The Peterloo Massacre and Percy Bysshe Shelley's Mask of Anarchy

 

The 16th of August, marks  the anniversry of the infamous Peterloo Massacre, one of the most significant atrocities carried out by the British authorities against their own people and one of the  bloodiest episodes and most dismal in British history. The massacre by official accounts is believed to have involved 18 deaths and injuries to as many as 700 protesters, who paid the price for exercising their democratic rights and freedom of assembly.Though the actual death toll was likely much higher.

Peterloo involved the assembly of a large crowd of citizens at St Peter’s Field in  post- Napoleonic Manchester (since renamed St Peters Square.) Where over 60,000 peaceful pro-democracy (none of them were armed) and anti poverty protestors  had gathered, many in their Sunday best, proud and defiant  amid growing poverty and unemployment, mainly from the Corn Laws that artificially inflated bread prices, at a time when only 2% could vote. 

The first few decades of the 19th century, enshrined in public imagination as the elegant age of the Regency, were a time of severe political repression in England. The Tory government, led by Lord Liverpool, feared that the kind of revolutionary activity recently witnessed in France would break out in England – probably in Manchester, where social conditions were so desperate – and chose decided to stamp out all dissent and free speech.

The government was at war with France, which saw Wellington triumph over Napoleon’s forces at Waterloo in 1815.But as Paul Foot once wrote, the British government was also waging war against its own people.

The key speaker at St Peter’s Field was a famed orator by the name of Henry Hunt, the platform consisted of a simple cart, and the space was filled with banners emblazoned with messages calling for - Reform, universal suffrage,and equal representation. Many of the banners poles were topped with the red cap of liberty- a powerful symbol at the time.However, local magistrates peering out a window from a building near the field panicked at the size of the crowd, and proceeded without any notice to read the Riot Act, ordering the assembled listeners to disperse. It would almost certainly have been the case that only a very few would have heard the magistrates. The official 'guardians of the peace' then promptly directed the local Yeomanry to arrest the speakers. The Yeomanry could be described as a kind of paramilitary force with no training in crowd control and little in the way of proper discipline similar to the riot police that ran amok at the Battle of Orgreave during the miners strike of the 1980's. On horseback they charged into the crowd, and pierced the air with cutlasses and clubs. Many in the crowd believed the troops had drunk heavily in the lead up to the assault. In the melee, 600 Hussars who had initially been held in reserve, were ordered to attack unarmed civilians, with brutal consequences.They sliced indiscriminately at men, women and children as they tried to get to the speakers platform. Within minutes, people were sabred, trampled and crushed. Screams reverberated across the square. The Manchester Guardian described how " the women seemed to be the special objects of the rage of these bastard soldiers," 

The massacre was named ‘Peterloo’ in ironic comparison to the battle of Waterloo, that took place four years earlier.The victims included a two year old boy, William Fides, who was ridden oer by the cavalry after he was knocked from his mothers arms, and an an old Waterloo veteran , John Less, who was slashed to death by the cavalry's sabres.

After the massacre, it was the victims, and not the aggressors who were treated as criminals, and feared discrimination by their employers. And no doubt many of those injured died as a result of their injuries some weeks or even months later. In those days of primitive medical care and lack of welfare provision, a serious injury was often a death sentence, and for a wage earner to be incapacitated  equalled the threat of starvation for a family. At this time many handloom weavers and spinners were already living in a state of semi starvation.

The government of Lord Liverpool, backed up the public officials and the actions of the troops and was adamantly unwilling to apologize for the appalling violence. Henry Hunt, Samuel Bamford and other radical leaders were arrested for treason. This capital offence  was later commuted to a lesser one, and they served prison sentences of several years.

The event would  also usher in a series of draconian laws that further restricted the liberties of the population.It would lead to the suppression of public expression of opinion, debate , gathering and dissent.The populace did not decline into apathy, however. A large public outcry ensued, and an effort was made by various reformers to document the truth of what had occurred in the center of Manchester on that fateful day. Peterloo led directly to the formation of one of Britain’s leading progressive newspapers, the Manchester Guardian (now the more watered down Guardian). The aftermath of the event would in itself unleash a wave of public anger and protests, which eventually was to lead to the Great Reform Act of 1832, which led to limited suffrage and to today's parliamentary democracy. Many historians now acknowledge Peterloo  as hugely influential in ordinary people winning the vote and credit it with giving rise to the Chartist movement, and  strength to other workers rights movements. We should never forget on whose shoulders we today stand, a reminder that what rights that we have today were hard one.

In Italy, in the aftermath of Peterloo, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley having heard of the horror, his outraged response was  to compose his powerful political  91-verse poem, The Mask of Anarchy. The word anarchy then meant something quite different to how we view it today, Shelley used it to describe the chaos of tyranny, in which no one but the very few who own and control society can plan their lives for themselves.

The poem was written in the ballad tradition. Ballads in the early 19th century were verse narratives, often set to popular tunes and typically sold on the streets as a cheap disposable form of literature. They often focussed on tragedies, love affairs or scandals. By adopting this style,Shelley could be seen  to be speaking with the voice of the common man. 

The Mask of Anarchy recounts a nightmare in which the three Lords of the Tory Cabinet parade in an awful possession, murdering and deceiving while Britain dissolves into anarchy. He rouses the people to free themselves from their oppressors, by supplying them, among other things, with a powerful definition of freedom.

He begins his poem with the powerful images of the unjust forms of authority of his time: God,  the King and Law, and he then imagines the stirrings of a radically new form of social action. The poem mentions several members of Lord Liverpool's's government by name: the Foreign Secretary, Castlereagh who appears as a mask worn by Murder, the Home Secretary,Lord Sidmouth., whose guise is taken by Hypocrricy, and the Lord Chancellor,Lord Eldon whose ermine gown is worn by Fraud.The crowd at this gathering is met by armed soldiers, but the protestors do not raise an arm against their assailants:

Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war,

And that slaughter to the Nation
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar.

Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many - they are few."

That closing verse is perhaps one of the best known pieces of poetry in any movement of the oppressed all over the world such is it's resonance.Encouraging people to rise up and challenge the tyranny that they are facing every day of their lives, against the undeniable injustices.faced by the many at the hands of the few. The rallying language of the poem  has led to elements of it being recited by students at Tiananmen Square  and by protestors in Tahir Square during the revolution in Egypt in 2011.It would inspire the campaign slogan "We are many, they are few" used by anti Poll Tax demonstrators  in 1989-90, and also inspired the title of the 2014 documentary film We are Many, which focussed  on the worldwide anti-war protests of 2003, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has also memorably used the final stanza.
Shelley’s friend and publisher, Leigh Hunt did not publish the poem until after Shelley’s death fearing that the opinions in it were too controversial and inflammatory. The Masque of Anarchy  has been described as “the greatest political poem ever written in English” by people such as Richard Holmes. It inspired Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience which in turn influenced the anarchist writings of Leo Tolstoy.Percy Bysshe Shelley believed that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”He would remain a serious advocate for serious reform for the rest of his life, and would come to serve as a prophetic voice and inspiration to those, like the Chartists who created significant movements for peaceful reform, alongside generations of activists to this present day. Many years later his powerful poem is as relevant in austerity gripped Britain as when it was first written and  reminds us that Poetry can serve to inspire and motivate people and change and influence ideas. It is one of the most powerful tools we have.

Full text of Shelley's Mask of Anarchy can be found here:-

http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/PShelley/anarchy.html 

An earlier post on Shelley can be found here :-

https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2017/08/percy-bysshe-shelley-august-4-1792-july.html

The terrible events  that happened on August 16th, 1819  have recently been dramatised by director Mike Leigh in his  historical drama Peterloo. In this gripping account he presents a devastating portrait of class and political corruption which develops our understanding of how the working poor in Britain have coped with oppression . It  is a necessary film for our times, .which should be shown up and down the country in schools so that our children  can learn more about this shameful piece of British history.

This sobering but enthralling blast from the past, superbly shot by the director's regular cameraman Dick Pope, sees Leigh seamlessly move between the lives of disparate characters in the years after Waterloo: a family of weavers headed by Maxine Peake's matriarch: the Westminster government and gluttonous Prince Regent (an unrecognisable Tim McInnerny), fearful of losing his head to the forces of revolution; venomous Manchester magistrates determined to quash any radicalism; and moderate reformists and supporters from the local press, who invite tub-thumping speaker "Orator" Hunt (a terrific Rory Kinnear) to address the masses on that fateful day. Though the film is of considerable length, it's never plodding - Leigh leavens the mood with pointed humour and subtle mockery, whether it's in the pomposity and idiosyncrasies of the ruling classes, Vincent Franklin's apoplectic reverend magistrate or Hunt's smug, southern snobbishness. The climactic massacre is unheralded and low key, yet once the mayhem unfolds, it's easy to be reminded of recent crowd crises like Orgreave, the Poll Tax riots and Hillsborough. No doubt, Ken Loach would have been more strident with the material. To his credit, Leigh manages to take quirky slice-of-life drama to impressively epic heights and express a quieter indignation. But it's indignation, nonetheless. 

 

This year Mancunian Campaigners are fighting to make the Peterloo Massacre memorial accessible for wheelchair users, despite being told there are no viable solutions.  The memorial which stands close to the spot of the massacre was unveiled in 2019 before the 200th anniversary, but the circular-stepped feature came under fire from disability campaigners.

Manchester City Council said it had exhausted options for improving access including ramps and lifts.

Councillors have agreed to meet with campaigners to discuss fresh proposals.

Deputy council leader, councillor Luthfur Rahman, admitted that mistakes were made and if he could he would "go back and start right at the beginning again," the Local Democracy Reporting Service said said.

Jeremy Deller, the Turner Prize-winning artist who designed the memorial, intended it to be "a place of meeting and assembly where people could stand and sit together".

But the council said it did not anticipate Mr Deller's interpretation of his brief, which proposed the monument to be interactive without accommodating wheelchair access.

Because the memorial is completely inaccessible to many disabled people, it has already faced a barrage of criticism. The platform in itself was designed with the idea of it also being a platform for speakers and demonstrators, however it seems not a thought has been given to people with disability, to whom the memorial in its current state is inaccessible to a group of people that still desperately need a voice within society.With campaigners believing this is "an act of exclusion that denies people a voice, a blatant act of discrimination " with the memorial"set to become a glaring metaphor for inequality and segregation with disabled people at the bottom of the memorial being talked down to.

Mark Todd, a member of the Peterloo Memorial access campaign, told the council's communities and equalities committee that the time for working with Mr Deller and architects on finding a solution had passed.

"What we've done is we've worked together as Mancunians to come up with a solution we think works," he said.

"We want it to be an access solution that gets us to the top as the promise was made, so we can take part in the same way as any other citizen, but we think it can do more than that."

 Lets hope this problem can be rectified as soon as possible, so that  the memorial can truly be a fitting and lasting commemoration for all to remember the dramatic events of 1819.

Peterloo  has  since become a rallying cry for the working class and radicals, a symbol of the vile nature of the ruling class. The lessons that they draw from it remain as valid today as ever, that we do not forget  that our rights have been won by others and must be constantly defended. A time to pause and to consider this significant moment in history when our working class ancestors were  slaughtered whilst peacefully protesting for basic civil rights that we today, take for granted.We must continue too display our defiance. More than that, in today's society with the Conservatives  current  draconian  Policing Bill, it’s a reminder that Peterloo was about demanding basic democratic rights and that all these years later a Tory Government is still trying to restrict them and take them away and they are continuing to attack peoples rights to free assembly and their assaults on the weak and vulnerable among us, in an age of increasing government surveillance and the erosion of our civil liberties, it is a timely reminder of how governments are still not averse to attacking its own people and we should put Shelley's words into practice and rise like lions, because we are many and they are few.

 

                                 Print of the Peterloo Massacre published by Richard Carlisle
     

                       

Beyond the Sadness

Across the world, times of darkness

Unsettling denting and bruising inside, 

Taking away our thoughts and dreams

Hearts breaking, affected by tragedy,

Unbridled tears running like water, in Plymouth

The landscape of my childhood memories,

Where the spirits of pilgrims set sail from

Ancestors went to sea,with hearts full of love,

In times of departure, weathered many a storm 

From a distance in Wales, was inspired,  

By colourful epitaphs and  gentle smiles

A time when hatred was not  fostered,

Upon  salty winds the sails of unison

Not shattered by cold cruel empty wicked eyes,

In this proud city, am currently feeling its hurt 

Yearning for hope to return, heal the hatred,

Beyond the blackness, the evil of terror

With outstretched arms, I weep to remember,

As sorrow rains down, let healing thoughts blossom 

Take the reins, harvest a new direction,

Affections feeling, releasing unfolding empathy

Destroying misogyny, keeping reason alive,

Filling the world with care and compassion

With thoughts and prayers, uproot the pain.

This is a story that everyone in the country should hear

 A video projected on the Houses of Parliament has been making the rounds on social media today and has been dubbed the 'story everyone should hear..The Good Law Project https://goodlawproject.org/  have  joined up with Led By Donkeys https://www.ledbydonkeys.org/ to expose the truth about the Government's secret back-channel which allowed friends of the Conservative Party and other politically connected suppliers to secure billions of pounds of PPE contracts. This was while overworked NHS staff were struggling to stay safe on the frontline. 

Amid court action by the Good Law Project to reveal more about the contracts, the short film raises questions about why the Government is so reluctant to name more of the companies involved in the lucrative PPE schemes.

It raises legal concerns about Downing Street's so called "VIP lane" for select companies and runs through the vast sums awarded to firms owned or linked to associates of top level government officials and helps show  the utter contempt  they have, for the public for all to see.

It has been released as health minister Lord Bethell comes under scrutiny over his use of private communications channels for official government business.

The Good Law Project has highlighted dishonesty, obfuscation, illegality, and cronyism in the awarding of key pandemic contracts and roles, as well as delivery of protective equipment and testing

As our government is becoming increasingly authoritarian and our media is run by a handful of billionaires. most of whom reside overseas and all of them with strong political allegiances and financial motivations. It is vital that we keep holding this corrupt government to account.

Transparency is essential  for any credible government. It shouldn’t take inquiries, whistleblowers, legal actions, investigative journalists, and public campaigns to get at truths that should already be in the public domain,

David Cameron ‘made more than £7m’ from Greensill Capital before firm collapsed

 

David Cameron so stinkingly Tory earned about $10 million from finance firm Greensill Capital before the company’s collapse, according to documents leaked to the BBC.

The former British prime minister was due to be paid $4.5 million after tax for a tranche of Greensill shares, according to a letter from the firm to Cameron obtained by the BBC Panorama program.

Cameron also received a salary of $1 million a year as a part-time adviser and was paid a bonus of $700,000 in 2019, the broadcaster reported. In total, the program alleges the documents suggest he made around $10 million before tax for two-and-a-half years’ part-time work.

 The number, reported, is news, not least because Cameron himself had refused to disclose it. Speaking to a Commons committee investigating his failed lobbying for the failed company, the failed former PM would say only that he had been paid a 'generous' sum by Greensill.That one word, 'generous', speaks volumes about Cameron and the Greensill episode. Cameron lets not forget is nothing but a slave owning descendent who has not worked a single day of his life, who with a reported obscene £30 million in inherited wealth, whilst PM imposed austerity on the rest of us.

The former Conservative leader has been at the center of Britain’s biggest lobbying scandal in a generation after it emerged he pressed senior ministers and officials to include Greensill Capital in a coronavirus lending scheme.

Greensill which provided loans to steel magnate Sanjeev Gupta's company - cratered in March after a furious lobbying effort for Covid cash by Mr Cameron fell flat. 

The former premier bombarded ministers including Rishi Sunak and senior officials with 56 texts begging for Government bailout loans.

During a Commons grilling in May Mr Cameron bragged he made "far more" cash at Greensill than he did in No10 but refused to cough an exact figure.

Following Greensill’s collapse in March, which left 3,000 jobs at a steel manufacturer at risk, investigations have been opened into the company’s activities in the U.K., Germany and elsewhere. The former prime minister was cleared of breaking lobbying rules but a cross-party group of MPs found he had demonstrated a “significant lack of judgment.” 

He also faced questions for bringing Australian financier Lex Greensill into the heart of Government as an adviser with a desk in Downing Street.

Senior civil servant Sir Bill Crothers was also found to have parachuted into a plum Greensill job after leaving Whitehall.

In a statement released after the new allegations emerged on Monday evening, Mr Cameron's spokesperson said the former Conservative party leader committed "no wrongdoing".

"David Cameron deeply regrets that Greensill went into administration and is desperately sorry for those who have lost their jobs," the spokesperson said.

"As he was neither a director of the company, nor involved in any lending decisions, he has no special insight into what ultimately happened. 

"He acted in good faith at all times, and there was no wrongdoing in any of the actions he took. He made the representations he did to the UK government not just because he thought it would benefit the company, but because he sincerely believed there would be a material benefit for UK businesses at a challenging time. 

"He had no idea until December 2020 that the company was in danger of failure. 

"We are not commenting on David Cameron's remuneration; this is a private matter. But it is preposterous to suggest that he would work for any company if he was aware that it was behaving improperly, or was in any way seeking to mislead investors. 

"Indeed, Panorama's questions and assertions are attempting to define a role for David Cameron at Greensill that is totally at odds with the facts. He was a part-time adviser to the company - one of several - and had no executive or board responsibilities whatsoever." 

The statement adds that Mr Cameron "had no knowledge" of GFG's financial situation and repeats that "both the Treasury Select Committee and the Boardman Report have since confirmed that he broke no rules".

 Labour's deputy leader Angela Rayner said it was "ludicrous" that the former Conservative prime minister allegedly earned over £7m from his work with Greensill and accused Mr Cameron of "using his Tory contacts for huge personal gain"."The fact that David Cameron was cleared of any wrongdoing, proves that the rules that are supposed to regulate lobbying are completely unfit for purpose. It's created a wild west where the Conservatives think it's one rule for them and another for everyone else,""The system causes more harm than good by giving a veil of legitimacy to the rampant cronyism, sleaze and dodgy lobbying that is polluting our democracy under Boris Johnson and the Conservatives. This is money most of us cannot even imagine, but for David Cameron it was just a part-time gig using his Tory contacts for huge personal gain." Ms Rayner said.

.Personally I believe  dodgy Dave Cameron to be a smug, conceited, greedy hypocrite of the first order, who arrogantly negligent of the well-being of the country, runs away from his responsibility, protects party  over people, who devoid of any principle, simply grubbed around in the trough to the tune of £10m  ,who along with his friends was always on hand to castigate poor people on benefits, who seem to think they are entitled to far more, whilst lining their own grubby pockets. Cameron and his party clearly believe that society should be founded on inequality, that the poor deserve poverty, whilst the wealthy deserve incentives. Simply rotten to the core, whatever reputation he once had, simply now lies in tatters, and  as for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, well like his predecessor, is made from the same cloth. 

Hiroshima / Nagasaki : Never Again

 

On this day 6th August 1945 the United States dropped  an atomic bomb called ' Little Boy" on Hiroshima, Japan which is estimated to have killed 100,000 to 180,000 people out of a population of 350,000. Then three days later, a second  atomic bomb  called "Fat Man" was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, killing between 50,000 and 100,000 people in an act of unspeakable violence.
.Hiroshima and Nagasaki were largely civilian towns, meaning there wasn't a strong military reason to drop the atomic bombs over those particular cities. No one was excluded from the horrors of the atomic bomb, a "destroyer of worlds" burnt hotter than the sun. Some people were vaporised upon impact, while others suffered burns and radiation poisoning that would kill them days, weeks or even months later. Others were crushed by debris, burned by unimaginable heat or suffocated by the lack of oxygen. Many survivors suffered from leukemia and other cancers like thyroid and lung cancer at higher rates than those not exposed to the bombs. Mothers were more likely to  lose their children during pregnancy or shortly after birth. Children exposed to radiation were more likely to have learning disabilities and impaired growth.
Those that did manage to survive  would be traumatised for the rest of their lives. Hibakusha is a term widely used in Japan, that refers to the victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it translates as 'explosion effected  Survivor of Light. These survivors speak of the deep, unabating grief they felt in the days, months and decades since the attack  They have described the shame of being a survivor , many were unable to marry, find jobs, or live any sort of normal life. They have said that many Hibakusha never speak of the day, instead choosing to suffer in silence. They told what it was like to be suddenly alone in middle age, to lose their parents, spouses, children, and livelihoods in a single instant. In memory of them, we should make sure that the  misery and devastation caused by nuclear weapons is never forgotten.
Even if Japan was not fully innocent, the people of Japan did not deserve to pay the price for their nations wrongdoing, and there was absolutely no moral justification in obliterating these two cities and killing its inhabitants in what was clearly a crime against humanity and murder on an epic scale. Hiroshima and Nagasaki held no strategic importance. Japan were an enemy on the brink of failure an members of the country's top leadership were involved in peace negotiations. Many believe that these two atrocities were a result of  geopolitical posturing at its most barbaric, announcing  in a catastrophic  display of military capability, of inhumane intention showing America's willingness to use doomsday weapons on civilian populations.The bombings serving as warnings and the fist act of the Cold War against its imperialist rival Russia. A message to the Russians of the power of destruction and technological military capability that the US had managed to develop.Three days later U.S president Harry Truman exulted ; "This is the greatest thing in history! " and gloated that " we are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely."
Then the photos began to emerge, haunting images of burned children with their skin hanging off, of bodies charred and there was Sadaki Sasaki and the 1,000 origami peace cranes she folded before her death at 12 from leukemia ten years after the bomb was dropped on her hometown of Hiroshima.The atom bombs dropped by the US on those Japanese cities served no military purpose, as the Japanese were already suing for peace. President Truman, who ordered the bombs to be dropped, lied to the American people when he said that the atom bombs had saved lives and there were few civilian deaths, The  two atomic bombs killed and maimed hundreds and thousands of people.and the effects are still being felt today. The bombs dropped were  of a indiscriminate and cruel character beyond comparison  with weapons and projectiles of the past. Despite all  this Truman never regretted his decision. .

Today as the world commemorates the lives that were lost and the unacceptable devastation caused to people and planet, we still have so much to learn from this picture of indescribable human suffering. As  we mourn the hundreds and thousands of lives lost at Hiroshima and Nagasaki now is the time for us to redouble our efforts to ensure that such an atrocity does not happen again and on this poignant anniversary, we must reaffirm our determination to campaign for a world without nuclear weapons, whilst remembering the resilience of ordinary people in the years after the war and the movements of ordinary people against war, who try to make this world more peaceful and harmonious place for us all.Hiroshima and Nagasaki  reminds us of our mission to end preventable and premature deaths by such senseless atrocities. And this year is special. In January 2021, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons came into force. Nuclear weapons are banned.  

But in the UK, the government refuses to do its moral duty, and now its duty under international law. Instead, it has committed £Billions towards expanding the UK’s stockpile. This comes at a time when over 150,000 people in the UK alone have died of COVID-19, and our NHS is straining from the virus and years of austerity. 

The second year of the pandemic has continued to expose long-running health inequities both in the UK and worldwide. Yet again, UK health workers have had to spread themselves so thin this year. We know we need huge investment in the NHS and wide-ranging measures to reduce health inequity. In this context, the government’s choice to spend billions more of public money on weapons of mass destruction is unbelievable. 

Today, 76 years since the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, it’s time to step back and consider what our society values most. Across the world today for Hiroshima Day and on August 9 Nagasaki Day many will echo the call of the Hibakusha, that such horrors must never happen again, and honour ther wish for the elimination of nuclear weapons..

Wendell E. Berry ( b 5/8/34) - Prophet of responsibility

 

Wendell Erdman Berry the American novelist, essayist, novelist, and poet,  environmentalist, cultural critic, and farmer celebrates his 87th birthday today.Born the first of four children of Virginia Erdman Berry and John Marshall Berry, a lawyer and tobacco farmer.  near Port Royal, in Henry County, Kentucky (1934). His family, on both sides  have farmed tobacco in Henry County for at least five generations.

 A prolific author, he has written many novels, short stories, poems, and essays. I love the meditative quality of his work. A key theme in his  writing is the importance of living in harmony with nature and protecting the earth. Environmental activist Bill McKibben has called Berry " a prophet of responsibility."  

With care and humility, passion and eloquence, he has  lived his life built on convictions and has a love for everything that's wild, everything that's natural, and at the same time for people, particularly simple people who are trying to build a relationship with the natural world. For most of his life, he has lived and worked with his wife, Tanya Berry, on a farm in Port Royal, Kentucky, trying, as he puts it, "to see from there as far as I can."

 Berry considers himself a Christian and criticizes the Christians who fail to take climate change and the environment seriously. He’s an activist for (and against) many other issues, too, including the death penalty, nuclear power plants, the coal industry, the war in Vietnam, sustainable agriculture, and dependence on fossil fuels. In 1973 he began corresponding with poet Gary Snyder.https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2021/05/happy-birthday-gary-snyder-poet.html In many ways they were opposites: Snyder lived in California, Berry in Kentucky; Snyder was a practicing Buddhist, Berry a Christian. They didn’t always agree. Berry worried about fighting evil: “You can struggle, embattle yourself, resist evil until you become evil […] And I see with considerable sorrow that I am not going to get done fighting and live at peace in anything like the simple way I thought I would.” Snyder didn’t believe in the concept of evil the way that Berry envisioned it and told Berry he was fighting “ignorance, stupidity, narrow views [and] simple-minded egotism.” But over more than 40 years they have exchanged almost 250 letters, on subjects ranging from writing to religion, from farming to philosophy. Their letters are collected in Distant Neighbors (2014).

Wendell Berry dares to investigate the systemic malaise of the West. None is more fascinated with the interesting nature of the world than he, but he knows something’s gone wrong and he wants to look deeper. A radical voice who  cannot be pigeonholed politically or religiously, A pacifist and anti-capitalist moralist who has written against all forms of violence and destruction, of land, community and human beings.

 Many of Berry's  basic principles are actually consistent with socialist thought, in particular his strong concern  for the welfare of others and thee way he critcises corporate  power and market-driven behaviour. This combined with his belief in social equality, a thoughtful measured  mind that encompasses  a broad range of issues ranging from the ecological, aesthetic, spiritual, political and cultural. To those of us interested in the evolution of ideas, that is some achievement.

For Wendell Berry, the defense of the Earth is a mission that admits no compromise. This quiet and modest man who lives and works far from the center of power on a farm in Kentucky where his family has lived for 200 years has become an outspoken, even angry advocate for a revolution in our treatment of the land..

For years, Berry,, has advocated personal activism on behalf of the environment. He has written that there should not be a "split between what we think and what we do. Once our personal connection to what is wrong becomes clear, then we have to choose: we can go on as before, recognizing our dishonesty and living with it the best we can, or we can begin the effort to change the way we think and live." 

What Berry believes is reflected in how he conducts his life. As a political activist he has taken taken part in protests against the Vietnam War, nuclear power and a range of other environmental issues, and has written critiques inter alia of George Bush’s post-9/11 policies,  which he wrote about  about in  his 2003 essay titled "A Citizen's Response to the National Security Strategy of the United States",which was  published as a full-page advertisement in The New York Times. In it he asserted that "The new National Security Strategy published by the White House in September 2002, if carried out, would amount to a radical revision of the political character of our nation."  

 The ideas that permeate his essays, novels and poetry focus on the failings of the global economic system that result in environmental destruction, greed, violence and injustice, and the need for sustainable agriculture and appropriate technologies that allow for greater connection to place, respect the nature, and recognise the interconnectedness of life.

 At the 1968 University of Kentucky conference on the War and the Draft, in "A Statement Against the War in Vietnam" Berry said: "I have come to the realization that I can no longer imagine a war that I would believe to be either useful or necessary. I would be against any war." And in  his essay, the "Failure of War" ( 1999) he wrote, "How many deaths of other people's children are we willing to accept in order that we may be free, affluent and (supposedly) at peace? To that question I answer: None . . . Don't kill any children for my benefit." 

In 1979 he participated in non-violent civil disobedience against the construction of a nuclear power plant in Marble Hill, Indiana. And in  2009, Berry, along with Wes Jackson, president of The Land Institute and Fred Kirschenmann of The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture gathered in Washington D.C. to promote the idea of a 50-Year Farm Bill claiming that "We need a 50-year farm bill that addresses forthrightly the problems of soil loss and degradation, toxic pollution, fossil-fuel dependency and the destruction of rural communities." 

Also in 2009, along with 38 other Kentucky writers, Berry wrote in opposition to the death penalty asking the Governor and Attorney General to impose a moratorium on the death penalty in that state. In that same year, he spoke out against the National Animal Identification System, which required that independent farmers pay the cost of registration devices for each animal while large, corporate factory farms pay by the herd. Said Berry, "If you impose this program on the small farmers, who are already overburdened, you're going to have to send the police for me. I'm 75 years old. I've about completed my responsibilities to my family. I'll lose very little in going to jail in opposition to your program – and I'll have to do it." 

Opposing the use of coal as an energy source, in 2009 Berry joined over 2,000 others in non-violently blocking the gates to a coal-fired power plant in Washington, D.C., and later that year combined with several non-profit organizations and rural electric co-op members to petition against and protest the construction of a coal-burning power plant in Clark County, Kentucky. As a result, in 2011 the Kentucky Public Service Commission cancelled the construction of this power plant. On September 28, 2010 Berry participated in a rally in Louisville during an EPA hearing on how to manage coal ash. Berry said, "The EPA knows that coal ash is poison. We ask it only to believe in its own findings on this issue, and do its duty."  Berry, with 14 other protesters, spent the weekend of February 12, 2011 locked in the Kentucky governor's office demanding an end to mountaintop removal coal mining.

Through whatever he is writing, Berry's message is constant: humans must learn to live in harmony with the natural rhythms of the earth or perish. In his opinion, we must acknowledge the impact of agriculture to our society. Berry believes that small-scale farming is essential to healthy local economies, and that strong local economies are essential to the survival of the species and the well-being of the planet,

 Wendell Berry lives up to his own standards, both privately and publicly. He uses horses to work his land and employs organic methods of fertilization and pest control. In 2010 he withdrew personal papers he had donated to the University of Kentucky because he objected to a decision to name a basketball-players' dormitory the Wildcat Coal Lodge. "The University's president and board have solemnized an alliance with the coal industry, in return for a large monetary 'gift,'" he wrote. "That...puts an end to my willingness to be associated in any way officially with the University." He intends to transfer his papers to the Kentucky Historical Society.

The author of more than 50 works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, including the novel Hannah Coulter (2004), the essay collections Citizenship Papers (2005) and The Way of Ignorance (2006), and Given: Poems (2005) Wendell Berry has also  been the recipient of numerous awards and honors, which include  a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (1962), the Vachel Lindsay Prize from Poetry (1962), a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship (1965), a National Institute of Arts and Letters award for writing (1971), the Emily Clark Balch Prize from The Virginia Quarterly Review (1974), the American Academy of Arts and Letters Jean Stein Award (1987), a Lannan Foundation Award for Non-Fiction (1989), Membership in the Fellowship of Southern Writers (1991), the Ingersoll Foundation’s T. S. Eliot Award (1994), the John Hay Award (1997), the Lyndhurst Prize (1997), and the Aitken-Taylor Award for Poetry from The Sewanee Review (1998). In 2010, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by Barack Obama, and in 2016  he was the recipient of the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Critics Circle. He is also a fellow of the Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Happy birthday Wendell Berry,  we are all living in a time here we could all be well served to imitate this prophet of responsibility's walk, and try  to reflect on our own responsibiliies as custodians of the places we belong to, listen to his words, his clarity and wisdom, find gentleness beyond the unsettleness of day.

The Peace of Wild Things - Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

 

I go among Trees - Wendell Berry

I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.

My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.
Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.

What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.
Then what I am afraid of comes.

I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.

After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it. As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.

 

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front- Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

What we need is here 

Geese appear high over us,

pass, and the sky closes,

  Abandon

as in love or sleep, holds

them to their way, clear

in the ancient faith: what we need 

is here.

 And we pray,  not

for new earth or heaven, butt to be

quiet in heart, and in eye,

clear,

 what we need is here.

Crossing the Boardwalk

Every day people fighting over ideology

Some things so easily said, already undone,

Life is no charade, no borders necessary

Death forever entwines, surrealist pillows shine,

Between unsettling walls, causes that reek havoc

Sad fountains, a system so broken,

Rebel hearts keep planning where to go

Beyond the brimming swell of unreason,

Breaking the barriers, in soul searching dream

With prophetic endeavour, saving mind and soul,

Find sheltered breaches of sanity

Places of romance instead of trauma,

Where every thought is jewelled with love

The universe releasing inner riots pulsating,

Burning darkness and bitterness lingering

Sprouting forth madly while music roars ,

Bathing in unravelling glossamers of warmth

Spirits timeless hum, whispering beyond the chaos,

The syncopated rhythms of shimmering emotion

Life always ends, amidst the confusion,

Reach out find some satisfaction

Abandon all temples, follow rippling clouds,

Minds no longer occupied with diversion

Carried forever on an ocean of sound, sing.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement is working and winning the global battle for hearts and minds.

I am proud to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions ( BDS) movement, that enables  people around the world to contribute to the Palestinian struggle against Israeli apartheid and for freedom, justice and equality. BDS calls for the international community to put nonviolent pressure on Israel until it complies with international human rights laws, such as the Geneva Conventions and UN Resolution 242.

Founded in 2005, BDS is a global movement which takes inspiration from the campaign that targeted South Africa’s apartheid regime, focusing on non-violent methods to accomplish its goals. Its basic principle is that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity, and it seeks to mount international political and economic pressure on Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

According to the official website “The BDS movement was launched by 170 Palestinian unions, refugee networks, women’s organisations, professional associations, popular resistance committees and other Palestinian civil society bodies.”It is the broadest Palestinian civil society coalition.

It says “BDS is an inclusive, anti-racist human rights movement that is opposed on principle to all forms of discrimination, including anti-semitism and Islamophobia.”

BDS calls for “nonviolent pressure on Israel until it complies with international law by meeting three demands”: The end of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land (West Bank, East Jerusalem, Syrian Golan Heights) and the dismantling of Israel’s illegal separation wall and settlements in the occupied West Bank, full equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated  by international laws and regulations.

There is significant support for the Palestinian BDS movement in South Africa. The African National Congress supports BDS, as does the Congress of South African Trade Unions.

BDS stated “Both the South Africa and BDS boycotts were called by those impacted by the state in question, rather than imposed by consumers or civil society abroad.”

Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a leader of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. He supports BDS and stated "I have witnessed the systematic humiliation of Palestinian men, women and children by members of the Israeli security forces. Their humiliation is familiar to all black South Africans who were corralled and harassed and insulted and assaulted by the security forces of the apartheid government."

When Israel is compared with Apartheid South Africa, the comparison sticks regardless of however convincingly the accusation is refuted. Whatever the Zionist answer, the BDS movement essentially wins just by raising the question.

According to the Red Cross the Geneva Conventions “form the core of international humanitarian law, which regulates the conduct of armed conflict and seeks to limit its effects. They protect people not taking part in hostilities”.

A 2017 UN General Assembly Resolution stated that Israel was in breach of several provisions of the Geneva Convention. It called for Israel to “comply strictly with its obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law”. It has adopted several similar resolutions historically, for example in 2015 and 2016.

The UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR) states “The United Nations has stated on many occasions that the 53-year-old Israeli occupation is the source of profound human rights violations against the Palestinian people. These violations include land confiscation, settler violence, discriminatory planning laws, the confiscation of natural resources, home demolitions, forcible population transfer, excessive use of force and torture, labour exploitation, extensive infringements of privacy rights, restrictions on the media and freedom of expression, the targeting of women activists and journalists, the detention of children, poisoning by exposure to toxic wastes, forced evictions and displacement, economic deprivation and extreme poverty, arbitrary detention, lack of freedom of movement, food insecurity, discriminatory law enforcement and the imposition of a two-tier system of disparate political, legal, social, cultural and economic rights based on ethnicity and nationality.

Palestinian and Israeli human rights defenders, who peacefully bring public attention to these violations, are slandered, criminalised or labeled as terrorists. Above all, the Israeli occupation has meant the denial of the right of Palestinian self-determination.”

In addition to the violations of international human rights laws posed by settlements and annexation, the Israeli government is accused of violating the right of refugees to return to their homeland and is accused of discriminating against Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Estimates indicate that nearly 50% of Palestinians live outside of Palestine.

According to the Oxford Human Rights Hub, Palestinian refugees and their descendents “constitute one of the largest and longest-standing unresolved refugee crises in the world, with 7.54 million refugees in addition to 720,000 internally displaced persons”.

UN Resolution 194, which was passed in 1948, states that Palestinian refugees should have the right to return to their homes, but this right has been denied.

Oxford Human Rights Hub continues, “Palestinian refugees, who were forcibly displaced as a result of 1948 and 1967 wars, are stripped of their UN-mandated Right of Return [...] Like never before in the history of the UN, Resolution 194’s consistency with international laws and instruments was reaffirmed by the UN more than 135 times.” 

Ten former presidents, and more than 700 members of parliament, mayors, cultural figures and academics from Latin America, Asia and Africa, called on the UN to recognize Israel as an apartheid State and to impose sanctions on it. 

BDS uses  the following methods: .

Boycotts

The BDS website states “Boycotts involve withdrawing support from Israel's apartheid regime, complicit Israeli sporting, cultural and academic institutions, and from all Israeli and international companies engaged in violations of Palestinian human rights.”

Divestment campaigns

“Divestment campaigns urge banks, local councils, churches, pension funds and universities to withdraw investments from the State of Israel and all Israeli and international companies that sustain Israeli apartheid.”

Calls for sanctions

“Sanctions campaigns pressure governments to fulfil their legal obligations to end Israeli apartheid, and not aid or assist its maintenance, by banning business with illegal Israeli settlements, ending military trade and free-trade agreements, as well as suspending Israel's membership in international forums such as UN bodies and FIFA.”

None of these should be controversial – yet large swathes of the British political establishment seemingly align with Johnson’s disapproval on the matter.  Johnson's government continues to push for anti-BDS legislation. The December 2019 Queen’s speech announced the proposal of a new law essentially criminalising the BDS movement. It stated that (if the law passes) public institutions such as universities and local councils would be prohibited from “imposing their own direct or indirect boycotts, disinvestment or sanctions campaigns against foreign countries”. Eric Pickles, former Conservative Party chairman and House of Lords Parliamentary Chairman of the pro-Israel lobby group Conservative Friends of Israel, has dubbed the campaign a ‘thin disguise for anti-Semitism.

The Labour Party, too, has been consistently weak on the cause, despite a new poll showing that 61 percent of its members support BDS.

In summer 2020, when Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to extend Israel’s annexation to make way for more settlers—an endeavour in flagrant violation of international law—Lisa Nandy called for an import ban on settlement goods, but has since been at pains to say that she has ‘never’ supported BDS. In her view, ‘BDS pushes people away instead of bringing people together.’

Labour leader Keir Starmer apparently subscribes to the same theory. He recently pulled out of a Ramadan virtual fast-breaking event after he was made aware that its organiser supported the boycott of Israeli dates. The move was fiercely criticised, with over 2,000 people signing a petition condemning Starmer’s ‘selective disengagement’ and his discrimination against Muslims.

The challenge for those involved in the BDS movement is that the attempt to neutralise it is a multi-pronged one. Even before the government’s proposed bill, universities across the country had a history of muzzling pro-Palestinian activism on campus.

In cracking down further, Britain is starting to sing from the same repressive hymn sheet as the United States and Israel. The former has seen at least 28 states pass laws that either restrict or ban individuals or companies dealing in state contracts from boycotting Israel, while the latter has form for blacklisting charities and human rights organisations from entering the country because they endorse the BDS movement. In 2017, Israel’s government approved a $72 million plan to combat BDS’s influence.

More than half of US states have passed laws that combat the BDS movement. Donald Trump pursued legislation that would effectively prohibit support for boycotts of the Israeli state on campus. 

There has been proposed anti-BDS legislation at various levels of government from state to councils in Canada, France, Germany, Austria,Czech Republic and the Balearic Islands.

Repression of BDS is hardly surprising, as successful examples of direct democracy and people power fly in the face of efforts to cow and silence activists and movements.

These frantic attempts to gag BDS and its supporters is testament to its growth and prominence. Indeed, the list of success stories in recent years is a considerable one

In 2019, major international companies including Australia’s Macquarie, Canada’s Bombardier, France’s Alstom, and Germany’s Siemens withdrew from bidding to build Israel’s illegal settlement railway on stolen Palestinian land as the movement’s pressure mounted.

The UN has also released a list of 112 companies that are complicit in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise, a move widely considered a robust step towards holding international corporations accountable for facilitating Israel’s oppression. The list includes familiar names like JCB, Motorola, Airbnb, and TripAdvisor.

2021 has seen fantastic momentum for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement from Ben & Jerry's ending sales in Israel's illegal settlements, to the UK-wide Boycott Puma Day of Action. The “friendly” football match between FC Barcelona and racist Israeli club Beitar Jerusalem, known for its fans’ “death to Arabs” chants, was cancelled. Premier league Qatar Sports Club pledge not to renew with PUMA amid local and international calls for boycott due to its compliance with the Israeli occupation.

Lothian Pension Fund, Scotland’s second largest local authority pension fund, with 84,000 members and £8 billion in assets, divested from Israeli Bank Hapoalim.

The Irish government became the first EU country to declare Israel’s building of illegal settlements on Palestinian land a ‘de facto annexation.'

 Over 350 academic departments, centres, unions, and societies, along with 23,000 academics, students, and university staff, signed statements in support of Palestinian rights with many calling for BDS!

Chilean parliament introduces a bill to ban import of Israeli goods from illegal settlements.39 labour organizations, representing hundreds of thousands of workers across Canada, signed an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, urging his government to immediately suspend bilateral military trade with Israel.

The Canadian Labour Congress endorsed a ban on settlement goods, promoting divestment from Israeli military and security companies, and calling on Canada to impose a #MilitaryEmbargo on Israel.

The University of Brasilia and the University of Costa Rica passed historic resolutions declaring they will have no ties with companies complicit in Israel’s regime of military occupation, colonialism, and apartheid. The Student Association of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva became the first student association in Switzerland to endorse BDS and to declare itself an Apartheid Free Zone (AFZ).

The City University of New York (CUNY) staff congress, representing 30,000 members, passed a resolution condemning Israel as a settler-colonial and apartheid state.

More than 130 Mexican civil rights organizations demand CEMEX end complicity with Israeli apartheid. 

East Sussex Pension Fund divested from Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest private arms manufacturer.

In a year marred by Israeli apartheid and massacres, Palestinian hope and unity shine through as do these victories, BDS is working and winning the global battle for hearts and mind, whilst delivering justice to the Palestinian people. 

The most common self-satisfied arguments against BDS highlights how BDS supporters single out Israel while ignoring other notorious human rights violators, such as Turkey, China, or Russia. While supposedly exposing some form of hypocrisy and insincerity, this in fact concedes that Israel is comparably guilty, grouping Israel along with murderous, oppressive, and tyrannical regimes.

If like me you I believe in a world with equal rights for all and not privileges for some and are against all forms of oppression and discrimination and want to stop corporate complicity in human rights violations. If you support the rights of all Indigenous peoples, including Palestinians, over their ancestral lands, cultural heritage and natural resources and support the global struggle against racism in all its forms, and believe that no state, including Israel, should be granted impunity for violating international law and human rights. And if you subscribe to Martin Luther King’s words that ethically-consistent boycotts entail “withdrawing our cooperation from an evil system," supporting BDS is a moral imperative.

 Boycotts work. The power of boycotts past and present is that they refuse to confine the movements they represent to the realm of humanitarian relief, they also demand accountability.

 Ultimately  BDS empowers individuals to do better than their governments, and can be a way to pressure governments to act. While governments fail to take a stand against war crimes committed by the Israeli state, we can condemn these actions through Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions. BDS is a prime example of peoples power in action.

It is used as a key tactic of solidarity with the Palestinian people,creating a pressure that cannot simply be ignored. BDS upholds the simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity. 

Thousands of organisations are working on BDS campaigns globally.UK organisations that have expressed support for BDS include NUS, the Scottish Trades Union Congress, National Union of Teachers, Union of Students in Ireland, Unite the Union, War on Want, and 25 student unions, including the University of Manchester, SOAS, Goldsmiths, UCL and Kings College London.

Individuals who have expressed support for BDS include Alice Walker, Angela Davis, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Arundhati Roy, Benjamin Zephaniah, Eduardo Galeano, Gideon Levy, Ilhan Omar, Judith Butler, Ken Loach, Lauryn Hill, Mandla Mandela, Naomi Klein, Roger Waters and Stephen Hawking.

Several governments have spoken out in defense of the right for citizens to support BDS, including the Netherlands, Sweden and Ireland.

A groundbreaking report by Human Rights Watch, titled ‘A Threshold Crossed’, detailed how Israel’s policies against millions of Palestinians amounts to persecution and apartheid and crimes againsst humanity. It’s long past time to hold Israel accountable. BDS is a movement to disempower and defund such crimes — and that is a movement worth supporting.

BDS  exerts economic pressure on powerful companies or governments so they change their ways. Boycotts have seen countless sucesses and played an important role in the ethical consumer movement since it began.From the boycott of South African products during the Apartheid in the 1980s, to the Alabama bus boycotts, it is clear they can contribute to real change.

Author and activist Naomi Klein has stated “The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa.”

   

Here are ways to Support BDS

 

Boycott complicit companies

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) calls for the boycott of several companies operating globally. These are:

Puma who sponsor the Israel Football Association, which includes teams in Israel’s illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

Hewlett Packard that help run the ID system that Israel uses to restrict Palestinian movement.

Sabra hummus is a joint venture between PepsiCo and the Strauss Group, an Israeli food company that provides financial support to the Israel Defense Forces.

Caterpillar bulldozers are regularly used in the demolition of Palestinian homes and farms and in Israel’s massacres in Gaza.

SodaStream home drinks machines are one of Israel’s best known exports.

Ahava cosmetics are another of Israel’s best known export companies.

BDS also says that it targets “all Israeli and international companies engaged in violations of Palestinian human rights”. Local BDS groups and campaigns have named many specific companies complicit in Israeli apartheid: BDS members can campaign against any company that meets the above definition, meaning that they can focus on those that suit their local context with autonomy. 

Search online to find a local group and check out their campaigns for boycott calls near you. A list of global BDS groups is available  on the BDS website  (though there are many more that have not egistered on this list). :https://bdsmovement.net/