
identity, and there seems to be no aspect of our daily lives that isn't being used in the ways it seeks to influence us...
Meanwhile however campaigns use advertising to incorporate messages of resistance creating parodies that help us reavaluate beyond this bomardmentand of consmerist marketing.Working under the name ‘Brandalism’, a group of British street artists in Banksy's home city aims to subvert the consumer messages in advertising.According to the organisation’s website, the UK’s advertising industry pays out £16.1 billion each year
to display a message or advert.
This works out as around £250 per
person each year spent on sending messages or direct adverts to them.Brandalism says that advertising is not about catering to existing
needs, but creating new desires. Not only desires, but insecurity as
well, because we cannot desire without feeling like we lack something.
This desire creates new kinds of people. Rather than the advert
describing a product, we are now the product the advertiser is making.
Advertising makes people feel insecure and unfulfilled when unable to
access the products we’re told to desire. the subversion of advertising is developing into a political tool. It
would be a strange irony if one day it were to become just another type
of advertising.
We had small protest outside job centre today in Cardigan , handing out leaflets
about the impact of Universal Credit. A job coach wandered past and fair
play to this individual did at least engage with us. But what he said
was incredible, he had the audacity to claim that UC is the best thing
ever and seeing more people better off. Denying UC causes a rise in
homelessness and increasing debt problems. Tougher sanctions and long
waiting times leaving people hungry is nothing to do with the
roll out of UC we were told, and UC is not political. But it has a real human cost that is leaving thousands in hardship, in a monstrous Tory assault on the poor and the most vulnerable in our society. It is simply a policy of relentless calculated cruelty. Even the Tory's mouthpiece on this issue Esther McVey;after being challenged over one estimate that three million people would be about £1,800 a year worse off, told the BBC "I have said we made tough decisions and some people will be worse off."
What Mr Job coach also did not
say is that under UC, disabled claimants will face a controversial
mandatory “health and work conversation” (HWC) in which they must
provide information to a work coach like this guy about what jobs they
can undertake, or have their benefits sanctioned. This will mean people
who are often too ill to get out of bed forced into a jobcentre meeting.
The DWP says not all disabled people will be required to do a “face to
face” interview in the jobcentre when it is unreasonable to expect it,
but campaign group Disabled People Against Cuts tells me it has already
seen a case of a woman with a life-threatening illness and insufficient
mental capacity being asked to attend an HWC.Expecting people with
mental health problems, learning difficulties, or those battling illness
to navigate a complex benefit system is particularly cruel – and early
signs of universal credit so far are clearly worrying. Universal Credit (UC) is supposed to simplify and modernise the income and
employment support system for millions of households. The system’s
implementation has, however, been punctuated by controvery over missed deadlines, botched IT development, and poor project management. Across the
country there are tales of payments being late, payments reduced,
pushing people already on the breadline even further over the edge,whilst many are unable to pay their rent . UC
is widely seen as being cruel, a clear result of the Tory's conscious
ideological cruelty that has resulted in a rise in homelessness and
people using foodbanks, and making people with precarious mental health
conditions health even worse. People unable to pay essential bills already suffering with anxiety and stress, a letter arrives about being
in arrears, even if it’s only the first stage is going to send them into
a tail spin. Another major flaw is that council tax support isn’t included.
People automatically assume when they put a claim in for housing benefit
that council tax support is included. The next thing they know they are
in council tax arrears. It’s a bureaucratic nightmare.
The Trussell Trust, which runs the UK's largest network of food
banks, has also released a raft of new figures as part of its annual
report, giving the first systematic look at what impact the roll-out of
UC has had on usage.It says there has been an average increase of 13% in food bank use across the country in the last year.https://www.trusselltrust.org/what-we-do/research-advocacy/universal-credit-and-foodbank-use/
We
are living in very troubling times, under an incredibly cruel system, in which the poorest, the sickest
and most vulnerable under the sheer pressure of trying to manage on nothing are plunged into poverty, causing stress, depression and in many peoples cases their tragic demise. Well I'm sorry Mr job coach Universal
Credit is political and it is clearly damaging peoples lives, you are
justifying it because you are simply making a living from it. In addition, the government anticipates that up to a further one
million UC claimants who are in low-paid work will be required to see a
work coach like this person. UC payments, Jobcentre support, and the extension of benefit
conditionality to around a million low paid workers are supposed to
encourage more claimants to take up employment and increase their
earnings. There is a risk, however, that rather than support
‘progression’, UC will encourage the growth of ‘mini jobs’ and further underpin the dramatic growth in part-time and low paid employment and also fuel in-work poverty. It is a simple fact that people are not getting the support they so genuinely need. It is
more than time to stop it and scrap it, and face reality, UC is a mess, it
is cruel, fundamentally flawed, vindictive, unfair and simply doesn't work. As a first step at least the government could at least have the grace to admit it has got universal credit wrong and set about limiting the damage. I personally am
dreading when I'm rolled over on to it, really do not know what I am
going to do. I'm not angry though I'm bloody livid. Real political opposition to it is however growing stronger every single day.
Wilfred Owen was tragically killed 100 years ago to the day - just seven days before peace was declared in 1918.The
centenary of the death of First World War poet Wilfred Owen has been
marked at his graveside with the sound of a bugle he took from the
battlefield.
The instrument, taken from a dead German soldier,
was played in public for the first time at the ceremony in
Ors, northern France, today..
Elizabeth Owen, widow of his nephew Peter, attended the “moving”
ceremony in Ors communal cemetery today, following a dawn visit to
the site of the soldier’s death along the Sambre-Oise canal.
French locals and members of the Wilfred Owen Association gathered to
hear The Last Post played on a bugle Owen took from a dead German
soldier during the First World War. Some of Owen’s poetry, focused on the brutal reality of war, was also recited. His final letter home was read and wreaths were laid in his memory in
a service Fiona MacDonald of the Wilfred Owen Association, described as really
moving.
“There is just something really special about being here and hearing Owen’s bugle played for the first time in public.”
The bugle taken from the battlefield by Wilfred Owen, held by Grace Freeman from the Wilfred Owen Association
Musician Heather Madeira Ni said she was grateful to have the
opportunity to play the instrument, which had never been sounded in
public before, on such a historic occasion.
She said: “The bugle is such a piece of history and a great chance
for me to get to know Owen and his poetry. It’s such an important part
of British history.
“The more I learn about Wilfred Owen, the more grateful I am to have this opportunity.”
The
Oswestry-born soldier was killed on November 4 1918 during the battle
to cross the Sambre-Oise canal at Ors, just seven days before peace was declared,
He wrote about the bugle, referring to having got some “loot”, in a letter to his brother in 1917.
Born
in Oswestry in 1893, Owen lived in Shrewsbury for much of his life and a
blue plaque marks the site of his former home at 69 Monkmoor Road.
A
life-size bronze statue of the poet was unveiled in Oswestry's Cae Glas
Park two weeks ago, while numerous events are planned across Shropshire
over the coming weeks to celebrate Owen's life.A specially commissioned Wilfred Owen poetry bench will be unveiled at Shrewsbury Library on Monday.
Of all the poets to die in the first World War, the fate of Wilfred Owen
may have been the most cruel, if only for his family. He survived until
the last week, but was “killed while giving a hand with some duckboards” [wooden
walkways] near Cambrai, northern Trance. The news took exactly a week to travel home to Shrewsbury when his parents heard of William’s death on the 11th of November, that most significant of days, heightening the tragedy of his loss all the more.
Back in 1914, the then 21-year-old
Owen had been in no hurry to fight. He enlisted late the following year
and only in mid-1916 reached the front.The horrors of the western front soon confronted him. On April 1, 1917, near the town of St. Quentin, Owen led his platoon
through an artillery barrage to the German trenches, only to discover
when they arrived that the enemy had already withdrawn. Severely shaken
and disoriented by the bombardment, Owen was soon blown into
the air by a shell, landing on what remained of a dead comrade. He also
spent days trapped in a trench, surrounded by corpses, and returned to his base camp confused and stammering. A
doctor diagnosed shell-shock, a new term used to describe the physical
and/or psychological damage suffered by soldiers in combat. Though his
commanding officer was skeptical, Owen was sent to a French hospital and
subsequently returned to Britain, where he was checked into the
Craiglockhart War Hospital for Neurasthenic Officers near Edinburgh .
He had been writing for some time at this point and what he saw of the
war convinced him that this was no glorious conflict but one of sheer
terror for those unlucky enough to experience it. His writings were
hard-hitting, telling the reader exactly how a soldier lived and died in
this most brutal of environments. His most famous poems included
‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ and ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’.
During a lengthy convalescence, he met fellow war poet Siegfried Sassoon,
the most influential friend of his short life. Under Sassoon’s
guidance, he would write his best verse, which was bitterly critical of
war, with none of the patriotic fervour of earlier front-line poets.If Sassoon had had his way, Owen
would never have returned to the trenches. The former once threatened to
“stab [him] in the leg” if he tried. But in the summer of 1918, Owen
went back to war without telling him. In early October, he helped storm
enemy positions at Joncourt, earning a Military Cross for his courage:
something he had craved – paradoxically – as justification for the
poetry. He didn’t live to receive the honour.
Despite Wilfred Owen‘s
prodigious writing, only five poems were ever published in his lifetime
– probably because of his strong anti-war sentiment, which would not
have been in line with British policy at the time.A promise made by Sassoon while in Edinburgh was fulfilled as an edited
collection of his poignant war poems was published postumously in 1920, thus
establishing the name of William Owen among the country’s greatest
poets.
Events are planned around the world on November 11, to mark Armistice Day – 100 years after the end of the First World War.
Dulce et Decorum Est - Wilfred Owen
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori. But I Was looking at the permanent Stars - Wilfred Owen
Bugles sang, saddening the evening air,
And bugles answered, sorrowful to hear.
Voices of boys were by the river-side.
Sleep mothered them; and left the twilight sad.
The shadow of the morrow weighed on men.
Voices of old despondency resigned,
Bowed by the shadow of the morrow, slept.
( ) dying tone
Of receding voices that will not return.
The wailing of the high far-travelling shells
And the deep cursing of the provoking ( )
The monstrous anger of our taciturn guns.
The majesty of the insults of their mouths.
The Shot at Dawn Memorial is a British Monument at the National Memorial
Arboretum near Alrewas, in Staffordshire, UK. It memorialises the 306
British and Commonwealth soldiers executed after courts-martial for
cowardice or desertion during World War 1. Never in the field of human conflict has so little been gained for the death of so many.
As the 100 year anniversary of the carnage of World War One approaches lets remember the 306 soldiers this 11th November who were brutally shot at dawn by Britain for cowardice
or desertion. For years they were blighted with shame. stigmatised and condemned and history tried to forget them. Their names were never remembered on memorials and family’s often hid
the truth, forced to live with a blemish on their good names for years, the shame was too much off a burden when in reality so many had died with
honour.
General Haig, or Butcher Haig as he was known, when questioned declared that all men accused of cowardice and desertion were examined by a medical officer and that no soldier was sentenced to death if there was any suspicion of him suffering shell shock. As so often, he lied.
Haig not only signed all the death warrants but when questioned later on this issue lied repeatedly.The general's stubborn and ignorant belief was that anyone suffering shell hock was malingering. In fact in Butcher Haig's mid shell shock and malingering were the same thing.
Most off those sentenced were only after a short trial lasting no more than twenty minutes, at which they were denied legal representation and the right of appeal.
These executions occurred throughout the war, beginning with Pte Thomas Highgate on 9 September and ending with Ptes Louis Harris and Ernest Jackson on 7 November 1918, less than a week before the Armistice. For most of these young men, cowardice
was far from the truth, it was the traumas of war, break downs amidst
the unspeakable horrors they endured in the trenches, facing machine guns, exploding shells, barbed wire, bayonets, noise, and what would have amounted to a hell on earth. They were sick, cold, hungry, tired ,terrified, in fear and often alone. They saw their
friends bombed, gassed and cut to pieces in spectacular numbers and they
were reduced to trembling wrecks by relentless shellfire and the
imminence of their own demise. Today, it is recognised that several of them were underage when they volunteered and many had lied about their ages to fight for King and Country and many of them were actually suffering from a condition we now would have no problem in diagnosing
as post traumatic stress disorder, or shell-shock, as it was known in
1916.
In the year 2000 a simple statue called ' Shot at Dawn' was created byAndy De Comyn, it is
modelled on Private Herbert Burden of the 1st Batallion Northumberland
fusiliers. At 17, Private Herbert Burden was legally too young to be facing the
German guns in the trenches of the Western front. However, his age did
not save the teenager from facing a deadly volley of bullets at Ypres on the
morning of 21 July 1915 – fired by his own comrades.An absence away from battle of little more than 48 hours saw Private
Herbert Burden brought before a Field General Court Martial, pleading
for his very life. But in complete disregard for his age was made an example of and paid the ultimate price.
His image stands, blindfolded and strapped to a wooden execution post, eternally awaiting the order to fire. Behind the statue are 340 other posts, each labelled with the
names of those who suffered the same fate of being shot at dawn arranged in the form of a Greek theatre around the statue,
symbolising the tragedy that those events signify. The location of the
memorial in the most easterly point of the Arboteum means that this is
the first place to be touched by the dawn light.
He was one of 306 young British soldiers who met this cruel fate,
including 15 of my own fellow Welsh countrymen, induced by the horrors
of this so called Great War. Private William Jones, of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, was one of these who had volunteered
for the army in 1915 while still a teenager. Assigned to the front line
he was serving as a stretcher-bearer when he went missing on 15 June
1917. He had helped a wounded comrade to an aid post near their
trenches, but then disappeared. He made his way across the Channel and home, but was then persuaded
by his mother to hand himself in at the local police station in Neath.
However, he was shown no leniency and was another of the 306 British soldiers
who were futiley executed during the First World War.
I remember too how the late Keir Hardie the M.P for
Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare raised his opposition to this cruel war. What
is also forgotten is around 200,000 miners in the South Wales valleys
that went on strike at the height of the First World War. Not everyone
signed up to the jingoistic version of patriotism that continues to be
spread. It is estimated that there were 20,000 Conscientious Objectors – admittedly a very small number as compared
to the around 5 million men who joined the military, most of whom were
conscripts. Objectors were a diverse group, but what is clear though is that they displayed
remarkable conviction and courage, both as individuals and collectively.
There were between 700-900 conscientious objectors here in Wales during
this period, and it was no soft option. It meant tribunals, imprisonment and
hard labor. Conchies as they were known were faced with humiliation, called
cowards and shirkers. By 1916 Home Office intelligence reports revealed
the extent of anti-war, revolutionary opposition in South Wales was
large.
After the 75 year secrecy Act was lifted, members of the Shot at Dawn
Organisation started campaigning for a pardon for those that had been essentially murdered in cold blood.Many now believe these men were executed to frighten other men into doing what they were told, intimidating them back into the trenches or scaring them into going over the top during an attack. Making an example of the executed men was a way of keeping others in line.
In 2006 all 306 men eventually received a posthumous
pardon, after a long campaign by their descendents. The shot at dawn campaign never asked for a blanket pardon, as claimed by many.
They only asked for pardons for under aged soldiers, those suffering
mental illness, and in cases of doubtful or illegal Courts Martial. Some names subsequently went onto being inscribed upon war memorials
alongside the names of the men who died fighting. The living relatives of those executed at long last at least gained some relief by the pardons.
Lets remember them all not as cowards or traitors, but as
victims of a terrible shameful injustice that was clearly done and acknowledge that all these men were victims of
war, who were not given the chance to survive, tragically executed by their own comrades, often for little more than
being frightened, confused young men. All of them heroes far braver than I could ever be. Shot for the sake of example. Victims picked out and convicted as a lesson to others. All of the pardoned men deserve to be mentioned and their stories told, here is a list of their names. let us never forget them, always remember.
Pte Abigail J H;
Pte Adamson J S;
Labourer Ahmed M M;
Pte Ainley G;
Sgt
Alexander W;
Pte Allsop A E;
Pte Anderson J A;
Pte Anderson W;
Pte
Ansted A T;
Pte Archibald J;
Pte Arnold F S; L
Sgt Ashton H; L
Cpl
Atkinson A;
Pte Auger F;
Pte Baker W;
Pte Ball J;
Pte Barker W;
Pte
Barnes J E;
Rfn Barratt F M;
Pte Bateman F;
Pte Bateman J;
Pte Beaumont E
A;
Sapper Beeby E;
Dvr Bell J;
Rfn Bellamy W;
Pte Benham W;
Pte Bennett
J;
Pte Black P;
Pte Bladen F C H;
Pte Blakemore D J;
Pte Bolton E;
Pte
Botfield A;
Pte Bowerman W;
Pte Brennan J;
Pte Briggs A;
Pte Briggs J
Pte Brigham T
Pte Britton C
Pte Broadrick F
Pte Brown A
Pte Brown A
Pte Bryant E
Pte Burden H F
Pte Burrell W H
Pte Burton R
Pte Butcher F C
Pte Byers J
Pte Byrne S\Monaghan M
Pte Cairnie W
Pte Cameron J
Pte Card E A
Pte Carey J
Pte Carr J
Pte Carter H G
Pte Carter H
Pte Cassidy J
Pte Chase H
Rfn Cheeseman F W
Pte Clarke H A
Pte Clarke W
Pte Collins G
Pte Comte G
Pte Crampton J
Pte Crimmins H
Pte Crozier J
Pte Cummings T
Pte Cunnington S
Pte Cuthbert J
Pte Cutemore G
Pte Dalande H
Pte Davis R M
Pte Davis T
Pte Degasse A C
Pte DeLargey E
Pte DeLisle L
Pte Dennis J J
Pte Depper C
Pte Docherty J
Pte Docherty T
Rfn Donovan T
Rfn Donovan T
Pte Dossett W
Pte Downey P
Pte Downing T
Sub Lt Dyett E (RNVR)
Pte Earl W
Pte Earp A G
Pte Elford L
Pte Evans A
Pte Eveleigh A
Pte Everill G
Pte Fairburn E
Pte Farr H
Pte Fatoma A
Pte Fellows E
Pte Ferguson J
Pte Flynn H
Pte Foulkes T
Pte Fowles S
Pte Fox J
L/Cpl Fox J S V
Pte Frafra A
Pte Fraser E
Pte Fryer J
Pte Gawler R
Pte Gibson D
Pte Giles P
Sgt Gleadow G E
L/Cpl Goggins P
Pte Gore F C
Pte Graham J
Pte Haddock A J
Dvr Hamilton T G
Pte Hamilton/Blanchard A
Pte Hanna G
Rfn Harding F
Pte Harris E W
Pte Harris L
Pte Harris T
Pte Harris/Bevistein A
Pte Hart B
Pte Hartells H H
Dvr Hasemore J W
Pte Hawkins T
L/Cpl Hawthorne F
Pte Hendricks H
Pte Higgins J
Pte Higgins J M
Pte Highgate T J
Pte Hodgetts O W
L/Cpl Holland J
Pte Holmes A
Pte Holt E
Pte Hope R
Pte Hope T
Pte Hopkins T
Pte Horler E
Pte Hughes F
L/Cpl Hughes G E
Pte Hughes J
Pte Hunt W
Pte Hunter G
Pte Hunter W
Rfn Hyde J J
Pte Ingham A
Rfn Irish/Lee G
L/Cpl Irvine W J
Cpl Ives F
Pte Jackson E
Pte Jeffries A L
Pte Jennings J
Pte Johnson F/Charlton J
Pte Jones J T
Pte Jones R M
Pte Jones W
Gunner Jones/Fox W
Pte Kerr H H
Pte Kershaw J
Pte King J
Pte Kirk E
Pte Kirman C H
Pte Knight H J
Pte LaLancette J
Pte LaLiberte C
Dvr Lamb A
Cpl Latham G
Pte Lawrence E A
Cpl Lewis C
Pte Lewis G
Pte Lewis J
Pte Ling W N
Pte Loader F
Pte Lodge H E J
Pte Longshaw A
Pte Lowton G H
Pte MacDonald H
L/Cpl MacDonald J
Pte Mackness E
Sapper Malyon F
L/Cpl Mamprusi A
Pte Martin H
Pte Mayers J
Rfn McBride S
Pte McClair H/Rowland
Pte McColl C F
Rfn McCracken J E
Pte McCubbin B
Pte McFarlane J
Pte McGeehan B
Pte McQuade J
Pte Michael J S
Pte Milburn J B
Pte Milligan C M
Pte Mills G
Pte Mitchell A
Pte Mitchell L
Pte Moles T L
Pte Molyneaux J
L/Cpl Moon W A
Pte Morris H
Dvr Mullany J
Pte Murphy H T
Pte Murphy A
Pte Murphy P
Pte Murphy W
Pte Murray R
Pte Neave W
Pte Nelson W B
Pte Nicholson C B
Pte Nisbet J
Pte O'Connell B
Pte O'Neill F
Pte O'Neill A
Pte Palmer H
Rfn Parker A E
Pte Parry A
Pte Pattison R G
Pte Penn M
Pte Perry E
Pte Phillips L R
Pte Phillips W T H
Pte Pitts A
2nd. Lt Poole E S
Pte Poole H
Cpl Povey G H
Pte Randle W H
Cpl Reid J
Pte Reid I
Pte Reynolds E J
Pte Richmond M R
Pte Rickman A
Pte Rigby T H B
Pte Roberts J W
Pte Roberts W W
Sgt Robins J J
Pte Robinson A H
Pte Robinson J
Pte Robinson W
Pte Roe G E
Pte Rogers J
Drummer Rose F
Pte Sabongida S
Pte Salter H
L/Cpl Sands P
Pte Scholes W
Pte Scotton W
Pte Seymour J
Pte Sheffield F
Pte Simmonds W H
Pte Sims R W
Pte Siniski D
Pte Skilton C W F
Pte Slade F W
Pte Sloane J
Pte Smith J C
Rfn Smith J
Pte Smith W
Pte Smith W
Pte Smythe A
Dvr Spencer J
Pte Spencer V M
Pte Spry W T
Pte Stead F
Pte Steadman J B
Pte Stevenson D
Pte Stevenson R
Pte Stewart S
L/Sgt Stones J W
Pte Swain J
Dvr Swaine J W
Trooper Sweeney J J
Pte Tanner E
Pte Taylor J
Pte Taylor J
Pte Taysum N H
Rfn Templeton J
Pte Thomas J
Pte Thompson A D
Pte Thompson W L
Pte Tite R T
Pte Tongue J
Pte Troughton A
Pte Turner F
Pte Turpie W J
Sgt Wall J T
L/Sgt Walton W
Pte Ward G
Pte Ward T
Pte Watkins G
Pte Watts T W
Pte Watts W
Pte Webb H J
Pte Welsh C
Pte Westwood A H
Pte Wild A
Pte Williams H
Pte Wilson J H
Cpl Wilton J
Pte Wishard J
Rfn Woodhouse J
Pte Worsley E
Pte Wright F
Pte Wycherley W
Rfn Yeoman W
Pte Young E
Pte Young R.
Where two names appear, the first refers to the name used by the soldier
to register for service and the second is their real name. Researchers
at the Shot at Dawn campaign discovered the true identities of those
soldiers.
I will continue to support all those that strive to ensure that a radical anti-war message remains fully embedded in our hearts, without disrespecting others that fell.
In the words of Harry Patch the last WW1 veteran in Europe (1989 -2006)
' War is organised murder and nothing else. Politicians who took us to war should have been given the guns and told to settle their differences themselves instead of organising nothing better than legalised murder.'
The following touching documentary released before the men were pardoned investigates the tragic stories of the 306
British & Commonwealth soldiers shot for acts of cowardice and
desertion during World War One.
Bolsonaro denies he's a fascist
Compares himself to Winston Churchill
Brazil looks truly fucked now
It's simply so bloody incredible
Man the world continues to go to shit
RIP rainforests, RIP our climate even more
W'ere all going in one specific direction
Unless we learn to fight right back
By being stupid, does not absolve the voters of blame
History is really worthless if we repeat it
Some like torture, censorship, political persecution
Fuck everyone who thinks punching a Nazi makes you as bad as them
Fuck everyone who pulls the"both sides" narrative
Fuck everyone who identifies as a centrist
Lets keep hoping, lets not give in
We need mercy not relentless purgatory
Against continual inhumanity gaining strength
Maybe his cruel policies will blow up in his face.
As October night ends
open your windows
spread knowledge of justice
love of free existence.
Occupy your heart
invite the spirit of insurrection
stir together
solidarity, imagination
The past is gone
change is effervessing
we are goin to a future
that has never been seen
There is magic in the air
as old orders die, leaves fly
together we rise, shadows
dancing among the flames
Truth grows from roots and branches
offering promise of new beginnings
an army of believers gathering
faith confirmed, preparing for emerging possibility
Certainties shake as orthodoxies are removed
dreamers sitting on the threshold of another world
in leaps and bounds we spread our message
we declare our freedom as paradigm shifts.
From the hedges we untangle
out in the open we emerge,
where we gather some critics curse
but we carry on beyond the dry tear of fear
wave goodbye to the margins
bloom, and move forwards
push onwards, accelerate
because the whole world is watching now.
Today marks Halloween, Samhain, All Hallows, All Saints or Winters
Eve,The Festival of the Dead. There are several explanations for its
origin, one being the Roman festival of the dead 'Parentalia', but
another origin, not necessarily exclusive from the Roman one, is from
the ancient Celtic old day of Samhein (sa-wain). and most of the
traditions that we celebrate on Halloween have its origins in
Celtic/Gaelic Culture.
Samhein, which means November in Irish, was the end of summer and the
harvest season in the Celtic calender. It was the last great feast held
outdoors before the cold months to come. The last night of October also
marked the ancient Celts New Years Eve. Marking the end of the summer
and the beginning of Winter.
The Celts believed that on Samhein, the veil between the living and the
dead was dropped for one day, and the spirits of the living could
intermingle with the spirits of the dead.The ancient Celts divided their year into two seasons: the light and the dark,
at Beltane on 1st May and Samhain on November 1. Many believe that Samhain was the
more important festival, marking the beginning of a new cycle / new year,and the most magical time of this festival was November Eve, the night of
31st October, better known today as Halloween..
Samhain, means November in the Celtic Culture, the literal translation being‘summer’s end.’ It is the Gateway to
winter, a time when the veils between the realms of the living and the
afterlife were said to be especially thin, marking a time for reflection
to honor the worlds of the seen and unseen. In the country year, Samhain marked the first day of winter, when the
herders led the cattle and sheep down from their summer pastures to the
shelter of the stables, .in order to determine how many animals could be adequately fed through
the winter. Those not able to be cared for were butchered, which would
help to feed the family during the dark days ahead. It is partially due
to this practice that Samhain is sometimes referred to as the ‘blood
harvest.’
With the rise of Christianity, Samhain was changed to Hallowmas, or All
Saints’ Day, to celebrate the saints in heaven, and so the night before
became popularly known as Halloween. The 2nd November became All Souls
Day, when prayers were to be offered to the souls of the departed.
Throughout the centuries, pagan and Christian beliefs and celebrations
have intertwined
Over the years we have ended up with the modern commercialised,
corporate version that is now known as halloween far from its original roots when children dress up in Ghoulish costumes and go out trick and
treating in what was developed in America in the late 19th and early
20th century replacing what in reality is such a sacred day The old ways are still with us despite the grip of large corporations, the real reason and respect for this occasion has never been lost.Samhein and its
energy has never fully died out and still burns bright. Samhain fires have continued to light up the countryside down the ages., In some areas, ashes from these bonfires were sprinkled on surrounding fields. The day is also about remembrance and contemplation. Our ancestors, the blessed dead, are more accessible, more approachable during the time of the dying of the land. A day to commune with the dead and a celebration of the eternal cycle of reincarnation to honor our ancestors and remember our deceased loved ones.
Some in revelry and fun today will be dressing up as witches in pointy hats, perhaps forgetting this days roots. and all those who have been tortured or killed as suspected witches during the centuries of the Burning Times in Europe, in Salem, and elsewhere across the globe.Witches have a long history of being associated with this time of year, primarily because of ritual gatherings at Samhain, the cauldron used as a symbol of the witchs' control over life and death.
It is worth noting that the word witchcraft has good
and bad meanings in different cultures around the world. A general
definition of witchcraft is the changing of everyday events using supernatural or magical forces. Witches, in folklore, and throughout history can be seen as considered outsiders of the human
collective. Found in hidden enclaves (covens), or in
isolation from society, they straddle the gap between the civil and the
wild, the human and the element, and it is they who provoke, attack,
agitate, heal and enliven the social order.They have existed in all
inhabited continents of the world and across the majority of human
societies.
Originating in the Mesopotamian myths of Inanna, in the Hindu stories of
Kali, and in the Greek tales of Hecate, the legacy of the witch
stretches back thousands of years. These goddesses had the ability to
give life and to take it away, and they were worshipped for it. There once was a time when wise women were honored. They were often the keepers of knowledge about folk healing, and they were often spiritual leaders. Paganism – living in sync with nature and observing rituals associated with the seasons – was the prevailing tradition.
The witch however has long been a symbol of fear not because she can harness
forces that transcend this mortal coil, but because she embodies a
powerful femininity free from male influence or ownership. Indeed
throughout history the figure of the witch has both challenged and
reflected patriarchal narratives about female power.
Then in Medieval Times, when monotheistic religions gained greater prominence, thereby
consolidating belief around an omnipotent male deity, women were cast
more frequently as “other,” and as villains. They were women who raised suspicion by amassing too much land, wealth,
or influence. They were mothers, sisters, and daughters who were in the
wrong place at the wrong time. And they were punished for it.Women who
had gained some form of social power was subjected to patriarchal tests
to see whether her heart was pure. For her to be proven to be pure, she
had to lose her will to live. Should she fail the test, by maintaining
her struggle to survive, she was shown to be of impure heart. This
meant that she was condemned to die for her sins.One particular test was
the dunking of witches. If they floated they were guilty of witchcraft,
if they sank they were innocent but would have usually drowned anyway.
During the “witch craze,” women’s power became associated with darkness and death, and folk healers were misconstrued and condemned as worshippers of Satan. Well-organized campaigns of tortures like burning, dunking, and the application of thumb screws enforced the suppression of what was by then called heresy. For three centuries of
early modern European history, diverse societies were consumed by a panic
over alleged witches in their midst between the 14th and 17th
centuries, especially in Central Europe. This was a time when many believed in the supernatural and misfortune
was thought to be the work of the Devil or his servants. here was a
widespread belief in Europe that a strong nation was one that had a
uniform religious faith. By consorting with the Devil, "witches" were
committing treason and were punishable by courts enforcing
anti-witchcraft statutes.
The witches, of course, were nothing
like the stereotype of the carbuncled hags shrieking incantations around
a cauldron full of devilish potions. They were ordinary people who were
often the convenient scapegoats for anything from a death in the
village to the failure of crops. Individuals would often have been
branded a witch simply after falling out with a neighbour.
Protestant
evangelists targeted all magic, claiming that witches were
deluded by the devil. The Catholic Church responded in kind. Each side
blamed the other for colluding with Satan. This quickly escalated,
leading to a number of the most brutal witch hunts in history ,(known as
The Burning Times) resulted in false accusations of heresy and trials
and led to massive torture and burnings at the stake, and executions of
tens of thousands of victims, about three-quarters of whom were women. Many question whether the widespread violence against women and the
neglect of our environment today can be traced back to those times.
Some
have claimed that as many as nine million people were killed in the
name of “witch hunts.” However, there’s a lot of discussion about the
accuracy of that number, and some scholars have
estimated it to be significantly lower, possibly as few as 200,000. Still a significantly huge number nevertheless. Hundreds of
thousands of women, men and children died due to mass fear, propaganda,
politics, and institutions run amok. The Burning Times may actually be viewed
as mass hysteria. Plagues, droughts and other natural disasters
during these times were often attributed to witchcraft which further
fuelled the fear of witches. Witchcraft came to be viewed upon as an
unpardonable offence which resulted in capital punishment. Many an
innocent woman were condemned due to it. In the past, its often been pointed out that
the European witch hunts targeted women — after all, these poor country
girls were simply the victims of the misogynistic societies of their
times. However, what is often overlooked is that although overall about
80% of the accused were female, in some areas, more men than women were
persecuted as witches.
England's most famous case were the Pendle Witches from Lancashire who were
convicted of murdering 17 people in 1612. Their prosecutors argued they
had sold their souls to the Devil in return for being able to lame or
kill anyone they pleased. The trial was meticulously documented and
appeared the following year in book form. Enormous crowds flocked to
Lancaster Gaol to watch 10 "witches" - eight women and two men - die on
the gallows.
In Scotland, where nearly 4,000 people died during a frenetic period of
witch trials between 1590 and 1662, one of the popular types of evidence
used against suspects was the Devil's Mark. When his followers made
their pact with him, the Devil supposedly left his mark, usually an
insensitive spot, upon him or her.
Witch hunting was old by the time Great Britain erupted into the
Civil Wars of 1639-1651, but this existential clash between royalists
and parliamentarians amid a swirling miasma of sectarianism and
suspicion, resulted in a fresh flowering of superstitious barbarity.
Behind the frontlines of the conflict in the puritan stronghold of East
Anglia, Matthew Hopkins, the self-proclaimed Witchfinder General, and
his colleague John Stearne dispatched an estimated 300 people to the
gallows between 1644 and 1647 for their alleged covenant with the devil.It was the largest outbreak of witch hunting in English
history, a unique product of fear, war, and the breakdown of civil
society.
In 1692, -1693 there were the cataclysmic events of
Salem, Massaschusets the belief in witches was so commonplace that
anything out of the ordinary, from odd weather to a cow’s milk going
sour, was explained away as “witchcraft.” In the Puritan colony of
Massachusetts Bay, fear of witches was rampant. In 1692, a group of
young girls accused three women of working with the devil. The
accusations soon multiplied, as those who stood accused would only be
saved from hanging if they admitted guilt and provided the names of
others who conjured the devil alongside them.Soon paranoia gripped, as people suddenly perceived
something so incredibly innocent to be the "devils work." After the
girls were accused of being witches, fingers began to be pointed at
everyone in the town, everyone was ready to accuse their neighbour or
friend, in order to take the focus away from themselves. By the time
this event was over 141
suspects, both men and women, were tried as witches. Nineteen were executed by hanging. One was pressed to death by heavy stones.
The town had become so afraid of something that was not to blame, that
innocent lives were taken, creating a spread of blame, along with a
chaotic panic.
After these tumultuous events European belief in
witches seemed to spontaneously disappear. The Age of Enlightenment,
with its emphasis on reason and logic, was
beginning in Europe and natural causes began to replace the Devil as the
reason behind much of society's ills. By 1736, the Witchcraft Acts in England and Scotland had both been repealed. The same happened on the continent
But what never died out completely, however, was the demonization of those
considered "other," and it is a grim grim
paradox of 21st-century life that persecution against people accused of
sorcery is very much still with us. It resurfaced, along with witch hunting, in
postcolonial Africa, as a response to the
process of modernization after independence.
The last witch trial in Britain took place in 1944, when Helen Duban
was jailed
for claiming to have conjured up the spirit of a dead sailor from the
HMS Barham – the sinking of the ship by the Germans was classified
information, and the authorities were worried that she might also reveal
details of the D-Day landing plans. She was released after nine months,
and lived to see the repeal of the Witchcraft Act in 1951.
Even today, we see witch
hunts breaking out in different parts of the world among cultures most
fearful of change. In recent years, there has been a spate of attacks
against people
accused of witchcraft in Africa, the Pacific and Latin America, and even
among immigrant communities in the United States and Western Europe.
Researchers with United Nations refugee and human rights agencies have
estimated the murders of supposed witches as numbering in the thousands
each year, while beatings and banishments could run into the millions.https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NEWSEVENTS/Pages/Witches21stCentury.aspx
For all the surface rationality and modernity of lives everywhere, fear
of witches is still widespread, a reminder that ancient superstitions
are durable and widespread. Much like xenophobia (fear of foreigners), Wiccaphobia ( fear of witches or fear of witchcraft) is triggerred especially by the fear of the unknown. What the mind cannot perceive or what it deems as unusual, it fears. The root cause of fear of witches may also be prejudice and stereotypes. In short: witches represent everything that is threatening. Many popular
childhood stories have often reinforced beliefs that witches are bad.
Today, there are many Churches that continue to teach its members that
witches are evil.
Today’s accused “witches” are almost all women, many of them the more
outspoken, independent and prosperous women in their communities.
Whether victims of simple sexist domination or scapegoats for the old
ways in a modernizing society plagued with economic injustice, often
they stand for a former way of life, a life more in harmony with nature.
Their murder is thus a crime against women and nature, as well as a
horrific violation of human rights and religious freedom generally.
Witch hunts lie at the dark heart of Western culture, so much so that
they've become synonymous with any kind of vicious, dogged and
irrational persecution, takeMcCarthyism in the 1940's for example when a similar paranoia and hysteria emerged, with federal employees being dragged
before loyalty boards on murky charges, their names often cleared only
to be charged again and again. Eventually 8,000 employees were forced to
resign. At least seven committed suicide. Then the House
Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) began investigating communist
activity in Hollywood in what critics considered an outrageous
infringement of First Amendment rights, labeling the hearings a “witch
hunt.” hounding politicians, academics, celebrities, and other public figures
while chasing vague rumors of Communist sympathizers. As in Salem, these
persecutions moved some to accuse others as evidence of their
innocence.
Later we would see the ritual child abuse
panics of the 1980s.
No wonder the history of the original European witch hunts of the late 16th and early 17th centuries has become politicized.
The inauguration of
the US president, Donald Trump, provoked women’s protest marches around
the world, with some banners reading: “Hex the Patriarchy”, “Witches for
Black Lives”, and “We are the daughters of the witches you didn’t burn,
and we are pissed off.”And recently an event even took place in October in Brooklyn, New York, to hex supreme
court justice, Brett Kavanaugh. The meeting was sold out and the
protest made headlines across the world. It is no surprise that, at a time when women’s rights are under
increasing pressure in some areas of Western society, that the witch
should be used as a feminist symbol of power, both in language and in
the claimed reality of witchcraft.
Then the the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements led Woody Allen to invoke the spectre of Salem,
but with men as accused witches, saying: “You also don’t want it to
lead to a witch-hunt atmosphere, a Salem atmosphere, where every guy in
an office who winks at a woman is suddenly having to call a lawyer to
defend himself.” In these cases, men are positioning themselves and
their peers in the role of witches, but in this scenario the witch is an
innocent, a victim.
Donald Trump feels persecuted. The most powerful man in the world
is always complaining that he’s being treated unfairly. He
has whined that no politician in history had ever received worse treatment,
and tweeted that there was a witch hunt out to get him.In 2018 alone, Trump has tweeted the term witch hunt 112 times. Now, Trump is pretty bad at being president, but he’s an even worse
historian. There are plenty of witch hunts in history that are
much bigger than anything Trump has yet encountered. A witch hunt involves persecution as well as prosecution, and Trump is not being persecuted.We should remind him that the Muslim ban is a witch hunt. The perrecution and demonisation of refugees is a witch hunt. And so is calling Mexican immigrants “rapists.”
Intrerestingly today it is male politicians
like Donald Trump – and countless others – who still use 'witch' or
generally cry 'witch hunt' as a term of
vilification against women, just as their predecessors so often led
them. During the 2016 presidential election
campaign, Hillary Clinton was repeatedly defined as a witch
by Trump supporters: Clinton was “the wicked witch of the Left”,
pictured with green skin, pointy hat, and riding a broomstick; her
opponents claimed she smelt of sulphur.
Aligning her with such stereotypical representations of witchcraft
evidenced the power plays at the root of such blatant and public
misogyny.
Men are still walking around afraid of women and their power. Hate crimes, sex
crimes, domestic violence, glass ceilings, all are testimony to this legacy of fear. The
real witches who live among us are still angry at having to live under
patriarchal control, and the measures taken against her are no less
real than the past, and raw patriarchal society still seeks to destroy
her.
So today on Samhein, as the more consumerist tradition of Halloween takes place, along with the stereotypical images, remember the deeper messages of the day, remember the
dead , our loved ones gone before us, honour our sisters, the witches, and all of the other lives who were lost in "the Burning
Times " and celebrate their courage, and be mindful for those who still
face persecution for their beliefs.
Men are still walking around afraid of women and their power. Hate crimes, sex
crimes, domestic violence, all are testimony to this legacy of fear. The
real witches who live among us are still angry at having to live under
patriarchal control, and the measures taken against her are no less
real than the past, and raw patriarchal society still seeks to destroy
her. Our deepest power is to learn and grow and talk about our fears out loud, so that we do not repeat the tragedies of the past, make a conscious effort not to repeat the evil of history, not to repeat the evil of fear.
The air is full of the whispers of our ancestors, loved ones passed, and we remember them holding them close to our hearts. What is remembered lives. Good Samhain to you and yours.