Caoimhin O’Muraile ☭ Over the years women have rightly so fought for their rights often supported by their male colleagues. 

From the days of the “Women’s Social and Political Union”, the Suffragettes and the fight for the vote to more resent campaigns for equality in various walks of life. The WSPU were formed in 1903, Manchester, by Emmeline Pankhurst and unlike their predecessors, or parent organisation it could be argued, the Suffragists were predominantly, though not exclusively working-class women. 

The Suffragettes' main reason for existence was to secure the vote for all women, especially the working-class which is where they differed from the earlier middle-class, Suffragists or officially the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies formed by Millicent Garrett Fawcett in the mid-19th century. The Suffragettes also took more than a passing interest in the working conditions endured by women as the second Industrial Revolution moved along. In 1913 Suffragette, Emily Davidson, threw herself under the King's horse at the Epsom Derby forcing the abandonment or postponement of the race but costing Emily her life. The WSPU believed in violent means to achieve their goals including petrol bombing MPs homes and throwing bricks at policemen. When put in prison the women went on hunger strike and were often force fed using inhuman methods, a tactic used by the British on Irish republican prisoners later on.

The NUWSS or Suffragists as they were commonly known were much more peaceful than the latter Suffragettes. Their methods included petitions and talking nicely to male MPs about women’s suffrage. They were made up of middle-class women and their campaign was for the vote for middle-class women with property qualifications over the age of thirty. They cared little for the use of violence and actually opposed such methods later adopted by the working-class Suffragettes. They cared equally little for the plight of working-class women or their right to vote which the Suffragists believed working-class women should not get. In 1918 under the “Representation of the People Act” the aims of the bourgeois Suffragists were reached when the vote was granted to women with property qualifications over the age of thirty. Not until 1928, in Britian, did women get universal suffrage. In the 26 counties all women received the vote in 1922 after the formation of the Irish Free State.

Today we see women’s groups not fighting for the vote but for equality. These groups are based very much on class lines in much the same way as the earlier models outlined above were. The orthodox or bourgeois feminists are middle-class driven and show little interest in their working-class co genderists working in sweatshops for shit wages. The orthodox feminists are more about promoting women’s equality in the Boardroom or in the financial sector such as banking. It could well be argued, in fact I would argue, that many of the bourgeois feminist demands have been met and even surpassed. For example women executives in large companies are now common place and many of these women can be and often are tyrannical as employers or managers. Some of these women with their new found powers are not and perhaps never were looking for equality but superiority over their male counterparts. In many boardrooms they have achieved this aim beyond doubt. If anybody watched the series; Mr Bates Vs the Post Office it could not be failed to notice most of the lying bosses in the Post Office who were persecuting and prosecuting the Sub-Post Masters, were in fact women. One of them even went to church preaching for the God Squad as a Deaconess on Sunday before returning to her full-time post of lying through her teeth on Monday. 

Not all the management team were women, there were men equally as culpable but much less convincing. This is just one example but as a former trade union negotiator and supporter of women’s rights and equality I did find negotiating with women bosses a harder job than negotiating with men as women tended to believe they had the right to ride rough shod over long-standing agreements. In many London local authorities most Senior Personnel Officers were, and no doubt still are, women with men as their juniors. The way some of these female Hitlers spoke to their underlings can only be described as misandry and if the boot was on the other foot there would be cries of misogyny from the roof tops. So in this area in many cases women have achieved not only equality, and rightly so, but superiority. Equality means the clock stops at six o’clock not five to six or five past six, but on the hour of six. This divides the clock into two ‘equal’ halves.

In the financial sector, Banking in particular, many managers are now women, that is if you can ever see a Bank manager, male or female, so it could be argued the middle-class feminist movement have made gains in this department. They appear to have no interest, apart from exploiting, working-class women or their plight.

In the world of parliamentary politics women have achieved a lot with Britain having had three female Prime Minister in a comparatively short period of time since 1979. This must reflect the advances women have made in this area. In Ireland Sinn Fein, the largest party in the six counties and the main opposition party in the 26 county Dail are led by two women, Mary Lou McDonald who is national SF President, and Michelle O’Neil, Vice President and leader of the party in the six counties. The Irish Labour Party is now led by a woman, Ivana Bacik and the Social Democrats are also led by a woman, Holly Cairns. Many independent TDs are women as the Dail slowly fills up with women TDs. This is progressive and if these women show the electorate that they have what it takes, that is in a liberal democratic sense where whoever spouts the most convincing hot air gets the backing of the electorate, and are elected then that’s good enough. 

This liberal democracy bollocks applies to men and women alike. In Germany since unification the first woman Chancellor, Angela Merkel, held office for sixteen years. All across the globe in various so-called parliaments women are ascending to the top positions. In the United States although there has not yet been a female President women and women’s voices can be heard increasingly around Congress. So in this department women have made huge gains, but they can only make these steps forward if elected. A far cry from Constance Markievicz becoming the first woman elected to the Westminster Parliament and Nancy Aster the first woman MP to take her seat in the same building. Markievicz was elected on an abstentionist platform in the 1918 general election for Sinn Fein. In the same election Sinn Fein stood another woman for East Belfast, her name was Winifred Carney, the former Secretary to trade union organiser and revolutionary, James Connolly. Carney was also a former member of the Irish Citizen Army. This was at a time when women entering elections, let alone getting elected was unheard of.

So, many gains have been made in the areas briefly outlined above. The orthodox feminist movement have achieved and even surpassed in some areas their goals. It must be wondered now, what exactly are these bourgeois Feminists ultimate aims, equality or superiority for women?

The gains made by women at the higher end of society are in stark contrast to the virtually non-existent advances made at the lower end. Marxist Feminists, the militant end of the working-class women’s movement have had a much less impact on the employers or society. This is no coincidence as the demise in trade union power weakens their arm also declines certainly in Britian. Marxist Feminists view women’s liberation in its true form as part of the overall class struggle. However, that does not mean women’s rights in the workplace should not be fought for on a daily basis. Many of these rights are denied working-class women by female bosses and CEOs whose lofty position is very much down to bourgeois Feminist groups and their bourgeois male supporters pressurising over the years. Many of these female middle-class bosses are bullies, this I have witnessed first-hand, bullying frightened female workers terrified of losing their jobs!

Back in 1976 until 1978 at the Grunwick Film Processing Plant in London a strike took place. It lasted two years and much police violence was meted out to pickets, many of them Asian Women. The strike was called over the dismissal of Devshi Bhudia from his job at the plant. The strike was also over union recognition and the right to negotiate. Many of those on strike, in fact a majority, were women many of them Asian migrant workers. Where were the orthodox Feminist groups then to fight for these women? Nowhere, nowhere to be seen or heard. Fortunately trade unionists from around the country rallied to the call including then Yorkshire NUM President, Arthur Scargill, who led thousands of miners onto the picket line alongside these women. Indian born Jayaben Desai, a striking woman and trade unionist, said: “The strike is not so much about pay, it’s a strike about human dignity”. The outcome of the strike was a House of Lords ruling that the employer did not have to recognise the union or negotiate. The employer did not have to reinstate workers, despite the Scarman Report recommending such compromises by the employer be made.

Another point of exploitation of workers and women in particular is the contract cleaning industry. Some women are working for a pittance of a wage having to do three or four jobs for these cowboy employers, what about equality here? Many supervisors in this industry are women from the petty bourgeois strata and bully their underlings, particularly migrant women workers. Where are the voices who cry so loud about women’s representation or, in their tunnel opinion lack of, in the higher echelons of society where are these people campaigning for the rights of young mothers having to work all hours to feed their children? Perhaps we should not only by looking at women’s equality with men but also women’s equality with women!

The early genuine pioneers of women’s rights at work, including union recognition and the right to a healthy working environment was fought for not by bourgeois feminist or Suffragist movements. These rights were fought for by the women workers and teenage girls, the working-class, at the Bryant and May match works factory in Bow, East London. This strike was almost unanimously women workers in 1888. This strike paved the way for what became known as ‘New Unionism’ meaning for the first-time unskilled workers could organise and win. Then, as now, the bourgeois Feminist groups could not care a fuck for their co-genderists in the working-class and they are out for women’s superiority, that is bourgeois women’s superiority which has little if anything to do with women’s equality across the board.
Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

Women’s Equality or Superiority?

Kenan Malik ✒ writing in The Guardian. Recommended by Christopher Owens.


Forty years ago, a US historian claimed that social changes were severing communal bonds. He was right

‘The hope that political action will gradually humanise industrial society has given way to a determination to survive the general wreckage or, more modestly, to hold one’s own life together in the face of mounting pressures.” American historian and cultural critic Christopher Lasch’s pessimistic prognosis of the shifting relationship of individuals to society and to each other in The Minimal Self was published 40 years ago. It might have been written yesterday.

From the late 1970s, Lasch published a series of books, most notably The Culture of Narcissism, The Minimal Self and The Revolt of the Elites, that prefigured many contemporary debates, about culture wars, the rise of a “liberal elite”, the corrosiveness of individualism, the encroachment of the market into social life, the creation of a celebrity culture, the rise of a “therapeutic” mindset.

Lasch’s early writings in the 1960s were deeply inflected by Marxism. Over time, his sulphurous critique of liberalism and of the impact of the market led him towards more familiar conservative themes, especially the defence of tradition, a critique of feminism and a wariness of progress. 

Continue reading @ The Guardian.

We Think Loneliness Is In Our Heads, But Its Source Lies In The Ruin Of Civil Society

 

A Morning Thought @ 2103

Gowain McKenna ✍ If one looks beyond the words and placations of the political class in Ireland to instead focus on the policies and actions thereof, it is beyond clear that Ireland is fast becoming the ultimate neoliberal state. 

This is a death knell to the Irish people, her language, culture and way of life. In other words, a functional neoliberal state is one without goodness; a place where humanity, love and care are effectively lost on it’s people. To hopefully rectify this outcome we first must understand and define what neoliberalism actually means in the modern day.

In essence neoliberalism is a one dimensional strategy that seeks to transform every facet of society to ensure the stability and health of the free market above all else. That is to say, unconstrained capitalism is the primary goal of neoliberalism. This is a society where supply and demand are uninterrupted by regulation, labour rights and the growth of services in the public sector such as health and education. Therefore, it may be useful to think of neoliberalism as being in direct opposition to the rights of man. So what will a neoliberal state actually look like?

There are both social and economic implications of a neoliberal state, both of which are intertwined. The neoliberal state, through a long drawn out process, will seek to remove the onus on the state to provide and to care for the most vulnerable in society and to instead shift the responsibility to the individual and the family. This was evident by the recent referenda on care and family this year on March 8th, which was thankfully opposed by the people. In addition, the neoliberal state will also shirk from the responsibility to provide adequate resources for health, housing and education to all of it’s people, instead preferring increasing privatization as the solution. 

To ordinary people this will mean unrealistic rent and mortgage rates and a health and education system that is only viable if you can afford the best of health insurance and the highest of university fees. It will be a state where progressive and liberal ideas, such as euthanasia and unregulated abortions are rushed through legislation without any degree of scrutiny. In this way, although such policies are disguised as progressive and pro-choice, they are in fact anti-human and anti-life. To continue, and perhaps most important of all, the biggest threat to the neoliberal state is a scarcity or a disruption of labour. Therefore, it will strive to flood the labour market and to placate labour unions in every way possible. In this way, the neoliberal state cannot operate effectively when there is any degree of ‘class consciousness’ among it’s people. Consequently, it will seek to destroy ‘class consciousness’ by championing so-called progressive ideologies and in purporting to defend minority rights, when in reality such gestures are nothing more than a convenient way to placate the masses. 

This is precisely why the neoliberal and the woke agenda fit hand in glove, one cannot function without the other. Finally, the neoliberal state can only ever be globalist in outlook and it is therefore likely to be a tax haven for multinational corporations, and will have little or no qualms about using the country as a landing pad to assist imperialist war machines. In essence the economics of big business and trade will always come first over the financial wealth and needs of the people, the small business owner and farmer.

To conclude, it is no exaggeration to say that the neoliberal state is a dystopian nightmare. It is a place where people are viewed only as financial instruments to be used and discarded. It is a place where genuine politics and social reforms are replaced by mere language and open-ended definitions. It is a place where the health and needs of the company take precedence to the health and needs of the worker. It is a place where profits and greed reign supreme at the expense of the most vulnerable in our society. It is a place without compassion, love or empathy. It is an island without soul, without borders, without language and without culture.

⏩ Gowain McKenna is a Belfast born engineer and musician. He has an M.Phil, MS.c and B.Eng in Aerospace Engineering, but has somehow found himself working in the marine industry in Co.Donegal Ireland, the place from which he now calls home. Visit his website.

Neoliberal Ireland

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Nine Hundred And Thirty Six

Sarah Kay ðŸ”– Erasure takes so, so many forms.


We talk of erasure when talking about censorship; silencing; oppression, suppression, and the annihilation in its absolute form, genocide. In an era of rampant state violence, from police brutality to wars of expansion, the chant remains the same: say their names. But how do we pass on this knowledge? Above all, what does bearing witness mean?

Erasure is an odd term. It can be active or passive. It doesn’t, in itself, indicate violence. If nothing else, it is about the passing of time. Remnants of past civilisations – Pompeii, Athens, Jerusalem, Homs, Bamiyan – those places were erased, but not for the same ggkreasons. The elements do not have criminal liability. Survivors are not carrying the same burden.

In Against Erasure, we catch a glimpse at life in Palestine before the 1948 Nakba. A Palestine that rises from the ashes of military destruction. We see multigenerational families tending to olive groves; we see patriarchs with long white beards reading to young grandchildren; we see women in colourful dresses, resting on a thick, rich rug, sharing tea and wisdom amongst themselves. We see lives, intertwined and interdependent, living peacefully, including the presence of other ethnicities: an Armenian family; a Bedouin tent; a group of Coptic monks. Musicians, artists – singers, oud players, trumpetists – adorn the pages of this book, full of life, full of history, heavy with millennia-old knowledge.

Erasure, in a genocidal context, is not simply about human extinction. It is about annihilation of culture, of tradition, but most importantly, of memory. We see the same dynamics at play on a lesser level but with the same intent elsewhere: book bans, historical revisionism, passive voice in news coverage. By erasing suffering, we erase victimhood. By erasing victimhood, we erase its cause. We erase culpability, and root causes. We then all become unwilling participants in the process of destruction.

Bearing witness is not about the reckless consumption of graphic horror on the daily basis. Bearing witness Is knowing what is in front of us – erasure – and refusing it. We say names, but we also know the faces. We talk about places, but we also know what they looked like before walls, checkpoints, and military patrols. Candlelit processions to mosques, parades, murals on the walls of schools and processions in Gaza, the times of the British mandate however must not be seen through positive nostalgia. It was colonisation still, and state control pouring out of every frame. But the aspiration for a different and better future was still there.

Against Erasure affirms that Palestinians have the right to exist; the right to live free from violence; the right to their language, their history, their culture and their land, a fertile one stretching from the river to the sea. Our duty is never to forget.

Teresa Aranguren and Sandra Barrilaro, 2024, Against Erasure: A Photographic Memory of Palestine Before the Nakba. Translated from the Spanish edition by Róisín Davis with Hugo Rayón Aranguren. Haymarket Books.ISBN-13: ‎978-1642599800.

⏩ Sarah Kay is a human rights lawyer.

Against Erasure

A Digest of News ✊ from Ukrainian Sources ⚔ 25-March-2024.

In this week’s bulletin

 Ukrainian unions’ statement on bombing of civilians and power stations.

⬤ UN denounces “climate of fear” in occupied territories; analysis – food sovereignty and war.

⬤ Russia’s persecution of free expression

⬤ And use of torture and indoctrination of children.

News from the territories occupied by Russia

9.5-year sentence minus 1 month for affirming that Crimea is Ukraine and Russia an illegal invader (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, March 22nd)

Russia tortures more Ukrainian POWs and sentences them en masse to 27 years for defending Ukraine (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, March 21st)

The strategic goal of the Russian Federation is the depopulation of Ukrainian territories — research (Opora, March 21st)

Renowned Crimean Solidarity journalist convicted of 'abusing' freedom of mass information in Russian-occupied Crimea (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, March 21st)

Russia moves to ‘revoke’ Soviet decree recognizing Crimea as part of Ukraine (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, March 20th)

UN report details ‘climate of fear’ in occupied areas of Ukraine, as the Russian Federation moves to cement control (UNHCR, March 20th)

New textbook for occupied territory tells children that Ukraine burns all Russian books and serves ‘Blood of a russky’ cocktails (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, March 19th)

Russians abduct 18-year-old from occupied Nova Kakhovka and torture out ‘confession to spying’ (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, March 18th)

The Kremlin’s Occupation Playbook: Coerced Russification And Ethnic Cleansing In Occupied Ukraine (Understanding War, February 2024)

News from Ukraine – general

Ukraine war latest: Russia hits largest hydroelectric plant (Kyiv Independent, 23 March)

Russia Launches Massive Attacks to Destroy Homes, Workplaces, Energy, and Economy of Ukraine (Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine, 22 March)

The Maidan uprising, 2014: Inaction as a path to impunity (Tribunal for Putin, March 20th)

What does a military chaplain do, and who needs him? (Tribunal for Putin, March 19th)

Not a single house undamaged: Pytomnyk from the air (Tribunal for Putin, March 18th)

Poll: Vast majority of Ukrainians against Russian as official or state language (Kyiv Independent, March 12th)

War-related news from Russia

On her knees: comments on Russia’s presidential election (The Russian Reader, 24 March)

Russia sentences poet Aleksandr Byvshev to 7 years for writing of its war crimes in Ukraine (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, March 22nd)

Persecution of the anti-war movement report. Two years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine (OVD info, February 28th)

10 years for chatting. A bank employee from St. Petersburg sentenced for attempting to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine (Mediazona, February 21st)

Analysis and comment

Ukrainian refugees in Poland: ‘sexualised exploitation is the main risk’ (Posle.Media, 20 March)

“A meat grinder worse than Bakhmut”: Russia paid a shocking price for the ruins of Avdiivka (The Insider, March 18th)

Right to food: food sovereignty, war and the environment (Valerii Petrov on Commons.com.ua, 15 March)

Comment: Sergey Lavrov and Vulgar Anti-Imperialism (Against the Current, March 2024)

Ivan Dzyuba’s classic book republished: Internationalism or Russification: a study in the Soviet nationalities problem (Resistance Books, March 2024)

Research of human rights abuses

Violations of children’s rights: the Meduza report complements human rights reports (Anti Discrimination Centre, 19 March)

UN report demolishes Russia’s attempts to blame Ukrainian POWs for its atrocities in Mariupol (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, March 18th)

How Migration Was Affected By Russia’s Targeted Shelling Of Ukraine In October 2022 – January 2023 (Ukrainian Victory, January 2024)

🔴This bulletin is put together by labour movement activists in solidarity with Ukrainian resistance. More information at Ukraine Information Group.


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News From Ukraine 💣 Bulletin 90

 

A Morning Thought @ 2102

People And Nature ☭ Bohdan Ziza, a Ukrainian artist, poet and activist, is serving a 15-year sentence for “terrorism” after pouring blue and yellow paint – the colours of the Ukrainian flag – on to a municipal administration building in Evpatoria, Crimea, his home town. 

17-January-2024

He made and circulated a video of the action – on 16 May 2022, shortly after the all-out Russian invasion of Ukraine – and for that was also charged with “incitement to terrorism”.

Bohdan Ziza. From his instagram channel

This is Bohdan’s speech from the dock, before being sentenced by a Russian military court on 5 June last year.

Do I regret what I have done?

I am sorry that I over-reached, and that my action resulted in charges under the Article [of the Russian criminal code] on terrorism. I am sorry that my grandmother is now without the care and support that she needs. Apart from me, she has nobody. And I am sorry that I can not now help others who are close to me, who need that help now.

As for the rest: I acted according to my conscience.

And also, according to my conscience, I do not deny or disavow what I did. I behaved stupidly, and could have expressed my opinion in some other way. But did I deserve, for what I did, to be deprived of my freedom for ten years or more?

I would like to appeal to the court: do not follow the regime’s script, do not participate in these awful repressions. But obviously that would have no effect. The judges and other similar political actors are just doing what they are told.

For these reasons, I will continue to protest, even in prison. And I am well aware of the sentence I may receive, and how it may affect my health and even my life.

But am I worthy of the life that I live? Is each one of us worthy of a carefree life, when we stay silent at a time when, every day, innocent people’s lives are being taken?

This was the worst night of my life. I never experienced anything like it. I thought we would die. There were three Kinzhal rockets, and loads of Kalibrs. They fell very close, they were right above our building. The building shook – several explosions, one after the other. For the first time in the war there was a white glow, the sky was white from the explosions. It was as though we were in a trench, not in our own home. At one moment I thought that it was all flying towards us. There was the very clear sound of a rocket, and then a very powerful explosion. But we have been lucky, again, and we are still alive.

That was a message from my sister, in Kyiv, who had to live through another night of bombardment of the city by the Russian armed forces.

When she went out in the morning, she learned that one of the rockets had hit the next-door building.

For many people, this war that is going on now is happening over there somewhere, far away.

One of the staff at the pre-trial detention centre said to me: “Bloody hell, I am sick of this war. Whenever you turn on the TV, it’s more of the same.” I answered that the war is not over and so you can not get away from it. And then he said: “Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s just that everything is getting more expensive. The cost of running a car now!”

And that’s the problem, here in Russia. For you, this war is an inconvenience, an irritation. You try to wait it out, living your usual life, trying to avoid bad news, and in that way simply not valuing simple things, not valuing the fact that you can wake up in a warm bed, in a warm flat, and say to someone who is dear to you, “good morning”. At a time when in the country next door, millions of people are losing their homes, losing their loved ones, when whole cities are being destroyed. Every day. That’s the everyday reality for Ukrainian citizens now.

In theory, Russian people’s failure to act could be explained, if only what is happening was not being done by Russian hands. The hands of those who bear arms, and those who don’t do anything to stop them. Every day that an ordinary Russian person carries on, reasoning that this is all politics and doesn’t concern him, and living his normal life, he adds money to the Russian Federation budget and in that way sponsors this criminal war.

Of course there are those who do not support what is happening, who take action, who are not silent participants: journalists, various activists – those who refuse to keep quiet.

My action was a cry from the heart, from my conscience, to those who were and are afraid – just as I was afraid – but who also did not want, and do not want, this war. Each of us separately are small, unnoticed people – but people whose loud actions can be heard. Yes, it is frightening. Yes, you can end up behind bars – where I, for sure, did not plan to be. Even for these words I could face a new criminal case. But it is better to be in prison with a clear conscience, than to be a wretched, dumb beast outside.

I am also an ordinary citizen of my country – Ukraine – who is not used to keeping quiet when confronted with lawlessness. I am not alone here today in this “goldfish bowl” [slang for the glass cage in which the accused appears in Russian courts]. There are more than 200 people with me: Ukrainian political prisoners, serving time in Russian prisons on fabricated charges. Many of them are Crimean Tatars, who are once again faced with repression by Russia. I am myself half Crimean Tatar, and angry at our people’s suffering.

Many Ukrainians are serving time in Russian prisons simply because they are Ukrainians, and were somewhere that the Russian state thought they should not be. In Russian prisons people are beaten up for speaking in Ukrainian. Or not even for speaking it, but simply for understanding it. Bastards among the guards at pre-trial detention centres or other places where people are imprisoned address prisoners in Ukrainian, to see if they get a reaction, to see if they provoke an answer or a response. If a person reacts, they beat him up.

Those who so passionately seek “Nazis” in Ukraine have not opened their eyes to the Nazism that has emerged in Russia, with its ephemeral “Russian world”, with which armed forces have come to us, to try to extirpate Ukrainian identity.

People in prison suffer in the most terrible conditions. Many of them are elderly. More than 40 people [in the pre-trial detention centre] have critical health problems, and can not access the medical treatment that they need. People die in prison. They are not criminals. Deport them from the country! Why do you keep them here?

I am no kind of terrorist. It sounds ridiculous to even say that. I am a person with morals and principles, who would rather give his own life than take the life of another person. But I am not ready to give my life to the Federal Penal Enforcement Service of the Russian Federation.

I declare a hunger strike, and demand that I be stripped of my Russian citizenship. I demand that all Ukrainian political prisoners be freed. If anything happens to me in prison, I want the world to know that it happened only because I am a Ukrainian, who took a stand against the war in his country.

And if this is my last word, let it be my last word in the Russian language. The last thing I will say publicly in Russian in this country, as long as this regime lasts. The reddish regime.

[Ziza then switched from Russian to Ukrainian, and recited this poem. Explanation of names mentioned below.]


I am not Red, I am Crimson!

I am not playing to the gallery!

These are not rhymes, they are wounds!

And I am not Melnik, I am Bandera!

The weather: it’s snowing in my summer,

From Symonenko’s motherland

I go to the end, like Teliha!

And I believe in wings, like Kostenko!

🔴 Note. The Ukrainian for “crimson” (“bahrianyi”), was also the pseudonym of Ivan Lozoviaha, a dissident writer and political exile from 1932 to his death in 1963. Andriy Melnik and Stepan Bandera were leaders of Ukrainian nationalist partisan military formations in the 1940s. Vasyl Symonenko was a Ukrainian poet, active in dissident circles until his death in 1963. Olena Teliha was a feminist poet, member of a nationalist underground cell in Nazi-occupied Kyiv, killed by the Nazis in 1942. Lina Kostenko is a Soviet-era dissident who has continued working as a poet and writer in post-Soviet Ukraine.

🔴 This is translated from the Russian text on the Graty news site, with reference to the Crimea Human Rights Group report. Thanks to M for help with translation.

🔴 What happened next. After Bohdan Ziza made this speech to the Southern District Military Court in Rostov, Russia, on 5 June 2023, he was sentenced by the judge, Roman Plisko, to 15 years in a high-security penal colony. Shortly after that, Ziza wrote to Zmina, the Ukrainian human rights organisation. He ended his hunger strike and then wrote to Uznik on-line, which coordinates correspondence with anti-war prisoners in Russia, to thank them and the many supporters who had written to him.

On 27 September 2023 Bohdan Ziza’s appeal against his sentence was rejected by Maksym Panin at the military court of appeal in Vlasikha, near Moscow.

Bohdan, who marked his 29th birthday on 23 November, was moved to Vladimir prison. On 5 December, the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group reported that he had been visited by his lawyer and is in good spirits. He is sharing a cell with Appaz Kurtamet, another Crimean Tatar political prisoner, and was serving time in a punishment cell after stating that he is not a criminal and refusing to wear prison clothing.

🔴 What we can do. Advice to non-Russian speakers who wish to write to Bohdan and Appaz is included in this article on the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group site. The group also appeals to other countries’ diplomats to help Ukrainian citizens in Russian prisons (although this does not include Bohdan, since he was compelled, as a teenager, to take Russian citizenship after Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014).

🔴 More information. Solidarity Zone (see facebook, telegram and twitter) supports anti-war activists jailed in Russia. The Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, Crimea SOS and Zmina are among the Ukrainian human rights organisation that publicise the fate of more than 180 Crimean political prisoners in Russian jails. SP, 17 January 2024.

🔴Bohdan Ziza’s own art and poetry is on instagram and youtube.

⏩ People & Nature is now on mastodon, as well as twitterwhatsapp and telegram. Please follow! Or email peoplenature@protonmail.com, and we’ll add you to our circulation list (2-4 messages per month).

Crimean Political Prisoner Bohdan Ziza 📢 ‘My Anti-War Action Was A Cry From The Heart'

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Nine Hundred And Thirty Five

Peter Anderson ⚽ With an international break in this week's diary, all eyes turned to England manager Gareth Southgate. 

As he is expected to stand down from the England job after the Euros this summer, the word on the street is that Sir Jim Radcliffe is interested in taking him to Manchester United for the start of next season. If I was a Man U fan, I'd be hoping he gets nowhere near the club.

His record for England is second only to Sir Alf Ramsey. In his three tournaments in charge of the first team he has a 4th at the World Cup 2018, a 2nd at Euro 2020 and a last 16 at World Cup 2022. The players seem to love him and he has created a bond between the players that was sadly lacking with the Golden Generation of the noughties. But his tactical faults are obvious and he has made no ground in trying to negate them. A strong argument could be made that his team are even better than that famous Gerrard, Scholes, Beckham, Owen team that won diddly squat, all those years ago. The pundits all agree that the starting team at this summer's Euros will include Bellingham, Foden, Kane, Saka and Rice, with Rashford, Bowen, Maddison, Toney, Watkins, Grealish, Gordon and Cole Palmer all fighting for a place, with Sterling not even in the reckoning. At full back he has Walker, Trent A-A, Trippier, Reece James, Luke Shaw and Chilwell to choose from.

What depth in talent England possesses! Maybe that is part of the problem.

On Saturday night England faced a poor Brazil team at Wembley. Brazil have lost their last 3 games and have gone through 2 managers in that time. With a new manager at the helm, this was England's chance to put down a marker with the Euros on a few months away. They lost. I noticed from the start that when England had possesion high up the pitch there was a distinct lack of passing options available. When you watch a Klopp/ Arteta/ Pep team playing there are always men available, forwards, sideways or back. Not England. I noticed that at the last tournament. I was so used to watching Sterling for City, that it was weird to see him getting caught on the ball because there was no-one near him in the same coloured shirt. 2 years on and the same problem exists.

There is also the problem with subs. He just doesn't know how to change a game. In the last world cup England were being held to a goalless draw by the USA. England looked devoid of ideas. The USA had the bus well and truly parked and there was FA the English could do get around it. Southgate had Trent A-A and Foden on the bench but didn't use either. Result 0-0. There are multiple examples of Southgate not making the right subs or not making them at the right time.

On Saturday night, with the score at 0-0 and in need of some oomph to break down the Brazilians, he brought on Gomez, Dunk and Bowen.

Maddison, Toney, Rashford and Mainoo, who were warming up, had to return to their seats. Brazil then scored and the necessary changes took place too late. Southgate famously brought on Grealish in the World Cup quarter-final when England were losing 2-1 in the 97th minute, as if that was enough time for him to turn a game around!

But arguably his worst fault is sticking with rubbish centre-backs. He was a CB himself so you would imagine he would know what he is doing here. Yet he stuck with Tyrone Mings and is now sticking with Harry Maguire, despite successive Man U managers deeming him surplus to requirements. Against Brazil, he was rubbish, unsurprisingly. Dunk, no better. It will be interesting to see who gets the nod against Belgium. If England are to win the Euros, Southgate will need to plug this hole.

Personally, I think England have been relatively successful despite Southgate not because of him. When England have won difficult matches, it's because the players have worked it out not the gaffer. I can't see how they can win a tournament with him in the job. As for Man U, are they about to make another catastrophic appointment?

Peter Anderson is a Unionist with a keen interest in sports

Close Gate To Southgate

Declassified UK ✒ Written by Anne Cadwallader. Recommended by Christy Walsh.

Veterans of undercover operations claim that colluding with terrorists is sometimes necessary for the greater good. Now a new report shatters that myth.

Over decades of bloody conflict in Northern Ireland, a near sacred mystique grew up around the intelligence services. Spoken of in reverential tones, largely unaccountable and unscrutinised, they were depicted by the media as an omniscient elite.

A description, for example, selected at random online, of a book on the “intelligence war”, turns this up: “The men and women who work in this field are a special breed who undertake hazardous risks with unflinching tenacity and professionalism”.

With publication of the interim report of “Operation Kenova” on Friday, that myth crashed to earth. It revealed a squalid, boastful yet tragic reality – more Keystone Cops than James Bond.

Operation Kenova, led by police chief Jon Boutcher, has spent the last seven years, and £40m, investigating 101 murders and abductions linked to the British military double-agent known by the code “Stakeknife” – aka Freddie Scappaticci.

He was a Belfast man of Italian extraction who headed up the IRA’s “Internal Security Unit” (or “nutting squad”).

Continue reading @ Declassified UK. 

Stakeknife ❥ Britain’s Spy In Ireland Who Got Away With Murder

 

A Morning Thought @ 2101