Kathe Kollwitz and her contemporary artists

 Jan is architect and my preferred partner to visit exhibitions. He doesn't only look at the objects shown but notices the relationships of the objects to their environment and comments on how they are placed. The statues on the black pedestals are by Kollwitz, those on the natural wood are by 19 contemporaries some working in different styles. Avant-garde as in the work of Jean Arp, piètas as the one by Ivan Mestovic' a sculptor whose work I have admired because of the large Prophet - preacher in Split in Croatia, Emiel Jespers, Zadkine....

 Kathe Kollwitz's son fell in Flanders fields on the first day of World War I. She then created the statue 'The grieving parents'. And spoke out against war and violence. Many of the pieces shown at the Bream Pavilion in the Middelheim museum in Antwerp are militant. The artists show us that war brings suffering, that it is filled with mass and personal  suffering. This composition of artists and work shown is a true pacifist statement.  I find the small statue with women and children wave at husbands and fathers who are going to war very moving. The women had to keep the family together, feed the children, work and make money... They also lost their jobs after the war because work was for returning soldiers in all war torn countries. I love the light in this pavilion. The war in sculptures is to me deeply moving and a fitting reminder to work for peace. Some sculptors created work in the trenches with the material the enemy fired at them applying all their craft to turn battle field objects into civilian objects. Another great exhibit at the Middelheim museum.

Transits

Transits always were interesting to me, maybe because I am more aware of my curiosity, wondering about what changes will come. Finally peace in Syria, I hope. A durable solution for Gaza. Finally gun control in the USA. Friendship and warmth in the inner cities in Europe even in Antwerp with a mayor who doesn't exude either of these qualities. I have been blessed by an evening with my parents, an evening with a more than kind German family and also with the best Moules Marinière I have ever had at the home of dear friends, where the blanket of warmth and friendship covered me kindly. After the famed apple cake followed the official and non official fireworks forbidden by the just mentioned mayor. People have lit more fireworks than ever before so 1-0 for the citizens! The not liked mayor started his job on January first. We saw the city being cleaned up after the latest revelers went home to sleep it off. And then the birthday of my daughter in a truly international, multilingual gathering with nice food, a Belgian shrimp cocktail, Syrian delicatessen with the best humus and bulgour preparation, with pastries send from Damascus. The factory still standing.... It is great to meet friends of friends, colleagues, photographers, a musician, Cat lovers and dog lovers, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers. It is great to be part of humanity!

Love and peace for all on earth!
And don't forget we are all citizens don't stand by idly, be useful.

No more bombing of civilians

My grandfather collected stamps: big books with old stamps, but also a smaller one with stamps emitted by the United Nations. So I knew about Palestine and Israel when I was about seven years old. I have always worked for peace, believing in negotiations. A few days ago Rabbi Alissa Wise remarked that the current assault on Gaza is being paid for by the blank check from the US government to the Israeli military. So basically all US citizens pay for bombing citizens in Gaza. Bombing citizens who ever does it morally wrong. Unacceptable. It is also an infringement on human rights of the civilian victims. So no more tax dollars for consistently violating human rights. Gaza has one and half million people living on a very small area: It is probably the largest open air prison, about 140 square miles. There are regular food shortages, people loose hope, children are stressed and hungry. 

Some 10% of children under five in the Gaza Strip have had their growth stunted due to prolonged exposure to malnutrition. "Stunting (chronic malnutrition) is not improving and may be deteriorating," concluded the World Health Organisation in May of this year. For those of you who understand German I post an interview with Gunter Grass.

So: Please no more killing of children. A Flander's Pen colleague took too many pictures of these gruesome after the first attack. I only post one. One kid who might survive in that first night 25 children died or were severely wounded.

American elections - I voted early and you?

Being an ex-pat I voted early from abroad and yes I voted for Obama. I must admit it was with a bit less of enthusiasm than the first time. I have signed many petitions to the president, some of which he has taken on board, others not. My main reason to vote for him is that we share more of a caring approach, a world view for society than I will ever share with the other candidate. Climate change is at least acknowledged and thought about. The fact that in Arizona reproductive rights for women are not in the health insurance package but Viagra is, says something about the other party. Being a woman, the only to vote for me is Obama. With democrats we have the chance that we can autonomously decide about reproductive issues without an employer being able to influence what is included in one's health insurance. That is a personal issue and should not be taken away from women. I also thank the president for standing for GLTB rights. My beef with Obama is that, although less of a hawk than his opponent, although he has ended the Iraq war, for which I am grateful, he still uses drones and signs for each attack with them. And of course capital punishment in my heart, mind and soul is wrong. Not granting presidential pardons, commuting the sentences of people on death row is a lost opportunity. Yet I am deeply convinced that Obama is better for the world and the USA and that better options for good possible futures for all might be open.

No war with Iran

The poem by Fred Schywek in German and in English is the transformation by a younger poetry generation poet of the controversial long poem by Gunter Grass published in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the largest quality paper in Germany and in La Republica (Italy). In this political poem Günter Grass speaks against the fact that the Israeli government claims the right for a first atomic strike against Iran. Source Tagesschau.

 *

Warum why

Warum

schweige ich

verschweige

lang

was offensichtlich

im Planspiel

geübt

an deren Ende

als Lebende

wir allenfalls

Fußnuß

Why why

Why

do I keep silent

hush up

a long time

what obviously

has been practiced

in a planning game

at the end of which

living creatures

we certainly

footnut

Anti-War-Day, September 1st, 2011

Freedom and peace for all – No more war!

European trade unions called for freedom and peace for the whole world in May 1961. This appeal, this summons is today more topical than ever.

It’s been ten years now since the war in Afghanistan began. News about victims of battles, attacks and war actions reaches us almost on a daily basis. What the population needs is work and stability instead of instability and violence. We demand the retreat of all troops out of Afghanistan and strong support for civilian society.

Troops in Afghanistan, planes in Libya are signs of the willingness of the West to deploy troops in any place in the world. We do not want intervention armies, but a strong basis democratic control of all military decisions.

This years spring saw the massive protests in the Arab world. A wave of democratic protest rolled from country to country over North Africa and the Arab Peninsula. The regimes of Tunisia and Egypt were toppled. Especially the young generations hold high hopes that in these societies the democratic process will unfold peacefully, in solidarity and progressively. These processes need to be supported financially, with medical aid, assistance of suffering civilians.

Lessons from the past spell it out clearly that the weapons the ruling governments used against their own population for the major part had been sold to them by the European armament industry: Germany, Belgium, Spain, France ...  The selling of arms to regions in crisis should be classified under crimes against humanity. Defense spending has to be curbed in a a sustainable way.

The farewell to nuclear energy should also entail the end of all nuclear weapons! After the end of the cold war today there are still 23.000 nuclear weapons ready to be deployed. Our wish is a nuclear free world!

Every form of contempt for people, glorification of war and chauvinism is an affront to human dignity and unworthy in a democracy. The extreme right, hate mongering groups instigating violence and racism shall not find a foothold in our society.

Fred Schywek

Annmarie Sauer organizers of the 2010 and 2011 European Poetry Festival

Text on the basis of a position paper of the DGB (German umbrella organization of trade unions)

September Days of Peace (Campaign of world internet books)

September 1: Salon 12b: Worldwide Anti-War-Day: 8 PM

Participating September 11: NINE ELEVEN TEN Performance, Organizer Frank De Vos, Casa Louisa

September 17, 2011, European Poetry Festival Antwerp

8 PM with the city poet laureate Peter Holvoet-Hanssen and the support of the Permeke Library

Hippie days and Ana's memorial

For peace loving aging hippies Haight & Ashbury Streets in San Francisco are almost a place of worship, a pilgrimage to take. The area is still full of love and peace, of cute shops and all things alternative: eco, bio, piercings, drunks totally out of it sleeping on the sidewalk ... and patches for the soul.

Jimmy Hendrix watches over all this.

After the walk down memory lane, Ana asked to visited the Holocaust memorial: I repeat the motto: Remembrance is the beginning of redemption. Ana was right about this place a stark and moving beauty held up against the horrors of war and the concentration camps where Jews, gypsies, trade union people, resistance members, communists and many more perished... No more- never again.

Memorial Day

Memorial day is the when we remember all wars. We know about Arlington, but also Dayton, Ohio has a huge Military Cemetery starting at the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Vietnam and Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan and I may be forgetting one or other war like troops in former Yugoslavia... Seeing the flagged graves of all these people having been in a war, saddens me and strengthens my pacifism.

© sms:foto duisburg/rhein 2011

Here a Civil War Canon and  red white and blue streamers... These colors pervade everything. People walk along the the green grass in a solemn mood, bringing flowers, tokens of remembrance and caring.

Brothers and daughters, two children, about seven and eight at the grave where it says Cathy M. Soldier and other of two.
Memorial Day

A hot humid day in Dayton Ohio
row upon row
white stone after stone
bronze plaques
names and dates
rank and specific
war
engraved
scratched in souls
on stone
flag upon flag of endless ages
of flag after flag
the sad and sorrow price of
war -

By the way: war is not inevitable, it doesn't make us safer and humans are not naturally violent.
Peace takes more guts!

Stop selling weapons

If they ask you what I think about war, tell them I am against all wars. Too simple? I am astonished at the women of my generation like Hillery Clinton, Rice and others who urge to go and intervene with full might and weaponry. I can understand the emotional, even passionate reaction, the compassion with the people of Libya. I have been in Rwanda 10 years after the genocide and have  seen the emptiness in the eyes of people there, I have seen the old machetes and know about the one million  people murdered in one hundred days. I have friends in Croatia who had a son in Vuckovar. Massive killings without intervention. Maybe these women feel guilty for the loss of life and the pain that was not prevented. Yet the hypocrisy of bombing the planes the west sold to dictators or tribal leaders. Fighting the Taliban armed by the US to resist the Russians are all acts that show that the west doesn't have the moral high ground. Talk, negotiate, use economic power, all possible peaceful means. And yes stop selling weapons now.

November 20 - Women against Nato

> Dear friends,
You know that Muddy roads cares about peace and non violence. hence this message from the Women in Black, Women against Nato and writers for peace:
>
> We would like to tell you about a women's anti-NATO action some of us
> are planning in Central London on November 20, to mark the NATO
> Summit which takes place in Lisbon that weekend.
>
> Four of our women's networks are involved - Women in Black, Women's
> International League for Peace and Freedom, Aldermaston Women's Peace
> Camp and women of Trident Ploughshares.
>
> We are gathering an affinity group of 25 women for this activity.
>
> We shall be wearing specially prepared T-shirts. Eleven women, each
> with a large letter stencilled on the fabric, will, side by side,
> together display the message SAY NO TO NATO. Women in plain T-shirts
> will fill the space between the three words. Thus, fourteen women in
> total will constitute this 'living message'.
>
> The T-shirts will be pale mauve (traditional women's colour) and the
> letters stencilled very boldly in black. Letters will also be printed
> on the reverse, but different ones, so that, whether seen from front
> or back, the message will read from left to right. The 'O' in NO will
> be a women's sign.
>
> We shall progress around London from site to site, stripping off our
> overcoats here and there, linking arms and displaying our message for
> some minutes, wherever we can achieve the most dramatic visual
> effect...on steps, on bridges, across roads on pedestrian crossings,
> lying on the ground etc. etc.
>
> Some women of the affinity group will distribute to the public
> informative leaflets about NATO developments and the feminist case
> against NATO. The leaflet will carry the names of our four
> organizations, and will make demands on the British government.
>
> Other women of the group will look after coats and bags. We shall
> have a steward, and a legal observer, and women concerned with
> photography, video and media contacts.
>
> These supporting women will wear T-shirts in the same colour, but
> stencilled with a women's anti-NATO logo. (I can send this when it
> is designed, if you are interested.)
>
> We would very much like to know whether you are planning women's
> actions in your cities and localities to mark the NATO summit - and
> if so, what you plan to do.
>
> If any of you would think of doing a similar T-Shirt Action, it would
> be a great joy to us to know we are joined with you in a simultaneous
> and co-ordinated event!
>
> We have prepared a 'Background Note' about developments in NATO and
> women's case against it, as a resource in planning our Nov 20 action.
> It can be seen on the website of Women and Life on Earth. You will
> find a link on the home page at . The paper is titled
> "Making NATO visible to women; making women's opposition visible to NATO".
>
> Let's share ideas!
>
> Best wishes, Cynthia
> Women in Black London.
>
> _____________________________________

Writing in a world in crises

The empty chair is for the comedian Zargana convicted to 35 years in prison.

Writing in a world in crises is problematic. The freedom of expression is shackled by taboos about certain subjects. In Turkey those are: Kemal Atta Turk, Armenia, the Kurdish issue, political Islam and military in politics. If as a writer you even slightly approach one of these subjects in a way that is perceived to be critical of the official views you can end up up killed like Hrant Dink or in jail like Leyla Zalan.
The other part of the evening was dedicated to Palestinian writers. We know Mourid Barghouti, but who else. Can writers escape politics, I am afraid they cannot: they still need paper and pen, light at night and the safety to live and think in, food for their families and medical care.
There are 700 checkpoints and people cannot go to their fields or visit their family, there is hardly any water. The task of the Palestinian writers is Herculean: to create a new world while being powerless in an occupied country. Peace now, so that children, men and women and poetry can flourish.

Open Futures

Open Futures was the title of the lecture given by Maya Van Leemput in the emptied Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp, the MuHKA. It made me think, seen that since modernity we have been used to deal with hard facts, it is high time for the re-enchantment through creativity as an organizing principle. The practice of art and futures studies is very similar because possibilities are explored, dissident visions and imagination are encouraged. We have to be aware that all human actions shape the future. Art is important in this thought process and practice because all possibilities are open in the non linear possibilities that are offered here. We can have sudden shifts, spirals, layers of complexity and possibilities are not a priori excluded. Transhumanism were there is no interface between humans and machines touches the definition of what it means to be human in the psychological, social, mythical and cultural aspects of being human. That kind of technology is seen as disruptive technology because there is break in the normal path of evolution and this leads to new interpretations and new subjectivities about what it means to be a posthuman human. The so called Cyborgs lead to an unstable human identity. Then new definitions become possible. What happens if norms are questioned, when boundaries are transgressed. Remember that the power to create Cyborgs is in the hands of the military industrial complex... If we want peace we have to stop them from claiming that field of creating universal soldiers
So we all have to work to keep our critical openness and to fill it with images of desirable futures. So change will be fed by human emotion and thoughtful creativity, so we will make one of the different possible futures by our daily actions and questions. Thanks to Maya for making me think.

Meet and greet

Walking the dog, I noticed on the publicity panels at the tram stop, that on several posters, one for a sneaker from Footwear, another for photographic material, stickers were added in the by me despised combination of black and yellow which stands for extreme Flemish nationalism. Their gripe was with the English in the ads. It bothers me because it is just another sign of the refolding, retreating into the 'comfort zone' of their own culture and people. This city and many others in Europe Sarajevo (the first were I really felt the meaning of cosmopolitanism, which was bombed to smithereens and is now mono-ethnic and mono-religious), Triest (with the Lega Nationale and their racist and anti-Islam points of view) and also my city. In the sixties/seventies, when I was out and about a bit more I would always meet, musicians, painters, draftdodgers, conscientious objectors, writers who would stay a while and enrich, fertilize the provincial attitudes that were. They were poor and powerless but were the leven in the dough of society. Then this city was magnificent and it still is because enough people care. So there was a meet and greet your neighbors were cultural exchange once again happened and were deep discussions among total strangers were conducted in a lively fashion about the past and the future. Our futures will be our choice and we need to go the non-violent, peaceful way, taking care of our environment, granting the personal freedoms we all need, tolerance, working towards social justice and livable cities, where all the keys to understanding the world resound in song and languages spoken. A left wing progressive cosmopolitan. By the way the Goulash soup was great and the fruit salad just different and enough to be grand...

Last birthday

The big Nato festivities in Strasbourg, France have started with a demonstration against it at the eve of the real meeting. The first protesters have been arrested and the heads of state have had a nice dinner in Baden Baden. People don't want the 400 tactical nuclear weapons stationed in Europe: in Belgium, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Turkey...There is a question mark next to Greece and the UK. Of course there are also 100 tactical nuclear weapons on submarines cruising unseen in our sea's with deadly charge. Listen to the terminology 'short range nuclear forces'... Short range, Brussels to Luxembourg? Vilnius to St Petersburg? What does it mean. These weapons have turned out to be irrelevant now although they are nuclear. Think about the delivery systems: dual capable aircraft, F16, modern Tornadoes. The acquis Atlantique is at a turning point. We have to rethink war and peace in our transatlantic home and away in the rest of the world. Should Nato work on cyberdefence, on energy security, meddle in economical problems... Global Zero is an initiative for a nuclear weapons free world. Europe should take the initiative in this matter, further diplomacy by non-violent means and peace building. That would lead to visions of possible futures worth working for. And furthermore, I am of the opinion that Nato should be abolished. May this 60th birthday of Nato be the last.

Ralleys

Working in the capitals of Europe it is often hard to get to where one needs to be. Where there is perceived power, there will be demonstrations of all kinds. The ones I do not brave are those by the metal workers and the farmers: they cause quite some 'debri'. This time the people from Sri Lanka ask the EU to stop giving money for genocide. The Tamil Tigers have quite a reputation as a fierce fighting force. This demonstration was non-violent and colorful. I walked through it to get to work taking some snapshots. Yes Stop the War...

Words matter

Words matter: I once heard an officer from the Mossad speak and I learned how words matter. It makes a difference whether you call The occupied territories or The West Bank. Words like: chosen people, homeland, jihad, occupation, Jehovah, Allah, democracy, Hamas, settlers, holocaust, genocide, terrorists, lies… color a discourse and frame it in a specific confrontational way. When Hamas was democratically elected (not only in the Gaza strip but overall the Palestinian territory) it was not the result the West had hoped for. I seem to remember that for a year Hamas declared a unilateral ceasefire and it never got violated by them and still the international community didn’t want to talk to them. (Don't you remember how the West send money and weapons to Hamaq to weaken the PLO? Don't you remember we supported and armed the Taliban ahgainst the Russians. We have our share of responsibility if only be our hypocrisy.) Blame can be laid at everybody’s door but blame doesn’t help the process to a humane solution. I include a link which clearly explains the communication concept ‘interpunction’. I learned about the phrase in The Pragmatics of Communication by Paul Watzlawick. It makes clear that when you start the clock is a defining factor for how you view the crisis. Two kids playing and fighting will tell their mother ‘She started it!’ and hope that that would make her own reaction right. It is not. However you look at it: 4 people dead through the actions of one side and close to 600 on the other side can never be right. One person dead is wrong, 600 is wrong 600 times. Respect and non-violence is the only way, you cannot bomb the word into peace, unless everybody is dead.

Peace Now and a Happy New Year

While preparing to receive a bunch of friends and look at the fireworks at midnight, I listen to the radio and the horrendous situation in the Gaza strip is on my mind.


I wish all of you a good and healthy year and for the Palestinians a peace now and livable state. Stop the blockade and the bombing... 60 years of conflict is too long. The UN Security council should act now and protect innocent children and civilians. Lets work for non violent cooperative futures for all.

Peace, light & love

One of my grandmothers was German. She was might gentle safe heaven in dark times. Christmas as a consequences carries her sounds and smells. Lebkuchen, the Braedele, the dark chocolate coated gingerbread hearts filled with orange marmalade, that one specific flavor of marzipan... Of course also the songs, the mulled wine. Not with the opulence of these days, but just enough to remember, to look forward and backward.
In these dark times of conflicts and crisis, we should remember that the light has returned and that if we work for it peace, love and light, food for all, respect for all that is, is possible. With all my warmth I send love and light.

Birthed from Scorched Hearts

Birthed from Scorched Hearts Women respond to War was compiled and edited by MariJo Moore. She produced an important, powerful book. 54 women from all over he world have sent in their words, their feelings, their insights, their stories. Some give courage, some are heart wrenching, some are wise. Reading the book I learned about old, historic violence beginning with Medusa and the daughters of Celtic Boudica. We learn about massacres and forgotten people, the plight of indigenous peoples in the USA and in the rest of the world. The chronology then brings WW I and WW II, Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Iraq, followed by the protesters and peace workers. I am moved, humbled by the creativity and life lessons of these women. I like the historic fiction by MariJo Moore writing about Creek War and the Indian boy Andrew Jackson took home. MariJo imagines the mother’s tale about her lost boy’s life. Great. Then another important piece is by Rebecca Bevins Faery about Vietnam and the repackaging now of Nam as a tourist destination. She was married to a soldier in that war and was a peace activist. It deeply resounded in me as it was my first confrontation with war and as a consequence peace work. I should mention Laura Tohe’s testimony about her brother. Molly Mc Glennen writes about Native American women’s poetry and the reinterpretation of war: insightful and moving. We need to understand creative expression as sacred and to acknowledge the continuum among the speaker, writer, reader, listener, creative spirit and the word. Doing so, your writing will have political implications. Your love flowing out can change the world.

Frontpage

Remember the post by Kelly demonstrating against the war on her own at a Mc Cain rally in Arizona. This brave friend of mine was photographed and the picture won a prize so her courage and outrage at the criminal war have received just attention.
We should be proud about all the brave women of Codepink and the women in black who stand always in a non-violent but forceful and strong way. And by the way I am also proud of Hillary Clinton, she has a made a difference for us all and her speech was moving and generous. We live in turn point times and that is when each one of us counts. Peace, civil liberties, equity is what we all stand for. By the way Dr Scarpone, I am also proud of the men who stand with us with us vitriolic anti-war signs...