Update: Monday, February 27, 2012 - An more recent article on this topic "Cancer the secret weapon? The heart of the matter." by Charles Kong Soo has been published in the Trinidad Guardian online.
According to this Reuters article today, Venezuelan President Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías is suggesting that there may be a connection between the USA and the list of Central and Latin American leaders who have been diagnosed with cancer.
(Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez speculated on Wednesday that the United States might have developed a way to give Latin American leaders cancer, after Argentina's Cristina Fernandez joined the list of presidents diagnosed with the disease."
While he stresses that he is not making any accusations and just thinking aloud, he wonders:
"It would not be strange if they had developed the technology to induce cancer and nobody knew about it until now ... I don't know. I'm just reflecting," he said in a televised speech to troops at a military base.
"But this is very, very, very strange ... it's a bit difficult to explain this, to reason it, including using the law of probabilities....
"Fidel always told me, 'Chavez take care. These people have developed technology. You are very careless. Take care what you eat, what they give you to eat ... a little needle and they inject you with I don't know what,'" he said." SOURCE
When I read the news about Argentina's President having been diagnosed with thyroid cancer, I also added her name to the growing list of Central and South American leaders who have fought or are in the process of fighting cancer:
I don't know if President Chávez has ever seen the documentary, "The Men Who Killed Kennedy." I refer specifically to Part 8 which was prepared by The History Channel in November 2003 and which you can view below. Judyth Vary Baker tells the story about her work along with others on the creation of a virulent strain of cancer to be used as a biological weapon against Fidel Castro and other "nuisances." While I am grateful to Judyth Vary Baker for breaking her silence after forty years and affording us another chilling look at the workers of iniquity hard at work, I cannot imagine how she or Lee Harvey Oswald can ever hope to portray themselves as innocents.
The Men Who Killed Kennedy - Part 8 - The Love Affair (2003) Uploaded by otingocni06
I have provided below the positions in the video of discussion of certain key points:
7:42 - Judyth learns about the weaponization of cancer project.
"To Judyth's amazement Ferrie began to talk about a secret government medical project against Castro involving himself and Mary Sherman, overseen by Alton Ochsner . I knew that Dr. Ochsner had been working on a variety of different projects and that because of his association with anti-Castro people such as David Ferrie this seemed very possible to me that Dr. Ochsner and Dr. Sherman might be involved with David Ferrie and of course he spoke knowledgeably of both people."
"When I went in, Dr. Ochsner began to explain to me, and I had already been apprised a great deal more more by Dr. David Ferrie, about the project that he had been working on for over a year and this clearly had to do working with the deadly cancer strains that he know I was well adept at handling. The idea was to try and get Castro ill, very ill, and eliminated through what seemed a natural cause. In this case, cancer. The attractiveness of the plan that Dr. Ochsner and Dr. Sherman and David Ferrie were working on, is that up to now attempts to kill Castro had to involve some kind of violence that could be traced to some country or individual and that could lead to war - World War Three maybe, if Russia intervened. This was considered in my mind a noble experiment, a noble attempt to do away with Castro without anyone getting blamed or with only a few people being involved because it was biomedical. At any rate, at the end of the summer, he promised me that I would skip two years of school and go directly into medical school at Tulane medical school. Of course, uhmm, how could I say no?
13:56 Details about the work on the cancer virus ultimately intended for Castro.
"We were after a vicious cancer, a galloping cancer and all the tumour material that seemed to be the most vigorous was then placed in a blender and blended together so that they could recycle and not lose that virus and the other thing that we were doing was making tissue cell cultures from the most vigorous and deadly cancers."
20:17 Cancer weapon as one of the products to be used against America's enemies.
"What Dr. Oshner and Dr. Mary Sherman and David Ferrie were doing was assembling various products that could be used by the CIA, perhaps by the Mafia, and they were involved with both, that could be used against Castro and against insurgents or mercenaries or groups that were communists that they felt were infiltrating Central and South America."
20:42 Judyth Baker's suggestion when the cancer virus intended for Castro was proving to be not potent enough.
"I convinced Dr. Ochsner and others that the real thing we need to do is pull down Castro's immune system by using several ploys and then when the cancer is introduced into his body it would be found in his blood system, they'd put him in front of the X-ray again and again and again. He'd be injected again and again. Supposedly he'd be getting treatments to kill the cancer when actually his immune system is getting destroyed. That could be done. In other words, Castro could be eliminated by using the X-ray and they'll think that it's the side effects from lung cancer... and that was my idea."
24:09 Testing the cancer virus begins on unwitting human "volunteers" from the Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola. These people did not know that what was being injected into them were live cancer cells.
26:31 Description of the team that carried out the testing and of how the virus would be brought to Cuba to infect Castro.
"Lee [Harvey Oswald] had to come along because he had learned all these special techniques to handle the materials. He'd learned them in the lab working with me and so if the experiment was successful he was selected as the ideal person to take these materials down to Mexico City where they would be handed over to a contact - a medical student or a medical technician and those materials would then be taken over to Cuba and handed over in Cuba to a member of Castro's medical team who could be trusted."
27:50 The tests appear to be successful.
30:37 How Hurricane Flora, 1963 caused the mission to be aborted and saved Castro's life from that assassination attempt .
So, what to do? Well, if we continue to monitor the health of leaders in the region who are devotees of the USA and observe that they remain suspiciously cancer free, we can choose one or more of the following possible explanations:
That leaders who choose not to be puppets of the wealthy or their external masters may be busier and may lead more stressful lives than those leaders who take the path of least resistance and choose to maintain the status quo. The stresses endured by the former group take a toll on their health, and stress, as we know, is like a welcome mat for many diseases including cancer.
That cancer has been on the rise in the region and it is only coincidental that it has chosen these strong leaders.
That based on the evidence provided here and elsewhere, we may conclude that this trend is NO coincidence and that it is obviously not the "healthy" choice to stand up for your rights against the "Defender or Human Rights." Speaking about standing up for your rights, Bob Marley comes to mind. Wasn't it also suspected that he had been assassinated?
"Only a handful of Marley's most trusted comrades knew of his whereabouts before the festival, but a member of the film crew, or so he claimed -- he didn't have a camera -- managed to talk his way past machete-bearing Rastas to enter the encampment: Carl Colby, son of the late CIA director William Colby. [11] And he came bearing a gift, according to a witness at the enclave, a new pair of boots for Bob Marley. [12] Former Black Panther and cinematographer Lee Lew-Lee (his camera work can be seen in the Oscar-winning documentary, The Panama Deception) was close friends with members of the Wailers, and he believes that Marley's cancer can be traced to the boots Colby gave him before the Smile Jamaica festival. "He put his foot in and said, 'Ow!' A friend got in there -- you know how Jamaicans are -- he said, 'let's get in here, in the boot, and he pulled a length of copper wire out -- it was embedded in the boot" [13] Had the wire been treated chemically with a carcinogenic toxin?" SOURCE
"Whosoever diggeth a pit shall fall in it And whosoever diggeth a pit shall bury in it..." ---"Small Axe" - Bob Marley
For The Afflicted A Navajo Healing Chant Sung By The Navajo & The Sioux Peace - Inner Strength - Health
Translation into French, Spanish and English I Joie du ciel | Alegría del cielo. | Heaven’s joy! Je t'adore mille fois | Mil veces te adoro. | A thousand times I praise you Fruit précieux de l'arbre fécond | Fruta preciosa, de árbol fructífero. | O tree bearing blessed fruit, Espérance qui encourage | Esperanza que anima | O hope of humankind, Et vient en aide aux hommes | Y da soporte a los hombres. | And helper of the weak. Ecoute ma prière | Oye mi oración. | Hear my prayer.
II Prète l'oreille à nos supplications | Atiende nuestras súplicas, | Attend to our pleas, Ô colonne de marbre, mère de Dieu | Oh, columna de marfil, madre de Dios. | O column of ivory, Mother of God! Au bel iris jaune et blanc | De iris hermoso, amarillo y blanco. | Beautiful iris, yellow and white, Reçois ce chant que nous t'offrons | Recibe esta canción que te ofrecemos | Receive this song we offer you; Viens-nous en aide | Ven en nuestra ayuda y | Come to our assistance, Montre-nous le fruit de ton ventre | Muéstranos el fruto de tu vientre. | Show us the Fruit of your womb!
Christmas blessings to all...to those who are celebrating and to those who are mourning, to those who have blessed the earth this year and to those who have harmed it, to those who have shared peace this year and to those who have brought holocausts to the innocent, to those who wish to lead and to those who must trust them, to the sick and the poor and the imprisoned and to the healthy, wealthy and free, to those who have departed this life and to the rest of us who will carry on.
Christmas blessings so that we can find the strength to continue doing good and the strength to throw down our weapons of hatred, selfishness, envy, greed, deceit, self-righteousness, hypocrisy, pride and ignorance.
Runakunap suyakuynin | Esperanza que anima | O hope of humankind, Kallpannaqpa q'imikuynin | Y da soporte a los hombres. | And helper of the weak. Waqyasqayta. | Oye mi oración. | Hear my prayer.
"Patria est communis omnium parens" - Our native land is the common parent of us all. Keep it beautiful, make it even more so.
Blessed is all of creation Blessed be my beautiful people Blessed be the day of our awakening Blessed is my country Blessed are her patient hills.
A boy was born at Bethlehem that knew the haunts of Galilee. He wandered on Mount Lebanon, and learned to love each forest tree.
But I was born at Marlborough, and love the homely faces there; and for all other men besides 'tis little love I have to spare.
I should not mind to die for them, my own dear downs, my comrades true, But that great heart of Bethlehem, he died for men he never knew.
And yet, I think, at Golgotha, as Jesus' eyes were closed in death, they saw with love most passionate the village street at Nazareth.
............................................................................................................................... "Patria est communis omnium parens" - Our native land is the common parent of us all. Keep it beautiful, make it even more so.
Blessed is all of creation Blessed be my beautiful people Blessed be the day of our awakening Blessed is my country Blessed are her patient hills.
A one-man parang, that is how they does call me
When they see me dress up just like a music shop
Looking for action, don't ask no foolish question
If you want to join, hurry up, I can't stop, no Marac in my back pocket, toc-toc, I can't forget it
Hang across mih shoulder - a mandolin
I don't want no argument, toting we own instrument
The cuatro, the guitar, the banjo and violin,
Hear de ting...
From Sangre Grande all de way to Cedros - paranging night and day
I looking for good players and chorus - paranging night and day
In Maracas, [parang] down Icacos, [parang] Rancho Quemado [parang] Mucho, mucho, mucho parrandero!
Woyeoh! Woyeoh! Ayee!
Caminante, the travelling parrandero
From August to Leywah is only, Baila, baila!
Roaming all over to find a good parang partner
A man who could hold he liquor, levanta, ey!
I pass in by Julio, he does play a mean cuatro
And I know that he wife could sing... ey!
Carlo go play the banjo, he does buss off string for so
I make sure I have extra banjo and guitar string
So leh we sing...
From Sangre Grande all the way to Cedros - paranging night and day
I looking for good players and chorus - paranging night and day
In Arima, [parang] Siparia, [parang] Palo Seco [parang] Mucho, mucho, mucho parrandero!
When you see we, bring coffee by the gallon
Is three tunes and we gone
Can't stay one place too long
If you like we, just join in the party
Grab an instrument and play on, yes, we strong, ey!
It have some parang players
I know them is real foolers
Singing anything once it have a -----
We have a wide range of songs
Starting with the Anunciación,
Castillan, Warapo and the Aguinaldo,
Leh we go...
From Sangre Grande all the way to Cedros - paranging night and day
I looking for good players and chorus - paranging night and day
Up Paramin, [parang] Buenos Aires and Erin [parang] Rio Claro [parang] Mucho, mucho, mucho parrandero!
In Maracas [parang]
Down Icacos [parang]
In Arima [parang]
Sipara [parang]
Palo Seco [parang]
Rancho Quemado [parang]
In Arima [parang]
Sipara [parang]
Palo Seco
Rancho Quemado
Up Paramin
Buenos Aires and Erin
Source: The lyrics posted on this blog are often transcribed directly from performances. Although it is my intention to faithfully transcribe I do not get all the words and I have a knack for hearing the wrong thing. Please feel free to correct me or to fill in the words that I miss by dropping me a message via e-mail. I'd be forever grateful. Thanks in advance!.............................................................................................................................. A Note From The Gull
Thank you, Baron, for one of your Christmas classics and also one of my favourite Christmas songs. I hope that the title "Carmenante" was not a person's name because I edited it to Caminante which is the Spanish for "traveller" - something that we associate with parranderos as they move from one location to another. Even the Serenal, "La Pascualidad" mentions this characteristic of parrenderos:
"Somos caminantes, tenemos que andar" - We are travellers, we must walk/go.
Trinbagonians, take it slow and careful on the roads. Some citizens' heads will be hot or "bad" and they are bound to make mistakes, so drive with them in mind. Take many deep breaths. Try not to go overboard with the spending and the food and drinks. I have found that the simplest Christmas is the best and you just won't know until you try it. Last year was basic and very beautiful and part of the day was spent just rambling through the quiet snow covered woods with the K9. In the silence, broken only by the sound of our breathing and the crunch of the snow, it really felt like we were travelling to meet Jesus. The meal was simple and we had bought no gifts so there wasn't that distraction. The beauty of the day was the gift. It can be more complicated when you have the little ones and their bright expectant eyes so focus on them and let the rest go. The spirit of the day is what is important so prepare your hearts and homes to welcome and to share the true reason for the season.
"Patria est communis omnium parens" - Our native land is the common parent of us all. Keep it beautiful, make it even more so.
Blessed is all of creation
Blessed be my beautiful people
Blessed be the day of our awakening
Blessed is my country
Blessed are her patient hills.
Get a dictionary, open it to democracy. It says: noun, Greek - demokratia--demos, people, and kratos, strength, power.] That form of government in which the supreme power rests with the people.
Every American president, whether Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal, speaks lovingly of 'democracy', whenever the nation engages in some escapade abroad. When the U.S. invaded Iraq, it did so, ostensibly, to 'bring democracy to the Middle East.' When it launches a raid in Grenada, or rains death on a poor neighborhood in Panama, when it invaded Haiti in the last century, ad infinitum, it always did so in the name of 'restoring democracy.'
What is this democracy of which they so blithely speak?
We all have heard the term since our infancy, but who really knows what it means? I wanted to learn more about it, so I began to read one of the finest historians I know of, the great C.L.R. James, author of the ground-breaking "The Black Jacobins.", an influential study of the Haitian Revolution. Some years ago, James published a pamphlet titled, "Every Cook Can Govern: A Study of Democracy in Ancient Greece." (Jackson, MS: New Mississippi, Inc., Mar. 1986). I found myself (as I often am when I read his stuff) blown away by what I learned. As his subtitle suggests, James looks at Greek history for the roots of the democratic idea, and finds it, in some stages, truly democratic, in ways we can hardly imagine. He writes:
"Perhaps the most striking thing about Greek democracy was that the administration (and there were immense administrative problems) was organized upon the basis of what is known as sortition, or, more easily, selection by lot. The vast majority of Greek officials were chosen by a method which amounted to putting names into a hat and appointing the ones whose names came out. Now the average C10 bureaucrat or Labor Member of Parliament in Britain would fall in a fit if it were suggested to him that any worker selected at random could do the work he is doing. But that was precisely the guiding principle of Greek democracy. And this form of government is the government under which flourished the greatest civilization the world has ever known." [p.1.] he wrote
C.L.R. James, a revolutionary activist as well as a stellar historian, explains that in Greek, the term demokratia could be used interchangeably with the word isonomia, which meant equality. Using this system, the Greek city-state decided issues of war and peace, of taxation, of cultural affairs, and virtually every important affair of state. They were so conscious of the seduction of power, and they so opposed tyranny, that a man who (and yes, they tended to only allow the franchise to men) held public office could not serve again, as a general rule. Their service was also subject to a time limit.
Some historians have, quite rightly, noted that the Greek democracy rested upon slavery. That is true. But, James tells us, it was a slavery that enrages notorious snobs, like Plato, who had trouble identifying who was slave, and who was free, and he resented the fact that slaves would not clear the street when he walked upon it.
The Greeks, James notes, tried representative democracy, and rejected it, out of hand. What worked for them, was direct democracy, which means that they believed that all were capable of governing the society in which they lived.
The very fact that such an idea surprises us, tells us how far this era has drifted from fundamental notions of 'democracy.' In ancient Greece, the citizen was seen as an able, trusted element of the state. In the present era, the citizen is virtually superfluous. He is a tax source. She is one who obeys her leaders. He is a dispensable cog in the wheel, whose only real duty is to do what one is told.
Consider the mass demonstrations of Spring 2003, when millions took to the streets of Washington, London and San Francisco, demanding that there be "No War in Iraq." Here, in the alleged 'democracies' of England and the U.S., governments ignored the people, and engaged in imperial war, on a lie. In ancient Greece, some 2,500 years ago, this wouldn't have been allowed.
We don't live in a democracy. We live under the rule of a few. We live in an empire.
My father, my mother told me, because I really never met the man, was a Jamaican, Very handsome... He was a handsome Jamaican, you know, and he had light skin and what they call good hair. Lord help us! Hair has now a moral quality attached to it. But she told me that my grandfather, his father, was Portuguese. So I said, "Portuguese?... hmm?" Then as I matured, I saw that in the Inquisitions in Spain and Portugal, many members of the Jewish people who had mastered in Europe, the sugar cane industry in Spain, they had become great, we call it, entrepreneurs, financiers. But in order for them to continue to live, they either had to say, "I'm a Christian." to survive or flee and many fled Spain and Portugal and came to what is called the West Indies and South America, namely Brazil.
Now if you study the slave times, I don't want to labour that so much, but in the Babylonian Talmud, did you know it was a rabbi that said that black people are cursed, black doomed to be hewers of wood and drawers of water because we are the children of Ham - that son of Noah that disrespected him? When you look at how black people are treated, no matter where we go in the world, that poison that we are somehow an inferior people doomed to be hewers of wood and drawers of water of Caucasian people. And they teach this to their children, so when you meet them you meet somebody who approaches you with a superior attitude and unfortunately we have responded by bowing and acting in a servitude-like manner.
But you know, as I studied the migration of the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Dutch and the French to the Caribbean, it was slavery that enriched Europe and no matter what branch of Europe colonised or enslaved us - the British took away our African names and gave us English names and most of us carry those names today. True? None of us spoke, or speak today, the language of our country and culture. We speak English because the English captured us and gave us not only their language but their religion and they bred into us the hatred that they had for the other members of the family of Europe that they were always fighting against. So the British and the French never got along too well, the British and the Spaniards never got along too well and so here we are - we, the British representatives.
[a break in the recording]...is a Christian because the French made him that. So now the Spanish ... oh, lets got to Puerto Rico or to Cuba. When Spain conquered, they did the same thing to the African. Take away your name, take away your culture, give you their language, give you their religion and impose upon you their mind. So here we are in the Caribbean. We are so divided, not just between British, uh, English-speaking West Indians, French-speaking, Dutch-speaking Spanish-speaking, French-speaking, no, no, no!... we are worse than that. When I was a little boy, I heard a calypso song that was written by a Trinidadian, a calypsonian, long, long time ago.
[Minister Farrakhan sings]
"Small island, go back where you come from Small island, go back where you come from You come by the one and the two and the three Now I find you up inside mih breadfruit tree Small island, go back where you come from."
And look...he was talking about the Bajan you know.
What am I saying, my dear family? We were not only divided by the languages and cultures of Europe we began to be divided even by our islands. So Jamaica and Barbados and Trinidad and St. Lucia or Anguilla - all of the islands, they had some beef against somebody from another island. And in America, when West Indian people started coming, they couldn't hang out with their own islanders, they had to go to a church and for the first time people from all the islands learned each other, learned to live together, learned to work together, learned to plan together for the advancement of those from the West Indies and it was in that environment that the languages of the Caribbean, the dialects of the Caribbean nurtured my life.
So now when you look at the introduction of slavery in the West Indies, you find that the Europeans and also members of the Jewish people bought up all the land, so the land where we worked in the canefields was owned by somebody else. We were always the plantation workers but rich, white people were the plantation owners and so they made the wealth from us but we just barely survived.
So now the Caribbean gave to the world sugar, bananas, pineapple, rice and coffee and in Brazil, there was sugar, tobacco, cocoa and cotton and the whites were the masters of the production and marketing of all those things and of course the British, the French, the Dutch, the Portuguese, the Spanish all controlled these territories at various times. But no matter which European nation controlled the land and the sea, it mainly was the Jewish merchants who controlled the profitable trade in the produce of the Caribbean and America.
And so here we are today, this is two thousand eleven, the last few days of it, and look at our condition.
Yesterday, one of my dear friends, Junior Lincoln, took me to Trench Town and I visited Boys' Town because I fell in love with the Jamaican national anthem. Of all the anthems, the Jamaican national anthem is the most beautiful that I have ever heard anywhere in the world.
....A heart for the little man and woman that suffers and I am here not only as your brother but as a warner. The masses are rising and you do not want to be on the wrong side of the anger of the masses when they rise. Trench Town touched me. I have a cook from Haiti. She went out.... I told her, "Don't go to the supermarket to buy nothing for me. Go to the market where the little farmer is farming and bringing their produce to the market." And when she came back I looked at her and she started talking and the tears welled up in her eyes because the little Jamaica cart their wares out trying to sell in the midst of filth. You see, this is Jamaica, not the well dressed Jamaica, not the well to do Jamaica, but this is the majority of the people of Jamaica that have to live under conditions that you only see again in South Africa under apartheid. Did you hear me? Now if we that have, have no feeling for those who don't have, if we, who have been blessed to be elected by the people, don't feel for the least of these, then let me talk to you from the Scriptures that you know as a Christian.
They came to Jesus and they asked Jesus, "Master, when were You hungry and I fed You not? When were You naked and I clothed You not? When were You out of doors and I gave You not shelter? And when were You sick and imprisoned and I ministered not onto You?"
And Jesus said, "In as much as you have not done these things to the least of these... Listen to his words!...MY brethren." He never made any distinction between Himself and the least of the people because He knew as He was from God, so were they and that's why the world ----- Jesus because He was the voice of the poor. Who will be the voice of the poor today that is ready to be hated by the powers that be, because when you stand up for the poor, the rich who are on their...living... Thank you, brother!... on the back of the poor... We got a soldier there.. May Allah bless you, brother! It's going to take many like you...
Did you know that Jesus said that this is going to be the criterion by which governments are judged? I'm going to say that again. This is the criterion by which governments are judged and separated. I'm going on...
You know in Curaçao, in Barbados and in Jamaica, a great Jewish writer Dr. Marc Lee Raphael made one of the more definitive statements on Jewish involvement in black slavery in the Caribbean. He wrote that in Brazil, Jews so completely monopolised the slave trade that slave auctions were postponed if they fell on a Jewish holiday. In all the American colonies, whether French Martinique, British or Dutch, Jewish merchants frequently dominated.
Some people like to call Farrakhan an anti-Semite... but listen, most of you don't know them but they know you. And every time you sit with somebody that knows you better than you know yourself or them, they have mastery over you. So when Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam puts out literature than no man can dispute its veracity - "The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews." this is not a document of hatred, it is a document of fact and we need to know how they got rich and powerful and influential and you are still at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder as a people.
Rabbis came to meet with me on a little farm that we have in Michigan and I wanted to know, you know, why they wanted to meet with me and they said one of their brothers from the Hasidic community in Brooklyn is in trouble in Bolivia. He's been arrested and accused with drug trafficking which they declare he is innocent but he owns thousands of hectares of land... from Brooklyn! So when he finished, he said, "Could you, Farrakhan, use your influence with Evo Morales to get our brother free? We would appreciate if you would do that to help him."
I said, "I don't know Evo Morales." I said, "But I'll tell you he's a Socialist and as a Socialist, he is interested in retrieving the land because the land belongs to the people. So if you want your brother free, send a representative to Bolivia and trade all those thousands of hectares for his freedom and I believe he'll be back in Brooklyn soon."
Now, why do you think the world is against socialism, and if you say you are desirous of a socialist philosophy, immediately America goes to work to destroy you? Now, you have the knowledge of recent history so I'm just going to run it at little. But don't worry....
But Farrakhan, I thought you was a religious man? You in all this political stuff? Yeah, I have to help us with the political stuff because the religious stuff is not working. That's why the political stuff is dominating the people..
Now, look, look, look!... They have a strategy and this is why they don't want the masses educated. As long as you are ignorant to who you are and where you are, and what belongs to you, you will work for somebody who claims from some piece of paper that they own what belongs to you. Just listen now...
So the young people who are uneducated and the educated ones - 84 percent leaving - that's part of the strategy because the learned are the natural head of the unlearned. The unlearned can't go anywhere without the learned and the learned can't ever be free without the unlearned. So there has to be a connection between the learned and the masses. And when the learned put the hands of the masses to work and the feet of the masses to moving, they will carry the head like your shoulder and your body carries your heard with honour and respect. But the enemy never wanted to see a connection between the learned and the unlearned. So here, a brain drain had to be a part of the strategy that would disallow the Caribbean from utilising their own resources, raw materials, turning them into products, giving the people employment that would bring wages and a decent quality of life.
So if you look now, did you know that there was a Jewish man and I'm going to call his name ...I have it here but my memory is not as good as it was when I was a youngster, you know. But his name was Zmurri. Have you heard of him? Zmurri came to Selma, Alabama from Russia in 1892 and began his astounding business career as a peddler's assistant. He installed himself in the banana trade and came to own three million acres of land in Central America - more than the combined land areas of the six smallest nations. Nicknamed The Banana King, Zmurri controlled the world trade of the world's most popular fruit. Schmuel Zmurri manipulated the internal affairs of the banana republics where the profitable fruit, banana, was grown. He financed political coups and engineered CIA invasions of countries where he felt his business interests were threatened. It was the underhanded operations of Zmurri's United Fruit Company that inflamed the revolutionary ardour of the legendary freedom fighters, Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevera and Zmurri's vast banana profits were also the source, beginning source of funding and political backing for the state of Israel in Palestine.
...bananas abroad and because you were former British colony they felt obligated, you know, to buy your bananas, Right?. Wha happ'n to the banana business? See, the brother of Zmurri that runs England, France, Germany - they decided that it's killing his business or taking money from him so close you down. What happen to the sugar cane industry? I was in St. Kitts five or six years ago and the Prime Minister said, "Sugar cane done!" They used to have a dairy farm here where you were drinking milk from the cow. Now you eating powdered milk. How the hell can powdered milk equal the milk that come naturally from the cow?
...in Guyana, in all of these islands there now can be tapped that the island feed themselves first, clothe themselves, use products that we have to build homes and if you don't have wood that is necessary, trade with your brothers and sisters in Central and South America that would allow you to build decent homes for your people. You could end poverty if you could end the ignorance that keeps us divided.
...Food is rich enough, or, your land is rich enough to produce food for yourselves. Instead you produce product and send it abroad to bring what? Foreign exchange. And what is foreign exchange? It is a dollar? And what is a dollar worth? Uhuh!
When I first came to Jamaica forty years ago, the Jamaican dollar had more value than the American dollar. How many of you remember that? And what happened? Do you think America is happy that a little country like Jamaica has a dollar worth more than the American dollar. So when you need money you had to go to the IMF or the World Bank and what was the conditionalities that they put on you before you could get money?
You had to come back home and devalue your currency and other conditionalities that ruined the economy of Jamaica so that now Jamaica is 216 billion dollars in debt. And whoever becomes Prime minister, listen to me good now, it don't make no difference who! So allyuh that want to kill each other over politics, you are silly because your life is more valuable than any party and Jamaica is more valuable than all the parties together!
I wanted to come to Jamaica and when Prime Minister Golding was your Prime Minister, I'd promised that I would come. But I wanted to go to the prison, I wanted to go and talk to the youth, I wanted to go and meet with my Rastafarian brothers and sisters. But he didn't know, and you probably don't know, but the last time that I was here was when I think, Portia Simpson-Miller was your first female Prime Minister, and I had just come from Cuba and I was very ill at the time and I really didn't know how ill I was. But later in the year of 2006, I was told that if I did not have a particular operation I would be dead in a short while. I didn't want no more cutting on me so I fought it as long as I could until my holistic doctors said, "Don't take no operation." And the medical doctors said, "Farrakhan, if you don't take it, you won't be here."
I was confused. So the only thing you do when you confused, you pray. So I ask God. I said, "I am your servant and you know what is best for me so please guide my thoughts that I might make the right decision."
Within ten hours, blood was flowing from me. The decision was made for me. They rushed me to the hospital, December, 2006, this very month five years ago and after they stabilised me they sent me with a police escort from Michigan City, Indiana to Chicago's Northwestern University Hospital where my daughter is a nurse. And I was so in a weak condition that they had to build me up before they could operate. And my doctors were on holiday so they didn't get back 'til after the New Year and by that time I was ready to go under the knife.
When they took me down... the day before... the night before I was to be operated on, I had called for Steve Harvey and Steve rented... chartered a jet and came to visit me in the hospital and I told him that the reason I am sending for you is because I would like you to tell your listening audience that Saviour's Day this year will be in Detroit and I want you to tell them to meet me there. Now wait!.. He is looking at me wondering, "What kind of what man is this? I come to see him, expecting him to be writing his last will and testament, telling me things to do and he is getting ready to go under the knife and he is talking about a great message that he want me to deliver the next month in February?" I didn't see him, but they say when he left my room he went in another room and broke down and wept because I am like a spiritual father to him, and to many, and he was deeply, deeply, deeply concerned about whether I was going to make it.
The next morning as they were preparing me for this horrendous operation, they took me down and the anesthetist came and said that, "You're in my hands. I'm going to take very good care of you." And there was a little, black sister who came in the room and she kneeled down beside the gurney and said, "My name is Grace." I said "It's all right." And Grace... Grace stayed with me the whole time that I was in the operation room - fourteen hours on the table. And because they overradiated me for my prostate cancer, the radiation was eating up my insides so they had to take out practically all my organs except those most vital organs... But here I am.
Every nation now that has adopted a political philosophy that is Socialist in origin, America has used her power to destabilise that country, destroy its leadership, assassinate them because they must have access to the wealth that is under the foot of the people of Africa, the Mid East, the Caribbean, Central and South America. They never have enough! Their greed has made them Satanic in their mentality to rob the people of what belongs to the people. The people would share it with America if they would give justice and fairness to the people. But they want it all for themselves and to hell with the masses of Africans and those in the isles of the Pacific and those in Central, South America and the Caribbean.
Now what does the Caribbean produce? - bauxite, salt. It has arable land, it has gold, it has petroleum or oil, it has diamonds, it has nickel. It has gypsum, aragonite, copper, marble, natural gas, silica, iron ore, limestone, timber, hard wood, calcium carbonate, hydropower, chromium, cobalt. Its agricultural products are sugar cane, bananas, coffee, citrus, yams, ackees vegetables, rice, mangoes, corn, beans, sorghum, edible oils, fish, shrimp, crustaceans, molluscs, goats, poultry, milk, beef and pork.
[and coconuts!].
Naturally the coconut.
[Yeah, mon!]
Now look, when I come to Jamaica, since I am apolitical, I always visit the leaders of both parties because I don't love one over the other. I love all of Jamaica whether they are Muslim, Christian, Atheist, Rasta. I see all as my family and so when I come to Jamaica, I always visit with the leadership. Well, it's political season now, so Portia Simpson-Miller and his Excellency, Prime Minister Holness, they are on the road now. They are campaigning so they may not have time for me to sit with them. So I went to see the honourable P. J. Patterson and yesterday, I met with Edward Seaga and here's, here's what I see... You know, wisdom should come with age... notice how I say that - should. But if you notice, Bill Clinton has done more for people outside of the office of President of the United States, so has Jimmy Carter because when you are in that seat you are constrained by the forces that control that seat. So talking to P. J. Patterson, I am meeting an elder now, the patriarch of the PNP and we talked about the future of Jamaica. I was impressed with his view. I'll talk something about it in a minute...and yesterday I went to the University of the West Indies, and by the way I was supposed to speak there...something came up...it always does.
You know, to deprive young people of a man that could guide them as he leaves the world is a sin - yes, it's a sin of immense proportion because where are we if it's not for our young people? And if our young people are not guided properly by their elders, we leave them to be deceived by this world and its false offer to our children. So I was supposed to speak...they had a lot of things going on but they did say I could speak at a place that held about three hundred. I said, "That's fine....whatever. I just want to meet youth."
Now what you may not know, ever since the Million Man March, the powers became frightened because what happened on October 16, 1995 had never happened before since our fathers set the soles of their feet in the western hemisphere - that a black man who was a Muslim could call for a million black men, and nearly two million showed up in the most peaceful demonstration of black love and black unity that they had ever seen. Maybe you didn't know this but the government of the United States closed down that day. Congress did not open, the Senate nor the House of Representatives. The Supreme Court closed down, city government closed down and President Bill Clinton got out of town.
Now they expected these black men to act the fool, so the soldiers were everywhere underground waiting for stupidity to break out but I had travelled the country, this didn't happen in a vacuum. Up and down the country of America, I was talking to thousands of black men, encouraging them, "Nobody's going pay your way, brother. You have to pay your own way and don't bring no weapons. Come clean so that the spirit of God may be shown to the world through you." And they came... on a Monday, not usual. When we have marches, it's on Saturday or Sunday. I called it on a Monday because I wanted to see how many of you would sacrifice your job or your school to come together in a day of atonement, reconciliation and responsibility. And let me tell you, after that was done, the whole world opened up. I travelled to many, many, many, many countries and they treated me as a head of state and when I came back home to go around to the many Christian pastors who helped me, because we could never have done it without the help of our Christian community. Eighty-two percent of those men that came were Christians and so when the Church found out that a Muslim had called and these Christians answered, they said, "Never ever again!"
So they started telling Christian pastors that Farrakhan is the Anti-Christ. So if they thought that was bad, five years later we had the Million Family March and over a million showed up, not a many as the previous five years, but hell, when a man can draw millions to the mall two times and then the third time, they said, "This man, we have to deal with him." and that's in the Scriptures if you know where to look.
...the kingdom of God is likened unto a man who planted wheat in a field. And by and by an enemy crept in and sowed tares in among the wheat... and this is a picture of the kingdom now. He said, some of them wanted to separate the wheat from the tare but Jesus said, "No, let them grow together until harvest and then we will separate the wheat from the tare and we will bind the tare and burn it and we will bring the wheat into the barn." See, that's separation! You doh like that Jesus, right? Jesus said, see... "No man can serve two masters. He must love one and what?... [hate the other!] Whaaat? Jesus, teaching hate?
See those of you who wanna change your sex and all of that? Jesus had something for that too! No, no, no, that's my family, whether they gay or lesbian. I'm not here to, to cast aspersions or condemn you. Anybody that sins, Jesus says, "If you break one law, you broke them all." so all of us have fallen short of the glory of God. But can you imagine the Church now, becoming so weak that it will permit same sex marriage? And America is pushing it in Africa, telling African governments, "If you want this money, you must change your laws and accept same sex marriage." Now, money mean that much to you? See a whore can't make it, if that's what you are, masquerading as a leader. You let America buy you with a dollar and you rob the culture of Christianity and Islam and Judaism by accepting what God cannot accept and then you rationalise and you say, "Well this is a modern world. God is love?" Not that kind!
The Scriptures says, "I am God and I change not." The omniscient has no reason to change. But we, if we want His favour, have to bring our lives in line with His will.
Now look, in closing, the Caribbean has a great future but it needs forward-thinking leadership who will be truthful to the people. When I mentioned to P.J. Patterson as well as to Mr. Edward Seaga that, or that he mentioned to me, that no matter who wins - both of them said this - there is a painful day coming because some changes have to be made. And usually when budgets are balanced, they have been balanced on the back of the poor and jobs. People may be left off, or laid off in the public sector, you know, and I thought to myself, this year I sent people to learn from a great black man who teaches hydroponics, aquaponics and how to grow and produce your own soil. We have a farm and we are learning how to build what is called a hoop house were you can grow your own food and not worry about a downturn in the economy. As long as the government will give you seeds and you have any land at all, farming is where you gone have to go if you want to survive.
Now many of us don't like farming and I understand it but let me tell you, dear brothers and sisters, that if you study the Bible, did you know in the Genesis, after God created everything that He created, before He create man, He said, quote, "And there was no man to till the ground." So when He made Adam, that was Adam's profession, and even though He gave him power and dominion, He said, "Dress the garden. Don't leave it like you found it, dress it."
OK, so now the first dysfunctional family comes into existence and he has two children. Cain is the oldest, right, and what does Cain do? - tills the ground and Abel? - he's the man that looks after the sheep. So when it comes time to give God the gift of their work, Cain comes with an offering from the ground and Abel comes with a baby lamb and the Book says, "God did not respect the offering of Cain but respected the offering of Abel." I disagree with that translation. How could God disrespect Cain when he was doing the very thing that man was first put here to do and that is to till the ground?
Without agriculture you are not a free nation. Agriculture is the basis of all economic development!
But then here comes Abel with a sheep. Abel ent do no work, you know. The male did the work. He brought the lamb. It isn't meaning that God disrespected Cain's offering but Cain never asked God, "Why did you take a lamb over the hard work and sweat and toil that it took me to give you this offering from the ground?" If he had asked God, God could have taught him because he was talking to God. And God said, "Cain, why is your countenance fallen. Why are you angry? Sin lieth at the door." See, He was trying to engage the boy so that He could teach the boy but he was so messed up. You know how you can get when you don't care what the real answer is 'cause you feel that you've been disrespected. Then you start going crazy, you know, but the reason was this, see, God sees the beginning and end of things. He saw the end of the world of rebellion in the first Adam and He saw a lamb coming at the end of the world... But this is so beautiful!!.... This lamb that would take away the sins of the world. See, He was not disrespecting Cain but He was honouring a lamb that would come at the end of this system of things, a humble man but yet a Saviour and reconciler for all human [beings].
Why would you ship your bauxite to America to turn it into aluminum and then send it back to you with a price tag on it that breaks you? But if you had interrelationships with Trinidad, then you could send it to Trinidad, make Trinidad the center for bauxite in the Caribbean and then let them make the aluminum. You make an agreement with them, it comes back to you - the finished product. You have iron ore. Why you going to send it to Japan or China or somewhere to make steel? Set up a steel mill. It's all here for you, but it is your defeature that is sentencing you to death!
In closing, I said, "Mr Seaga, do you think the idea of the union of all of the islands is a good idea?" He said, "Well, you know, some type of union, but in reality the unity of the islands will never be." Listen, I said, "Why, sir?" He said, "Because of the politicians and the way they think. They will not permit it to happen." I never said another word but I had the most wonderful conversation with these two leaders of your parties. They are older men now and they can guide Prime Minister Holness and sister Portia Simpson-Miller and if they really see beyond their parties, one of the things that Mr Seaga said that the failure of the parties is this - that when one party goes out of power and a new party comes in, they don't dovetail off of the work that preceded them and build on it, so they just tear that work down and start all over again. So I asked him, "Would you mind if I say that tomorrow?" He said, "No, I've been saying it." Well I'm going to give you the credit because that's where I heard it.
I say, now look at this. Whoever becomes the party of power, they have a mighty mountain to climb but if they make progress and you decide to choose the other party the next time around, then the new party should build on the good work of the party that preceded so that Jamaica keeps on evolving toward the great destiny of Jamaica.
I close...I close with this. If the politicians will not be of a mature mind to see how great the Caribbean would be as a united nation - ONE nation. If the politicians don't see it, then here's what I say to the politicians. In the Bible it says, "There'll be a new heaven and a new earth and the former things will pass away." The Honourable Elijah Muhammed said it has significant meaning both in terms of the heavens and the earth but that's billions and billions of years in the future but what it's talking about now is a new spiritual and political leadership. See the heavens? How beautiful do the heavens and the earth work together! The sun and moon draws the water up from the earth's surface into the earth's rotation, which is called gravitation. And when it gets heavier than gravitation, it comes back to the earth. Depending on what current of air the cloud is in, you get rain like we had last night or you get hail or snow or sleet. So earth and heaven are connected and without heaven, earth cannot survive. And what is wrong in the world today, the political leaders have been bought off and the spiritual leaders want to be able to go to the Big house so they never tell the political leaders, "Thus sayeth the Lord." So if those of us who are spiritual will not warn the political leaders of their failures or their actions and try to correct them, then that's like the heavens withholding rain. So the politics dries up and you see it in the schools, then you see it in the people. You see it in the savagery of the masses now.
So my dear brothers and sisters of Jamaica, I thank you or your patience in listening to me. I've noticed that the homeland security is beefing up the army and the police force. They look like soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan, but they are on the streets of Jamaica and every island. What's the reason for that? Because the masses are tired and the masses, if they are not properly served, they are going to rise. And the Arab Spring will lead to a Caribbean Spring and the people who can't take it anymore will start rising against their governments and the only thing left is that the armed forces will be used to crush the legitimate cry of the people. Now in America, it's Occupy Wall Street and soon you'll see all over the world - the masses are rising.
Dear Jamaica, get ahead of it. Get ahead of this curve. And let me close with this that I heard as the most beautiful, most beautiful national anthem. I have the words here and if you don't mind I'd just like to say them as I leave you...
[But you're a singer!]
I ain't got the voice no more... But listen to these words, "Jamaica......."
[Final video ends and I have included below the words of the Jamaican National Anthem.]
Jamaican National Anthem
Eternal Father bless our land, Guard us with Thy Mighty Hand, Keep us free from evil powers, Be our light through countless hours. To our Leaders, Great Defender, Grant true wisdom from above. Justice, Truth be ours forever, Jamaica, Land we love. Jamaica, Jamaica, Jamaica land we love.
Teach us true respect for all, Stir response to duty’s call, strengthen us the weak to cherish, Give us vision lest we perish. Knowledge send us Heavenly Father, Grant true wisdom from above. Justice, Truth be ours forever, Jamaica, land we love. Jamaica, Jamaica, Jamaica land we love.
Thank you, Ahmad770, for uploading these videos. ..............................................................................................................................
A Note From The Gull
Blessings, Minister Farrakhan for these gifts that are greater than gold, frankincense and myrrh. I dedicate one of my favourite songs, "Who God Bless" by Ras Shorty I to you. Live long and prosper.
"Patria est communis omnium parens" - Our native land is the common parent of us all. Keep it beautiful, make it even more so.
Blessed is all of creation Blessed be my beautiful people Blessed be the day of our awakening Blessed is my country Blessed are her patient hills.
Minister Farrakhan Speaks to Jamaica (Dec 10, 2011) Part 1 Note: For those of you who wish to read the text also, this speech has been transcribed here.
Thank you, Minister Louis Farrakhan for your presence and your message. We have the choice to remain divided or to unite. What we choose will make the difference between whether we rule ourselves or continue to be ruled by others.
The interview in Haiti with Wyclef Jean and others is particularly captivating and I agree with his views. I strongly recommend that all Caribbean people listen to the questions put to him by the Haitian interviewers and his answers on topics like Voodoo, Christianity, False Christianity, Christmas, Islam and Terrorism, the oppression of First Nations peoples of Americas, International relations, War in Europe, Armageddon, UN forces and NGO's in Haiti and his advice to Haitian President Michel Martelly,
"Q:Often some people associate Islam with international terrorism.
A: Now as far as the question of terrorism is concerned, every black man that stands up to fight for freedom is labelled a terrorist. I am sure Makandal was labelled a terrorist by the French because they were terrorised that a black man would arise to fight a slave master. I am sure that Toussaint Louverture, Christophe and Dessalines were looked at by the French as terrorists. I am a Muslim. I carry no weapons but they call me too, a terrorist. What are you terrified for? Ah! They search me in the airport for weapons but they didn't tell me to open my mouth.
Q:....what is your sense you are leaving the country with in terms of what the Voodoo religion is about?
A: How could I come to Haiti to try to unify the people of Haiti and not try to understand Vodun? Who said that Vodun was evil? It is evil to those who Vodun and Islam defeated! Napoleon was a Christian, so he said, but he enslaved black people. Napoleon was a Christian but he denied human beings their human rights. He was not a representative of Jesus Christ. He was a representative of white supremacy masquerading in the good name of Jesus. So in my talk with Max Beauvoir I wanted to learn about Vodun. We spent an hour together and what I heard, I liked, and what I heard of Vodun, I could find similar message in Christianity and in Islam. So today, God willing, I will meet with the ecumenical group and I will attempt to show the line that connects with the natural way of life of the African people that came here and the teachings of Moses, Jesus and Mohammed. I am very grateful for the lesson that I learned and I humbly say to the Haitian people, "It was Vodun. It was Bookman - a Muslim, that won you your freedom from these false Christians." Naturally, in their eyes, Vodun is bad. Not bad for us, but bad for them. So all religion and ways of life are constantly evolving but it is never wise to condemn that which made you the first free black republic in the world.
"And the last thing I would say on that...the Indian people in America when Christopher Columbus and founded this island and called it Hispaniola. And they came to North America and the Indian people knew nothing of Christianity and really had never seen white people and the Indians offered them peace, offered them the knowledge of the land that they had lived on for thousands of years. But how were they rewarded for their offering of peace and goodwill? They were murdered. So when they fought against the newcomers, when the newcomers overcame them, the first thing they did was to look at the rituals that the Indians did before they went to war and they banned that and then worked diligently to make the Indians become Christians, and they had to give up their names and accept European names and this was done in Haiti as well. But notice what happened to you. Their Jesus that they represented to you looked like them and He was your Saviour but He never saved you from them. But the Jesus of the Bible, He had hair like lamb's wool like our hair and He had flesh like burnished brass - a dark skinned man! So why did they paint Him to us as white when in fact He was one of us? That is because they wanted us to worship them through the image of the great one, Jesus Christ...."
"...I have problem with falsehood. I have a problem with injustice. I don't have a problem with your colour because you can look at me and you can tell that white blood runs through my veins. But in the last days of this world, truth is to come to condemn falsehood, not to condemn Jesus Christ or his true teachings, but to condemn the masquerade that is carried out in His righteous and holy name...."
"Patria est communis omnium parens" - Our native land is the common parent of us all. Keep it beautiful, make it even more so.
Blessed is all of creation Blessed be my beautiful people Blessed be the day of our awakening Blessed is my country Blessed are her patient hills.
I It wasn't your song. No Rio Manzanares did you beg, "Dejame pasar" neither Did you open the door When paranderos cajoled, "Abreme la puerta! Abreme la puerta!"
Los esposos Maria y Jose Van desde Nazareth, But you climbed Onto a donkey cart, Burrowed deeper into tall, tall, Sugarcanes La Paille, Caroni, Morong.
Quatro y mandolin Din Din Din, Es hora de partir, Did not rouse you from a coir mattress Sleep that only Cannes Brulees Sweet smoke sugarcane fire Could rouse you awake in Petit Careme.
Las maracas Clap Clap Clap, Bottle and spoon Ping Ping Ping. Daisy Voisin Parang Queen, Sereno sereno her pagnol rhythm As foreign as ground-beef pastelle. You never ate sacred Mai Gaay
Nor did you speak espanol. Your lights weren't candles at Christmas But deyas at Divali. El nino Jesus was no Baby Krishna blue And Jesus' birthday went with rum, Curry manicou and chutney.
II But I have songs for you my mothers In my blood. I take you with me My Ajee, my Nani, my Mowsee My Kaakee, my Daadee, my Phoowaa. I serenade "Dejame pasar Rio Caroni," On my way to Chacachacare,
"Dejame pasar Rio Valencia," On my way to Toco, "Dejame pasar Rio Ortoire," On my way to Guayaguayare, "Dejame pasar Rio Guapo," On my way to Icacos.
I sprinkle your ashes on every corner Of this Iere, Land of the Hummingbird. I absorb parang through my pores. I partake of pastelle and puncha creme. I understand, "Din, din, din, Es hora de partir."
"Din, din, din, camino de Belen, Los esposos van desde Nazareth." I know the Christmas story, The gift of Baby Jesus born in a manger, And how in his name Guanahani Became San Salvador,
Then sugar became king. They crossed you over the Kala Pani, But when you cried, "Darvaza kholna prasann!" No one understood you. All they knew was, "Abreme la puerta!" And they kept the door closed.
Pero ven, ven aqui mi Ajee, mi Nani, Mi Mowsee, Kaakee, Daadee, Phoowaa. Come, walk with me, I have opened the doors for you, Vaya con Dios, "Shubh Christmas, Naya saal mubarak ho!"
Glossary:
- Rio (Spanish): river - Dejame pasar (Spanish): please let me pass - paranderos: parang (Spanish-influenced Christmas music in Trinidad and Tobago) musicians and singers - Abreme la puerta (Spanish): open the door for me please Los esposos Maria y Jose/Van desde Nazareth (Spanish): the husband and wife, Mary and Joseph, leave Nazareth - La Paille, Caroni, Morong: names of villages in Trinidad - Quatro and mandolin Din Din Din: Spanish musical instruments melody - Es hora de partir (Spanish): it is time to leave - Cannes Brulees (French): Cane Burning reenactment - Petit Careme (French Creole): short dry period after the start of the rainy season - Las maracas (Spanish): hand-held clappers - Sereno sereno her pagnol rhythm (Spanish): sing, sing, her Spanish rhythm - pastelle: Spanish-influenced ground-beef and cornmeal turnover, Trinidadian Christmas delicacy - Mai Gaay (Hindi): Sacred Cow - deyas at Divali (Hindi): small clay lamps lit during the Hindu Festival of Lights - Ajee (Hindi): paternal grandmother - Nani (Hindi): maternal grandmother - Mowsee (Hindi): mother's sister - Kaakee (Hindi): paternal uncle's wife - Daadee (Hindi): father's elder sister - Phoowaa (Hindi): father's younger sister - puncha creme: Trinidadian Christmas drink similar to eggnog - camino de Belen (Spanish): on the road to Bethlehem - Kala Pani (Hindi): literally black water, referring to the dark ocean - Darvaza kholna prasann (Hindi): open the door for me please - Pero ven, ven aqui (Spanish): but come, come here - Vaya con Dios (Spanish): go with God - Shubh Christmas, Naya saal mubarak ho (Hindi): Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming is a Trinbagonian poet, essayist, and fiction and creative non-fiction writer who lives in Nassau, The Bahamas, where she is a practicing Mechanical/Building Services Engineer. Her poetry, stories, and artwork have appeared in numerous publications in The Bahamas, the Caribbean, USA, and Europe. She has won poetry, essay, and art awards in the Bahamas. Internationally, she has won the David Hough Literary Prize from The Caribbean Writer (2001) and the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association 2001 Short Story Competition. Her first book of poetry, Curry Flavour, was published in 2000 by Peepal Tree Press, Leeds, England. SOURCE
Thank you, Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming for this riveting insight into the the experience of your ancestors as new arrivals in our homeland. Coming after a previous post, "Parosin," this poem stands in stark contrast. It reminds us that we have come a long way together.
In "Parosin" Heeralal is asking a descendant of our Spanish ancestors to dance with him to a music that is a melding of more than just the two cultures. Franny is full of praise for the skill of the dholak players and the sweetness of the drums. And not only that, Heeralal is also addressing her with words from the language of his ancestors..."parosin" and "ladki" without any fear that he will not be understood or denied or rebuffed.
But I am blown away by Lelawattee's beautiful poem...
"I serenade "Dejame pasar Rio Caroni," On my way to Chacachacare,"
They crossed you over the Kala Pani, But when you cried, "Darvaza kholna prasann!" No one understood you. All they knew was, "Abreme la puerta!" And they kept the door closed.
The exclusion and sadness is palpable but with "Parosin" ringing in my head, I want to shout back down the corridors of time to our East Indian ancestors, "Hold on! Don't give up! It will get better! Cocoa payol and East Indian will make sweet chutney/parang/soca together!"
Go forward, T&T!... never, never backward. There are many, many more miracles to be wrought in this land.
"Patria est communis omnium parens" - Our native land is the common parent of us all. Keep it beautiful, make it even more so.
Blessed is all of creation Blessed be my beautiful people Blessed be the day of our awakening Blessed is my country Blessed are her patient hills.
Performed by Los Tocadores Composed by Francisco de Paula Aguirre (October 20, 1875 – 1939).
De limpidos blasones tu fuiste la rosa románticos galanes dijeron ayer que trigueña tan linda que vi al salir de la misa de diez.
Mirándote bajabas la frente de nácar, y candida esqivavan tus ojos la luz encendiendo fugaz el rubor en las blondas del velo andaluz.
Dama antañona gentil el honor fué tu escudo supo en sus galas unir el amor y el hogar, noches de luna escuchó al balcón serenatas y de rendido galan aceptó las ternezas bailando un vals.
Lindísimas muchachas del tiempo de ahora de púrpura los labios, los ojos carbón, falda corta, mejillas carmín, desenvueltas con aire de sport.
Histéricas miradas que al hombre provocan, y lúbricos esguinces que impone el fox-trot; sin embargo su ser lleva en si inocencia, virtud y candor.
Loca de dicha puéril inventó raro traje: quiso en dancing lucir el disfraz del ayer largas enaguas vistió y, al prender la mantilla, la caraqueña probo ser eterna, como antes, mujer y flor. ..............................................................................................................................
A Note From The Gull
Thank you, Los Tocadores! IsDePanInMe, I really appreciate your selection of photos. They capture the enjoyment of the dance, especially the photo which makes its appearance at 2:08. I love how they are looking at each other. So beautiful!
"Patria est communis omnium parens" - Our native land is the common parent of us all. Keep it beautiful, make it even more so.
Blessed is all of creation Blessed be my beautiful people Blessed be the day of our awakening Blessed is my country Blessed are her patient hills.
Lord, Please walk beside me through this day. Clear the heavy air with the lightness of Your Presence. Guide my hands and steady my heart that I may give comfort when I cannot give hope, that I may give relief when I do not have a cure, and that I may radiate Your healing peace when the limits of science, time, and the human body overwhelm us all. Amen
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Sáncte Míchael Archángele, defénde nos in proélio, cóntra nequítiam et insídias diáboli ésto præsídium. Ímperet ílli Déus, súpplices deprecámur: tuque, prínceps milítiæ cæléstis, Sátanam aliósque spíritus malígnos, qui ad perditiónem animárum pervagántur in múndo, divína virtúte, in inférnum detrúde. Ámen
