Katutura English

for english speaking friends of Katutura
This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?




Thursday, July 29, 2004
 
Paul Simon and Garfunkel sing tonight in Basel
and how good it would be to listen and sing along
with them, as of old when we dared face the multiple systems
and say: enough is enough!
and go on signing

"And the people bowed and prayed
to the neon god they made
and the sign flashed out its warning,
in the words that it was forming.
And the signs said, "The words of the prophets
are written on the subway walls
and tenement halls."
And whispered in the sounds of silence!

I seek someone in the sounds of silence
someone named Yeshuah


Friday, July 02, 2004
 
June 30th

Irak: Baghdad,

False start



"The Iraqi government has approved reinstating the death penalty,
President Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar said in an interview published
on Wednesday, the day the interim authority is due to take
legal custody of former president Saddam Hussein.
"We held a meeting shortly after the transfer of power,
during which we took some decisions including re-establishing
the death penalty,"
Yawar told the Asharq al-Awsat Arabic daily.
Agence France-Presse

Death penalty was abolished by the US-led occupation's
administrator, Paul Bremer, last year. Many Iraqi
government members now want it back in time for
Saddam Hussein’s trial.

Is there nothing more urgent to wish, to celebrate,
to work for in Irak today?

For example security, food, water, medicaments
for the wounded and the sick?
so that a healthy body helps a healthy mind to think?
Then: judge and, failing anything better, kill again!



On the same earth, in the same Century

South Africa

Good Start



"The death penalty, a weapon of terror used against
thousands of working people in South Africa,
has been abolished. In a unanimous decision June 6, 1995,
South Africa's Constitutional Court
voted to ban the use of capital punishment".


A prison official at Pretoria Central penitentiary
reported that the news was greeted with
"shouting and clapping and general jubilation on death row."
(from the media)


The constitution



The ANC hailed the ruling. The court's decision
"represents a major victory for the democratic forces
of our country who for years campaigned for
the abolition of the death penalty.
Never, Never, and Never again must citizens of our country
be subjected to the barbaric practice of capital punishment."


"We have sufficient cause to be cynical about humanity.
We have seen enough injustice, strife, division, suffering,
and pain, and our capacity to be massively inhuman.
But this gathering counters despairing cynicism and reaffirms
the nobility of the human spirit," Mandela said.


This good will is, perhaps, just a beginning
but, with profound pride, gratitude and love, we say:

It's a jolly good start!
Ten years and we count our blessings!


Happy people!