The Sunday Papers "Alexandrine Edition"

international | worker & community struggles and protests | news report Sunday March 19, 2006 15:31 by iosaf mac diarmada .:. the ipsiphi barcelona

It has been long observed that people for some reason on their non-banking days readily absorb shite about Dangerous Places, Famous People, Sensible Saving Options, Holidays, Interesting facts, Sport results, Media, gardening and health as well looking ahead at “democratic evolution” and looking back at "how history was made".

in this edition, the first since the "Mozart Edition" of Jan. 8, I will touch briefly on the three years since the Iraq war, Whats happening in France on the class politics front and in Peru and Italy on the lead-up to their general elections next month, and a even shorter mention of the Zapatista's other campaign in Mexico. & a bit of religiosity too.

get thee hence now!

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If you're a church going christian of the western tradition today you hear a little bit of the story of how the Christ expelled the money changers from the Temple. & perhaps chat with your local cleric about whether that constituted violent or non-violent action, a political or theological act, and formed a substantial part of the background on the "Holy CV" which led him to being crucified, and allowed us to have an Easter Rising and Good Friday. Because De Valera cruising about in the Rolls Royce was never really what Easter was about.
http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Jhn/Jhn002.html#13

Of course De Valera is dead now, mouldering in the grave, and we have a new DeV for this age, a tall guant and lean type. The prime minister of France, 52 year old Dominique de Villepin is currently facing a new wave of ire, this time from students. He's a very intelligent man, and one of those few types left who moulded as a dauphin to Chirac, represents the old haut bourgeois ruling class of the French state, not just the V republic. He's the sort of man who writes biographies of Napoleon, poetry in fine cloth bound editions to pass round his mates, could call Condoleeza Rice "darling" and not get a dark look, and notably drool over the forgotten Julia Tomeyshenko former
prime minister of the Ukraine.

He like I, (and one would presume many Sorbonne students) knows what an alexandrine is. But that's not the sort of person the French need as their prime minister. If you don't know what an alexandrine is, here's an example :-

Prêtez-moi l'un et l'autre une oreille attentive.
Je ne veux point ici rappeler le passé,
Ni vous rendre raison du sang que j'ai versé:
Ce que je fait, Abner, j'ai cru le devoir faire.

The first four lines of "Le Songe d'Athalie" by Racine (1639-1699)
lend me your waxy ears, I've not come to tell you what happened, nor to get all bloody technical on you in my verse justifying myself, I'm just doing it Abner matey coz I have to
Would be a pretty shitty translation and you wouldn't get far in the Sorbonne for it.

It is a pretty solid poem which illustrates well the rules of French prosady and the alexandrine with its 12 sylable rhyme. if we look at the second and third lines we see an example of what is called "masculine" and "feminine" ryhmes. Those lines end in full vowel sounds, that means they are masculine. There has been over 10 months of smoke in France. As we know there is never smoke without Fire.Don't get too focussed on the Flames, Look for the kindling
background links-
http://indymedia.ie/article/70140
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=71693
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=72013
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"The Selective & Collective memory : Memory as fetishised community : Communality as fetishised memorial" :-

I went to the BCN anti-war march 3 years on. Surrounded by people with fantasy flags. Those of the 2nd spanish Republic and the Soviet Union. I also noted a group of people whose way of making their point was carrying poster images of a lion in Afghanstan's zoo, which is now blind thanks to a US armed forces grenade. sentimentality is not a virtue in politics

The actual date of the Easter 1916 insurrection was - April 24th. The last meetings of the military council and the parallel and mysterious irish republican brotherhood of course taking place on the 23rd day of the 4th month. This year Easter falls on April 16th for western christians and April 23rd for orthodox eastern christians. So you could do a greek orthodox easter bunny sentimental communality thing and more *accurate*. The last official commemoration saw De Valera (DeV 1) cruise around in the then state rolls royce in 1966 on April 10th and repeat almost to the letter his equally fetishised peformance of 1935 which had been on April 21st. quite. its all bollox. fuking with your memory. I said as much in this comment last sunday - http://indymedia.ie/article/69934#comment141184

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Peru and Italy are going to general elections. Berlusconi needs no explanation anymore, but despite his vulgarity, and obvious unsuitablity to hold office, he really can sit down at the alexandrine table. DeV in France, Merckel the *non-elected* chancellor of the impossibly oligarchic coalition in Germany, & all the Blair's of Engurland. We are watching the democracy our forebears wanted expire like a burnt match. They call it meritocracy now, but is rule by dictat, decree and manipulation of public opinion by polling and commercial media.

Peru sees a three way contest. With a short period to go, Humala the "etnocacerista" is surging in the polls. ( background http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=68106 ). Peru saw terrorism for 20 years, the majority of victims were concentrated in one ethnic group. In total 69,280 persons (margin of error minimum 61,007 maximum 77,552) were killed. More than any war Peru had engaged in through her 180 year plus history. Background - http://www.cverdad.org.pe
Humala is a good example of how the dialectic of marxism has gone very very weird. He's criticised by many for his racist ideology, (he's anti "white" Peruvians) and he has received the backing two months now of Chavez. Who of course in proto-caudillo mode, saw 75% abstention in his last elections. Its too early to call that election, I will append a lot of data in the comments to this article. Berlusconi too plays with the fascist phenomona in Italian culture, and it is a tradition. Europe, I have long maintained is "post-fascistic". And as we all ought remember neo-liberal corporations bed down with fascistic regimes as happily now as ever before. http://indymedia.ie/article/74325

Sub. Commandante Marcus & pals have been touring Mexico since January 3rd. It has been a learning curve for everyone. They have met with criticism from young urbanites that they are "utopian", "mountain types" with no "young fine gael policies". And they have also met with some strange welcomes. Three weeks ago, Marcus did his speeches on the need to focus completely on climate change and a proper central american co-ordination to prepare housing and emergency response to the new hurricanes. But the stage was decorated with the "fantasy flags". I laughed out loud to see him against a backdrop of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao. The same sentimentality that brings out such stage decorations for the "theatrical road show" of the EZLN is the very same sentimentality, the very same "Selective & Collective memory : Memory as fetishised community : Communality as fetishised memorial" which will ensure post-fascism thrives in Italy and other states of the east in Europe. Please think about that.

I repeat :- sentimentality is a political vice.

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On February 15th 2003, after a campaign which had begun during the war on Afghanistan the year before, an estimated 1.3 million people assembled in the city of Barcelona to call on the then prime minister Aznar to cease his support for the Bush / Blair axis. http://www.bcn.es/publicacions/b_informacio/bi_63/bi_63...2.htm In these last 3 years attendance figures at demonstrations have been so exagerated perhaps by a popular wish to remember that day's extraordinary participation that a certain revisionism has taken hold. The group "contrastant" was welcomed by many when it finally corrected these exagerations and using scientific methods proved the attendances could not have been as great as at first suggested. But society certainly joined to say "No To War!". But I can not forget that in the last week the "drinking riots" , brough more young Spanish to the street than any politics of sentimentality or fetishised shame. = Stop flogging the dead horse. C/F http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4818180.stm

The Spanish armed forces who entered Iraq as part of the "coalition of the willing" understood their mission was to be a "humanitarian". Aznar at the Azores conference with Bush and Blair had insisted his troops would being food, water and medicines but not be a force of occupation. Indeed the Spanish media accompanying them happily shot video of young Iraqi kids in the Spanish sector singing "guerra no! guerra no!" ( no war! no war!) to the same melody that had spread throughout the peninsula at home. However, behind the media pitch, being stationed as a spanish soldier in Iraq was not easy, and we know now that the armed forces were attacked by the insurgency 33 times before their final withdrawl by the Zapatero regime in mid 2004. It is worth noting that Zapatero and his party the PSOE only gave their support to the various groups campaiging against the war on February 3rd of 2003. He had promised to recall troops from Iraq if elected and control over that country was not given to the UN after June 30th 2004. Consistently arguing that the war had been illegal. On April 18th 2004 four days after formally taking power, and one month after being elected Zapatero announced that the return of the 1300 Spanish troops stationed .The PSOE (Zapatero's party) were never a "pacifist party" and indeed since the withdrawl of the 1,300 troops from Iraq, they have sent troops to Haiti and Afghanistan. They presently contribute more NATO troops to Afghanistan than any other member. Under Zapatero's minister of Defence Jose Bono, spanish military spending increased, and arm supply orders were signed with many other countries, most notably Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil. The re-equipment of the Spanish navy in the period 2003-2005 moved it into 3rd position for efficacy and power in the EU. Spain's armed forces also boast the largest percentage of any country for non-national officers and soliders recruiting widely in South and Central American societies. That being a tactic to balance the infamous US "school of the americas". At end Zapatero's foreign policy was sweetened by the withdrawl from Iraq, and allowed him to promote the "alliance of civilisation" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_of_Civilizations The Spanish saw their popularity increase amongst their neighbours in the Mediterranean, and the "threat index" of a repeat of the March 11th Al Qaeda attack seemed to lower. That said, the majority of Al Qaeda suspects held globally (outside of Guantanamo) are held or were processed in Spain, and since March 11th several minor attacks have been reported as "foiled". The greatest criticism seemed to come from Paul L. Bremer ( the U.S. direct ruler in the first phase of the occupation), who lambasted Spanish armed forces behaviour during their stay, complaining in his biography that they had not "engaged the enemy". And we may also note that though Aznar is the single "world leader" who has met (either in office or out of it) George W. Bush the most, proving a warm friendship between the two, Bush has not yet officially met Zapatero.

The collective "SIOF" is still active and campaigns for the introduction of an option for Spanish State citizens
to withhold their taxes from military spending, as well as campaigning along with the mainstream party IU and its Catalan sister ICV for a withdrawl from NATO.
http://www.pangea.org/juspau/siof/cprincipal.htm
The group "espai alliberat contra la guerra" who emerged so dramatically from squatter, zapatista, alternative, anarcho-syndicalist and general european "eccentric exile" circles in the months before the declaration of war, won affection across the political spectrum for its very high profile and symbolic occupations of Barcelona's council properties which in each and every case, they were not evicted without their characteristic resistance, lots of media types filming and lots of people hanging in difficult to arrest positions on mountaineering ropes. They received the "blessing" of the local "stop the war coalition" http://www.fundacioperlapau.org/iraq/documents/docs%20p...3.htm as well as the majority of the Catalan commercial media most of their members moved on to focus thier energies in other similarly symbolic protests on migrant issues, housing issues, and have continued to be at the "non-hierarchial heart" of Barcelona's and perhaps Spain's leftwing. "Espai alternative contra la guerra" occupied all-be-it for short periods abandoned buildings at "symbolic" adresses; Dr Flemming square (named after the discoverer of penicilin for the health needs of the planet's poorest), Pi square, Arc of the Theatre street, and the old income tax offices of the state amongst others. The analysis of the assembly after many debates http://barcelona.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=37...bcast , was that the "root cause" of transnational conflict is "the quotidien war of poverty, exclusion, hunger, prejudice, disinformation, criminalisation, exploitation and insecurity". Within a few months of the start of the war, the group met in assembly and decided to "return to lists" thus disbanding, but many of its members continued to fight speculation and homelessness and went on a curve which brought them to occupy many buildings in the city, and have been since the March 11 bombings of Madrid in occupation of a former "guardia civil" barracks at number 11, Juan Bourbon street. One of the buildings they occupied before the war (next to Pi square) now bears a small plaque erected by the government, reminding the casual tourist in three languages that during the Spanish civil war of the 1930's, the square had been known popularly as "the square of the unknown volunteer".
The group "Aturem la guerra" (stop the war coalition) has never ceased in its attention to military conflicts worldwide, its campaign against the war on Iraq, was always tied to support for the Palestinian people, and those of Afghanistan, and in the last years support for the peoples of the Western Sahara. It has called an event for Saturday 18th March 2006 http://www.aturemlaguerra.org/
the group "peace foundation" boasting many members of Spain's academic community continued to collate data on conflicts and the quality of justice in societies affected by war, working closely with "Intermon Oxfam" (IO) and Amnesty international http://www.fundacioperlapau.org/iraq/index2.htm
The group "peace school" http://escolapau.org/programas/ddr.htm only a few weeks ago present a detailed report on those same conflict resolution processes suggesting that in the last 20 years decommissioning of arms and peace processes globally (from Ireland to Angola) have seen an estimated 1,129,000 people return to normal civilian life, and work within their societies to improve the lot of the poorest.

I couldn't write any review of these last 3 years without mentioning at least one Spaniard who died, in the service of media in Iraq. José Couso was a cameraman with TV5 one of Spain's terrestial channels, he was 37 years of age, married with two children then aged 3 and 6 years. He was in the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad in 2003, a building which was clearly identified to the occupying forces and Iraqis as housing members of the international media and aid volunteer corps. They were protected under Article IV of the Geneva Convention 12/8/49 and its summary protocols and additions of 8/6/77 to which the USA is party. On the 8th of April 2003 he and others died after sergeant Thomas Gibson, captain Philip Wolford and lieutenant colonel Philip de Camp
of the the 64th armoured regiment of the 3rd division of infantry of the US Armed forces negligently and illegaly fired tank shells at that hotel. He was just one of many. The case against the USA for its illegal war and its wanton destruction of the Iraqi peoples' homes continue.

Pau = Paz = Pax = Bake = Siochain = Saleem = Shalom = Peace.

I happen to believe that ideas such as "black shamrocks" are the way to go, and in fact bring us back to the creativity that allowed millions of people to take part in political activity in 2003. I hope that my suggestion to "wear a purple afghani opium poppy for peace" in November is taken up, or at the last "a silver foil smack wrap for peace lapel pin".

We didn't lose.
They didn't win.
Lets not get sentimental about it.
Havea great week!
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the last Sunday Papers "mozart edition"
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/73711

{ all the Sunday Papers articles are © iosaf mac diarmada, I trust ye all to read them if you want, act or not on the suggestions, agree or not with the analysis, but don't go selling them in the USA as your idea. I had this problem years ago when a future trader started basing analysis of stock using me as an indicator. Just goes to show why capitalism is idiotic pants. and its coming back. }

This week's illustration is of the "expulsion of the money changers from the Temple" by "El Greco" or
Domenikos Theotocopoulos (1541-1614). Born in Crete he mostly worked in Spain. His eyes were fucked so he painted scenes which depict famous people who didn't really look like that, or could afford that sort of clothing, in a way which is even weirder. He's was a good example of a "great person with disablity".