BRIGHT SHINING LIGHTS

This Christmas seems to have arrived in unseemly haste. It does not feel like a year since I last wrote something for the Christmas period.

It’s been a bleak year what with the rise of ISIS, the Russian annexation of Crimea and invasion of Eastern Ukraine. Whilst in Syria a combination of the vile Assad dictatorship and the equally vile Islamists continue to tear that country apart. Everywhere Islamist violence is inflicted upon the innocent and vulnerable. From Boko Haram, committing mass murder and kidnapping Nigerian schoolgirls to the Pakistani Taliban slaughtering children in their classrooms. 
Above all as been the grotesque 8th Century barbarism of IS [Daesh]. Particularly horrible has been the mass rape and enslavement of Yazidi women. Where is the western outrage over this? Where are the Western feminists, so outraged by an inappropriate shirt and yet silent over this terrible crime in Iraq?  

Thus to celebrate and over indulge feels particularly at odds with reality. Still I will engage in a little over indulgence, it is after all what we do.

The one bright shining light for me this year has been the incredible courage of the Kurdish people in fighting the evil of Daesh; symbolic has been the resistance of Kobane. Most incredible of all has been the amazing women of the YPJ self-defence force. So I will devote this page to them, a bright shining light in a darkening world.


Finally if you are in a position to do so please consider the plight of the Kurdish and Yazidi refugees and make a donation to Heyva Sor. 

https://www.justgiving.com/DilanaKurdi/. You can view here how your donation will be used here:-

http://vimeo.com/115055594 

So enjoy a well earned break if you can, if for any reasons you cannot here's to a better year in 2015. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS/HAPPY HOLIDAY


Popular posts from this blog

NESRINE MALIK AND THE UNSUNG VIRTUES OF HYPOCRISY

Image
As I write this a 27 year old woman, Mariam Ibrahim, has just had a baby in a Sudanese prison, ‘the condition of the mother and baby is not known as Ibrahim's lawyer and her husband, a US citizen, had been denied access to her. Omdurman women's prison has a basic clinic, where the child is thought to have been born. Ibrahim has been shackled since being imprisoned.’ [1]   Mariam also has an 18 month old child who is also being held in prison with her. The ‘crime’ for which she is imprisoned is apostasy, for which she has received the death sentence. She has also been sentenced to 100 lashes, for the additional crime of having sex with her Christian husband. Although she has been a lifelong Christian her father was a Muslim, Sudanese sharia law forbids women to marry outside the Muslim faith, men needless to say can do as they please in these matters. Mariam Ibrahim and her husband.  Nineteen countries punish their citizens for apostasy, and in 12 of those countries
Read more

INTERVIEW WITH TOM VAGUE

Image
Tom Vague At the top end of All Saints Road there is a refuge, an enclave in which a local Bohemian culture retains a foothold, this is the Book & kitchen , a café/bookshop with adjoining terrace. Here the bustle of the nearby market gives way to conversation, conversation in the presence of images of the recent, and not so recent, past. The past of an area that has contributed so much to the life and culture of the city. I was there to meet local historian Mr Tom Vague a man intimately familiar with so much of this history. What Tom doesn’t know about the recent history of the area probably is not worth knowing. With Tom’s energy and effort Colville Community Forum, supported by City Living Local Life, recently held a gathering at The Book and Kitchen to celebrate this rich history. February 16 6-9 Pm, with Film Screening and Readings Exhibition February 16-26 2016. Featuring 30 Classic Westway Photographs and Posters. This represents one of a number of initiatives of t
Read more

LONDON BELONGS TO ME PART ONE

Image
. I. I have lived in London now just over thirty years, having moved here on 4 th July 1983 . I don’t know how long you normally have to wait to claim squatter’s rights but thirty years seems a good enough period to me. The glory of London is its parks and open spaces, you are rarely ever far away from a London park, common or heath. I am within fifteen minutes walk of Kensington Gardens or Holland Park , much closer to several smaller areas with grass and flowers and benches on which to sit, all maintained by Kensington and Chelsea council who also still believe in the value of trees. Those who would see what they call ‘the state’ shrink rarely mention such items in their calculations. What does it cost to maintain a tree? Too much by far for the likes of those right wing think tanks whom and I fear the phrase is soon likely to break under the strain under which it is now being placed, know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Holland Park is one of t
Read more