Humanitarian Texts

2005-10-04: Human concerns – Pablo Neruda (1904-1973);
2005-10-06: The rhythm of a world in step;
2005-10-10: Alliance Sud;
2005-10-11: The Right to Know;
2005-10-13: Human concerns – Henry Fuseli (1741-1825);
2005-10-14: Education and debate;
2005-10-18: Human concerns – William Blake (1757-1827);
2005-10-20: Human concerns – William Wordsworth (1770-1850);
2005-10-21: Madrid: Participación ciudadana;
2005-10-23: Human concerns – Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822);
2005-10-25: Human concerns – Jacob (Ludwig Carl) Grimm (1785-1863);
2005-10-26: Human concerns – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851).

See on this site – original surname Godwin – English Romantic novelist, biographer and editor, best known as the writer of FRANKENSTEIN, OR, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS (1818). Mary Shelley was 21 when the book was published; she started to write it when she was 18. The story deals with an ambitious young scientist. He creates life but then rejects his creation, a monster.

“But success shall crown my endeavours. Wherefore not? Thus far I have gone, tracking a secure way over the pathless seas: the very stars themselves being witnesses and testimonies of my triumph. Why not still proceed over the untamed yet obedient element? What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?” (from Frankenstein)

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born in London. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, died of puerperal fever 10 days after giving birth to her daughter. Mary’s labor lasted 18 hours and then it took four hours to remove the rest of the placenta. She was one of the first feminists, the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), and the novel The Wrongs of Woman, in which she wrote: “We cannot, without depraving our minds, endeavour to please a lover or husband, but in proportion as he pleases us.” In the intellectual circles of London, her acquaintances included the painter Henry Fuseli, Erasmus Darwin, Charles’s grandfather, and William Blake, who illustrated an edition of her book, Original Stories from Real Life.

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See on this site – Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm – famous for their classical collections of folk songs and folktales, especially for KINDER- UND HAUSMÄRCHEN (Children’s and Household Tales); generally known as Grimm’s Fairy Tales, which helped to establish the science of folklore. Stories such as ‘Snow White’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty’ have been retold countless times, but they were first written down by the Brothers Grimm. In their collaboration Wilhelm selected and arranged the stories, while Jacob, who was more interested in language and philology, was responsible for the scholarly work. The English writer Ford Madox Ford sees in his masterly guide The March of the Literature (1938) that their tales were more than a mere reflection of German romanticism:

“But the real apotheosis of this side of the Teutonic cosmos came into its own through the labors of the brothers Ludwig Karl, and Wilhelm Karl Grimm for whom the measure of our administration may well be marked by the fact that there is nothing in the world left to say about their collection of fairy tales. It is, on the whole, wrong to concede the brothers Grimm to the romantics. They belonged to the earth movement and are known wherever the sky covers the land. That is the real German Empire.”

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See on this site –
English Romantic poet who rebelled against English politics and conservative values. Shelley was considered with his friend Lord Byron a pariah for his life style. He drew no essential distinction between poetry and politics, and his work reflected the radical ideas and revolutionary optimism of the era. Like many poets of his day, Shelley employed mythological themes and figures from Greek poetry that gave an exalted tone for his visions.

“The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If winter comes, can spring be far behind?”
(from ‘Ode to the West Wind’, 1819)

Percy Bysshe Shelley was the heir of a rich estate acquired by his grandfather. He was born at Field Place, near Horsham in Sussex, into an aristocratic family. His father, Timothy Shelley, was a Sussex squire and a member of Parliament. Shelley attended Syon House Academy and Eton and in 1810 he entered the Oxford University College.

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Información corporativa: Tu voz cuenta en el futuro de la ciudad de Madrid. Propiciar el diálogo entre ciudadanía y Administración e impulsar los mecanismos de la democracia participativa es ya una realidad.

Out of Steven Clifts (english) DoWire.Org.

See on this site – British poet, who spent his life in the Lake District of Northern England. William Wordsworth started with Samuel Taylor Coleridge the English Romantic movement with their collection LYRICAL BALLADS in 1798. When many poets still wrote about ancient heroes in grandiloquent style, Wordsworth focused on the nature, children, the poor, common people, and used ordinary words to express his personal feelings. His definition of poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings arising from “emotion recollected in tranquillity” was shared by a number of his followers.

“Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all Science.” (from Lyrical Ballads, 2nd ed., 1800). William Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, Cumberland, in the Lake District. His father was John Wordsworth, Sir James Lowther’s attorney – the fifth Baronet Lowther was the most feared and hated aristocrat in all of Cumberland and Westmoreland, “an Intolerable Tyrant over his Tenants and Dependents”.

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See on this site – British poet, painter, visionary mystic, and engraver, who illustrated and printed his own books. Blake proclaimed the supremacy of the imagination over the rationalism and materialism of the 18th-century. He joined for a time the Swedenborgian Church of the New Jerusalem in London and considered Newtonian science to be superstitious nonsense. Misunderstanding shadowed his career as a writer and artist and it was left to later generations to recognize his importance.

To see a world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
(from ‘Auguries of Innocence’)

William Blake was born in London, where he spent most of his life. His father was a successful London hosier and attracted by the doctrines of Emmanuel Swedenborg.

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(This is an ‘old’ text, accepted 2 June 1995 but for me still valuable).

Humanitarian responses to mass violence perpetrated against vulnerable populations, by George A Gellert, director of medical programs (a Project HOPE Sciences Education Center, Millwood, VA 22646, USA):

This multidisciplinary review links three areas of legitimate inquiry for practitioners of medicine and public health. The first is occurrences of mass violence or genocide perpetrated against vulnerable populations, with a focus on the failure of national and international mechanisms to prevent or predict such violence. The second is evolving concepts of national sovereignty and an emerging framework in which the imperative to assist vulnerable populations supersedes a state’s right to self determination. The last is how medical, public health, and other systems of surveillance and rapid assessment of mass violence can accelerate public awareness and facilitate structured, consistent political decision making to prevent mass violence and to provide international humanitarian assistance.

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See on this site – Swiss painter, poet, critic, and teacher, who spent most of his active career in England. Fuseli has often been regarded as a forerunner of the Romantic art movement and a precursor of Symbolism and Surrealism. His most famous painting is The Nightmare (1781), in which an ape-like goblin sits on a young woman, who is sleeping in a strained posture.

The only man that ever I knew
Who did not make me almost spew
Was Fuseli: he was both Turk and Jew –
And so, dear Christian Friends, how do you do?
(William Blake’s tribute to Fuseli)

Henry Fuseli was born Johann Heinrich Füssli in Zürich into a family of artists and writers. His father was the portrait painter and art historian Johannes Kaspar Füssli. Although Fuseli’s brothers and sisters became artists, his father directed him towards priesthood.

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The National Security Archive, Georges Washington University, publishes Oct. 10, 2005 as follows:
Archive and Openness Advocates Urge Supreme Court, Tell Lower Courts to Scrutinize Government Secrecy Claims. Amicus Brief Requests Review of Dismissal of Whistle Blower Case. For more information contact Meredith Fuchs – 202/994-7000.

October 10, 2005 – Washington, D.C., October 10, 2005 – The National Security Archive, along with other openness advocates, today filed a “friend of the court” brief with the United States Supreme Court asking the Court to review the summary dismissal, on secrecy grounds, of a lawsuit filed by an FBI whistleblower.

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L’apartheid du genre – un obstacle au développement. 10 ans après la Conférence mondiale de l’ONU sur les femmes: un congrès commun d’Alliance Sud et de la Direction du développement et de la coopération (DDC), avec Mme la conseillère fédérale Micheline Calmy Rey et Noeleen Heyzer, directrice d’UNIFEM.

Mardi 15 novembre 2005, 09h00–15h30, Centre de congrès Kursaal, Kornhausstrasse 3, Berne, salle Intermezzo

Il y a dix ans à Pékin, la Conférence mondiale sur les femmes adoptait un programme d’action pour l’établissement de l’égalité des sexes nommé «Egalité, développement et paix». Celui-ci reconnaissait que ce sont avant tout les femmes qui sont touchées par la pauvreté et affirmait leur rôle central dans le développement de la société. Sous le slogan «les droits des femmes sont des droits humains», il prévoit un paquet de mesures pour une mise sur pied d’égalité totale entre homme et femme sur le plan politique, économique et social.

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The Christian Monitor: Our reporter asks, Is this the rhythm of a world in step?, by Scott Baldauf

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – What if it could be proved that no two nations that play salsa music have ever declared war on each other?

Some of the best salsa music in the Middle East comes from Egypt and Israel, for instance. Both nations have been at peace since 1979, the same period when salsa began to take hold.

A coincidence? Perhaps not.

The first time I heard Arabic salsa music, I was in a taxi in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, racing to catch a connecting flight to Afghanistan. The taxi driver, a Pakistani, was playing an incredible song on his radio. First came the Latin rhythms on bongos, then the rush of flamenco guitars. It sounded like the sort of dance music I grew up listening to in south Texas but with a distinctly Middle Eastern trill of the voice and the guttural lyrics that could only be Arabic.

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See on this site – Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) – Original name Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto: This Chilean poet, and diplomat, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. His original name was Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, but he used the pen name Pablo Neruda for over 20 years before adopting it legally in 1946. Neruda is the most widely read of the Spanish American poets. From the 1940s on, his works reflected the political struggle of the left and the socio-historical developments in South America. He also wrote love poems. Neruda’s Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (1924) have sold over a million copies since it first appeared.

“Sucede que me canso de ser hombre.
Sucede que entro es las sasterías y en los cines
marchito, impenetrable, como un cisne de fieltro
navegando en un agua de origen y ceniza.”
(from ‘Walking Around’)
(I happen to be tired of being a man
I happen to enter tailor shops and movie houses
withered, impenetrable, like a felt swan
navigating in a water of sources and ashes.)

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