The War Prayer – Mark Twain

The War Prayer – Mark Twain

Mark Twain

Mark Twain (1835-1910) is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in American history. Most famous for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), Twain was also a lecturer, satirist, and humorist popular in social circles amongst American presidents, government officials, lead industrialists, artists, other famous writers, and even British royalty. Twain, whose real name was Samuel Clemens, used his work to speak out against slavery, racism, war, and other social wrongs of the day. He has often been referred to as a thinker ahead of his time, for many of his classic words have gone on to become universal and timeless prophecies on the condition of humanity.

Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen

Ishmahil Blagrove

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) was a British soldier and poet. His poetry from the front lines of the trenches of World War I went on to become some of the most famous war poetry in history. Owen was killed in battle, just one week before the war ended. “Dulce Et Decorum Est,” written from the trenches just one year before his death, is one of the most famous anti-war poems ever written.

Israeli Terrorism

Israeli Terrorism

Ishmahil Blagrove

The Lebanese people had just rebuilt their country after years of civil war and instability. A sense of national pride, religious tolerance, and democracy was reigniting the people’s dignity and claim to being “the Paris of the Middle East.” This was all shattered on the 12th July when the Israeli government unleashed some of the world’s most advanced and sophisticated missiles upon Lebanon, destroying its infrastructure and sending it back to the stone ages.

 

Death of a Matriarch

Ishmahil Blagrove

Nine Night, or Set Up, as it is often known in Jamaica, is a cultural death ritual that dates back to the days of slavery. It is often compared to the Irish Wake and is a ceremony of passage whereby the family and community of the deceased bid farewell and wish the spirit a safe passage into the afterlife.

The contradictory emotions of joy and sadness contrast sharply between the Nine Night and the funeral. The following is the Nine Night and funeral of Aunt Iris, the highly respected matriarch of the community of New Green, Jamaica, who died on the 8th March 2006, aged 92.

I am an Iraqi Journalist

Alia Amer

Alia Amer is an Iraqi journalist who works for the Arab media channel Al-Arabiya. She is well-known for her fluency in Islamic theology and often quotes Muhammad and the Islamic scriptures in her articles, including her works from such taboo subjects as discussing sex with children and teenagers and the return of the Messiah, to more politically charged subjects such as Israel/Palestine relations. She has been heavily criticized for many of her controversial beliefs.

We are re-printing this article, I am an Iraqi Journalist, for its advocacy of truth and journalistic integrity. Despite living in and reporting from the center of a war that has destroyed her country and devastated her family, Amer remains true to her beliefs.

Philanthropy or Accessory?

Philanthropy or Accessory?

Ishmahil Blagrove

Madonna’s recent decision to adopt an African child has created quite a feeding frenzy amongst the fickle media harbour sharks who have sunk their fangs into this story. There are many questions that need answering, not solely by Madonna, but by the media also.

Europe's Misconception of Africa – Andrew Onalenna Sesinyi

Europe's Misconception of Africa – Andrew Onalenna Sesinyi

Andrew Sesinyi

Andrew Onalenna Sesinyi is the Secretary General of the Union of National Radio and Television Organizations of Africa (URTNA).  URTNA boasts more than 48 active member organizations which are all dedicated to the development of broadcasting in Africa.  The organization seeks to empower the African people to tell the real stories of Africa, and to give a voice to African points of view in global politics, social affairs, and legal matters.

Cattle Thief By Emily Pauline Johnson

Cattle Thief By Emily Pauline Johnson

Emily Pauline Johnson

Emily Pauline Johnson was a Mohawk Indian born on the Six Nations Reserve near Brantford, Ontario, Canada. Holding onto her traditional culture while utilizing writing styles of the West, Johnson became a very popular poet throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Blair's Last Stand

Blair's Last Stand

Ishmahil Blagrove

Blair's teary-eyed farewell speech at his last Labour Party Conference was greeted with a well-deserved standing ovation by the part-time socialists, Labour Party conference groupies and coup plotters who now make up the rank and file of the Labour party membership.

50 Years of the World Bank – Oren Lyons

50 Years of the World Bank – Oren Lyons

Oren Lyons

Oren R. Lyons is a Native American member of the Onondaga Nation Council of Chiefs of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy (Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk and the Tuscarora Indian reservations), as well as a traditional Faith-keeper and chief of the Turtle Clan.  He has dedicated his life's work to tirelessly tackling the issues relating to the indigenous people, not only of the United States, but of the world.

Helen Wilson

Helen Wilson

Ishmahil Blagrove

Artists were once the primary commentators of human evolution, existence and history. Nowadays we very rarely consult them for their opinions on the changing world or politics, but they still remain a formidable vehicle of social observation, documenting and preserving the calamities, follies and peculiarities of life.

Rice N Peas caught up with UK artist Helen Wilson in a bid to discover her conceptions of art, her inspirations, and her motivations for translating the pain and suffering of survivors of the 1994 Rwanda genocide to canvas.

Multiculturalism

Multiculturalism

Ishmahil Blagrove

On 24th August, BBC News 24 hosted a debate on multiculturalism. I noted with interest the absence of the customary African and Caribbean representation. This, to me, clearly defined what this debate was going to be about: it was not going to be about multiculturalism, but rather, Islam and this phoney so called “War on Terror.”

Shoot the Messenger

Shoot the Messenger

Ishmahil Blagrove

Shoot The Messenger was a feature length drama commissioned by the BBC under the title Fuck Black People.  It has received a mixed response from the African community and has been dubbed by one commentator, “One of the most sophisticated racist films in the corporation’s history.”  It was broadcast on the 30th August on BBC2.

The BBC has commissioned such programmes as: Baby Father, The Crouches, The Trouble With Black Men and now, Shoot The Messenger.  Is this what the BBC means when it boasts of “diversity”?  Would the BBC have even considered commissioning programmes under the title Fuck White People or The Trouble With White Men?

Colonialism Revisited

Colonialism Revisited

Ishmahil Blagrove

Anglo-American adventures around the world are beginning to look more and more like what they actually are, imperial land grabs. Forget the innocuous sounding “Nation Building” or “Humanitarian Assistance”; these wonderful euphemisms merely cloak the malign intentions of some Western states who are intent on dominating the world and securing their access to the world's mineral resources through the reassertion of colonialism.

Ratlines

Ratlines

Ishmahil Blagrove

The Jewish Holocaust of the 1930's and 40's is probably one of the most well-documented atrocities in recent Western history. The horrors suffered by six million Jews and eight million other minorities in Nazi concentration camps have been the subject of countless books, films, and documentaries, and have taken an important place in school curricula throughout the US and Europe.