Tag Archives: Women

on Iran

young people have lost
fear of authority's fist
new freedom riders

~

n.b. During my recent travels in the US I saw a statue of a woman sitting calmly. I saw the image repeatedly: in the Capitol in Washington DC; in Memphis TN; in Birmingham AL.

The woman was Rosa Parks. Her determined protest, to sit where she wanted to on a bus, regardless of the state law at that time that segregated people by skin coloration, fired up people tired of being oppressed, tired of being downtrodden. Her sitting down was a signal to others to stand up to inhuman authority.

In Iran, the people most oppressed by the theocracy, women, particularly young women, are tired of giving in too.

CLP 03/11/2022

on Iran

immorality
police shoot into protest crowds
Woman! Life! Freedom!

~

n.b. Forty days of mourning for Mahsa Amini has become a rolling wave of grief as other innocent school children (girls and boys alike) have been murdered by the authorities, with others who have committed the capital crime of calling out the repression of a brutal theocracy.

CLP 27/10/2022

on music

never walk alone
with hope in your hearts
Iranian blues
~

n.b. Music-maker, Shervin Hajipour; poet, Mona Borzoi; footballer, Hossain Mahini; all arrested for voicing protest at the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini.

Mahsa had been arrested for failing to meet the strict dress code for women in Iran. She died three days after being taken from her family on their way to visit relatives in Tehran. She had been beaten on being taken into a police van, witnesses reported.

A song ‘Baraye’, released on social media comprising words from the voices crying out at this murder, is integral to the continuing protests. Change has got to come and music keeps the flame of hope alive.

You can hear it here. Every word has been taken from social media messages of protest beginning with “because…”

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aNhEoQara9A

It’s worth under three minutes listening time. As of today’s date, 92 lives have been lost in the three weeks of protests.

CLP 04/10/2022

Voice

It started with a kiss
it was uncalled for

you called me out
who was I to dare lean in?

how dare I presume intimacy
your anger gave you voice

your voice at last had found you
you had plenty that you had to say

plenty more to come when that was said
generations of mothers spoke through you

what these mothers spoke was truth
previously subdued, suppressed

the suppressed at last free to express
it started with a kiss

~

n.b. NaPoWriMo 2022 Day Twenty-seven prompt: write a duplex.

This poem has a history, it is a history in a poem. I am ever grateful for what this kiss taught me, the voice it brought forth.

I hope that it is not too obscure for the general reader.

CLP 27/04/2022

On Change

Metropolitan

Police seem reluctant to start

immediately.

~

n.b. Surely a positive response would have been to engage with those wishing to hold a vigil and mourn for Sarah Everard on Clapham Common?

Instead, the use of regulation, confrontation and force was deployed to try and control and silence these women. Who decided that this was the appropriate response?

Over to you, Home Secretary, (or is this one question that the Prime Minister might actually answer?).

~

CLP 13/03/2021

On Numbers 1.36

Pursuit of the ¥en

Or something more, or much less?

Whither goes Japan?

~

n.b. Population growth and over population is a topic of current concern as a levelling off in the global number of homo sapiens is now predicted over the next generation or so.

Japan’s current government is considering funding IVF treatment for it’s young couples who may be struggling to conceive. The current birth rate in Japan is around 1.36 which is well below the replacement rate.

Where will they get the young people from to care for an ageing population? 25% of Japan’s population is aged over 65 years.

The fall in birth rate has been attributed in part by the Deputy Prime Minister to women choosing not to have children. He has been castigated for his simplistic and one-eyed male opinion on the data.

Perhaps women have paths to fulfilment other than producing Salarymen? Perhaps they have become Salarywomen (which is tellingly identified by this software as a spelling error)? Perhaps the way of the modern world is not an attractive prospect enough to carry a man’s seed before delivering babies to a climate disrupted, polluted, exploitative planet? Maybe Japanese couples have decided the time has come for the human species to move on and leave the planet to life better adapted to an aquatic environment?

In the short term immigration can solve the problem for ageing populations. Germany, Italy, France, CH and the UK (amongst other wealthier nations) face similar questions around population. Is it a problem?

We are discovering, as we peel off the layers, that money isn’t everything.

~

CLP 06/11/2020

On The Tow Path

Wonder what happened?

Woman super-hero down!

Help her! Help? Help who?

.

n.b. I saw this plastic doll’s head trodden into the towpath on Sunday.

Was it there because a local girl ripped the head off the toy and screamed in frustration, “I don’t need to take my 21st Century rôle models from some bloke drawing for DC Comics in 1941!”? I wonder.

(With respect to Joseph Heller, writer of Catch 22: “Help him! Help who? Help the bombardier. I am the bombardier. Then help him. Help the radio-gunner.”).

CLP 24/03/2019