Yet another artist smeared by pro-apartheid lobby for standing up for Palestinian rights receives honour for courage and ‘lesson in humanity’
Writer Michael Rosen has received the PEN Pinter literature prize for his ‘fearless’ writing and for giving a ‘lesson in humanity’. The writer of children’s classics such as ‘Bear Hunt’ as well as about the death of his son, his family’s loss in the Holocaust and of his near-death experience from Covid, is widely loved but has for years been relentlessly smeared and attacked by the Labour and pro-Israel right for his outspokenness on Palestinian rights and for standing with Jeremy Corbyn against the mass smear campaign that sought to topple Corbyn as Labour leader and which has been thoroughly exposed by the ‘Labour Files’ and ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn/The Big Lie’ documentary series, as well as on sites such as Skwawkbox.
English PEN, one of the world’s oldest non-governmental organisations, said the prize had been awarded for ‘national treasure’ Rosen’s ‘fierce intellectual determination’ to show the real truth of our lives and society. Rosen, who will receive the award in October and select a ‘Writer of Courage’ to receive an award alongside him, paid tribute to those who have suffered for standing against injustice around the world:
I feel greatly honoured to have been offered the PEN Pinter prize. “It immediately brings to mind the many people all over the world incarcerated, tortured or executed for being brave enough to write about what they perceive to be injustice.
We might say that such punishments serve to prove the injustice that the writers expose, or to show the weakness of the regimes who’ve inflicted these cruelties, but nevertheless, the pain and suffering is all too real and ever-present.
Rosen is the second left-wing great to receive recognition that will have his attackers gnashing their teeth. On Friday, film-maker Ken Loach was one of a group of artists honoured at the Vatican by Pope Francis as ‘prophetic’ characters confronting injustice and lies. The Pope’s comments triggered a mass, anti-Catholic tantrum by right-wingers, so it will be interesting to see whether the award to Rosen – who has been shamefully targeted by them for years – causes a similar petulant backlash.
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Congratulations, to Michael Rosen!
A, very, well deserved award in, fully justified, recognition of all the work he’s done over the years, bringing education, joy and mirth to so many people – young and old.
An icon, in anyone’s eyes!
Had the pleasure of meeting Michael Rosen some years ago. The memory of a thoroughly honest, decent and perceptive man will never leave me until my faculties give out.
I had heard very little about this prize so I googled it when I saw Skwawkbox’s article
It is awarded to writers based in the UK, Ireland or the Commonwealth who show a “fierce intellectual determination” to “define the real truth of our lives and our societies.”
Therefore Skwawkbox it is clear that you are absolutely right when you say it will have his attackers gnashing their teeth. I think they’ll go much further .They will attack the PEN judges for some spurious reason and then the usual smearing will follow. The judges will be collectively and individually denounced as antisemites and attempts will be made to isolate them and ruin their careers by smearing their colleagues too – as antisemites by association.
They’ll all be in good company for as you reported the Pope has now been denounced as an antisemite too. As there are1.3 billion Roman Catholics in the world who look up to the Pope I assume that another 1.3 billion people to be denounced as anti semites too.The Israeli lobby will be kept very busy indeed!
I would just make one final point about the comments of Antisemite Finder General David Baddiel made in an earlier article in relation to the historic cover up of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church (which Pope Francis has, as Skwawlbox stated, ended and legislated against). I agree it was disgraceful but it was no worse than the cover up of the mass murder of Palestinian babies and children,the killing and degradation of their mothers and fathers that the pro Israel/Zionist lobby and their apologists are CURRENTLY engaged in. David is so obsessed with “antisemitism” that he doesn’t see the pots and kettles analogy here at all.
The Pope on behalf of the Catholic Church has apologised for the cover up . I wonder when ,if ever, the pro Israel /Zionist lobby , the Board of Deputies, The Chief Rabbi and all the apologists for the murder and degradation of Palestinians (and the character assassination of anyone who dares to speak out about the inhumane treatment of Palestinians) will do likewise. I don’t think it will be any time soon – the next millennium maybe?
Biological women; the wrong kind of Jews; the BAME community; Catholics; members of PEN; anyone who resides in the Reality Based Community; the list of people and voting constituencies actively excluded, not wanted or welcome in this alleged “wide church” of what passes for a ‘Labour Party’ (sic) is increasing at a rate of knots.
At the present rate it shouldn’t be too long before you could fit all the voters Starmer wants into a telephone box – if you can find one that works these days.
Meanwhile, the consequences of this puerile nonsense on the ground is becoming more evident by the day. Our local Ward Branch in a red wall constituency – which has seen active members vote with their feet – cannot even muster up a decent quorum to the extent that this months meeting has been cancelled. Yet, despite at least two thirds of local active members effectively on strike from activity and campaigning for this Regime – which makes the the leadership of the fictional Duchy of Grand Fenwick in the Peter Sellers classic ‘The Mouse that Roared ‘ look like geniuses – it is apparently considered the most ‘active’ Branch in the constituency.
The PPC is struggling to get boots on the ground for canvassing. At the current rate of attrition even the notion of a hung Parliament is looking a trifle ambitious for the Junta as no one with a working brain cell and operational moral compass wants to be seen dead promoting this motley clique of losers.
Come the election – if we have one – there’s every possibility that the bulk of any (if at all) campaigning will have to originate from the Caribbean (allegedly).
What a set of incompetent clueless Wassocks.
CORRECTION – It wasn’t David Baddiel who made the comments about the Pope in relation to cover ups of the child sex abuse scandals and who failed to see the pots and kettles analogy. It was a different antisemite finder.
Michael Rosen is a great writer, great wordsmith, and great broadcaster, but above all, he is a very great man, with a measure of wisdom and humanity that shames those who disrespect him back into the shades where they belong.
I am glad to be able to congratulate him on the award of this signal honour.
Herr Flick
Listen very carefully I will say this only once
Hung Parliament
……and❓ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Herr Flick
Sex and Travel
Doug,
On the first element of that comment it is worth bearing in mind that no one that narcissistic is ever unfaithful to themselves. In which case it would be a comradely act to send a few boxes of tissues.
Though I’m not sure what the BFPO address for Hermitage barracks is.
Dave
A true Leg End in his own underpants
What’s the odds on our Resident Nazi being a Flag Shagger
Reminded me of an email I received recently from MintPress. It’s a fundraising appeal, but I don’t post it for that reason, but because of what it says:
This decade has felt like a whirlwind, watching in real time the crackdown on independent journalism and alternative voices.
In the last year alone, MintPress was banned from PayPal with our balance seized blocking donations to our website –and as leaked emails reveal, this took place with possible involvement of British intelligence and the US government. At the same time, GoFundMe took down our fundraisers and banned us from their platform.
Our journalists have been detained, interrogated, surveilled, canceled and lobbied against by national security agencies and special interest groups, including directly by the Israel lobby. Our Wikipedia page has been written and managed by a mafia of pro-NATO editors and Israel lobby groups. This, in addition to aggressive algorithmic blacklisting by Google’s Project Owl and Big Tech Giants shadowbanning from the likes of Twitter, Facebook & TikTok’s, all of whom we’ve exposed to have a deep relationship with the military industrial complex to control your newsfeed and ensure a pro-war narrative is dominant.
We wear this as a badge of honor. This is just a taste of what we’ve faced as an independent media outlet that has been at the forefront of exposing the profiteers of the permanent war state – holding the military class accountable, as every journalism outlet should be doing as defined by our first amendment.
This is why we’re turning to our readers and supporters to help us sustain our watchdog journalism. While Big Tech ramp up their efforts to make our journalism algorithmically disappear, we’re ramping up our efforts to circumvent this censorship and provide our readers with the most hard hitting journalism that empowers ‘we the people’.
But to continue to do this……
No matter the war waged against us, we refuse to be backed into a corner and bullied by tech giants who have a deep relationship with weapons manufacturers who work hand in hand with NATO that profit off of the blood of millions of people around the world.
PS And DO check out the wikipedia entry for MintPress. You don’t have to read it all, and just the first few paragraphs should be more than suffice to convince everyone (who follows skwawkbox) that it was put together by hard-core fascist scum.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MintPress_News
And MediaLens posted this last week:
When Truth Becomes Silence: Glastonbury’s Cancelling Of A Powerful Film About Jeremy Corbyn
https://www.medialens.org/2023/when-truth-becomes-silence-glastonburys-cancelling-of-a-powerful-film-about-jeremy-corbyn/
Oh dear, are you really that gullible?😕
…Asks the blert that voted for keef – and STILL deifies him.
Gobshite.
Interestingly the same hackneyed line was used against anyone and everyone who raised questions against every other Official Narrative which fell apart from objective scrutiny. From the Zinoviev Letter to the Iraqi WMD’s and beyond.
On the velocity of the present trajectory Parliament being hung will be the least of the problems for ignorant paid trolls like steveH as reality catches up with them. Which it always does.
Don’t bother with the knitting – that’s so eighteenth century France – invest in a popcorn machine.
‘Michael deserves this honour.
His humanity puts some to shame.
When the oppressed call he comes running.
A Rosen by any other name.’
The PEN Pinter prize couldn’t have gone to a more-deserving recipient.
Congratulations to Michael Rosen !
I wonder how long this investigation by the Berlin police is gonna take re Roger Waters! This is what it says in an Al Jazeera article posted at the time:
Police are investigating the “suspicion of incitement to public hatred because the clothing worn on stage could be used to glorify or justify Nazi rule”, a police spokesman told the French news agency AFP.
And quite right too! The whole audience was seething with hatred the moment he appeared on stage wearing the leather trench-coat, and all immediately stood up in unison and gave a Nazi salute and started chanting Heil Hitler!
What a joke! What a complete and utter farce! And needless to say the Berlin police are just making complete fools of themselves, and nothing whatsoever will come of this phony and fraudulent and confected investigation, because they know damn well that Roger was acting out a scene from The Wall movie, as does every single other fascist piece of shit who joined in the fake condemnation and smear campaign against Roger recently, including Herr Starmer – the leader of the British Stasi Party and one of the top fascists in the country – and Michael Gove, also a leading fascist piece of scum.
Anyway, what I actually wanted to say is that I just thought to check out how much of the MSM covered the letter a couple of years ago in which over six hundered muscians called on fellow muscians to boycott Israel, and the vast majority of them completely blanked it:
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-boycott-musicians-pledge-stand-solidarity-palestine
Came across THIS though whilst I was checking:
Financial Times calls on West to boycott Israeli products following settler riots [in an Editorial on Tuesday]
UK-based financial paper says condemnation of government’s actions against violence in the West Bank isn’t enough and harsher steps need to be taken against Netanyahu’s ‘extremist’ coalition
UK-based economic newspaper Financial Times called on the United States and Europe on Tuesday to sanction Israeli products made in West Bank settlements following settler riots that took place in West Bank Palestinian towns last week.
The editorial, written by the newspaper’s editorial board, added that condemning the government’s actions isn’t enough, and further steps need to be taken against Israel.
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/r1cn00j9on
Well spotted Allan!
Didn’t think a UK paper’d have the cojones, and I’d least expect it to come from the FT.
From the comments section (only 3 comments thus far, and both from zionists):
The FInancial Times shows just
How far they are from reality.Israeli businesses and factories in the West Bank are supplying the average palestinian work salaries and health insurance something the PA cant.whilst a minority choose to continue with the help of the military wings of Hamas Jihad etc the majority of citizens see aid meant for the public finance weapons and the villas of palestinian leaders
To which I’d reply
Well here in blighty, the corrupt knights, the robber barons and squires were giving their serfs work in the middle ages. Weren’t allowed to own so much as a blade of grass of their own, nor run a business, mind.
The Jerusalem post yesterday:
‘Financial Times calls on US, Europe to boycott settlement goods’
The editorial board additionally compared settlements in the West Bank to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The editorial board of the Financial Times called on the US and European nations to threaten to ban imports of goods produced in West Bank settlements and to make clear that they would not treat Israeli entities in the West Bank as part of Israel, in an editorial piece on Tuesday.
The editorial piece came after violent attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian villages after a series of Palestinian terrorist attacks in which numerous Israelis were killed. The editorial piece did not mention the terrorist attacks against Israelis…….
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-748069
And from the comments:
Financial Times editorial board, unlike the Wall Street Journal’s, is leftist first and business second……
I searched in the Internet and found out that the Editor of FT is Roula Khalaf, British-Lebanese journalist. She was born in Beirut……
Time to cancel subscription. Lets start doing some boycotting of our own……..
This is the traditional anti Jewish prejudice that the English have always been guilty of. Israel should ignore irrelevant comments
Toilet paper edited by former students of the Goebbels School of Journalism.
The FT has ceased to be a media organ of the economy but is now just a mouthpiece for the Leftist……..
I just went on to the JC’s website to see if they posted about the FT, and there was zilch! Keeping schtum about it no doubt!!
BUT, I DID come across three interesting articles, the first of which is this one by David Aaronovitch (although I haven’t read it yet), posted earlier today:
‘What if Ken Loach was not a leftist but a far-right bigot?’
https://www.thejc.com/lets-talk/all/what-if-ken-loach-was-not-a-leftist-but-a-far-right-bigot-54CMlNrKcIXAuSotvIxDMR
And then THIS:
‘Scotland poised to reject Michael Gove’s bill to ban councils from Israeli boycotts’
The Scottish Government has concerns on the proposed BDS and Sanctions bill
https://www.thejc.com/news/politics/scotland-poised-to-reject-michael-goves-bill-to-ban-councils-from-israeli-boycotts-66hmE3NQpJhE8hTK0tUgFR
And THIS:
‘Labour threatens to reject BDS bill banning Israel boycotts’
Lisa Nandy has emailed Labour MPs about Michael Gove’s proposed legislation, saying it amounts to an unjustified attack on free speech
https://www.thejc.com/news/politics/labour-threatens-to-reject-bds-bill-banning-israel-boycotts-4EzpJQwby6VqMOD40kD5GB