apartheid (Remove filter)
Land and Freedom
The title of my sonnet is inspired by that of the excellent 1995 film, Land and Freedom, directed by eminent film director, Ken Loach, persecuted in the UK and elsewhere for his compassionate socialist views.
With reference to my last six lines: the terrorist murder in 1946 of British soldiers, of Jews and others should not be forgotten in the rush to attempt to justify the seven-decades-long ...
Monday 7th October 2024 9:26 am
Just Say No!
It’s time to say NO!
It’s time to turn left,
To staunch the blood flow,
Of truth they’re bereft,
It’s time for the many,
To stand up to the few,
To liars ten-a-penny,
To red ties turned blue,
You’re a friend of apartheid
You’ve just lied to this nation,
You enabler of genocide,
And illegal occupation,
The targets weren’t civilian,
Your pants ar...
Saturday 5th October 2024 3:24 pm
النكبةAl Nakba: Day 27,375 and Counting…
النكبةAl Nakba: Day 27,375 and Counting…
With client hacks,
quiet words in ears,
he loves the craic
at working lunch
with the journo sewer,
making numbers crunch,
his purging list,
is at the ready,
on power pissed
he’s biding time,
and keeping steady
the applecart,
election ready,
to be off like a fart,
the lobby’s man,
so quiet when
it suits him ...
Wednesday 29th November 2023 12:32 pm
Never Again Means Never Again-For Anyone!
Your Jewish Voice for Labour
is another voice for me,
a voice for cooperation,
a voice for good, not ill;
your Jewish Voice for Peace,
asks no more blood be spilled,
let your protests’ sound increase;
speak up my sisters, brothers,
for all humanity,
speak out against vile smears,
against hypocrisy,
speak out against apartheid,
Mandela was correct:
our freedom...
Monday 27th November 2023 10:30 am
an-Nakbah 1948-2023
Just to make myself perfectly clear from:
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/
"To be a Jew means always being with the oppressed, never with the oppressors.”
Marek Edelman – last surviving leader, Warsaw ghetto uprising.
By way of contrast, this from Ntanyahu: “Israel is not a state of all its citizens… [but rather] the nation-state of the Jewish people and only them”. Israel...
Sunday 8th October 2023 11:51 am
Bread and Roses for All (re-post with open letter to Labour NEC)
Bread and Roses for All
One swallow will not our glorious summer make,
Nor red-tied frauds, true friends of labouring folk:
No friend of mine can love Apartheid’s yolk,
More swallowed lies, our nation’s heart will break:
Britannia’s future guard, for our Children’s sake,
Compassion’s spirit we must now invoke,
Let zeal for justice fill our Hearts of Oak,
Lest fate make any ...
Wednesday 21st June 2023 6:27 am
Bread and Roses for All
My original intention had been to write a humorous poem around the proverbial swallow, and words such as pint, summer and lies etc.
But with the UK now being in a world of deepest doggy-do, and with a Starmerite (his dad was a tool-maker don’t you know!) purge of genuine Socialists under way, I thought I’d try to write a sonnet whose tone reflects the dire straits in which British cit...
Friday 16th June 2023 11:10 am
Lover of South African Apartheid
No warning did I ever get,
That I really should have been born white,
Before the shooting and the bombing,
That ruined our economy.
How silly of me to not be white,
What’s more, I’m not indigenous;
My adoptive dad’s lived there for years,
He’s white (but not indigenous),
And a fluent speaker of the Queen’s English,
So I guess he ticks all the right boxes.
I’d love to...
Wednesday 3rd May 2023 1:59 pm
Poem for Nelson Mandela.
I expect everybody’s read enough Nelson Mandela poems by now, but here’s mine anyway...
“What’s it got to do with us?” refrained
my father when his boys
spurned the bottle of Cape Red plonk
he’d serve with Sunday roast. Despite how it stained,
he’d never grasp our umbrage at his choice,
but Nelson’s cell was like a sunken rock
to which our teenage optimism was chained.
There se...
Friday 6th December 2013 10:19 pm
A couple of SA influenced pieces, first is a draft
The Pervasive Poison of Apartheid (working title)
In the Rainbow Nation one colonial legacy,
Which we see persisting today unfortunately
Is an attitude from a more northerly latitude of 'I'm alright Jack!'
If neighbours from Mozambique or Zim
Should decide on migration in to find what they are seekin’,
Locals will say “they’re arrivin’ here ridin’, on a croco...
Monday 10th January 2011 10:11 am
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