Cover caption

Cover caption: Roger Morton

Nearby cows in icy mud

Editorial 7 November, 2013

Contents 7 November, 2013

Afghanistan: Mwezi

Keats said it before: JD Morton

Politics: Russell Brand

French photos: Roger Morton

New NY Mayor: ed

Endecocide: Joselyn Morton

Art: Sebastiao Salgado

International Companies:ed

Stephen O’Rourke’s NZ

Bi-life: Richard French

Cover: Roger Morton

It is just a little more than two weeks since I did my last posting, so I am getting back into my stride. Firstly, I am delighted that Mwezi is back on the blog, writing from Afghanistan. I feel this is a triumphant coup on my part – he gets up early, he works late, he doesn’t need to bother with filling us in on what is going on there. I am so honoured that he is. Thank you, Mwezi.

It has been an eventful week – Russell Brand made it very clear how little he thought of the UK Govt.

Thank god someone has the guts to speak out. There are so many impoverished families in the UK and so many stinking rich people (I don’t mean cosy in a £2 million house, I mean owning billions of pounds.) Evidently 2 thirds of UK poor children have parents who work – the problem is the pitiful pay. In fact, the Government is subsidising the companies who pay shit wages because they top-up the poorly paid parents with benefits instead of forcing the bastard low-paying companies to pay decent fucking wages. It is so disgusting. Yet executive pay for the top UK executives rose by 27% last year (according to Juliette Jowit in the Guardian 6 November). Mealy-mouthed Ed Miliband offers rebates to firms that pay the living wage – why doesn’t he fine the cunts who don’t!

Another disgusting scandal – the US outsources 98% of its clothing industry. It is a sick world because the poverty in the US is awful and the countries making the clothes for the US, employ children. Children!

Then there’s drone killing. How can Obama, who was once my hero (like John Pilger) how can Obama condone these drones? It is evil and I do not use that word lightly.

Meanwhile John Pilger is trying to draw attention to the fact that Australian Aborigines have a life expectancy of 35 years. Why don’t all those good, intelligent, prosperous white Australians do something to help John Pilger in his campaign to help the Aborigine race survive?

Meanwhile I am still burling on with my efforts to help the End Ecocide in Europe campaign achieve its 1 million signatures for the European Commission before 21 January. The Darling Elise Benjamin   (Lord Mayor of Oxford 2012) responded to my plea and is going to be a profiled supporter on the web site. Respect, Elise, bises, bises Joselyn Morton

Afghanistan

I will just give a brief overview of my time here in Afghanistan.

I arrived in Afghanistan in June 2009 from New Zealand with excitement and in-trepidation of what I would find here. My first job involved working for a private security company (PSC). PSC's were numerous and involved in many facets of activities in Afghanistan during 2009. This ranged from protecting NGO's such as the UN, USAID and others to providing security for the US Army and President Karzai.

Our company was a little different as we were unarmed and had over 90% local staff working for us. During the first year in Kabul my role was to train the local staff and as such I built up a good rapport with them. We had discussions about life in the west and in Afghanistan and discussed current affairs. These talks were very interesting to me as rumours played a large part in what the locals believed were true. Most news was gathered from the local television channels or by talking with friends and relatives or by SMS messages.

The majority of people picked up news as it was spread and didn't intentionally seek it, like filter feeders that catch food from the oceans. They were happy to settle in their daily routines and life for them and their families was simple.

Some staff was very keen to practice their English skills and was interested in what I thought of events that were occurring during that time.

Life in Kabul was full of extremes from the poor street sweepers working at 4am in the morning sweeping clouds of dust off the dirty Kabul roads (As Kabul is a basin the dust, dirt and faecal matter never seems to escape it just travels around the city, one of the few places that you can catch airborne Typhoid) to the rich multimillionaire "businessmen" who travelled around in armoured SUV's. The disparity between rich and poor was visible every day. War widows in their burkas would line certain roads lying in potholes while their children played beside them. Large trucks and cars zooming past them by a foot or less. But all in all the feeling that I got from the local population was positive and the stories of the time of the Taliban were dreadful. All trees cut down, no televisions or radio even musical instruments were forbidden. Fathers going out to find work to feed their families and never seen again. So even though life was tough there was a positive feeling due to the increase in security and employment. 

After 8 months in Kabul I was transferred to Kandahar. Kandahar was very different in environment as well as attitudes of the people. To be continued...

Take care, Mwezi

Poetry

Keats said it before

Virgin olive oil, dark green sesame leaves

lithe orange saffron strands

how many homeless people

does it take to change a bulb?

Who cares if they have light,

food or somewhere to live. They’re

a blight – rough, dirty, dangerous,

scare us in our easy comfort zone.

Hand-painted pre-war vases carelessly filled

with vivid wild flowers, outside

a determined cooing dove

drives me to desire its death. I charge

through the garden with stone in hand.

A Spike Lee ghetto-blaster killer in action.

The wily feathered singer keeps shtuum. I look around,

head back inside; he starts again louder than before.

A little boy has his eyes gouged out

on the ground, in a Chinese field –

Buddhist, barbaric, communist

or Ancient Greek…

La Belle Dame sans merci.

Can’t let the plums rot under

the tree, too protestant for that

(though I don’t believe in god)

there aren’t enough hours in the day.

Can’t resist an impromptu  party

when the music plays I’m there

dancing till I drop – where’s

the time to make jelly, plum sauce,

yank weeds smothering my sweet peas?

(I think of the eyeless child, I weep inside)

A cruel world that the child will never see

La belle dame sans merci

Keats said it before,

how can I can say it more?

Grapes dying on the vine

(I don’t want to feel like that inside).

Pump’s broken on the well. Carry

a heavy watering can. Hot – arroser  (the English

say French don’t care about flowers yet

roses are the centre of their  hearts.)

Angry drunken wasps aim at my head

(why couldn’t they be mellow happy drunks?)

 Joselyn Duffy Morton ©