Help free Luthuanian journalist and anti-fascist Algirdas Paleckis, an appeal by Monica Lowenberg

18 April 2020

INTERNATIONAL CALL FOR ACTION AGAINST POLITICAL HARASSMENT BY THE LITHUANIAN GOVERNMENT

For the first time ever in the post-Soviet area, a person has been arrested and, since October 2018, been placed into solitary confinement without  even being given a trial, simply for questioning one version of one historical event! 

The authorities in Lithuania are politically persecuting journalist, human rights and anti-fascist activist and chair of the Socialist People’s Front, Algirdas Paleckis, for his opinion. As a consequence, freedom of speech is now at stake in Lithuania, a NATO and EU member state.

Paleckis has been imprisoned and falsely accused of  gathering information for Russian secret services by “denying the aggression of the USSR in 1991” and, in turn, daring to question the official version of events on 13 January 1991 in Vilnius. Fourteen people were killed on that day, in very unclear circumstances not officially investigated until now. Signs of provocations were obvious. 

Paleckis openly spoke about these provocations, basing his opinion on published material, interviews with witnesses and on the medical conclusions about the causes of deaths of victims. 

However, the Lithuanian state, ruled by nationalistic politicians, imposes its own version of events on society. Questioning that version is forbidden under the Lithuanian Penal Code although the real perpetrators of the mentioned crime remain unidentified.

Paleckis is a co-founder of the international human rights movement “World Without Nazism” and is vice-chair of its Lithuanian chapter. He is one of very few in Lithuania to consistently denounce the Government’s subservience to the neo-nazis who, each year, are allowed to march in Lithuanian’s streets and proudly shout “Lithuania – for Lithuanians!” and “Juden raus!” 

A Lithuanian court has decided that the swastika can be publicly displayed in Lithuania and that the slogan “Lithuania – for Lithuanians!” is “a democratic slogan”. All these neo-nazi tendencies are unofficially supported by the government of Lithuania.  

Paleckis was found Not Guilty on 18 January, 2012, but the state appealed to higher courts.  Since then the circus has continued and has now concluded with him being placed in solitary confinement, without a trial, for the past year and a half!

I disapprove of all that Paleckis has said about January 1991 but I join the fight to the finish for his right to say it and not be subject to trial in a member-state of the European Union, of NATO and of the OSCE. Freedom of speech is not “pick and mix”. 

The anti-democratic law of 2010 law criminalising debate, under which Paleckis is being prosecuted is the same law that criminalises honest historic narrative of the Holocaust and World War II in Lithuania. 

Any parties — including ourselves — who believe that the Nazi genocide was the twentieth century genocide in Lithuania and that Soviet crimes, no matter how cruel and horrific do not rise to genocide or symmetry or equivalence, are liable to bring prosecution upon themselves.  

This is something that best-selling Lithuanian author Rūta Vanagaitė experienced in 2017, after daring to challenge the Lithuanian government’s narrative about Lithuanian complicity in the Holocaust.  

She challenged that narrative in a book  titled ‘Our People’ a book she co-authored with Nazi hunter Dr Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, Israel.  From bestselling author in Lithuania she became overnight persona non grata, her books were removed and discontinued from all shops and she was made to be feel frightened for having, in the State’s opinion, desecrated the memory of Lithuanian “heroes”, one such being Jonas Noreika whose own granddaughter Silvia Foti has recently exposed him to be a Holocaust perpetrator and not a national hero!    Today, Vanagaitė now lives in exile in Israel.

As others in Lithuania have pointed out, the Lithuanian government’s actual policy is to obfuscate the Holocaust by way of the “Double Genocide” theory and as part of the obfuscation, to try to prosecute Holocaust survivors who joined the anti-Nazi resistance, while mounting state-sponsored exhibits that glorify the local Holocaust murderers. 

For example, in 2011, a ‘year’ to honour local Holocaust murderers stood alongside a ‘separate 2011′ year, principally for foreigners and PR, to also commemorate the Holocaust.  In October 2011, a single cellar room in the Genocide Museum was dedicated to the Holocaust, and it, too, sanitised and glorified local collaborators.

Paleckis has been one of the very few public figures to consistently and unambiguously oppose the whole gamut of pro-Nazi state-approved developments in recent years, including the legalisation of public swastikas ,the attempted prosecution of anti-Nazi partisan veterans, the permits for neo-nazi parades and their slogans, and the heroisation of the local Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) murderers who unleashed the Holocaust in Lithuania in dozens of locations before German forces even arrived, and whose pre-war leaflets show the clear genocidal intent that was subsequently carried out with such complete “success”.

Paleckis’ bold and courageous stand against obfuscation and distortion of the Holocaust and against the rise of a special kind of neo-fascism that takes cover under the new Double Genocide movement in the region, has made him a huge credit to Lithuania. 

For future generations, he will be a Lithuanian hero who stood up and was ready to pay for the defence of free speech and for opposition to a shameful state-sponsored bogus history that would heroise the fascist killers of the country’s Jewish population during the Holocaust and then try to stifle free speech. 

Disagreeing with Paleckis about January 1991, when the people of Lithuania non-violently rose up for freedom, independence and democracy – and were met with cruel and violent repression by Soviet forces in Vilnius – does not in any way mitigate the sense of betrayal of freedom now felt by putting him into solitary confinement, Soviet-style par excellence as irony would have it, for expressing an opinion on history, right here in the European Union.

One cannot help but wonder what unspoken role Paleckis’ bold and inspirational courage in speaking up on the truth of the Holocaust – and the local fascist role in it ­– has played in the authorities’ decision to prosecute him. 

That almost nobody else in Lithuania,  apart from Vanagaitė, is speaking up for the truth on the Holocaust speaks volumes in suggesting that the odious 2010 law criminalising the truth about the Holocaust is having a deadly effect on freedom of speech that it should ring alarm bells in the European Union,  NATO, and the OSCE.

Anyone who loves freedom of speech, values the truth about the Holocaust and about the fascist perpetrators in this part of the world, and for that matter, anyone who loves Lithuania, will speak out loud and clear against the prosecution and persecution of Algirdas Paleckis. I trust that you will use your influence to support Algirdas Paleckis over this coming week.

With kind regards and thanks for your help in this matter.

 Monica Lowenberg

For further details see:

http://defendinghistory.com/on-the-paleckis-trial-in-vilnius/14504;

https://www.algemeiner.com/2011/11/25/hannah-rosenthal-does-it-again/

http://defendinghistory.com/lithuanian-defense-ministrys-glorification-of-nazi-collaborator-elicits-protests-in-vilnius-and-us/101878. 

And  attached letter from his Algirdas Paleckis’ mother to Dovid Katz and letter from Paleckis himself.

James Lang was the first paid footballer

By SIMON MULLOCK AND MARK METCALF

LIONEL MESSI will have never heard of Jimmy Lang – but it's likely that the little-known Scot paved the way for the Argentine to become football's richest player.

It is almost 144 years since Glasgow-born Lang made the journey from his home town to Sheffield to answer the promise of a better life - and the chance to become the first man to earn money from the game.

Barcelona star Messi now earns a bank-busting £62million-a-year thanks to his status as football's most coveted talent.

That's a far cry from the few pounds that Lang would have earned when he made his debut ub November 1876 for the club that was to later become Sheffield Wednesday.

But the arrangement, that now sees players paid a fortune for their talent and the entertainment they provide to millions of fans around the world, broke a FA regulation that was regarded as sacrosanct by the Public School old boys who had first formulated the laws of the game.

In the Victorian era, sport was the preserve of gentlemen amateurs.

But football was about to be transformed by the northern working classes – with the help of a band of Scotsmen with a natural talent for the game.

Historians believe they can now confirm with some confidence that Lang should be recognised as the world's first professional footballer.

Just as in 'The English Game', the Netflix series that explains how football was wrested away from the Old Etonians, this is a tale of two Scotsman.

The small-screen series, written by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellows, tells of how Fergus Suter and Jimmy Love were tempted away from Partick in 1878 by the mill-owning benefactor of Lancastrian club Darwen.

But by then, Lang and fellow Scot Peter Andrews were already settled in England - and thrilling fans of the opposite side of the Pennines.

Andrews was the first to move south of the border – in the autumn of 1876 – after playing alongside Lang in a Glasgow representative team that had beaten Sheffield and Hallam 2-0 in an annual challenge match played in front of a 6,000 crowd at Bramall Lane.

Andrews signed for Sheffield Heeley when he took residence in the city and made his debut against Thursday Wanderers in the Sheffield FA Challenge Cup on November 2, 1876.

For years, it was believed Andrews must have being paid to play.

But he was already 30 years old when he moved to South Yorkshire and his middle-class standing means it was unlikely that he would have accepted cash to play a game that was still strictly amateur.

Lang, who was 25 when he joined The Wednesday, was from more humble stock.

He lost an eye in an industrial accident while working in the Clydeside shipyard of John Brown and Co in 1869.

But that didn't halt his football career - and five yers later he was in the Clydesdale team beaten 2-0 by Queen's Park in the first-ever Scottish Cup final.

Lang had already won the first of two Scotland caps, scoring a goal in the 4-0 win over Wales in Glasgow, before making the 250-mile steam train journey to settle in Sheffield.

He was put on the payroll of a knife-making firm owned by Wednesday official Walter Fearnhough and made his debut for the club on November 25, 1876.

Newspaper reports confirm that Lang set up the Wednesday goal for Tom Butler, describing him as “the celebrated player who has come to reside here.”

It seems Lang was given considerable freedom to concentrate on his football rather than knife making.

He was even allowed to return to Scotland to play in another Scottish Cup final when his Third Lanark side were beaten 1-0 by Vale of Leven in 1878.

Lang helped The Wednesday win the Sheffield Challenge Cup three times and was also in the team that played in the club's first-ever FA Cup tie.

Later, he played for Attercliffe, Sheffield Zulus and Northwich Victoria.

Football historian Martin Westby said: “Peter Andrews did play before Lang but I am convinced by research done by fellow historian Graham Curry that Andrews was a middle-class man working close to the Heeley FC ground.

“On the balance of probabilities this is a man who had no need for payment to play the game he loved and moved south for work reasons.

“This is opposed to ex-shipyard worker Jimmy Lang, who in my opinion, travelled from Glasgow to Sheffield purely for football and remuneration reasons.”

Match report on Lang's debut game. 

Safety Advice for those at Risk of Domestic Abuse who are self-isolating

TV coverage from August 2013 when Kenny Davenport is announced as scorer of the first League goal

This is a Granada TV interview with myself announcing that Kenny Davenport scored the most important goal ever, which was the first League goal. League football revolutionised football and sport in general. Kenny netted at Pikes Lane, Bolton for Bolton Wanderers v Derby County at 3.47pm on Saturday 8 September 1888. Bolton were to lead the match 3-0 at one point before losing 6-3.

https://markwritecouk.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/granada-news-2-august-2013.mp4

Johns Burns, trade union leader and politician

John Burns, trade union leader and politician 

In 1950, London County Council erected a plaque to Burns at 110 Common North Side, Clapham, London SW4 9SJ 

The following is taken from the booklet THE GREAT DOCK STRIKE 1889 and in which Burns played a vital role.  This can be downloaded for free at:- https://markwritecouk.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/the-great-dock-strike-of-1889-web-booklet11-23272.pdf

At an early age Londoner John Burns predicted that he would one day become an MP. Despite losing his father at an early age and growing up in great poverty John overcame these disadvantages to realise most of his ambitions.

Having left school at ten he was arrested in 1877 for breaking the law on public speaking on Clapham Common. His court room defence impressed a young woman, Martha Gale, who later married him. 

He became a well-known orator and notorious as the ‘man with the red flag’ which he carried to distinguish himself. He was sent to prison for six weeks after the riot in Trafalgar Square in 1887 (known as Bloody Sunday). As such he was easily the best-known socialist in the UK in 1889 and the man that Ben Tillett understood would be needed if the dock strike was to be victorious.

“He had a voice like a megaphone,” said Tillett. “He used this voice to good effect in the early days of the strike, when he marched with the other demonstrators round the docks, and, standing on the backs of those who accompanied him, peered over the walls of the gates which barred his entry to the Company’s premises, to summon the men who remained at work to join the strike.”

At one point, Burns made 36 speeches in three days during the strike. He became known to the dockers as ‘The Man in the Straw Hat.’ This was another example of his self-publicity that came in especially useful when he was trying to keep the peace between the strikers and the police. The hat was thrown into the River Thames after a party on board a launch celebrating the end of the strike.

Burns became MP for Battersea in 1892, and was one of the first Independent Labour Members. His strong independent streak saw him go his own way and in December 1905 he became President of the Local Government Board in the new Liberal Government. This made him the first working-class man to gain Cabinet rank.

In 1914 he became President of the Board of Trade, but his opposition to the First World War led to him resigning from public life and spending the rest of his life collecting books on London and the River Thames, which he called ‘liquid history.’

He died in the same year as Ben Tillett (1943), but whereas Ben was popular with many of his colleagues the same was not true of John Burns. Yet as the historian G.D.H. Cole said of him: “With all his faults Burns did big things in his day. The Great Dock Strike of 1889 would almost certainly have been lost had he not been there to lead it.”

Made in Dagenham - a review I did when it came out

I found this the other day and thought it might interest one or two people

Made in Dagenham is a highly entertaining British film centred on the equal pay struggle of women sewing machinists at the Dagenham Ford car plant in the late 60s. 

With the dramatisation featuring actors such as Sally Hawkins, Rosamund Pike, Miranda Richardson, Daniel Mays and Bob Hoskins it should attract a decent audience. Better still its arrival, in a period when employers and the coalition government seem set on cutting pay and conditions, could ironically give today’s workers a few tips on how to organise. 

As June 1968 arrives the news is dominated by the Knighting of Manchester United manager Matt Busby, the arrest of Martin Luther King’s killer James Earl Ray at Heathrow airport and the search for Robert F Kennedy’s assassin. 

187 working class women in east London though have more important issues to get concerned about after their employer announces they are to be downgraded from semi to unskilled labour. Unlike many factories in the private sector today, they’re all members of the union - not any old union, but one with some clout in the National Union of Vehicle Builders that later amalgamated with the TGWU that is now part of Unite. The result is an overtime ban and then a walk out. 

It’s thought the women will soon be back at work, but as the film shows they grow in strength and confidence as they realise the collective power they have over production.  

Nigel Cole previously directed the Calendar Girls, in which a group of Yorkshire Women’s Institute members take their clothes off to raise money for Leukaemia Research.  As a comedy it was sweet and good-humoured and in his attempts to bring similar qualities to Made in Dagenham Cole does occasionally overstep the mark. Such as when he has some of the women stripping down to their underwear to escape the boiling hot temperatures of a dilapidated workplace or having one of the strikers persuaded by management to pose for a Ford calendar photo-shoot. 

Bob Hoskins too, as the male shop steward who backs the women’s walkout, often appears awkward. You also doubt that the behind the scenes union wrangling over whether the women should be fully supported would have been resolved so amicably. Particularly as towards the end of the strike thousands of Fords male workers were laid up and the company was losing millions, causing it to threaten the Labour Government about pulling out of Britain. 

These though are minor points. Made in Dagenham is after all not a documentary but a film based on factual events. Nevertheless, to its great credit it presents a serious industrial struggle in an accessible and entertaining fashion. Furthermore within it working class people are portrayed positively, not as objects of laughter as in The Full Monty, but as living, breathing makers of history who through struggle pave the way for improvements in working conditions. At a time when newspaper columnists are poised to vilify any workers forced to defend their pay and conditions through strike action Made in Dagenham may just be the sort of show that gets not just union people thinking. That would be something. 

http://unitelive.org/the-village-that-saved-hundreds-of-lives/

The village that saved hundreds of lives

Beset by plague, in 1665 the villagers of Eyam self isolated to save others

Lying in the Peak District National Park, Eyam is a beautiful historical village of under 1,000 people. Officially first opened in 1994 its museum is now past its planned spring 2020 opening of last Saturday, 21 March. 

As the coronavirus crisis sweeps the nation the museum’s closure is appropriate as it lies in the centre of various plague related sites in Eyam, where in 1666 hundreds died and residents quarantined themselves off from the rest of society in order to prevent the spread of the disease.

Eyam reveals how pandemics are anything but ‘natural’. In 1665, a flea-infested cloth bundle from London arrived for the local tailor, whose assistant George Vicar was dead within a week with more dying in the household soon after.

As the disease wiped out villagers they turned to their rector, Reverend William Mompesson, and Puritan minster Thomas Stanley, who introduced precautionary methods to halt the spread of the disease. These  included the dead being buried by the families. In time it was agreed to quarantine the entire village to help prevent the disease spreading into surrounding areas. 

The number that perished in Eyam is uncertain but the local church has a record of 273 plague victims. Survival seemed random. Elizabeth Hancock lived despite losing six children and her husband in eight days.

Amongst the plague-related sites is Alice Hancock’s headstone which stands in the Riley graves plot whilst Catherine Mompesson’s tabletop grave is in the churchyard. There are house plaques bearing the names of those who died in them. Display boards explain the momentous events.

Eyam Museum is a small building. Each visit, which takes no more than an hour, starts with a short film on the building and the village. The volunteers who run the project are happy to help anyone interested in researching the plague and its effects. 

The website at states, “We believe that passing on our knowledge of the plague story to today’s generation is our most important function.” 

The Black Death or Plague that killed Eyam residents was the result of expanding trading networks. In the first outbreak, around a third of Europe was killed between 1346-50 as shipping routes spread across the continent bringing with them black rats and the plague. Regular bubonic plague outbreaks continued in Europe into the nineteenth century.

Early cities in Britain were often overcrowded slums. When British Troops returned from the Crimea in the 1850s with cholera, which had been prevalent in India for decades, it swept like wildfire across the nation. Port areas were especially affected. Karl Marx’s great political comrade, Frederich Engels, detailed the devastating impact of cholera on Manchester citizens.

In 1918 ‘Spanish’ flu, which is believed to have first come from China, soon became a pandemic especially as millions of military personnel returned home to housing often little better than those witnessed in Manchester decades before by Engels. Medical facilities that were already depleted by the war efforts could not cope with cases of pneumonia. In Britain 228,000 died while worldwide the estimated figures are between 50 and 100 million, many more than were slaughtered in WWI.

Just after WWI it was difficult to plan for such events. Should that be the case today when it has been an accepted fact for decades that a pandemic was certain one day?

You would hope any government would ensure there were sufficient hospital beds, ventilators and an advanced plan to support anyone following in the footsteps of those brave Eyam residents – who chose to go into their own form of self isolation. A sacrifice we can all learn from

Read more
David Paul’s, ‘Eyam, Plague Village’, has bounced up the book sales chart in the last few traumatic weeks. 

In his (currently sold out) book, Paul, a well-known local historian and author, has combined fact with an element of fiction to convey the tragedy of Eyam. Paul has also done the Rev Thomas Stanley a great service by recognising his incredible role in 1665-66.

 The book, containing photographs of Eyam and the surrounding areas, includes extensive maps that, once the current plague of the coronavirus has been dealt with, can be walked upon to follow in the footsteps of Eyam’s heroes. 

Only digital versions are available of the book – see https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00BEZPNLG/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

By Mark Metcalf, pics by Mark Harvey. This feature was to have appeared in Unite Landworker