What I remember of Thatcher in my childhood, teens, and growing into adulthood is what I didn’t agree with: I didn’t think that “Mandela was a terrorist”, I refused to be a “friend to South Africa” under the Apartheid regime, I couldn’t “hate feminism”, I didn’t agree with the use of plastic bullets in Ireland (or anywhere else), I couldn’t forgive the decimation of Trade Unions, and the ‘illegallising’ of secondary picketing’, I despised Clause 28 with a passion, I abhorred the National Front (and they loved Maggie), I thought the Poll Tax inherently unjust, I didn’t think Pinochet was a friend, and I thought Reagan a powerful crazy fool who was ready to blow us all up, I couldn’t condemn the women at Greenham Common, and I didn’t see what was so wrong with the GLC, I thought the “Suss Laws” inherently flawed and open to abuse, and I didn’t know why the Belgrano should be hit while it was retreating, I couldn’t forgive the injustices against the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four,  I vehemently disagreed with the privatization of British Gas, British Telecom, British Steel and where the hell has British Rail disappeared to?…Most of all I didn’t like, and still have an aversion to selfishness, greed, self-centered materialism, and lack of human compassion…I cannot understand it…Where is the common decent humanity in Thatcherism?…This is why I refuse to comment and I refuse to be drawn into the debate on Margaret Thatcher…

Having had the parents that I had, who were so hardworking, socially aware, always striving to better our lives, generous to a fault, and overwhelmingly just Kind, I became aware that I was born into an abundance of human decency and compassion. Their legacy was for me the antithesis of Thatcherism. I’ve discussed this on a number of occasions over the years with my partner in youth, adulthood, motherhood, and humanity, Zee, and I’ve come to a resolution on where we agree to disagree. And yes you’re right Zee…What Thatcher actually did for me/us was perhaps unique for a generation: she made me want to find out what was going on and learn about the world, she made me want to change things, she made want to oppose her, I wanted to fight what I considered to be “injustice” anywhere, everywhere, all the time, I proudly expressed opposition to and challenged Racism, Sexism and Homophobia, I wanted to have a positive effect on the world, and Thatcher made me believe anything was possible: that human decency must strive to challenge Wrong and Injustice when they see, experience and feel it…For those reasons, Margaret Thatcher had a lasting effect on who I am today…

Russell Brand’s excellent piece in today’s Guardian rounds it up nicely: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/09/russell-brand-margaret-thatcher

“Interestingly, one mate of mine, a proper leftie, in his heyday all Red Wedge and right-on punch-ups, was melancholy. “I thought I’d be overjoyed, but really it’s just … another one bites the dust …” This demonstrates, I suppose, that if you opposed Thatcher’s ideas it was likely because of their lack of compassion, which is really just a word for love. If love is something you cherish, it is hard to glean much joy from death, even in one’s enemies…

All of us that grew up under Thatcher were taught that it is good to be selfish, that other people’s pain is not your problem, that pain is in fact a weakness and suffering is deserved and shameful. Perhaps there is resentment because the clemency and respect that are being mawkishly displayed now by some and haughtily demanded of the rest of us at the impending, solemn ceremonial funeral, are values that her government and policies sought to annihilate.

I can’t articulate with the skill of either of “the Marks” – Steel or Thomas – why Thatcher and Thatcherism were so bad for Britain but I do recall that even to a child her demeanour and every discernible action seemed to be to the detriment of our national spirit and identity. Her refusal to stand against apartheid, her civil war against the unions, her aggression towards our neighbours in Ireland and a taxation system that was devised in the dark ages, the bombing of a retreating ship – it’s just not British.”

via Day of the Girl.

For 14yr old Malala as she recovers from her gunshot to the face, for the 13 girls ‘given away’ to end a feud in a village, for the countless nameless girl victims of abuse and harm….And for my 13yr old Emmen as she finds her way in the world, for Zara, Hikmah, Imaan, Mayam and Khadija, the next generation of beautiful strong free girls…for my sisters Neila, Nabs, and my cousins, aunts, friends, one and all…For my dear parents who made a stand when they were told that their daughters “didn’t NEED an education”, for my darling Father a feminist true, for my beloved Mother a womanist through and through…And for all of us, men, women, boys and girls…Because I love you all, and because I am a Womanist and a Feminist…and because there is Nothing as beautiful as the smile of a girl when she is free, safe from harm and liberated to be a girl…

Celebrate The International Day of Girl today…BECAUSE : …… ILLITERACY – By 2015, females will make up 64% of the world’s (adult) population who cannot read.  SCHOOL DROPOUT – Only 30% of girls in the world are enrolled in secondary school. In America, the dropout rate is worse for boys, but one in four girls does not finish high school, and the dropout rate is even higher for minorities. FORCED MARRIAGE – One in seven girls in developing countries is married off before age 15. VIOLENCE – In the US more than half (54%) of all rapes of females happen before age 18. One in five high school girls has been physically or sexually abused by a dating partner. Worldwide children as young as age 11 are forced to work as prostitutes. Some estimates have as many as 1.2 million children being trafficked every year. BODY IMAGE – More than half (54%) of 3rd-5th grade girls worry about their appearance and 37% worry about their weight. More than half (57%) of music videos feature a female portrayed exclusively as a decorative, sexual object….

via The Guardian on Facebook.

Why Handwriting Matters: by Phillip Hensher: – Such a beautiful, elegantly and eloquently (hand?) written piece… And if you know me at all, you know it echoes my thoughts and feelings on writing, handwriting, and putting pen/pencil/writing instrument to paper…oh and I too can proudly admit to also having a carbuncle on my middle right finger, I wear it and feel it with pride and comfort:-”…In the second year at school, our form teacher had a way of writing a 7 in the European way, with a cross-bar. A world of glamour and sophistication hung on that cross-bar; it might as well have had a beret on, be smoking Gitanes in the maths cupboard….We have surrendered our handwriting for something more mechanical, less distinctively human, less telling about ourselves and less present in our moments of the highest happiness and the deepest emotion. Ink runs in our veins, and shows the world what we are like. The shaping of thought and written language by a pen, moved by a hand to register marks of ink on paper, has for centuries, millennia, been regarded as key to our existence as human beings. We have surrendered our handwriting for something more mechanical, less distinctively human, less telling about ourselves and less present in our moments of the highest happiness and the deepest emotion. Ink runs in our veins, and shows the world what we are like…. Handwriting is what registers our individuality, and the mark which our culture has made on us. It has been seen as the unknowing key to our souls and our innermost nature. It has been regarded as a sign of our health as a society, of our intelligence, and as an object of simplicity, grace, fantasy and beauty in its own right. Yet at some point, the ordinary pleasures and dignity of handwriting are going to be replaced permanently. paper, has for centuries, millennia, been regarded as key to our existence as human beings….I have come to the conclusion that handwriting matters…” ..NB.Note to my children, haven’t you heard all this before, on a daily basis?…

via Pakistani girl shot over activism in Swat valley, claims Taliban | World news | guardian.co.uk.

This is just so horrific….On WHAT basis is it okay for a 14yr old child to be shot in the head, because she dares to want to read and write?!?!….Makes me want to scream and shout…and ask the so-called ‘men’ who claim to follow the scriptures, to read a F***ING book…or at least THE holy book which you purport to follow…Education is a basic DUTY for EVERY Muslim, regardless of class, age and GENDER..and Education is a fundamental human RIGHT for EVERY child, regardless of class, age, and GENDER…So to those who perpetrated this crime, and to any who think like they do…put your unholy, distorted, misogynistic interpretation of the world back into your warped little minds…and let the rest of us live and love and learn in PEACE….gxiptures, to read a F***ING book…or at least THE holy book which you purport to follow…Education is a basic DUTY for EVERY Muslim, regardless of class, age and GENDER..and Education is a fundamental human RIGHT for every child, regardless of class, age, and GENDER…So to those who perpetrated this crime, and to any who think like they do…put your unholy, distorted, misogynistic interpretation of the world back into your warped little minds…and let the rest of us live and love and learn in PEACE….gx

Hurrah! At last students have upped and taken to the streets to show that they have some ‘fight’ in them! I’m there with you in spirit comrades (tendonitis means my marching days are over)! But where are the nurses, teachers, fireofficers? Where are the unemployed, the Pensioners, the single parents, the families? This isn’t just a ‘students’ issue…It’s about going back to the years of Maggie the Merciless…Where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, the unemployed are stigmatized and the sick and the elderly are screwed over and thrown away from a commodity culture, where if you cannot place yourself as a ‘commodity’ in the system you are expendable… SCREW the Tories and the spineless power hungry ‘liberals’…politicians who lie, don’t give a damn and cater to the whims of fatcat bankers and economists, quelle surprise!…My marching didn’t stop the loans, or the poll tax, or the wars! But I marched & I shouted & I resisted. So people – Get Up! Stand Up! Get Up! Stand Up! Stand Up For Your Rights! End of rant…Back to Feminist literary theory essay. Peace.x

The purpose of the death penalty, or so we are repeatedly told by those states and countries that enforce it, is to punish individuals for crimes so heinous that the only comparable punishment is death. They tell us that this penalty will also serve as a deterrent to others, and the punishment will be equal to the gravity of the crime. I know there are horrendous crimes that come to mind, despicable crimes against children, shocking acts of violence against innocent victims, random acts of extreme brutality, that defy logic, reasoning, and the values of civilized humanity. But then ask yourself this, how can any ‘civilized’ society punish a person for such an act of violence by then carrying out another? What is civilized about the organized systematic preparation for the death of a human being by a government or state organization? I cannot intellectually or emotionally comprehend the ‘civilized’ manner in which human beings are told that their life will be taken away; they are then prepared for death, given a date when they will be killed, and on the final fateful day, they systematically, ‘logically’ and ‘reasonably’ have their life extinguished.

A lot of the states and countries that utilise the death penalty claim that they are religious. America, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan all use the death penalty; but the Ten Commandments which Christianity, Islam and Judaism all abide by, implores the faithful followers of these religions to adhere to the fundamental rule that “Thou shalt not kill” .

There is nothing holy or ‘Godly’ in watching a man or women kneeling on the dusty grounds of an Afghan football stadium, while he or she is stoned to death in the presence of their fellow human beings. This is ‘punishment’ for breaking some ancient moral code of fidelity, or interpretation of adultery, or being in love with someone of the same gender.

There is nothing sacred in asking the family of a murder victim who have lost a loved one, to then come and watch the death of the person who has been tried and convicted of the crime. As the government or state, in one of the most developed and sophisticated countries in the world, the USA, then organises a death for you to watch as a means of appeasement. A death which is administered by the injection of poisonous substances into the flesh of fellow human being; or a death by the application of thousands of volts of electricity, into the body of a person whose traumatized flesh will burn and smoke, as they violently twitch and shudder, as life is dragged out of their being.

There was nothing civilized in the manner in which even a notorious dictator such as Saddam Hussein was dragged to the gallows. His execution was filmed on a multitude of mobile phones and broadcast on youtube for the world to savour.

Where is the sanctity of life that God has granted humanity in those moments? Whether it be hanging, firing squad, electric chair, poisonous gas, lethal injection stoning or guillotine, none of these acts of ‘punishment’ can or should be accepted and tolerated by civilized human beings. There is no humanity or benevolence in the revenge of one death by the orchestrated spectacle of another.

The message that society sends out to its members in those moments is that violence will be punished with more violence, through a “pre-mediated organised death” . This has become known as the “brutalization effect”. This theory tells us that the death penalty will have a “brutalizing or coarsening effect either upon society or those …involved in a criminal justice system which imposes it”.

In a study by Bowers and Pierce in New York State between 1907-1963, it was claimed that in the months following an execution there was a “definite increase in homicides”. One of the fundamental arguments favoured by proponents of the death penalty is that it is a deterrent, this is not what the “brutalization effect” tells us; instead it shows us that we are becoming less humane and more brutal. We are in effect losing our right to humanity by taking away the right to life of our fellow humans.

One of the most frightening factors in considering the death penalty is the propensity for judicial systems around the world to make mistakes. Innocent people are, and will always be convicted of crimes they have not committed. Statistically this is inevitable. When the death penalty is enforced by the state or government there is a chance that they too are murdering an innocent victim. In the US it was proven that “between 1973 and 2005, 123 people in 25 states were released from death row when new evidence of their innocence emerged” . It is even more unsettling when you take into account factors such as education, social class and race for those who have been condemned to the death penalty. In the US it African-Americans “made up 41 percent of death row inmates and 34 percent of those actually executed since 1976”.

There is no recourse for the families of these victims of miscarriages of justice, the pain is even more devastating because there has often been a long judicial and legal process to endure. Hopes and doubts arise and then fall, that your loved one will be released and returned to you; that freedom will come, that justice will reign, and the truth will prevail,.

It is more likely that the figures for innocent people being executed are even higher than those suggested; as once a person has been executed there is little will, financial aid or impetus in proving that the miscarriage of justice has occurred. What is the point? The person you love has been killed and you have had to stand by and watch helplessly as the might and power of the state has mercilessly organized their death before your eyes.

In the UK there have been many miscarriages of justice where the legal system has eventually exposed mistakes, corruption or carelessness. When the Birmingham Six were released by the Court of Appeal in 1989 it was a triumphant, rare victory for justice. These six men had spent years imprisoned for the violent bombing of a Birmingham pub, a crime it was later proven that they had never committed. At their original trial in 1975, the presiding Judge had “expressed regret that capital punishment was no longer an option for him to pass” in judgment.

Other prisoners who had for many years pleaded and vehemently argued their innocence were to follow in their pursuit of freedom over the next eleven years. Cases such as Guildford Four, Danny McNamee, and the Bridgewater Four, are all humbling examples of how fallible even the most civilized and comprehensive legal system can be in convicting and condemning the innocent. Thankfully in these cases there was no death penalty for these individuals to have to face; their lives were damaged by the years taken away by the state.

Imagine the pain, loss and trauma of a few years earlier when the British government had exercised the right to impose the death penalty, and in effect murdered the innocent. Consider the helplessness, pain and unjustifiable futility of losing someone to the might and power of the state. This is exactly what happened in the cases of Derek Bentley and Timothy Evans. These cases have been reopened many many years after the original convictions: names have been cleared, and posthumous pardons granted, but the individuals concerned are still dead.

There is no reason or justification for the death penalty in any sphere of society or civilization. As human beings we must not cater to the basest emotions of revenge or vengeance. We are more sophisticated, more intelligent, more humane than that. We must strive to be more compassionate, more benevolent and more human. We must each and every one of us aim to live in a future, where the death penalty makes us shudder with fear and trepidation of a world where the systematic, ritualistic and organized death of a human being was ever allowed. That death was a legal punishment for any of our fellow humans. We cannot deny the most basic human right, the right to life, to any citizen of the world, no matter what the crime. There is no right, justification, or cause for the death penalty to ever be applied as a form of punishment by any man or woman, on another. Let us echo the words of Clive Stafford-Smith who has fought tirelessly for years for those facing the death penalty, and the abolition of capital punishment, when he says “There's no doubt that death row will be abolished and I know I'll see it in my lifetime".