So speaks Adam Brookes, the BBC political commentator speaking from the BBC's agency in Washington DC this morning.
9/11 - 2/5 It has been a long haul, just a little less than ten years in fact, and thousands of lives have been lost along the way. The most chilling footage this morning is from 1998 when Osama Bin Laden gave a televised interview to America's ABC network. He stated bluntly that he did not have the constraints of the West, namely, the need to distinguish between military targets and innocent civilians. This man emphasised that if that person was American, then that person was a legitimate target, a fact we saw played out with grim determination less than 3 years later when the twin towers came down.
There are times when it is necessary to take the retributive action that has resulted in Bin Laden's death, without forewarning the host nation if that nation cannot guarantee security of information.
Pakistan alas has a long history of too many people within its intelligence services being double-agents, so the US President had no alternative but to authorise the action in confidence. On this occasion it was the right thing to do. But let it not set the precedent for the future.
The euphoria in Times Square and Washington is understandable. Let that quickly dissipate and let us as a world community move on, remaining even more vigilant and ready for the inevitable reprisals from people with twisted and demented ideologies.
Ian Bradley Marshall
LIVERPOOL
2 May 2011
Monday, 2 May 2011
Wednesday, 20 April 2011
OUR PHOTOGRAPHERS AND JOURNALISTS IN EQUAL DANGER
Tim Hetherington, Photographer
Although I never had the privilege of knowing Tim Hetherington, his death today in Libya is nevertheless a grim and salutary reminder of the price that freedom exacts when we are in the business of dealing with dictatorships and tyranny.
Tim Hetherington is an outstanding Photographer, who insisted on using traditional 'old fashioned' equipment, development through negative, so as to truly capture the visciousness of war, that we at home might become more aware and educated on just what price is being paid in the various theatres of war in which this country is currently engaged.
His unique ability lies also in his method of reporting; his style, his humanitarian and compassionate approach, all with one aim: to alert all of us to the sacrifices being made and to bring the full facts to us.
It is absolutely essential that our photographers and journalists be allowed access to areas of operations. We, the general public, must know what is going on. The presence of photographers and journalists just might be that final lifeline to a community that, without their presence, would be in even greater danger and possibly facing mass slaughter.
This is the horror of war.
It is the scenario upon which human nature plays itself out; and our photographers and journalists are that vital check and balance that might stay the hand of a tyrant, and which enables our own troops to complete the operation in Afghanistan, or the rebel forces on the ground in Libya, and the NATO air forces enforcing the no-fly zone above.
Captain Lisa Jade Head
Equally tragic this week is the death of Captain Lisa Jade Head from 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment, Royal Logistic Corps, who died at Queen Elizabeth NHS Hospital, Birmingham of wounds suffered in Afghanistan on Monday. The second female British soldier to have been killed in action in this war and the 364th soldier to have been killed in action since operations began in Afghanistan.
The extraordinary bravery of soldiers called upon to clear minefields cannot be overstated. Few are able to even stay the intsenive course of training. Those who do and then take up operations in the field are very brave people indeed. For let us not forget that often, whilst they are very carefully and methodically defusing an explosive device, they are doing so under fire; not occasional fire, but systematic fire, a full blown battle that involves sniping, mortar fire and even hand to hand fighting; something that is not fully reported.
Let us keep the bravery of these courageous people in mind.
Ian Bradley Marshall
LIVERPOOL
21 April 2011
Although I never had the privilege of knowing Tim Hetherington, his death today in Libya is nevertheless a grim and salutary reminder of the price that freedom exacts when we are in the business of dealing with dictatorships and tyranny.
Tim Hetherington is an outstanding Photographer, who insisted on using traditional 'old fashioned' equipment, development through negative, so as to truly capture the visciousness of war, that we at home might become more aware and educated on just what price is being paid in the various theatres of war in which this country is currently engaged.
His unique ability lies also in his method of reporting; his style, his humanitarian and compassionate approach, all with one aim: to alert all of us to the sacrifices being made and to bring the full facts to us.
It is absolutely essential that our photographers and journalists be allowed access to areas of operations. We, the general public, must know what is going on. The presence of photographers and journalists just might be that final lifeline to a community that, without their presence, would be in even greater danger and possibly facing mass slaughter.
This is the horror of war.
It is the scenario upon which human nature plays itself out; and our photographers and journalists are that vital check and balance that might stay the hand of a tyrant, and which enables our own troops to complete the operation in Afghanistan, or the rebel forces on the ground in Libya, and the NATO air forces enforcing the no-fly zone above.
Captain Lisa Jade Head
Equally tragic this week is the death of Captain Lisa Jade Head from 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment, Royal Logistic Corps, who died at Queen Elizabeth NHS Hospital, Birmingham of wounds suffered in Afghanistan on Monday. The second female British soldier to have been killed in action in this war and the 364th soldier to have been killed in action since operations began in Afghanistan.
The extraordinary bravery of soldiers called upon to clear minefields cannot be overstated. Few are able to even stay the intsenive course of training. Those who do and then take up operations in the field are very brave people indeed. For let us not forget that often, whilst they are very carefully and methodically defusing an explosive device, they are doing so under fire; not occasional fire, but systematic fire, a full blown battle that involves sniping, mortar fire and even hand to hand fighting; something that is not fully reported.
Let us keep the bravery of these courageous people in mind.
Ian Bradley Marshall
LIVERPOOL
21 April 2011
JUDICIAL REVIEW
This morning's outcome of the Judicial Review in the High Court is a landmark review and one can only hope that if the banks appeal, as they are likely to do, then the Supreme Court will not bottle out at the last moment.
Meanwhile, every customer who has been sold payment protection insurance by these banks, should seriously consider lodging a claim. Lodge the claim and request confirmation of the new reference number. Keep it short and simple, direct and to the point. Do not start arguing the case in that letter. All the notification of claim is doing at this stage is to put the banks on notice that there is likely to be a groundswell of public opinion that will increase dramatically over the months ahead.
In all my years I have never seen the banks behave in flagrant disregard of the general public as we have seen over the last decade, although to be fair, some are now trying to bring some measure of order to their disordered houses. That the banks have actually done everything possible to turn the Recession that they caused, to their own personal private advantage beggars belief. In less tolerant regimes, we do not need to use our imagination as to the outcome. Thankfully, this is the United Kingdom. That does not mean that the general public is soft. Far from it.
This Judicial Review will today have made quite a few well cushioned bums on seats in high places, chairmen and chief executives, higher executives and not a few bank officials on the counter, feel a little queezy.
So be it. It is deserved.
Today's Judicial Review has all the hallmarks of turning the general public's concern into outright anger and demand for even more root and branch change as did the Daily Telegraph when it first blew the whistle on MPs Expenses.
Let the action begin.
Ian Bradley Marshall
LIVERPOOL
20 April 2011
Meanwhile, every customer who has been sold payment protection insurance by these banks, should seriously consider lodging a claim. Lodge the claim and request confirmation of the new reference number. Keep it short and simple, direct and to the point. Do not start arguing the case in that letter. All the notification of claim is doing at this stage is to put the banks on notice that there is likely to be a groundswell of public opinion that will increase dramatically over the months ahead.
In all my years I have never seen the banks behave in flagrant disregard of the general public as we have seen over the last decade, although to be fair, some are now trying to bring some measure of order to their disordered houses. That the banks have actually done everything possible to turn the Recession that they caused, to their own personal private advantage beggars belief. In less tolerant regimes, we do not need to use our imagination as to the outcome. Thankfully, this is the United Kingdom. That does not mean that the general public is soft. Far from it.
This Judicial Review will today have made quite a few well cushioned bums on seats in high places, chairmen and chief executives, higher executives and not a few bank officials on the counter, feel a little queezy.
So be it. It is deserved.
Today's Judicial Review has all the hallmarks of turning the general public's concern into outright anger and demand for even more root and branch change as did the Daily Telegraph when it first blew the whistle on MPs Expenses.
Let the action begin.
Ian Bradley Marshall
LIVERPOOL
20 April 2011
Saturday, 9 April 2011
HACKING
It goes without saying that with the advance of technology now being so fast, today's developments often being rendered obsolete by tomorrow or certainly within the week, there travels alongside it the ever present temptation to misuse that technology.
A decade ago I would not have been paying too much attention to the News of the World, or News International because at that time I had no contact with the media industry in any form. So what reporters and journalists got up to didn't interest me too much.
Now it is different.
A friend told me how two weeks ago a young person's facebook account was left on, friends entered the barracks room in his absence and made adjustments, and then posted them on to the wall. I am well acquainted with the military, suffice to say that had that ever happened in my command, there would have been instant dismissals. Now what is left is the smoking gun.
Two years ago, I too found to my horror that my own emails had been read for a whole year by one of my own employees who was in an extremely privileged position. That person had set up the firm's computer network and when he mentioned one day that he had set filters to intercept inappropriate emails, it did not occur to me that he was filtering mine too. No wonder he seemed always to be totally in tune with matters of company policy, discussions at board level and so on. Long after the company had closed, this came to light when friends asked me why it was that they were receiving 'on holiday away from office' emails from this person in relation to emails I was sending them, 4 months after the end of his employment.
I shall never forget the sinking feeling. Nor the sense of total betrayal. Professional correspondence, family correspondence, the lot! And something like that takes a long, long time to get over. Fortunately, I am able to write and so decided to just get it out of my system by writing the poems The Blackmailer and Blagger
We have some of the finest Journalists in the world. We see their reports daily whether at home or from the front line in Afghanistan or Libya or the Ivory Coast or Japan or New Zealand.
It is therefore essential that the police properly conduct their investigation and seriously consider presenting their findings to the Crown Prosecution Service for a decision on whether to proceed to trial to protect privacy but also to protect the reputation of good Journalism.
I wonder what would happen if the general public decided on Sunday morning that it had had enough of this misbehaviour and decided that from next Sunday on, it would not buy a single copy of the News of the World?
An interesting point to ponder.
Ian Marshall
LIVERPOOL
9 April 2011
A decade ago I would not have been paying too much attention to the News of the World, or News International because at that time I had no contact with the media industry in any form. So what reporters and journalists got up to didn't interest me too much.
Now it is different.
A friend told me how two weeks ago a young person's facebook account was left on, friends entered the barracks room in his absence and made adjustments, and then posted them on to the wall. I am well acquainted with the military, suffice to say that had that ever happened in my command, there would have been instant dismissals. Now what is left is the smoking gun.
Two years ago, I too found to my horror that my own emails had been read for a whole year by one of my own employees who was in an extremely privileged position. That person had set up the firm's computer network and when he mentioned one day that he had set filters to intercept inappropriate emails, it did not occur to me that he was filtering mine too. No wonder he seemed always to be totally in tune with matters of company policy, discussions at board level and so on. Long after the company had closed, this came to light when friends asked me why it was that they were receiving 'on holiday away from office' emails from this person in relation to emails I was sending them, 4 months after the end of his employment.
I shall never forget the sinking feeling. Nor the sense of total betrayal. Professional correspondence, family correspondence, the lot! And something like that takes a long, long time to get over. Fortunately, I am able to write and so decided to just get it out of my system by writing the poems The Blackmailer and Blagger
We have some of the finest Journalists in the world. We see their reports daily whether at home or from the front line in Afghanistan or Libya or the Ivory Coast or Japan or New Zealand.
It is therefore essential that the police properly conduct their investigation and seriously consider presenting their findings to the Crown Prosecution Service for a decision on whether to proceed to trial to protect privacy but also to protect the reputation of good Journalism.
I wonder what would happen if the general public decided on Sunday morning that it had had enough of this misbehaviour and decided that from next Sunday on, it would not buy a single copy of the News of the World?
An interesting point to ponder.
Ian Marshall
LIVERPOOL
9 April 2011
Saturday, 26 March 2011
PEOPLE POWER
Across the world we are seeing the effects of people power - regimes being challenged, heads of state being forced to step down, some with dignity, others less so, and still another forcing his country into a state of war.
In Syria we now have open suppression of the people and, according to the BBC World News and Reuters, at least 53 people killed in street protests.
Here is London, we have the demonstration of people power with the largest gathering since the anti war marches of 2003. I think we can probably go back even further, 25 years. These people are sending a clear message to the government. 'We understand the need for cutbacks; we understand the need to reduce the deficit. But you are doing it too drastically, too severely. You must ease up.'
It is a very, very powerful argument, especially when Whitehall realises that just a few streets away a protest march of something like a quarter of a million people from all sections of society, of all age groups, is underway.
The police have a very delicate operation. Between 4,000-5,000 police are on duty to prevent a recurrence of the violent scenes in Parliament Square last November with the student protest against the introduction of the £9,000 loan repayment scheme. The police themselves face cutbacks in all forces that I have never seen before. They will be sympathetic but they must also uphold the Queen's Peace and rule of law.
It is right and proper that we are holding this demonstration this day.
The organisers want a peaceful protest. They and the police recognise that there will be elements - troublemakers and anarchists - who will attempt to cause violence and confrontation. The police have explained how difficult it is to spot these people who infiltrate groups of law-abiding protesters, hence very careful monitoring by CCTV and then, once spotted, the need to pull these trouble makers out, and sometimes by means of 'kettling' the group generally, an unpopular crowd control measure.
I know from personal experience how difficult it is to police protests. But provided the organisers, the protesters and the police generally work together, then they will succeed in doing that for which we are famous, culminating in the gathering in Hyde Park to hear the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition address the nation.
This is how things should proceed in our democracy.
Ian Bradley Marshall
LIVERPOOL
26 March 2011
In Syria we now have open suppression of the people and, according to the BBC World News and Reuters, at least 53 people killed in street protests.
Here is London, we have the demonstration of people power with the largest gathering since the anti war marches of 2003. I think we can probably go back even further, 25 years. These people are sending a clear message to the government. 'We understand the need for cutbacks; we understand the need to reduce the deficit. But you are doing it too drastically, too severely. You must ease up.'
It is a very, very powerful argument, especially when Whitehall realises that just a few streets away a protest march of something like a quarter of a million people from all sections of society, of all age groups, is underway.
The police have a very delicate operation. Between 4,000-5,000 police are on duty to prevent a recurrence of the violent scenes in Parliament Square last November with the student protest against the introduction of the £9,000 loan repayment scheme. The police themselves face cutbacks in all forces that I have never seen before. They will be sympathetic but they must also uphold the Queen's Peace and rule of law.
It is right and proper that we are holding this demonstration this day.
The organisers want a peaceful protest. They and the police recognise that there will be elements - troublemakers and anarchists - who will attempt to cause violence and confrontation. The police have explained how difficult it is to spot these people who infiltrate groups of law-abiding protesters, hence very careful monitoring by CCTV and then, once spotted, the need to pull these trouble makers out, and sometimes by means of 'kettling' the group generally, an unpopular crowd control measure.
I know from personal experience how difficult it is to police protests. But provided the organisers, the protesters and the police generally work together, then they will succeed in doing that for which we are famous, culminating in the gathering in Hyde Park to hear the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition address the nation.
This is how things should proceed in our democracy.
Ian Bradley Marshall
LIVERPOOL
26 March 2011
Friday, 25 March 2011
OUR YOUNG PEOPLE – CARRYING HIGH THE TORCH OF FREEDOM
Lancaster Active Forum
To visitors to this sight of all ages, a visit to the Lancaster Active Forum is worth one's time for families and descendants of crews are conducting much research. This domain is owned by Larry Wright of Canada and who, like Peter Cunliffe, is undertaking invaluable work to keep the history of bomber command, its operations and its crews very much in the public conscience.
Apart from this website, what is so good and refreshing is to see the number of younger and young people throughout our many national museums and galleries, who are taking a very keen interest in Bomber Command, often because they want to find out for themselves exactly what their grandparents, uncles and aunts went through, but also because they want to know anyway.
In an age of apparent cynicism we tend to think that this history will just die out.
Not so.
It is an incredibly moving experience to discover that whilst one tends to think of one self as the nephew of an uncle who is a framed photograph but who died before one was born, that there are other nephews and nieces too in the same situation and, for example, in the case of my own uncle, Flight Sergeant Harry Marshall, to discover the name and rank of his skipper to whom he was the crew's flight engineer, but to learn that that his niece has provided so much valuable information on this Lancaster Active Forum and which has helped me so much too in putting the pieces of a jigsaw together and then to report the facts to my Mum, Harry's sister.
I extend my thanks to Mr Wright, and separately to Mr Cunliffe, for all of this work and also for making it possible for all of the families and enthusiasts to obtain so much information.
Now to the Future
We look to the future and to our young people to pick up the torch and carry it high and fully lit into the night sky, never letting history allow the grass to grow under one's feet.
Flying military operations to enforce a no fly zone is as dangerous as ever, despite the increased sophistication of our military assets and the inferiority of a discredited regime.
This morning we have 350 aircraft and 38 ships of the line enforcing that no fly zone and the thought of being on the receiving end of that firepower is discomfiting. But just as a lifetime ago, young people were going out to fly deadly operations over one of the worst tyrannies in history, so too, the bulk of the fighting today, both by the Coalition (shortly NATO Command) over Libya, and our armed forces in the war in Afghanistan at the sharpest end is our young people. Only this week two more British servicemen have been killed in action in Afghanistan, and this excludes the fatalities suffered by the other nations that make up the Allied Forces. It is a convention of war that in reporting casualties one only reports those relating to one’s own country.
So my point, as ever, is to put before the British People this thought (echoed earlier) that our young people are indeed picking up the torch and carrying it high and fully into the night sky. They, and we of the older generation, are not allowing history to let the grass grow under one’s feet.
To all our young people, and to those who take to the streets with passion, I say, thank you indeed. You are doing the greatest service.
Ian Bradley Marshall
Liverpool
25 March 2011
To visitors to this sight of all ages, a visit to the Lancaster Active Forum is worth one's time for families and descendants of crews are conducting much research. This domain is owned by Larry Wright of Canada and who, like Peter Cunliffe, is undertaking invaluable work to keep the history of bomber command, its operations and its crews very much in the public conscience.
Apart from this website, what is so good and refreshing is to see the number of younger and young people throughout our many national museums and galleries, who are taking a very keen interest in Bomber Command, often because they want to find out for themselves exactly what their grandparents, uncles and aunts went through, but also because they want to know anyway.
In an age of apparent cynicism we tend to think that this history will just die out.
Not so.
It is an incredibly moving experience to discover that whilst one tends to think of one self as the nephew of an uncle who is a framed photograph but who died before one was born, that there are other nephews and nieces too in the same situation and, for example, in the case of my own uncle, Flight Sergeant Harry Marshall, to discover the name and rank of his skipper to whom he was the crew's flight engineer, but to learn that that his niece has provided so much valuable information on this Lancaster Active Forum and which has helped me so much too in putting the pieces of a jigsaw together and then to report the facts to my Mum, Harry's sister.
I extend my thanks to Mr Wright, and separately to Mr Cunliffe, for all of this work and also for making it possible for all of the families and enthusiasts to obtain so much information.
Now to the Future
We look to the future and to our young people to pick up the torch and carry it high and fully lit into the night sky, never letting history allow the grass to grow under one's feet.
Flying military operations to enforce a no fly zone is as dangerous as ever, despite the increased sophistication of our military assets and the inferiority of a discredited regime.
This morning we have 350 aircraft and 38 ships of the line enforcing that no fly zone and the thought of being on the receiving end of that firepower is discomfiting. But just as a lifetime ago, young people were going out to fly deadly operations over one of the worst tyrannies in history, so too, the bulk of the fighting today, both by the Coalition (shortly NATO Command) over Libya, and our armed forces in the war in Afghanistan at the sharpest end is our young people. Only this week two more British servicemen have been killed in action in Afghanistan, and this excludes the fatalities suffered by the other nations that make up the Allied Forces. It is a convention of war that in reporting casualties one only reports those relating to one’s own country.
So my point, as ever, is to put before the British People this thought (echoed earlier) that our young people are indeed picking up the torch and carrying it high and fully into the night sky. They, and we of the older generation, are not allowing history to let the grass grow under one’s feet.
To all our young people, and to those who take to the streets with passion, I say, thank you indeed. You are doing the greatest service.
Ian Bradley Marshall
Liverpool
25 March 2011
Sunday, 20 March 2011
A WORLD WITHOUT MUSIC
Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No 4 2nd Movement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN7oFdFqtB4
Daniel Barenboim conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Imagine a world without music.
Imagine a society in which music is banned. There are some regimes that impose such bans. There are other regimes that decree only certain types of music, all else being outlawed.
A world without music is one thing. A world where the sound of music has been deliberately removed is far worse.
I was listening to this Symphony last evening on the radio – the 2nd Movement – and it moved me.
The ground beneath me seemed to move and my spirit groaned and then soared as this incredible composition moved, swirled, cascaded and rose up ever higher with each score.
A host of people all moving as one on that great stage, following the baton, the exquisite movement of the hand.
My heart pulled. It seemed as if I would be turned inside out. Where did this beauty, this creativity, this spontaneity and rhythm come from?
Just how is it that these sounds can be written on a score as seemingly meaningless strokes and dashes, notes, quavers, semi quavers and nocturnes only to be then, as a collection of people gathered together and as the baton raises, become one being, at one with the Universe?
Such incredible sounds the world over – as beautiful as each other - regardless of culture.
Music has power and spontaneity that men in high places when unsure of their security can desire only to ban for fear that it may otherwise unseat them, that the people over whom they rule, or worse still whom they subjugate, will themselves move as one, with that same spontaneity. (See footnote)
Take for instance Finlandia, the Voice of Freedom of the Fins and thus banned for a lifetime by a regime that has long since gladly gone.
The threat of imprisonment, beating or worse, if heard listening to it on some foreign western broadcast or, on pain of death, to dare to listen to the most feared station of all, the ubiquitous BBC, yes even today in this 21st Century.
If music be the food of love, so wrote Shakespeare.
I would go one further. Music is food for the soul. It gives us expression and purpose; sentiment; comfort and confidence; a link to friends and family, loved ones far and wide; periods of our lives long since passed and with which the music now is the last remaining tenuous link and which gives us our memory.
As an editor, I would always encourage my creative design team to reach inside themselves; to go right into the innermost depths of their being. In a way the Editor is literature’s equivalent to the Conductor of an Orchestra. Nothing but the best is acceptable. And I'm constantly inspired by just how creative the human spirit is.
The great Arias, choruses, symphonic sounds of the very host of Heaven on the one hand; on the other hand of equal beauty, sometimes more, the artists and performers of popular music – two pieces alone come to mind by Enrique Iglesias, Addicted and California; and three equally beautiful popular songs that never cease to inspire me, Break and Born by Stephen George Edwards of New Zealand and Ambitions by Joe McElderry of South Shields, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Here is true freedom. Here is the freedom of young people to express themselves. Never stifle the young people, for they are a nation’s future, our future, our security, our freedom. And as they come to understand this freedom, they will not give it up lightly, but will guard it jealously to hand to their children with equal conviction.
All types of music bring tears of joy and the ability to make me re-examine myself, no less than when I listen again to a great Psalm or Choral work or Gregorian chant; so never allow music to be stifled.
And do not restrict oneself to local culture. Experience the rich variety of music of all cultures without exception.
And if, God forbid, society ever moves to imposing a total ban on some form of music then resist it with all your might. Let not the greatest sounds and groanings of the soul and spirit be silenced by the petty prejudices and bigotry of simple minded men and women who seek only to impose their own outdated irrelevant interpretation of religion.
Let us never fall prey to these petty dictates that would rob us of our freedom to listen to one of the most awesome acts of the creative spirit – our music.
La Fontana
Blackpool
29 March 2010
I wrote that sentence a year ago. Tonight, as I prepare this final proof for the publisher, we are witnessing popular uprisings throughout the Middle East and North Africa, and in particular in Libya. The people do indeed rise as one, and whenever they do, dictators tremble for they know it is only a matter of time, before they will be brought down. If they are fortunate they might be allowed to live quietly in exile; if they refuse to yield, then a People motivated by a quest for freedom and democracy, what we in the West so take for granted, will take the law into their own hands. That is never good, for terrible retribution will be meted out, and this should never happen. 21 March 2011 Ian Bradley Marshall Liverpool
www.ianbradleymarshall.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN7oFdFqtB4
Daniel Barenboim conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Imagine a world without music.
Imagine a society in which music is banned. There are some regimes that impose such bans. There are other regimes that decree only certain types of music, all else being outlawed.
A world without music is one thing. A world where the sound of music has been deliberately removed is far worse.
I was listening to this Symphony last evening on the radio – the 2nd Movement – and it moved me.
The ground beneath me seemed to move and my spirit groaned and then soared as this incredible composition moved, swirled, cascaded and rose up ever higher with each score.
A host of people all moving as one on that great stage, following the baton, the exquisite movement of the hand.
My heart pulled. It seemed as if I would be turned inside out. Where did this beauty, this creativity, this spontaneity and rhythm come from?
Just how is it that these sounds can be written on a score as seemingly meaningless strokes and dashes, notes, quavers, semi quavers and nocturnes only to be then, as a collection of people gathered together and as the baton raises, become one being, at one with the Universe?
Such incredible sounds the world over – as beautiful as each other - regardless of culture.
Music has power and spontaneity that men in high places when unsure of their security can desire only to ban for fear that it may otherwise unseat them, that the people over whom they rule, or worse still whom they subjugate, will themselves move as one, with that same spontaneity. (See footnote)
Take for instance Finlandia, the Voice of Freedom of the Fins and thus banned for a lifetime by a regime that has long since gladly gone.
The threat of imprisonment, beating or worse, if heard listening to it on some foreign western broadcast or, on pain of death, to dare to listen to the most feared station of all, the ubiquitous BBC, yes even today in this 21st Century.
If music be the food of love, so wrote Shakespeare.
I would go one further. Music is food for the soul. It gives us expression and purpose; sentiment; comfort and confidence; a link to friends and family, loved ones far and wide; periods of our lives long since passed and with which the music now is the last remaining tenuous link and which gives us our memory.
As an editor, I would always encourage my creative design team to reach inside themselves; to go right into the innermost depths of their being. In a way the Editor is literature’s equivalent to the Conductor of an Orchestra. Nothing but the best is acceptable. And I'm constantly inspired by just how creative the human spirit is.
The great Arias, choruses, symphonic sounds of the very host of Heaven on the one hand; on the other hand of equal beauty, sometimes more, the artists and performers of popular music – two pieces alone come to mind by Enrique Iglesias, Addicted and California; and three equally beautiful popular songs that never cease to inspire me, Break and Born by Stephen George Edwards of New Zealand and Ambitions by Joe McElderry of South Shields, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Here is true freedom. Here is the freedom of young people to express themselves. Never stifle the young people, for they are a nation’s future, our future, our security, our freedom. And as they come to understand this freedom, they will not give it up lightly, but will guard it jealously to hand to their children with equal conviction.
All types of music bring tears of joy and the ability to make me re-examine myself, no less than when I listen again to a great Psalm or Choral work or Gregorian chant; so never allow music to be stifled.
And do not restrict oneself to local culture. Experience the rich variety of music of all cultures without exception.
And if, God forbid, society ever moves to imposing a total ban on some form of music then resist it with all your might. Let not the greatest sounds and groanings of the soul and spirit be silenced by the petty prejudices and bigotry of simple minded men and women who seek only to impose their own outdated irrelevant interpretation of religion.
Let us never fall prey to these petty dictates that would rob us of our freedom to listen to one of the most awesome acts of the creative spirit – our music.
La Fontana
Blackpool
29 March 2010
I wrote that sentence a year ago. Tonight, as I prepare this final proof for the publisher, we are witnessing popular uprisings throughout the Middle East and North Africa, and in particular in Libya. The people do indeed rise as one, and whenever they do, dictators tremble for they know it is only a matter of time, before they will be brought down. If they are fortunate they might be allowed to live quietly in exile; if they refuse to yield, then a People motivated by a quest for freedom and democracy, what we in the West so take for granted, will take the law into their own hands. That is never good, for terrible retribution will be meted out, and this should never happen. 21 March 2011 Ian Bradley Marshall Liverpool
www.ianbradleymarshall.com
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