Postscript

Lia Nickson illustration
for Edwin Rolfe's book
First Love and Other Poems

"And we must remember cleanly why we fought,
clearly why we left these inadequate shores
and turned our eyes, our hearts, Spainward. We must never
lie to ourselves again, deceive ourselves with dreams
that make sleep sluggish. Our world
is new now, clean and clear; our eyes can see
the perfect bone and tissue now, remembering
the flesh cut open, the gangrened limbs, the rot
that almost, almost...but did not reach the heart.

And if we find all known things changed
now after two years amid fabulous truth;
if we find dulled the once sharp edges
of trivial loves; even if we find
our truest loves indifferent, even false -
we must remember cleanly why we went,
clearly why we fought; and returning see
with truth's unfilmed eye what remains constant,
the loyalties which endure, the loves that grow,
the certainties men need, live for, die to build,
the certainties that make all living tolerable."

"Postscript to a War"

Edwin Rolfe

for Michael Gordon

iNeed

London graffiti by Mantis


According to UNICEF, 26,500-30,000 children die each day
due to poverty.

Each day.

They "die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth,
far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world.
Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even
more invisible in death.”

Oh yes we have a crisis.


Quotation taken from:

Anup Shah, Poverty Facts and Stats, GlobalIssues.org,

1938. 1968. 2008.

At the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, medal winners
John Carlos and Tommie Smith gave the raised fist salute during
the American national anthem as a sign of black power and protest
on behalf of the Olympic Project for Human Rights.


For this, they were barred from further Olympic activities.


"The raised fist which greets you in Salud is not just a gesture,
it means life and liberty being fought for and a greeting of
solidarity with the democratic peoples of the world."

Mary Rolfe.*

to Leo Hurwitz and Janey Dudley.

25 November 1938.

"Madrid 1937: Letters of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade from
the Spanish Civil War."
Cary Nelson & Jefferson Hendricks.


Great expectations indeed.


* To read another letter from Mary Rolfe describing an
air raid in Barcelona, click here.

And for a little about her life: Cary Nelson's article in

The Volunteer
Journal of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
Volume XXI, No.2. Spring 1999 p18-20

Volunteers of America

Salaria Kee (O' Reilly)

Why Didn't You Come Yesterday?

Salaria Kee (O' Reilly) was one of the few Afro-American women
who came to Spain with the International Brigades as a nurse for
the American Medical Bureau to Aid Spanish Democracy.

She had graduated from the Harlem Hospital School of Nursing
in New York in 1934. After hearing a speech by a Spanish doctor
at the University of New York about what was happening
in Spain she volunteered.

"On March 27, 1937 she sailed from New York with the second
American Medical Unit to Republican Spain. A party of twelve
nurses and physicians. Salaria was the only Negro in this group.
Hundreds of Negro boys had preceded her. They had gone as
soldiers, physicians, and ambulance drivers. She was the first
Negro woman to go.

It was April third when the party reached Port Bou, Spain. A
huge delegation of Spanish men, women and children came
down to welcome them. A small boy left the crowd and came over
to Salaria. Taking her hand he complained softly,

"Why didn't you come yesterday?"

"Why yesterday?" Salaria asked him.

"Because yesterday the fascists came in their planes and dropped
bombs. My mother and my father and my small brothers died..."


Stationed first at the hospital installed in Villa Paz, former
summer residence of the abdicated King of Spain Alfonso XIII,
she later moved to a field hospital unit near Teruel. She was
captured by German troops but managed to escape.

In October 1937 she married John O' Reilly, one of the first Irish
volunteers to go to Spain.

Information (mainly) and quotation from the excellent web:

Ireland and the Spanish Civil War

http://www.geocities.com/IrelandSCW/index.htm

where you can read more.


And if you have the chance watch Julia Newman's
documentary:

Into the Fire. American Women in the Spanish Civil War

Afro-American members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade

"why I, a Negro, who have fought through these

years for the rights of my people, am here in Spain
today? Because if we crush Fascism here, [we] will
build us a new society - a society of peace and plenty.
There will be no color line, no jim-crow trains, no
lynchings. That is why, my dear, I am here in Spain."

Canute Frankson.
(to my dear friend).
Albacete, Spain, July 6, 1937.



And a song:

From Jefferson Airplane

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SboRijhWFDU

some 30 years later.

for a day, like today.

Manuel Muñoz and Barcelona Air Raid Shelters

From the cover of Defiendete del Peligro Aero-Quimico
Mariano Barrasa, Juliàn Castresana. Toledo 1935.

Manuel Muñoz' report of what the municipal authorities
had achieved by the time the Generalitat, the autonomous
Government of Catalonia, created the Junta de Defensa
Passiva and took over ARP in the summer of 1937 will
perhaps help to show that Ramon Perera neither invented
the air raid shelters nor was solely responsible for their
construction. The report dates from August 1937.*

The Junta had been created the previous June and after
some insistence by the council and the CNT Manuel
Muñoz was accepted as a member in representation of the
council. Surprisingly, given the persecution not to say
elimination of the anarchists after the Barcelona May days,
he maintained this position until the end of the war.

Manuel had joined the city council in October 1936 when
the anarchists began to participate in formal government.
In November he was named as liaison with the Generalitat's
Department of Defense for questions of air raid protection
and very soon the construction of shelters was under his
supervision.

Initially it was thought that basements, with a little
preparation, could provide sufficient protection during
the raids. So his department of Urban Planning and Public
Works organized the inspection of 17,000 buildings.
Only 700 were considered suitable and of these the
Generalitat quickly decreed a prohibition of the use of
some (below banks) as shelters.

Stronghold evidently having a variety of meanings.

Underground "mine" tunnels were also considered
suitable for shelters so, besides preparation of the existing
metropolitan tube stations he overseered the construction
of 24 new tunnels of 100 metres each (for posterior use as
sewage tunnels) 14 of which had been completed by August
1937.

For the 600 or so shelters that were being built independently
by the people of Barcelona, Manuel's department offered
technical advice and subsidised the cost of labour and building
materials and most especially published the excellent manual
"Air Raid Shelters" with instructions on how to build them.
Many of the calculations on the destructive capacity of the
bombs and the type of construction necessary to resist them
are based on information provided by Swiss and French ARP
organizations. The Spanish military had also published
recommendations prior to the war.

After the first raids had shown the real effects of the bombs,
the council began the construction of a number of larger,
more resistent collective shelters below city squares in
the different districts of Barcelona. 11 were in construction
in the summer of '37. But by this time the increasing scarcity
of materials and reduction of available labour force because
of conscription were already seriously affecting progress in all
the shelters.

In his 17-page report Manuel Muñoz gives credit to all of the
many different people and organizations involved to date in
the building of shelters and civil defence.

He, at least, knew that without the collective effort of every
one of them Barcelona's extraordinary achievement of over
1000 shelters would never have been possible.

*For those interested in consulting the report, the reference is:
Arxiu Administratiu Caixa 21411 Carpeta 1.5

Ramon Perera.

Strange.

If you google search "Ramon Perera" my previous post no
longer appears.

It did for a couple of days. Right on the first page.

Sixth down I think it was.

And first place if you searched

"Ramon Perera. The Making of a Myth"

I think someone has been meddling.

Ramon Perera. The making of a myth.

As I have said before, unfortunately I do not have a photo
of Manuel Muñoz Diez, chief councillor in charge of the
Department of Urban Planning and Public Works during the
Civil War in Barcelona.

So here is his signature.

He was an anarchist, a member of the CNT, which is probably why
as many people as possible chose to forget his role in the building of
Barcelona air raid shelters, a role, shared with many others, which is
now being solely attributed to Ramon Perera thanks to a documentary
made by two journalists from Catalan national TV3.

The documentary is based on solid research and would be excellent
except for the surprising presentation of Ramon Perera as the man
who single-handedly invented the air raid shelters and saved the
entire population of Barcelona from the bombs and then
unfortunately was unable to save the entire population of Great
Britain from the Blitz because the British Government did not listen
to him.

One fact: Ramon Perera did not take charge of the section of
plans and public works of the Junta de Defensa Passiva
(organization responsible for coordinating civil defence and
created in 1937 after the Barcelona May Days) until 26 February
1938 by which time most of the shelters were already in progress.

When I started the research I had no idea who was responsible
for civil defence in Barcelona during the war. The authorities of the
time seemed to suffer from the same problem. Very little had been
done in preparation to protect civilians from aerial bombardment
in spite of the increasing fears since WWI that this would be an
accepted means to the end in future conflicts. But by the autumn of
1936 the building of shelters was under the auspices of Barcelona
City Council and chief councillor Manuel Muñoz.

And mainly in the hands of thousands of normal citizens who went
out into the streets and built their own.

In August 1937 Manuel Muñoz, little suspecting an attempt 70 years
in the future to rewrite history, left a 17-page report about what had
been achieved to date in connection with the city shelters. Perhaps he
was concerned after the Barcelona May days that the Communists
would try to take the credit...

I will write more about the contents of his report in the next post but
felt obliged to take time to beg to differ with Montse Armengou and
Ricard Belis and express disapproval at their attempt to falsify the
past because now we have:

The book of the film.

Presented last week by the authors.

Credibility assured by the presence of Paul Preston.

As I remember when I approached Mr Preston 12 years ago to
ask for his support in the campaign to save Air Raid Shelter 307
and for any relevant information he had come across in military
archives (to which I had no access) he replied that they hadn't let
him in either and he had seen little about civil defence measures
taken in Barcelona. He was favourably inclined to saving the shelter
and am sure gave his verbal support in the right places but I would
ask him to check his facts before helping to create a myth, he is a
prestigious historian after all.

Ramon Perera was one of many who worked tirelessly to defend the
most vulnerable during the war.

A collective effort.

His story and his work, carefully preserved through documentation
donated on his death to the Abbey of Montserrat, is most valuable.
It is also very sad - forced as he was into exile as a refugee in
England for the rest of his life.

So far from his beloved Catalonia.

But I'm sure he would not have been happy with this attempt to
single him out from his colleagues as "the man who saved Barcelona."


Because I think he was an honest man and this simply isn't true.

To my father. Who taught me not to drive.

Anarchist worker-collective tram. Plaça Espanya 1936
Arxiu Fotogràfic AHC

Today is la Merced, a holiday in Barcelona in honour of the
city's patron saint. The week-long celebrations culminate tonight
with a giant firework display over the fountains of Montjuïc, just
next to Plaça Espanya.

I normally go if I am here.

To stand below the falling coloured sky... such a strange and magical
sensation.

But not this year.

Today is also my father's birthday.

But there will be no celebrations as he died in January this year.

A good man. A gentle man. He once went to war to fight fascism.

Because they did not listen to the warning voices from Spain.


He taught me a love of books and animals.

And fireworks.

Though my sister and I only got the sparklers while he played with all the rest.

He taught me to laugh.

And he taught me not to drive.

Never instilled that unquestioned belief in the need for a car.

Belief which has had so many consequences.

And he was right.

I miss him.



The choice of graphic was indirectly inspired by Jon who
visits this blog and who works for a bus company in California.

Turning Worlds Upside Down

The song is in fact by the folk singer and writer Leon Rosselson
but I prefer Billy's version.

Even if he does now live in a very large house with a view.

(Not, at least, over the private golf course which now occupies the
site of the Diggers' long-lost, but not forgotten, dream. Neighbouring
houses on St George's Hill are currently valued at around 3 million
pounds; sometime neighbours the likes of Elton John and Cliff Richard).


What on earth do they do with all the rooms?

Exemplary Moments in English History. 1649

Signed for and in behalf of all the poor oppressed
people of England, and the whole world.

Gerrard Winstanley (and 44 others)

"That the earth was not made purposely for you, to be Lords of it,
and we to be your Slaves, Servants, and Beggers; but it was made
to be a common Livelihood to all, without respect of persons: And
that your buying and selling of Land, and the Fruits of it, one to
another, is The cursed thing, and was brought in by War; which
hath, and still does establish murder, and theft, In the hands of
some branches of Mankinde over others, which is the greatest
outward burden, and unrighteous power, that the Creation groans
under..."

Gerrard Winstanley, a creationist one must admit (though in his
writing God and Reason seem to be interchangeable) was a
founding member and guiding theoretician of the English Diggers.

They believed that land was a "common treasury" which belonged
collectively to the people. Especially poor people.

Great believers in direct action, in the spring of 1649, they proceeded
to cultivate a stretch of common land on George's Hill Surrey.

Needless to say this utopian experiment in agrarian communism
lasted less than a year. Not for nothing are the ill-gotten gains of
private property generally connected with the "power of the
murdering and theeving sword."

But it's hard to keep a good idea down and it keeps popping up:

The anarchist agrarian collectives of the Spanish Civil War,

The San Francisco Diggers in the 60's.

Indirectly innumerable projects to give access to land to the poor
in Latin America.

All share something of Winstanley's vision.

Even the Queen, 11th in the Forbes richest monarch ranking
and worth a mere $600 million, is not immune.

Winstanley was a great promoter of the "Common-wealth."

Unfortunately I don't think Lizzie quite got the message right.


And even more unfortunately that old sword is still alive and
wielding.

Money? Let's just print our own.

Luis Romero Exposito Collection

Most local Councils did during the Spanish Civil War as metal coins
disappeared.

From the graphics it seems they held the eccentric belief
that wealth is somehow connected to labour and the means
of production.

As opposed to the infinite greed of Stock Market thieves
and speculators.


For a little insight into who is responsible for the current financial
chaos listen to or read the transcript of "The Giant Pool of Money."
from This American Life radio.

The reverse of the note:

"The price of our heroic sacrifice will be the freedom and
well-being of the world."

Better still

Eliminate (oh utopia) the money altogether.

CNT FAI (Light/Strength) coupon valid for a pair of shoes.

Black.

Size 39

Wall Street Weeps

###
Iraq War Cost




click here to learn more


So do I.

Victor Jara

They try to conceal the infamy
they have inherited from past centuries,
but the mark of murderers
cannot be wiped from their faces.

From "Vientos del Pueblo"

Victor Jara, much-loved poet, singer and political activist was
supposed to sing at the Technical University that 11th of September
1973 in Santiago, Chile.

They were opening an exhibition on the horrors of fascism and
civil war. President Salvador Allende was also expected to attend.

Early that morning it became evident that the feared fascist military
coup had started.

Victor still went to the University, where he was also a teacher, and
he did sing: to the 600 students and teachers trapped on the campus
that night by the curfew - the university buildings surrounded by tanks
and troops.

The tanks and heavy artillery attacked next morning. Victor was one
of the many taken prisoner and force marched to the Chile Stadium.

He was repeatedly vilified, tortured and beaten, his ribs and wrists
broken.

On Sunday 16th September his machine-gunned body, dumped near
the Metropolitan Cemetery with five others, was recognized by local
people just before an unidentified van appeared and picked up the bodies.

He wrote one more poem during those four last days in the Stadium,
unfinished as he was finally dragged away.

How hard it is to sing
when I must sing of horror.
Horror which I am living,
horror which I am dying.
To see myself among so much
and so many moments of infinity
in which silence and screams
are the end of my song.
What I see, I have never seen
What I have felt and what I feel
Will give birth to the moment...


Victor's wife, Joan, was English.

Today on the web:

http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/jaraunfinsong.html

I found three chapters of her book Victor: An Unfinished Song.

Worth reading, especially for the translation of one of his songs:
Cuando voy al trabajo, written when a young militant worker he
knew was shot dead during a peaceful demonstration. It's a love
song.


Victor believed in love.

Great Expectations

Plan of the British slave ship Brooks. 1788

When I started researching the civil defence measures taken
in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War I remember being
confused by press references to arrested fascists being sent to
Uruguay at the beginning of war.

In fact they were talking about the prison ship "SS Uruguay"
anchored in the port of Barcelona.

Dickensian I thought.

One learns humility.

As a "temporary measure to ease prison overcrowding" Britain
reverted to this shameful system with the prison ship, HMP Weare.
Between 1997 and 2005 four hundred prisoners floated in cramped
and often airless conditions off Her Majesty's Coast in Portland
Harbour. It was finally closed as "entirely unsuitable for its function."

But at least it was no secret.

On Monday The Guardian published an article on the covert prison
ships allegedly being used by the US to keep detainees, abducted in
their "war on terror," away from the public eye and in the attempt to
conceal their exact number and whereabouts.



I don't know how much will change if Barack Obama wins the next
presidential elections, there are ubiquitous and very powerful
interests involved in keeping war and fear and hunger as driving
forces in this world.

But...


Something about justice, retribution or one for Martin Luther King:
Please click on the graphic illustrating this post. It was drawn and
used by the British Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade to
lobby for change.

Waltzing Matilda

Lance Corporal Adrian Jones.

By Michael Fay, official US Marine war artist.


Australia, one of the first countries to support the
US war on Iraq five years ago, ends combat operations
there and begins troop withdrawal this week.

With a deployment of only 500 soldiers (and in fact
300 will remain on logistical and surveillance duties) little
will change while the US and Britain remain.

But....

Bringing the boys back home

When I was a young man I carried my pack
And I lived the free life of a rover
From the Murrays green basin to the dusty outback
I waltzed my Matilda all over
Then in nineteen fifteen my country said Son
It's time to stop rambling 'cause there's work to be done
So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun
And they sent me away to the war
And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As we sailed away from the quay
And amidst all the tears and the shouts and the cheers
We sailed off to Gallipoli

How well I remember that terrible day
How the blood stained the sand and the water
And how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter
Johnny Turk he was ready, he primed himself well
He chased us with bullets, he rained us with shells
And in five minutes flat he'd blown us all to hell
Nearly blew us right back to Australia
But the band played Waltzing Matilda
As we stopped to bury our slain
We buried ours and the Turks buried theirs
Then we started all over again

Now those that were left, well we tried to survive
In a mad world of blood, death and fire
And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive
But around me the corpses piled higher
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over tit
And when I woke up in my hospital bed
And saw what it had done, I wished I was dead
Never knew there were worse things than dying
For no more I'll go waltzing Matilda
All around the green bush far and near
For to hump tent and pegs, a man needs two legs
No more waltzing Matilda for me

So they collected the cripples, the wounded, the maimed
And they shipped us back home to Australia
The armless, the legless, the blind, the insane
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla
And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where my legs used to be
And thank Christ there was nobody waiting for me
To grieve and to mourn and to pity
And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As they carried us down the gangway
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared
Then turned all their faces away

And now every April I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me
And I watch my old comrades, how proudly they march
Reliving old dreams of past glory
And the old men march slowly, all bent, stiff and sore
The forgotten heroes from a forgotten war
And the young people ask, "What are they marching for?"
And I ask myself the same question
And the band plays Waltzing Matilda
And the old men answer to the call
But year after year their numbers get fewer
Some day no one will march there at all

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
Who'll come a waltzing Matilda with me
And their ghosts may be heard as you pass the Billabong
Who'll come-a-waltzing Matilda with me.

For YouTube version by the best of Irish bands, click here:

The Pogues.

Concha Pérez. A Woman of '36

I went over to see Concha last week.

She's always an inspiration, 92 years old, her mind still
sharp and clear. She's one of the founding, anarchist, members
of Les Dones del 36, the group of 8 women formed in
1997 to tell the story of the women who fought, in one way
or another, to defend the Republican government from the
fascist uprising.

I first met her in the summer of 1995 when I was looking
for information about civil defence. Somebody at the Salvador
Segui Foundation suggested I should go to talk to a group of
libertarian survivors of the war who met every week in a social
centre near the old university.

Note: Will have to finish this later as it's late and the graphic is
provisional till I can scan the photo I prefer. Though the breaking
chains in Catholic Spain in the 30s is very apt.

Bicicletes Castells

Concha's new council flat is near the beautiful old power station
where I used to give classes and where two students first provided
valuable information about air raid shelters.

When I went to take photos of Pere Falque's building for this blog
last year I took a long walk home, and a lot more photos. This one
of an old bicycle shop just near the Arc de Trionf, the nearest tube
station to Concha and my old class.

I'm glad I did.

Because it's gone.

When I came out of the station last week there was just a walled-up
lot.

A jagged space.


Founded in 1928 by Josep Castells, the shop, now run by his great
grandson Pau Foguet, was a meeting point for cyclists, the place to
buy a new model, to repair the old, had even been the base of a
cycling team, the France-Espagne.

For four generations the family have been promoting passion for
sport and this gentle, environmentally friendly means of transport.

But a few years ago urban planners decided this was an ideal place
for a hotel.

Such a wonderful view down one of Barcelona's most beautiful
avenues, Passeig Lluis Companys, to the park.

For the tourists.

Ildefons Cerdà's original and visionary plan for the extension of
Barcelona in the 19th century included gardens in the interior of
every new city block.

Such a waste of space.

This part of the plan was largely ignored.

In recent years, the city council has been recuperating some of the
spaces for public gardens. Admirable, even if they are a little
heavy-handed with the concrete. They decided to recuperate the
one behind the projected hotel.

The entrance to the garden would be through the bicycle shop.

The old bar next door went first but the Castells family had no
intention of leaving. They fought the forced acquisition in court
and, surprisingly, won the case.

Bring in the heavy artillery.

The Generalitat, the autonomous government of Catalonia, plans to
refurbish and extend the tube and train stations below. Apart from
a special reinforcement necessary to support the weight of the new
hotel, improved accessibility to the station requires a lift.

Guess where.

The ideal place is, of course, the middle of the bicycle shop.

This time the family had to admit defeat and have moved to new
premises. They received compensation.

But for some, it is not a question of money.

Maybe not so evident from the photos but the building is
only one storey high.

Such a terrible waste of space.

Not to mention potential income.

At €4746 per square metre, property in Barcelona, though currently
affected by the economic slowdown, has more than doubled in the
last 6 years.

Hardly surprising that there are 1,000,000 new apartments they
can't sell in Spain.

I would like to think that the real estate empires are finally cracking,
that they will stop the destruction of the small scale things, the
working class things, in this beautiful old city.

But I am sure they are just lying in wait.

In their greed.

In their ignorance.


For those who do value history, Bicicletes Castells have started
a blog.

Click on the name for some wonderful old photos.


Barcelona City Council have recently discovered the joys of Bicing,
the new (though some, of course, have been promoting this for the
last 80 years) sustainable form of public transport. Since last year
they have installed 400 stations with 6000 bicycles for use, after
registration and payment of a small fee, to travel short distances
around the city.

Admirable.

Except for one thing. They service is subcontracted to Clear
Channel, an American multinational based in Texas.

They promoted the war in Irak, helped finance George Bush 's 2004
election campaign and continue to support Republican candidacy for
the White House.

Bicycle to Baghdad, anybody?

12th May 1938

The old Municipal Dispensary. Carrer Roser, Poble Sec.

The afternoon raid of 12th May 1938 hit the docks and
Poble Sec.

Without radar, invented during World War II, detection of
approaching enemy planes relied on a network of observation
posts.

They listened and watched.

There was often very little time for Information and Liaison
to activate the air raid warning systems and that afternoon a
power cut meant their siren was out of action.

Even less time for people to reach the shelters.


Five planes are sighted at 15´53.

The raid starts 3 minutes later.

At 16'08 the Municipal Dispensary in Roser Street
communicates that they're dealing with a lot of injured
as the bombs have fallen near the power station on the
main road Francesc Layret (now Paral.lel).

At 16'09 a dispensary in the docks communicates they also
have a lot of victims.

By 17'30 there are 35 known dead and about 100 injured.


Poble Sec now has a wonderful new Medical Centre, right
next to Air Raid Shelter 307 in fact. The National Health
Service here really is excellent, in spite of all the complaints.
But in the 30s...primary public health care was limited to the
municipal dispensaries, totally inadequate to deal with the
increasing number of air raid victims and the terrible injuries
involved.

I'm surprised the Roser Street Dispensary was able to cope at
all - it had been bombed during the March raids two months
previously and services had stopped just when they were
most needed.


The District Council still uses the premises for different
community things.

Peaceful things.

C.N.T A.I.T
NATIONAL HEALTH CONGRESS
20 March 1937

Land and Freedom

LIFE
Weekly publication of the Regional Federation of Farmers of Levante.

It's always the same old story: those who have
and those who have not.

In the 1930s in Spain 70% of the people still lived on the
land 67% of which was owned by a very privileged few.
Abject poverty was rife and many, with a situation little
better than serfs, were close to starvation.

Redistribution of land was to be one of the major revindications
in the years leading to and during the Civil War.


World hunger has been in the news a lot recently.

The privileged few are still around.

Mainly around Wall Street

Country people. Tortosa.
Estampa. 18 July 1933

In Catalonia the situation wasn't so bad with its milder climate,
and more equal distribution of (largely fertile) land. Conditions
were probably worse for the factory workers and the unemployed
in Barcelona.


When news of the Nargis cyclone broke I was going over some
Spanish Civil War documents, specifically the daily log of the
Information and Liaison section of the organization in charge
of civil defence: La Junta de Defensa Passiva de Catalunya.

The minute by minute reports of the raids, from the detection
of approaching enemy planes to the final count of the victims, are
hard reading.

The chaos, the fear and the tragedy get closer.

I was looking at the log of March 1938 and wondering why Amposta
and Tortosa, small towns in the delta where the river Ebro comes
down to the sea, were getting bombed so frequently.

The Delta de l'Ebre is a now a wetlands sanctuary for over 300
species of birds.

But they also grow rice and have done for hundreds of years.

That log entry from 15th March '38: the destruction of a rice
factory in Amposta the previous day with five dead. Of course,
they were trying to destroy supply lines to the front, further up
the river.


Rice fields and war - inevitable images of Vietnam and Cambodia.

Weary, angry that so little changes.


As if natural disasters were not enough.

Do you have a flag?

It's Sunday and for so very many who share this planet the Horror is near.

So much impotence.


Humour can help to lighten the load and is sometimes a powerful
weapon against those who would be king.

This version of British comedian Eddie Izzard's sketch was apparently
made by a fifteen-year-old in the USA.

Queridos Cómicos indeed.

(Click on Eddie's name to see the original.)

The Road from Mandalay

Over 100 years of British Colonial interference and rule in
Burma ended in 1948. For most of its 60 years' independence
the country has been dominated by the military. It's probably
not a coincidence. The present is inextricably linked to what
has gone before.

George Orwell, author of Homage to Catalonia, served the
British Raj as a police officer in Burma.

He resigned.

A convinced anti-imperialist, he came to Spain in 1936 to
fight for the Republican government against fascism.

And the Generals.

It's probably not a coincidence.

The Generals (again)

An ear of rice and stars.

Beautiful symbols on the Myanmar/Burmese flag.

Though I doubt that survivors of the cyclone have much
time to contemplate or get philosophical about starry skies.
They are probably more concerned about the rice.

And the dead.

International offers of aid pour in but the current General and
his Junta are being difficult.

Military dictators always have so many things to hide.

General Than Shwe would like the aid but isn't so enthusiastic
about the aid workers. He may be right, first you get the aid
but then you find you got the CIA or some other intelligence
agency as well.

And Blackwater gets the monopoly on the contracts.

MAYDAY

In Manila, a woman cooks food scavenged from
restauarant garbage.

Photo Reuters April 25 2008

"A lot of scavengers sell recycled food that they segregate
from other waste. It's common practice around here."

Three out of ten Filipinos in a population of 88.57 million
live below a poverty line of $149 a month for a family of five.

Meanwhile...

The Fidelity Millionaire Outlook, a 2008 survey of 1000 people
with at least $1 million in assets to invest, reports that they, too,
are feeling the economic squeeze. 19% do not even consider
themselves wealthy.

Those with more than $10 million being the most pessimistic.

They're not sure where to invest their money to get the best returns.


Garbage bags, perhaps.

CNT FAI AIT Food Sector Union


DISTRIBUTE
FOOD
EQUALLY
DENOUNCE HOARDERS

Song for Monday

"Johnny"

La Polla Records (late, lamented) Basque punk band

Johnny coge el bombardero
y lo eleva por el cielo,
no hay cañon que alcanze a Johnny
ni rival que lo derribe.
Johnny está en un video juego
controlando la pantalla
Johnny nunca ve la muerte
Johnny tira los pepinos oyendo heavy-metal
Es nuestro campeón.
Johnny no mata la gente,
elimina el objetivo.
Johnny no es un asesino.
Johnny tiene un buen oficio.
Johnny es frío y profesional.
Johnny escribe en una bomba
"el petroleo es para mi"
y la gente quiere a Johny
que defiende a su pais.
Se acabo la gasolinaaaaa
Y aunque Johnny vuelve a casa
convencido de su hazaña.
Johnny solo es un cretino
que maneja un bombardero.
Johnny es un bastardo.

Johnny gets into his bomber
Takes it up into the skies
There's no cannon can touch Johnny
no rival that can shoot him down.
Johnny's inside a video game
he's controlling all the screen
Johnny never sees the dying.
Johnny drops his bombs listening to heavy metal
He's our champion.
Johnny doesn't murder people
He eliminates objectives.
Johnny isn't an assassin
Johnny's got a real good job.
Johnny's cold and professional
Johnny writes on one of the bombs
"The petrol's all for me."
And the poeple do love Johnny
He's defending his country.
The gas has all run out now.
And though Johnny's going home,
Sure of his what he has achieved,
Johnny is just a cretin
Who flies a bomber plane
Johnny is a bastard
Oh Johnny is a bastard.
Repeat.

A little more to do with air raid shelters

The barbarians came with their arms blessed by the Pope
Gráficas Valencia. U.G.T. C.N.T 1937 (?)

Southworth Collection. University of California San Diego

At a Pentagon press conference last Friday, America's

top military officer, Admiral Michael Mullen, announced
"potential military courses of action" against Iran.

The excuse?

Iran's "increasingly lethal and malign influence" in Iraq."


Pardon me, "Sir."

(Is that the correct form of address? I obviously cannot
misuse "Compañero")*

The only lethal and malign influence most of us have noticed
in the last few years in Iraq is the purveyor of those B-2 Spirits.
Et al.

"Stealth" bombers?

We did notice who sent them.




*At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War there was an attempt to
abolish forms of address denoting rank or title. In the new world
they were fighting for everyone would be an equal, a "compañero,"

a companion.

Rank

Pedrero. Junta Delegada de Defensa de Madrid
Delegación de Propaganda y Prensa. 1937(?)
Sindicato de Profesionales de las Bellas Artes, UGT.

Southworth Collection UCSD


Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that
the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons,
will somehow work for the benefit of us all.

(or words to that effect)

John Maynard Keynes.

Useful translations:

English to Catalan/Spanish:
Rank (n) Rang/Rango
Rank (adj) Putrefacte/Podrido.

Spanish to English:
"isimo" suffix meaning enormously, most superlative.

"El Generalisimo" is the title given to Franco by his admirers.

One wonders if they were being sarcastic.

Franco was only 5ft 4in. tall.

This is not a way of life at all

Share of arms sales of top 100 arms-producing companies
excluding China. 2004


"Every gun that is made, every warship launched,
every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a
theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those
who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms
is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat
of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes
of its children… This is not a way of life at all, in any
true sense."

Dwight D.Eisenhower April 16th 1953

Nothing to do with air raid shelters

Banksy


Or maybe it has.

PRICE RISES MARCH 2007 - MARCH 2008

CORN 31%

RICE 74%

SOYA 87%

WHEAT 130%

Source BBC

Gerda Taro

Gerda Taro. Guadalajara front, Spain July 1937
International Center of Photography.

A few posts down (10 March) I posted a wonderful photo
of a group of Republican Navy marines.

I had been digressing about war ships and the news had
just come in that the ultra-conservative Popular Party
had not won the Spanish general elections. The men in
the photo are all beaming. For those who do not understand
Spanish perhaps I should also have mentioned that a polite
translation of the song "Tragala" linked to the post might be
rendered as something like "Oh you'll just have to grin and bear
it."

I found the photo on some web page which cited the author as
"Capa".

Robert Capa is considered one of the greatest of war photographers,
thanks, partly, to his much-published photos of the Spanish Civil War.
But this wasn't one I recognized as his so I didn't post his name.


I'm glad I didn't because the photo was taken by Gerda Taro.


Gerda Taro was Robert Capa's friend, lover and companion.
She was also a photographer but, until the recent exhibition of her
work at the ICP in New York, had been given very little credit for her
work or for being, perhaps, the first woman photo-journalist to cover
a war.

The first to die.

She was 26 years old when she was hit and killed by a tank at the
battle of Brunete on 25 July 1937 soon after the photo on this post
was taken.

There's more about her on the ICP web and The New York
Times and The Telegraph.



I hope they bring the exhibition to Barcelona.

Boy wearing cap of FAI (Iberian Anarchist Federation)
Barcelona August 1936. Gerda Taro.

I love Poble sec, the district I live in in Barcelona.

I love the narrow little streets and the park of Montjuïc behind.

I love its working class history, the sense of community.

Which survives.


Gerda probably didn't know that this photo was taken in Poble sec.

It's the anarchist barricade in front of the old Molino Rojo theatre
(Barcelona' s version of Le Moulin Rouge) and was decisive in
stopping the advance of the insurgent troops at the beginning of the
Civil War.


I love that she was here.

Truth, Lies and the Olympics

Photo: Agustí Centelles Ossó

"All British and US troops serving in Iraq will be withdrawn within
a year...The planned pull-out from Iraq follows the acceptance by
London and Washington that the presence of the coalition ...is now
seen as the main obstacle to peace."
Telegraph 08/03/2006


"...the Bush administration has begun negotiations...to keep U.S
troops in Iraq for years, even decades, after George W. Bush leaves
office."
Washington Independent 26/03/2008


I would prefer to explain the history of the suitcase with the
negatives of Agustí Centelles photos of the Spanish Civil War,
recuperated, like Robert Capa's, to bear witness to a time.

But that must wait.

Because Iraq is now.


Britain isn't saying much about troop withdrawal except that it
has been "delayed".


Meanwhile preparations for the 2012 Olympics in London
continue.

Just think how many armless, legless athletes they can bring from
Iraq for the "Para-Olympics".


I wonder who will boycott London.

Fear and loathing in Barcelona

Manuel Monleon

On Monday afternoon Tony Blair was in Barcelona to give a
conference.

2000 of the more economically privileged were invited.

But not the general media. Apparently at his request.

Afraid of something, Tony?

After all hundreds of thousands of people protested in Barcelona
about the invasion of Iraq and TV3, the main Catalonian television
channel, has always maintained a critical coverage of the Iraq war
and its terrible and continuing aftermath.


Tony Blair, who is directly responsible for the deaths of unimaginable
numbers of Iraqi people was paid nearly 300.000 dollars for a 30
minute speech.

His visit was given very little advance publicity and was surrounded
by strange secrecy.

Like a sneak thief.

Like the criminal he is.

What did he speak about?

There is little information available.

Probably something to do with the wages of sin.


"New Labour"?

The old labour is still around. It earns 31 dollars a day.

STOP THE WAR COALITION

Tibet and Berlin 1936

Two years before Hitler came to power in 1933,
the 1936 Olympics had been awarded to Germany.

Intimations of what the Nazi regime was and
would be capable of led some to call for a boycott.

Not many listened.

But that Spain of 1936...

The dreams of freedom and a better world.

The Republican government decided not to send
any participants to Berlin. Instead, with the government
of Catalonia and the City of Barcelona, they organized
an alternative in protest:

The People's Olympic Games.

With 6000 registered athletes from 23 nations the games
were due to start with an inauguration ceremony on the 19th
July.

But with the fascist uprising on the night of 18th to 19th
Spain was plunged into 3 years of civil war. The popular
Olympics, evidently, did not take place.

Some of the foreign athletes immediately enlisted in the
militias on behalf of the Republic forming the basis of what
would later be the International Brigades.

Some died.


I don't like competitive sports and do not believe the
Olympics significantly further peace and understanding
between Nations. But, oh, I would have liked to have seen
Hitler, Master of the Master Race, watching Jesse Owens,
black and beautiful, winning 4 gold medals that summer
in Berlin.


Today, on the news, I watched the Olympic torch on its
journey through London, surrounded by heavy police
protection and jeered by crowds protesting about Tibet.

I wonder who will boycott Beijing.

Manel Cabanes Fernandez

Photo Copyright: Carmen Cabanes

The 70th anniversary of the March bombings
of Barcelona in 1938 seems a fitting time to get
back to the story of Air Raid Shelter 307.

Manel, to whom this blog is partly dedicated,
died on the night of the 17th March when a section
of the shelter collapsed. He was 5 years old.

He had always been terrified of the narrow, winding
tunnels of the shelter and never wanted to go
inside. But the intensity of the air raids which had
started the previous day was so frightening for his
mother, her sister and their four other children
that he was forcibly taken inside

There is no record of a direct hit on the shelter.
Lack of foresight, materials and manpower meant
that many shelters were being used while work was
still in progress. A section collapsed just where the
children were sleeping.

Manel's eight-year-old cousin Dolores died instantly.
Manel was still alive but bleeding from the eyes and
ears. There were no ambulances or cars available in the
chaos. So his mother ran, with her son in her arms, to the
central hospital.

It's about 40 minutes´walk, uphill, on a normal day.

They couldn't save him.

His mother, Angela, never really forgave herself for
making him go inside the shelter. She washed and kept
the jacket he was wearing the night he was killed. She
died in 1998 and was buried, as she had requested, with
the jacket in her arms.

I can think of others to blame.


Manel's sister Carmen, who was born after the war so never
knew him, told me the story. We cried, for the pity and the
horror of it all.

I look at his photo and imagine losing a child in this way.

I look at the photo.

Strange premonition, the doll's striped suit.

It looks so much like the ones issued to inmates of the
Nazi concentration camps.