About light and dark

 

In everything we love deeply, there seems to always be light and dark. But can love endure when the darkness trumps the light? I'm not sure...

Here is something I wrote when I thought I saw the light:

'Heavenly Gardens'

https://www.thawra.co.uk/post/heavenly-gardens

Heavenly Gardens

An enemy of our future

Is walking by at dawn.

Our city, darker and darker,

Violated by a gesture,

All broken, drowned and done.

Paris floats like a dreamer.

Its people have become ghosts,

Lost in fear and in terror

Due to men whose hearts turned to stone.

Our meaning has gotten lost

And we no longer can honour

The promise we’ll never be alone.

After death should have come heaven,

We could only find blurred limbos.

Our children will have to look at a glow,

For a path cast away behind a forgotten garden;

And, you and I, we don’t know where it goes.

I only fathom my soul’s salvation, far below.

But the victims are sometimes silenced,

And the real perpetrators masquerade as saviours.

They have buried the traces of the past and distanced

Themselves from their old guilty crimes and dishonours.

Lost lives are all mourned,

But only some get to defend their dolors.

Deep inside my heart, I feel another world breathes,

Way underground, or over the rainbow,

And you and I can reach its gates if we drive

Far, far away, along the right way, beyond death.

Under a wreath, I will carry a crown and take a bow

While you will be able to catch the beat where we thrive.

- By Melissa Chemam

Banksy in Ukraine

 

Talking about the French "New Wave" in cinema...

 

Thanks, BIMM Bristol, for having me.

BREATHLESS - Directed by Jean-Luc Godard - Trailer

Psychology

 

Communal Narcissists:

Spoilers of everything I did in the past 20 years...

 

1 October 2022—8 January 2023

John Akomfrah – Mimesis: African Soldier

Mimesis: African Soldier by John Akomfrah uncovers the undiscussed story of the Commonwealth soldiers who volunteered to fight in World War I: the war of their colonial masters.

Akomfrah blends archive imagery of African and Asian soldiers at work, digging trenches and fetching and carrying with original, newly filmed footage imagining the men as they leave their partners behind.

With a soundtrack that mixes African and Indian song with new compositions, John Akomfrah paints a vivid cinematic portrait of a forgotten, or overlooked history.

“The most important thing for me, the takeaway, is that African soldiers fought in this war, that they played a variety of roles in the war as foot soldiers, as carriers. Every facet, every avenue, every job in the war, if you look long enough, you will see someone of either Asian or African origin/heritage in that role.” – John Akomfrah

-

The film is 73 minutes long. 

Mimesis: African Soldier was commissioned by 14-18 NOW and shown at the Imperial War Museum to mark the centenary of World War I. Bristol Museum & Art Gallery jointly acquired the film in partnership with Glasgow Museums in 2019. The exhibition is sponsored by UWE Bristol.

Exhibition clip:

November thoughts

  Dear readers,

Now that both Facebook and Twitter are so irrelevant, old-fashioned blogging looks like a safer space for self-expression.

As we enter the last two months of the year, the impression, looking back, for a journalist and writer focusing on the Global South and North/South relations, culture and multiculturalism, migrations and human rights, it wasn't a great year to say the least.

To make things worse, on a personal level, it was quite a difficult one, health-wise firstly, and secondly with the heartbreak of witnessing the spiralling downfall of my second nation, Britain. 

I've been writing a lot more on arts and writers in the past six months, in order to foster hope and solutions more than negative news, and you know how heavy the latest has been since the start of the war in Ukraine.

We all thought that recovering from the Covid crisis would be hard, but we couldn't imagine it would be this hard... The climate crisis has been seriously aggravated by the war, drought, hunger, and more health crises are striking the South, while the North is in serious recession coupled with high inflation and people's panic.

On Wednesday, I was invited to give a lecture to master's students in Paris, on an important news story, and I chose to speak about the state of Europe, through the lens of the post-Brexit British crisis, and this week hasn't helped anyhow. It would be too long to summarise here the talk I gave though I wish I could...

What makes things harder is to have lost the support of so many people this year too.

Many have had their own difficulties to deal with, I admit. And I hope one or two will eventually reappear. But for most others I don't even know where to start when it comes to fathom the rift.... 

Meanwhile, the state of the media, especially in France, really worries me.

As I hate being negative, and my brain is wired for idealism, I will try hard to come back with better news.

In the meantime, I'll focus on art and cinema history, creativity and resistance to all forms of fascism...

I'll be in England soon and hope for some heartwarming reunion. 

Friendship is more important than ever.

While I'm in Blighty, good luck to the ones getting reading to cover these mid term elections in the US.

With hope, always,

m