Mozart's Requiem in D Minor (K.626) [Orchestra with Choir]

Uploaded by samiet
REQUIEM IN D MINOR (K. 626)
Composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1971
Performed by the Simón Bolívar Orchestra of Venezuela
With the Simón Bolívar National Youth Choir of Venezuela
Conducted by Gregory Carreño

I. INTROIT: REQUIEM [At 2:45]
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,  |  Grant them eternal rest, Lord,
et lux perpetua luceat eis.  |  and let perpetual light shine on them.
Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion,  | You are praised, God, in Zion,
et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem.  |  and homage will be paid to You in Jerusalem.
Exaudi orationem meam,  |  Hear my prayer,
ad te omnis care veniet.  |  to You all flesh will come.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,  |  Grant them eternal rest, Lord,
et lux perpetua luceat eis.  |  and let perpetual light shine on them.


II. KYRIE [At 9:42]
Kyrie, eleison.  |  Christ, have mercy on us.
Christe, eleison.  |  Lord, have mercy on us.
Kyrie, eleison.  |  Lord, have mercy on us.


III. SEQUENCE
1. Dies irae [At 12:33]
Dies irae, dies illa  |  Day of wrath, day of anger
Solvet saeclum in favilla,  |  will dissolve the world in ashes,
teste David cum Sibylla.  |  as foretold by David and the Sibyl.

Quantus tremor est futurus,  |  Great trembling there will be
quando judex est venturus,  |  when the Judge descends from heaven
cuncta stricte discussurus!  |  to examine all things closely.

2. Tuba mirum [At 14:41]
Tuba mirum spargens sonum  |  The trumpet will send its wondrous sound
per sepulcra regionum,  |  throughout earth's sepulchres
coget omnes ante thronum  |  and gather all before the throne.

Mors stupebit et natura,  |  Death and nature will be astounded,
cum resurget creatura,  |  when all creation rises again,
judicanti responsura.  |  to answer the judgement.

Liber scriptus proferetur,  |  A book will be brought forth,
in quo totum continetur,  |  in which all will be written,
unde mundus judicetur.  |  by which the world will be judged.

Judex ergo cum sedebit,  |  When the judge takes his place,
quidquid latet, apparebit,  |  what is hidden will be revealed,
nil inultum remanebit.  |  nothing will remain unavenged.

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?  |  What shall a wretch like me say?
quem patronum rogaturus,  |  Who shall intercede for me,
cum vix justus sit securus?  |  when the just ones need mercy?

3. Rex tremendae [At 19:15]
Rex tremendae majestatis,  |  King of tremendous majesty,
qui salvandos savas gratis,  |  who freely saves those worthy ones,
salve me, fons pietatis.  |  save me, source of mercy.

4. Recordare [At 23:07]
Recordare, Jesu pie,  |  Remember, kind Jesus,
quod sum causa tuae viae;  |  my salvation caused your suffering;
ne me perdas illa die.  |  do not forsake me on that day.

Quaerens me, sedisti lassus,  |  Faint and weary you have sought me,
redemisti crucem passus;  |  redeemed me, suffering on the cross;
tantus labor non sit cassus.  |  may such great effort not be in vain.

Juste judex ultionis,  |  Righteous judge of vengeance,
donum fac remissionis  |  grant me the gift of absolution
ante diem rationis.  |  before the day of retribution.

Ingemisco, tamquam reus:  |  I moan as one who is guilty:
culpa rubet vultus meus;  |  owning my shame with a red face;
supplicanti parce, Deus.  |  suppliant before you, Lord.

Qui Mariam absolvisti,  |  You, who absolved Mary,
et latronem exaudisti,  |  and listened to the thief,
mihi quoque spem dedisti.  |  give me hope also.

Preces meae non sunt dignae,  |  My prayers are unworthy,
sed tu, bonus, fac benigne,  |  but, good Lord, have mercy,
ne perenni cremer igne.  |  and rescue me from eternal fire.

Inter oves locum praesta,  |  Provide me a place among the sheep,
Et ab haedis me sequestra,  |  and separate me from the goats,
Statuens in parte dextra.  |  guiding me to Your right hand.

5. Confutatis [At 29:55]
Confutatis maledictis,  | When the accused are confounded,
flammis acribus addictis,  |  and doomed to flames of woe,
voca me cum benedictus.  |  call me among the blessed.

Oro supplex et acclinis,  |  I kneel with submissive heart,
cor contritum quasi cinis,  |  my contrition is like ashes,
gere curam mei finis.  |  help me in my final condition.

6. Lacrimosa [At 33:04]
Lacrimosa dies illa,  |  That day of tears and mourning,
qua resurget ex favilla  |  when from the ashes shall arise,
judicandus homo reus.  |  all humanity to be judged.

Huic ergo parce, Deus,  |  Spare us by your mercy, Lord,
pie Jesu Domine,  |  gentle Lord Jesus,
dona eis requiem. Amen.  |  grant them eternal rest. Amen.


IV. OFFERTORY
I. Domine Jesu  [At 37:52]
Domine Jesu Christe, Rex gloriae,  |  Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory,
libera animas omnium fidelium  |  liberate the souls of the faithful,
defunctorum de poenis inferni  |  departed from the pains of hell
et de profundo lacu. |   and from the bottomless pit.

Libera eas de ore leonis,  |  Deliver them from the lion's mouth,
ne absorbeat eas tartarus,  |  lest hell swallow them up,
ne cadant in obscurum.  |  lest they fall into darkness.

Sed signifer sanctus Michael  |  Let the standard-bearer, holy Michael,
repraesentet eas in lucem sanctam.  |  bring them into holy light.
Quam olim Abrahae promisisti  |  Which was promised to Abraham
et semini ejus.  |  and his descendants.

2. Hostias [At 42:07]
Hostias et preces tibi, Domine,  |  Sacrifices and prayers of praise, Lord,
laudis offerimus.  |  we offer to You.
Tu sucipe pro animabus illis,  |  Receive them in behalf of those souls
quaram hodie memoriam facimus.  |  we commemorate today.
Fac eas, Domine,  |  And let them, Lord,
de morte transire ad vitam,  |  pass from death to life,
Quam olim Abrahae promisisti  |  which was promised to Abraham
et semini ejus.  |  and his descendants.

3. Sanctus [At 47:17]
Sanctus. Sanctus, Sanctus,  |  Holy, holy, holy,
Dominus Deus Sabaoth!  |  Lord God of Hosts!
Pleni suni coeli et terra gloria tua.  |  Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory.
Osanna in excelsis.  |  Hosanna in the highest.

4. Benedictus [At 49:44]
Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.  |  Blessed is He who cometh in the name of the Lord.
Osanna in excelsis.  |  Hosanna in the highest.


V. Agnus Dei [At 57:07]
Agnus Dei, qui tollis  |  Lamb of God, who takes away
peccata mundi,  |  the sins of the world,
dona eis requiem.  |  grant them eternal rest.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis  |  Lamb of God, who takes away
peccata mundi,  |  the sins of the world,
dona eis requiem.  |  Grant them eternal rest.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis  |  Lamb of God, who takes away
peccata mundi,  |  the sins of the world,
dona eis requiem sempiternam.  |  grant them eternal rest forever.

VI. Communion:
Lux aeterna [At 1:02:30]
Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine,  |  Let eternal light shine on them, Lord,
cum sanctis tuis in aeternum,  |  as with Your saints in eternity,
quia pius es.  |  because You are merciful.
Requiem aeternum dona eis, Domine,  |  Grant them eternal rest, Lord,
et Lux perpetua luceat eis,  |  and let perpetual light shine on them,
cum Sanctus tuis in aeternum,  |  as with Your saints in eternity,
quia pius es.  |  because You are merciful.

..............................................................................................................................


A Note From The Gull

Thanks to all those who worked towards making this moving performance a huge success and inspiration. I had no idea before I found this, that the conductor, Gregory Carreño, received his early training in Venezuela's internationally acclaimed El Sistema music education program.

"Teach the children the beauty of music 

and the music will teach them the beauty of life." 

--El Sistema founder, José Antonio Abreu.

"the ambitious and hugely successful national system founded by conductor José Antonio Abreu in 1975 to enhance music education and effect social change in Venezuela. The organization started with Abreu training 12 children from Venezuela's barrios; to date, over 2 million children have received instruction. Named UNESCO's "Artists for Peace," the 180 members of the Bolívar orchestra are El Sistema's premier ensemble; under Gustavo Dudamel's leadership, they regularly tour throughout Europe, the Americas, Asia and the Middle East." SOURCE

"Music has to be recognized as an agent of social development, 

in the highest sense because it transmits the highest values 

– solidarity, harmony, mutual compassion. 

And it has the ability to unite an entire community, 

and to express sublime feelings."
--El Sistema founder, José Antonio Abreu. 

For more information:
El Sistema Website [Spanish]
Changing lives: Gustavo Dudamel, El Sistema and the Transformative Power of Music. By Tricia Tunstall. W.W. Norton & Co., 2012; paperback, 2013)
El Sistema USA Website [English]

"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.

Mweh ka allay!
Guanaguanare

Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence. Dr. Martin Luther King [Video]

Uploaded by Martin Junior

Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence.
By Rev. Martin Luther King
4 April 1967

Speech delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1967, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City.

Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen:

I need not pause to say how very delighted I am to be here tonight, and how very delighted I am to see you expressing your concern about the issues that will be discussed tonight by turning out in such large numbers. I also want to say that I consider it a great honor to share this program with Dr. Bennett, Dr. Commager, and Rabbi Heschel, and some of the distinguished leaders and personalities of our nation. And of course it’s always good to come back to Riverside church. Over the last eight years, I have had the privilege of preaching here almost every year in that period, and it is always a rich and rewarding experience to come to this great church and this great pulpit.

I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join with you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. The recent statement of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.

The truth of these words is beyond doubt but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.

Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement well and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.

Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Peace and civil rights don't mix, they say. Aren't you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.

In the light of such tragic misunderstandings, I deem it of signal importance to try to state clearly, and I trust concisely, why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church -- the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate -- leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight.

I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. It is not addressed to China or to Russia.

Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they must play in the successful resolution of the problem. While they both may have justifiable reasons to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides.

Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the National Liberation Front, but rather to my fellow Americans.

Since I am a preacher by calling, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched this program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.

Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Detroit. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.

My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettos of the North over the last three years -- especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.

For those who ask the question, "Aren't you a civil rights leader?" and thereby mean to exclude me from the movement for peace, I have this further answer. In 1957 when a group of us formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, we chose as our motto: "To save the soul of America." We were convinced that we could not limit our vision to certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed the conviction that America would never be free or saved from itself until the descendants of its slaves were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear. In a way we were agreeing with Langston Hughes, that black bard of Harlem, who had written earlier:

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be, are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.
As if the weight of such a commitment to the life and health of America were not enough, another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1964; and I cannot forget that the Nobel Prize for Peace was also a commission -- a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for "the brotherhood of man." This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances, but even if it were not present I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the good news was meant for all men -- for Communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved His enemies so fully that He died for them? What then can I say to the "Vietcong" or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this one? Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life?

Finally, as I try to explain for you and for myself the road that leads from Montgomery to this place I would have offered all that was most valid if I simply said that I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men the calling to be a son of the living God. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood, and because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned especially for His suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come tonight to speak for them.

This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.

And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond in compassion, my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak now not of the soldiers of each side, not of the ideologies of the Liberation Front, not of the junta in Saigon, but simply of the people who have been living under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them too because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries.

They must see Americans as strange liberators. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1945 after a combined French and Japanese occupation, and before the Communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony.

Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not "ready" for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long. With that tragic decision we rejected a revolutionary government seeking self-determination, and a government that had been established not by China (for whom the Vietnamese have no great love) but by clearly indigenous forces that included some Communists. For the peasants this new government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives.

For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam.

Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of the reckless action, but we did not. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization.

After the French were defeated it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva agreements. But instead there came the United States, determined that Ho should not unify the temporarily divided nation, and the peasants watched again as we supported one of the most vicious modern dictators -- our chosen man, Premier Diem. The peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthlessly routed out all opposition, supported their extortionist landlords and refused even to discuss reunification with the north. The peasants watched as all this was presided over by United States influence and then by increasing numbers of United States troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem's methods had aroused. When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictatorships seemed to offer no real change -- especially in terms of their need for land and peace.

The only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept and without popular support. All the while the people read our leaflets and received the regular promises of peace and democracy -- and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us -- not their fellow Vietnamese --the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move on or be destroyed by our bombs. So they go -- primarily women and children and the aged.

They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the hospitals, with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one "Vietcong"-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them -- mostly children. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children, degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers.

What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? What do they think as we test out our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones?

We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation's only non-Communist revolutionary political force -- the unified Buddhist church. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men.

Now there is little left to build on -- save bitterness. Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call fortified hamlets. The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these? Could we blame them for such thoughts? We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. These too are our brothers.

Perhaps the more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. What of the National Liberation Front -- that strangely anonymous group we call VC or Communists? What must they think of the United States of America when they realize that we permitted the repression and cruelty of Diem which helped to bring them into being as a resistance group in the south? What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? How can they believe in our integrity when now we speak of "aggression from the north" as if there were nothing more essential to the war? How can they trust us when now we charge them with violence after the murderous reign of Diem and charge them with violence while we pour every new weapon of death into their land? Surely we must understand their feelings even if we do not condone their actions. Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts.

How do they judge us when our officials know that their membership is less than twenty-five percent Communist and yet insist on giving them the blanket name? What must they be thinking when they know that we are aware of their control of major sections of Vietnam and yet we appear ready to allow national elections in which this highly organized political parallel government will not have apart? They ask how we can speak of free elections when the Saigon press is censored and controlled by the military junta. And they are surely right to wonder what kind of new government we plan to help form without them -- the only party in real touch with the peasants. They question our political goals and they deny the reality of a peace settlement from which they will be excluded. Their questions are frighteningly relevant. Is our nation planning to build on political myth again and then shore it up upon the power of new violence?

Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.

So, too, with Hanoi. In the north, where our bombs now pummel the land, and our mines endanger the waterways, we are met by a deep but understandable mistrust. To speak for them is to explain this lack of confidence in Western words, and especially their distrust of American intentions now. In Hanoi are the men who led the nation to independence against the Japanese and the French, the men who sought membership in the French commonwealth and were betrayed by the weakness of Paris and the willfulness of the colonial armies. It was they who led a second struggle against French domination at tremendous costs, and then were persuaded to give up the land they controlled between the thirteenth and seventeenth parallel as a temporary measure at Geneva. After 1954 they watched us conspire with Diem to prevent elections which could have surely brought Ho Chi Minh to power over a united Vietnam, and they realized they had been betrayed again.

When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be remembered. Also it must be clear that the leaders of Hanoi considered the presence of American troops in support of the Diem regime to have been the initial military breach of the Geneva agreement concerning foreign troops, and they remind us that they did not begin to send troops in large numbers and even supplies into the south until American forces had moved into the tens of thousands.
Hanoi remembers how our leaders refused to tell us the truth about the earlier North Vietnamese overtures for peace, how the president claimed that none existed when they had clearly been made. Ho Chi Minh has watched as America has spoken of peace and built up its forces, and now he has surely heard the increasing international rumors of American plans for an invasion of the north. He knows the bombing and shelling and mining we are doing are part of traditional pre-invasion strategy. Perhaps only his sense of humor and of irony can save him when he hears the most powerful nation of the world speaking of aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor weak nation more than eight thousand miles away from its shores.

At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called enemy, I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the secure while we create a hell for the poor.

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves Ameica to the leaders of our own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.

This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words and I quote:

"Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism."
unquote.

If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horribly clumsy and deadly game we have decided to play.

The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways.

In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war. I would like to suggest five concrete things that our government should do immediately to begin the long and difficult process of extricating ourselves from this nightmarish conflict:

Number One: End all bombing in North and South Vietnam.
Number Two: Declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation.
Three: Take immediate steps to prevent other battlegrounds in Southeast Asia by curtailing our military buildup in Thailand and our interference in Laos.
Four: Realistically accept the fact that the National Liberation Front has substantial support in South Vietnam and must thereby play a role in any meaningful negotiations and any future Vietnam government.
Five: Set a date that we will remove all foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva agreement.

Part of our ongoing commitment might well express itself in an offer to grant asylum to any Vietnamese who fears for his life under the new regime which included the Liberation Front. Then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. We most provide the medical aid that is badly needed, making it available in this country if necessary.

Meanwhile, we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment. We must continue to raise our voices and our lives if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative method of protest possible.

As we counsel young men concerning military service we must clarify for them our nation's role in Vietnam and challenge them with the alternative of conscientious objection. I am pleased to say that this is the path now chosen by more than seventy students at my own alma mater, Morehouse College, and I recommend it to all who find the American course in Vietnam a dishonorable and unjust one. Moreover, I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. These are the times for real choices and not false ones. We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.

There is something seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam. I say we must enter the struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing. The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality we will find ourselves organizing clergy and laymen-concerned committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. Such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God.

In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which now has justified the presence of U.S. military "advisors" in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counter-revolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Cambodia and why American napalm and green beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru. It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken -- the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and through their misguided passions urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. We must not engage in a negative anti-communism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity and injustice which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops.

These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression and out of the wombs of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. "The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light." We in the West must support these revolutions. It is a sad fact that, because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has the revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgement against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores and thereby speed the day when "every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain."

A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.

This call for a world-wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men. This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept -- so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force -- has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John:

"Let us love one another; for love is God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. If we love one another God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us."

Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says : "Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word."

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The "tide in the affairs of men" does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam wites "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on..." We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.

We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world -- a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter -- but beautiful -- struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.

As that noble bard of yesterday, James Russell Lowell, eloquently stated:

Once to every man and nation
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth and falsehood,
For the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah,
Off'ring each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever
Twixt that darkness and that light.
Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet 'tis truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold,
And upon the throne be wrong:
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow
Keeping watch above His own.

And if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace. If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when "justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

[Messages on BRC-NEWS may be forwarded and cross-posted, as long as proper attribution is given to the author and originating publication (including the email address and any copyright notices), and the wording is not altered in any way, other than for formatting.
SOURCE: Text of speech received via the BRC-NEWS list. Some edits made.

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A Note From The Gull

Thank you, Dr. Martin Luther King. Sadly, your warnings and advice are still relevant for the entire world today. This moving, challenging and love inspired speech was delivered on April 4, 1967, exactly one year before this man of God was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

"Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak."

"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.

Mweh ka allay!
Guanaguanare

Mass Destruction [Song]

Uploaded by FaithlessVEVO

MASS DESTRUCTION
By Faithless

Whether long-range weapon or suicide bomber
WICKED MIND is a weapon of mass destruction
Whether you're Soaraway Sun or BBC 1
MISINFORMATION is a weapon of mass destruct
You coulda Caucasian or a poor Asian
RACISM is a weapon of mass destruction
Whether inflation or globalization
FEAR is a weapon of mass destruction.

My dad came into my room holding his hat
I knew he was leaving,
He sat on my bed, told me some facts.
"Son, I have a duty calling on me
You and your sister be brave, my little soldier
And don't forget all I told you
You're the mister of the house now, remember this
And when you wake up in the morning, give your Mama a kiss."
Then I had to say goodbye
In the morning, woke Mama with a kiss on each eyelid,
Even though I'm only a kid
Certain things can't be hid
Mama grabbed me
Held me like I was made of gold
But left her inner stories untold.
I said, "Mama it will be alright
When Daddy comes home, tonight."

Whether long-range weapon or suicide bomber
WICKED MIND is a weapon of mass destruction
Whether you're Soaraway Sun or BBC 1
MISINFORMATION is a weapon of mass destruct
You coulda Caucasian or a poor Asian
RACISM is a weapon of mass destruction
Whether inflation or globalization
FEAR is a weapon of mass destruction.
Whether Halliburton, Enron or anyone
GREED is a weapon of mass destruction
We need to find courage, overcome
INACTION is a weapon of mass destruction
INACTION is a weapon of mass destruction
INACTION is a weapon of mass destruction.

My story stops here, let's be clear,
This scenario is happening everywhere.
And you ain't going to Nirvana or far-vana,
You're coming right back here to live out your karma.
With even more drama than previously, seriously.
Just how many centuries have we been
Waiting for someone else to make us free?
And we refuse to see
That people overseas suffer just like we:
Bad leadership and egos unfettered and free
Who feed on the people they're supposed to lead
I don't need good people to pray and wait
For the lord to make it all straight.
There's only now, do it right.
'Cause I don't want your daddy leaving home tonight.

Whether long-range weapon or suicide bomber
WICKED MIND is a weapon of mass destruction
Whether you're Soaraway Sun or BBC 1
MISINFORMATION is a weapon of mass destruct
You coulda Caucasian or a poor Asian
RACISM is a weapon of mass destruction
Whether inflation or globalization
FEAR is a weapon of mass destruction.
Whether Halliburton, Enron or anyone
GREED is a weapon of mass destruction
We need to find courage, overcome
INACTION is a weapon of mass destruction
INACTION is a weapon of mass destruction
INACTION is a weapon of mass destruction.

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!
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A Note From The Gull

Thank you, Faithless.

And on the matter of racism being a weapon of mass destruction, some interesting votes were cast at the UN last month. Links to the voting records are provided so you can overlay the configuration it discloses upon your map of the world. 

November 19, 2015 - These are the countries which voted at the UN AGAINST combating the glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance: Canada, Palau, United States of America and Ukraine.  Germany gallantly abstained.

November 19, 2015 - These are the countries which voted at the UN AGAINST a concrete call for action for the total elimination of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance and the comprehensive implementation of and follow up to the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action: Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Israel, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, United Kingdom and United States of America. 

November 23, 2015 - These are the countries which voted at the UN AGAINST the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination: Canada, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, United States of America.

Read more about the voting at Rabble.ca. Scroll down their page to read an excerpt from the Report of the Third Committee of the United Nations on its meeting of Nov 19, 2015  which contains some of the arguments for and against the resolution on Nazism.

"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.

Mweh ka allay!
Guanaguanare

Jesus [Rap]

Uploaded by Mo Sabri

JESUS | ISA
By Mo Sabri

Verse 1
This ain't a song about bottles in the club
This is about a role model filled with love
A teacher, a preacher with guidance from above
Sent to represent a message of peace like a dove
In the west they call him Jesus, in the east they call him Isa
Messiah, Christ...the same person that you speak of
Ask me why I wrote this song and I will tell you because
There's too many people silent, it's time for me to speak up.
The son of a virgin, they say it is illogical
Probably improbable but God made it possible
Gabriel told Mary that her son would be phenomenal
His voice was always audible, the opposite of prodigal,
He overcame the obstacles, people attacking him
He was a walking hospital, with healing he was passionate
He cured the sick, raised the dead, shout out to Lazarus
I'm talking about Jesus of Nazareth.

Chorus:
If we don't have peace, we'll end up in pieces
Treat people the way that you want to be treated
If you do believe it, sing it and repeat it
I am not afraid to say that I believe in Jesus.

Jesus...I believe in Jesus
I am not afraid to say that I believe in Jesus
Jesus...I believe in Jesus
I am not afraid to say that I believe in Jesus

Verse 2
I'm just a follower of Jesus
What that means is: I follow what he teaches
I'm not the type of person that just wants to give speeches
I'm trying to be the person that will practice what he preaches.
Yeah, 'cause I've observed people just say the words
But faith ain't a noun, it is more like verb
That's why I wrote this verse, to remind us to serve
'Cause if you haven't heard, faith is dead without works
How can we say we believe that God exists
when we always act the opposite, it's ominous
How we only care about our own accomplishments,
and we're quick to break our promises
We gotta put a stop to this
We all sin, I know that we are human
But we cannot keep on using all the same excuses
Now it is the time we need to prevent the abuses
Listen up, I got the solution.

Chorus:
If we don't have peace, we'll end up in pieces
Treat people the way that you want to be treated
If you do believe it, sing it and repeat it
I am not afraid to say that I believe in Jesus.

Jesus...I believe in Jesus
I am not afraid to say that I believe in Jesus
Jesus...I believe in Jesus
I am not afraid to say that I believe in Jesus.

Verse 3
Why does our religion always have to cause division?
In reality we're all more similar than different
Jesus wanted unity, but nowadays it's missing
We have to use our vision if we want to do his mission
Can't we see we're all children of Adam, brothers and sisters?
If you don't agree, you haven't read the Scriptures
Picture when Jesus comes back to Jerusalem
Will he be happy with the way you've become?
We're living wrong but today's a new dawn
So sing along to this song, like David singing the Psalms
Now raise up your arms to give alms with open palms
Jesus brought us a message to follow until we're gone
Shout out to my dad and mom for blessing me in my youth
God's essence is the proof that his message is the truth
This song was just a lesson to remind me and you
To ask ourselves this question, What would Jesus do?

Chorus:
If we don't have peace, we'll end up in pieces
Treat people the way that you want to be treated
If you do believe it, sing it and repeat it
I am not afraid to say that I believe in Jesus.

Jesus...I believe in Jesus
I am not afraid to say that I believe in Jesus
Jesus...I believe in Jesus
I am not afraid to say that I believe in Jesus

Lyrics Source

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A Note From The Gull

Many Christians know nothing about Islam outside of what is handed to them by teachers and propagandists who have their own agendas which do not involve recognising our common humanity above all. Even if Muslims knew nothing about the Christ or God as He manifests for Christians, all people who acknowledge and stand in wonder before an overarching power or design, all people who have recognised that human beings harm themselves and others [physically and psychically] when they go against this design which is divine, all people who respect and protect this world that has been created by a power that is beyond our explanation, they have recognised God.

So I thank Mo Sabri for answering the call to promoting understanding and unity. I thank him for moving past the despair and the cynicism and the suspicion which overwhelms many of us, to convey a positive message that focuses not so much on railing against the bad but celebrating the good.

Who is Mo Sabri?

"Mo Sabri is a Muslim-American singer from East Tennessee who attained mainstream success but is now an Islamic nasheed artist.

He has been featured on national/international networks such as BBC, MTV, CBS, and GEO TV and continues to receive hundreds of thousands of YouTube views. Prior to turning to Islamic nasheeds this year, Sabri gained a large worldwide fan base which is still loyal to him. Mo’s most notable achievement: he released his debut album in January and became the #5 highest selling artist on the iTunes World chart for a week. During this time, Mo outsold every Muslim, Arab, and South Asian artist in the world (including Maher Zain, Sami Yusuf, A.R. Rahman, etc.). Sabri performs at universities and festivals across the US and UK, and has been endorsed by Aziz Ansari (host of 2010 MTV Movie Awards), football star Jason Witten (Dallas Cowboys), and platinum-selling rapper B.o.B.

Mo Sabri’s style of catchy hip hop spreads a positive message to youth and adults alike. His lyrics are witty and poetic, but he still manages to convey an Islamic message in a fun and thoughtful way. Sabri enjoys philanthropy, so he performs at many charity events worldwide. All of his performances are fun, unique, and refreshing. Mo Sabri’s artistry is perhaps best seen in the lyrics of his song “Heaven Is Where Her Heart Is (Aisha)” when he says “Whenever you want, we can go to Umrah/Hop up on a jet, just to go to Jummah/We could live the good life, I’m talking about the Sunnah/And when I write this music, I do it for my Ummah”. SOURCE"

What exactly do Muslims believe about Jesus?

"Muslims respect and revere Jesus (peace be upon him). They consider him one of the greatest of God’s messengers to mankind. The Quran confirms his virgin birth, and a chapter of the Quran is entitled ‘Maryam’ (Mary). The Quran describes the birth of Jesus as follows:

(Remember) when the angels said, “O Mary, God gives you good news of a word from Him (God), whose name is the Messiah Jesus, son of Mary, revered in this world and the Hereafter, and one of those brought near (to God). He will speak to the people from his cradle and as a man, and he is of the righteous.” She said, “My Lord, how can I have a child when no mortal has touched me?” He said, “So (it will be). God creates what He wills. If He decrees a thing, He says to it only, ‘Be!’ and it is.” (Quran, 3:45-47)

Jesus was born miraculously by the command of God, the same command that had brought Adam into being with neither a father nor a mother. God has said:

The case of Jesus with God is like the case of Adam. He created him from dust, and then He said to him, “Be!” and he came into being. (Quran, 3:59)

During his prophetic mission, Jesus performed many miracles. God tells us that Jesus said:

“I have come to you with a sign from your Lord. I make for you the shape of a bird out of clay, I breathe into it, and it becomes a bird by God’s permission. I heal the blind from birth and the leper. And I bring the dead to life by God’s permission. And I tell you what you eat and what you store in your houses....” (Quran, 3:49)

Muslims believe that Jesus was not crucified. It was the plan of Jesus’ enemies to crucify him, but God saved him and raised him up to Him. And the likeness of Jesus was put over another man. Jesus’ enemies took this man and crucified him, thinking that he was Jesus. God has said:

...They said, “We killed the Messiah Jesus, son of Mary, the messenger of God.” They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but the likeness of him was put on another man (and they killed that man)... (Quran, 4:157)

Neither Muhammad nor Jesus came to change the basic doctrine of the belief in one God, brought by earlier prophets, but rather to confirm and renew it."  SOURCE

Recently that last point came to me so clearly when I was listening to the reading about Jesus driving out the money lenders from the Court of the Gentiles in the temple. I had heard the story so many times before but this time I heard something new.

Jesus Cleanses the Temple

12 Then Jesus entered the temple[c] and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.
13 He said to them, “It is written,

‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’;

but you are making it a den of robbers.”

--Matthew 21:12-17 The Bible, New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)

For the first time, I saw so clearly that the Christ, himself a Jew, had never separated Himself from Judaism. He refers to the temple as His house. For Him the temple could not be defiled because it was sacred, because it was where God, the one God, who has manifested Himself in different ways over time to mankind, was worshipped. It was His house, not just a Jewish temple, not a temple for Catholics or Christians but God's temple for all of God's people whether they were Jews or Gentiles, because God is FOR all. I cannot help but believe that He would have viewed any desecration of Sewdass Sadhu's Hindu temple by the sea with the same outrage and would have tried with equal fervour to repair any damage.

"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.

Mweh ka allay!
Guanaguanare

"What Man has made of Man" - Lines written in early Spring [Poem]

Uploaded by Free Audio Books for Intellectual Exercise
LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING
By William Wordsworth
Read by David Barnes

I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:—
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature’s holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

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"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.

Mweh ka allay!
Guanaguanare

Sadho Ye Murdon Ka Gaon [Bhajan]

Uploaded by Bobby Mudgel
SADHO YE MURDON KA GAON
Performed by Ravindra Sathe
Based on the words of Kabir
Translated and explained by Maalok

Ahhhh...
Sadho Ye Murdon Ka Gaon
Sadho Ye Murdon Ka Gaon
Sadho.

Oh Sadhu, this is the village of the dead.

Peer Mare, Pygambar Mari Hain
Peer Mare, Pygambar Mari Hain
Mari Hain Zinda Jogi
Raja Mari Hain, Parja Mari Hain,
Mari Hain Baid Aur Rogi.

The Saints Have Died, The God-Messengers Die
The Life-Filled Yogis Die Too
The Kings Die, The Subjects Die
The Healers and the Sick Die Too.

Sadho Ye Murdon Ka Gaon
Sadho.

Oh Sadhu, this is the village of the dead.

Chanda Mari Hain, Suraj Mari Hain
Chanda Mari Hain, Suraj Mari Hain
Mari Hain Dharni Akasa
Chaudan Bhuvan Ke Chaudhry Mari Hain
In Hun Ki Ka Asa.

The Moon Dies, The Sun Dies
The Earth and Sky Die Too
Even the Caretakers of the Fourteen Worlds Die
Why Hope For Any of These.

Sadho Ye Murdon Ka Gaon
Sadho.

Oh Sadhu, this is the village of the dead.

Nauhun Mari Hain, Dus Hun Mari Hain
Nauhun Mari Hain, Dus Hun Mari Hain
Mari Hain Sahaj Athasi
Tethis Koti Devata Mari Hain,
Badi Kaal Ki Bazi.

The Nine Die, The Ten Die
The Eighty Eight Die Easily Too
The Thirty Three Crore Devatas (Enlightened Beings) Die
It's a Big Game of Time.

Sadho Ye Murdon Ka Gaon
Sadho.

Oh Sadhu, this is the village of the dead.

Naam Anam Anant Rehat Hai
Naam Anam Anant Rehat Hai
Duja Tatva Na Hoi
Kahe Kabir Suno Bhai Sadho
Kahe Kabir Suno Bhai Sadho
Bhatak Maro Mat Koi.

The Un-Named Naam Lives Without Any End
There is No Other Truth
Says Kabir, "Listen, Oh Sadhu
Don't Get Lost and Die."

Sadho Ye Murdon Ka Gaon
Sadho Ye Murdon Ka Gaon
Sadho
Sadho
Sadho
Sadho...

Oh Sadhu, this is the village of the dead.

Explanation by Maalok:
The reality as we experience it every day is dynamic in nature - i.e., if there is one thing that is constant is the fact that everything is changing all the time. Whatever takes birth must die too, and vice-versa, what dies must be born also (the former is easier to see, while the latter is not obvious from our daily experience - try reflecting on why that is the case). Nothing escapes the tentacles of this "Kala Chakra" or the "Wheel of Time", whether it is an ant, a peasant, a king, the ten avataras, the sages, the cosmic entities or the pantheon of gods and goddesses.

Kabir tells us that the internal power of attention in each of us is the primary driving force. Wherever we focus our attention is the place where we eventually end up. A poor man who really wants to be a king will surely, over time, become one, even though it may take multiple time-windows (called lifetime) to achieve the goal. The same holds true for the goal of reaching/uniting with a God or Goddess.

Kabir warns us of the limitation of these goals or destinations as they are still intrinsically caught in the virtuoso game of time. The velocity and momentum of movement for each of these entities may be different giving an appearance of relative stability/magnificence, but the fact is that each is basically working within the tenets of the same dynamic, time-driven framework.

Looking at all this from a perspective that is beyond time, Kabir tell us that if the desire is not to keep going around in circles of time, we should seek what is end-less (and begin-less). Guru Nanak summarizes this beautifully - Jaki Chinta Karo Jo Anhoni Hoi - meditate/focus on that that never happened. In his inimitable way, the great master, Kabir, urges us to break away from the shackles of this village of the dead ruled by Kala or time. Kabir then explains that the sound of Naam is the only true substance of value, which takes us to the absolute source beyond all destinations of birth and death. [October 21, 2001 Maalok] SOURCE

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A Note From The Gull

Thank you, Kabir, Ravindra Sathe and Maalok.

"Naam Anam Anant Rehat Hai

Duja Tatva Na Hoi

The Un-Named Naam Lives Without Any End

There is No Other Truth"

--Kabir

"8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, 
who is and who was and who is to come, 
the Almighty."

--Revelation 1: 8 | The Bible. New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)

"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.

Mweh ka allay!
Guanaguanare

What You willing to die for? [Song]

Uploaded by KMP MUSICLAB
WHAT YOU WILLING TO DIE FOR?
Sung by Joanna "Tigress" Rowley
Written by Andre Jeffers & Kenny Phillips
Produced by Kenny Phillips of KMP Music Lab

Trinidad and Tobago, are we truly a patriotic people? Do you love your country?

They say he crazy, a delusional fool
They say he selfish and want things my way
I say they lazy, they too nonchalant and cool
His cause is bigger than just a highway
They calling him fraud, say he cannot be of God
And whether he die or not, it don't matter
But what they don't see is a man who'll die for country
I'll call him a patriot and martyr.

Dr. Kublalsingh took a stand against corruption
The naysayers say life is too precious for that
They say surely he must have had a better option
The thing [is], we all willing to die, tell me for what and why
For something noble or just to get a bligh? Oy!

[Are you willing to die?] Just for some nicotine?
[Are you willing to die?] You smoking cigarettes by the pack
[Are you willing to die?] Just for the thrill of speed?
[Are you willing to die?] The highway is your drag race track.
[Are you willing to die?] Just for sexual antics?
[Are you willing to die?] Risking AIDS and HIV?
[Are you willing to die?] Like Dr. Kublalsingh?
[Are you willing to die?] No water, no food, not even IV?

What you willing to die for? Tell me!
What you will lose your life for?
Will you die for your country?
Trinidad, come! Will you die for your country? Hear me!

Now, a legal pillar who stood for justice and truth
Senior counsel and lead prosecutor
Some coward killers, now almost one year removed
Up to now, they still can't find that shooter
Justice reform on her plate, high profile work for the state
And pro bono work for those who can't afford
In return, what did she get? A cold case that can't solve yet
She deserve the nation's highest award.

Dana Seetahal died in service to this nation
She lived a life of purpose, fighting crime
Her legacy goes beyond the legislation
You see, we all going to die with no promise to say Bye-bye
Every man have their own appointed time. Oy!

[Are you willing to die?] To jump and wine in a band?
[Are you willing to die?] When Ebola is a serious threat?
[Are you willing to die?] Hey, you, the smuggler man!
[Are you willing to die?] You swallowing all these cocaine pellets. You fool!
[Are you willing to die?] To protest the cabal?
[Are you willing to die?] They disgusting and worthless.
[Are you willing to die?] Like Dana Seetahal?
[Are you willing to die?] To stand for truth and justice? Oy!

What you willing to die for? Tell me.
[What you willing to die for?']
Will you die for your country?
Lose your life for your country?

This one really hits home. ------------ this one is for you,  for the love of my country.

A mother of six, grandmother of eight
In the media she is known as Good Granny
A tower of bricks, Marlene Grant was her name
Fought the gangsters with no damn apology
They threatened and warned her, the bad boys call her informer
She didn't bat an eye or even hide in fear
They tried to kill her with fire, they even had guns for hire
Had the whole community running in tears.

Marlene Grant took a stand against them vultures
No police protection despite all the threats
That why we have a "Me-ent-see-nothing" friggin' culture
Man 'fraid to snitch and die but to cheat death they willing to lie
Seeing wickedness, then turning a blind eye. Oy!

[Are you willing to die?] Just for your B13, or even your Wingroad?
[Are you willing to die?] For your taxi money coil?
[Are you willing to die?] Just for some KFC?
[Are you willing to die?] You just might get some hot oil.
[Are you willing to die?] Just not to be a Mammy?
[Are you willing to die?] And abort that child you had?
[Are you willing to die?] Like that brave, brave granny?
[Are you willing to die?] To stand up against the gang. Oy!

What you willing to die for? Tell me.
What you will lose your life for?
Will you die for your country?
To save your community. Tell me.

This one is for the leaders.

Left hand on the Bible or the Bhagavad Gita
Some swear with the Qu'ran, right hand upraised
Sworn to serve our country but watch how you raping her
Break and take and yet, you are still not phased
Who lie before God will be surely put to the sword
You could find that in any scripture
Public office life should be a great sacrifice
But every politician leaving richer.

Willingness to die isn't just physical
Are you willing to die to self and serve?
But the parliament full of thugs and political criminals
Most of them ent willing to die, they just full of mamaguy
Which leaders can we watch and exemplify? None!

[Are you willing to die?] Just for financial power?
[Are you willing to die?] With corruption all over the place?
[Are you willing to die?] For the almighty dollar?
[Are you willing to die?] Or like Anil, who left in disgrace?
[Are you willing to die?] For a political change?
[Are you willing to die?] Or are you going to stand, run your mouth and do nothing?
[Are you willing to die?] Money for vote is nothing strange
[Are you willing to die?] Trinbago, we must stand for something! Ey!

What you willing to die for?
What you will lose your life for?
[What you willing to die for?] Will you die for your country?
[What you willing to die for?] Will you die for your country?
[What you willing to die for?] Ey!
[What you willing to die for?] Trinidad and Tobago, let us get up!
[What you willing to die for?] Stand firm with our RED, WHITE and BLACK.
[What you willing to die for?]
What you will lose your life for?
[What you willing to die for?]
Will you die for your country?
[What you willing to die for?]
God bless our nation, Trinidad and Tobago.
[What you willing to die for?]
[What you willing to die for?]

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! ..............................................................................................................................
"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.

Mweh ka allay!
Guanaguanare

What is Joke for Schoolboy is Death for Crapaud.

Vladimir Putin Quoting Russian Intelligence: The Islamic State (ISIS) is Financed from 40 Countries, including G20 Members. RT | 16 Nov, 2015 20:58

"During the summit, “I provided examples based on our data on the financing of different Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) units by private individuals. This money, as we have established, comes from 40 countries and, there are some of the G20 members among them,” Putin told the journalists.

"I’ve shown our colleagues photos taken from space and from aircraft which clearly demonstrate the scale of the illegal trade in oil and petroleum products," he said.

“The motorcade of refueling vehicles stretched for dozens of kilometers, so that from a height of 4,000 to 5,000 meters they stretch beyond the horizon," Putin added, comparing the convoy to gas and oil pipeline systems." SOURCE

People?

Some Trinbagonians, driven by an impressive zeal which their own communities could not awaken, channel and employ for the betterment of the homeland are now fighting for Islamic State (IS). The latest statistics say that close to ninety persons, including the families of the 35 Trinbagonian fighters are now in Syria.

I wish I could sit down with them and talk to my brothers face to face without summarily lumping them or their motives along with those of the other scourges, the perennially footloose privateers, mercenaries, contractors, missionaries, humanitarian interventionists, agents of destabilisation and of course who can forget the heroic troops who defend Western "freedoms" often in unjust aggression against countries which either have some valuable resource to be plundered or countries which have the audacity to exercise self-determination in thinking and doing innovative, progressive things.

I am not questioning how Trinbagonians ended up in IS. Trinbagonians are notorious/famous for ending up in the most unlikely places and doing the most amazing things but I am wondering why. Why did they choose this outlet and why have they become so important to IS that a promotional/recruitment video was made specifically for and about its Trinbagonian members?

Daurius Figueira, a Trinbagonian criminologist who has been researching the movement for years suggests that Trinbagonian recruits may be most useful because of the following:- they are third world people whose first language is English. As Trinbagonians, they are also Caricom nationals and people of the Commonwealth. They speak English and are educated and can be used by IS to take the fight on the home soil of first world countries such as Britain and the US, and finally, along with nationals of eight other Caribbean countries, Trinbagonians enjoy visa-free travel to Europe. SOURCE

Why is this latest development so perplexing to us? Isn't their motivation to join driven by a similar self-sacrificing zeal that leads some of our people to enlist in the armies of the superpowers to fight their "just" wars against "true" enemies? What is the difference here? I do not think it is useful to answer by pointing to their obvious violence and the shock effect of the recorded executions which they have circulated. We are intelligent adults. We should know that despite the treaties of the Geneva Conventions and Protocols, savage butchery goes on hidden from our view and sometimes in plain sight [and unpunished] wherever wars are being fought. Think about the latest atrocity and merely tip of the iceberg, the US bombing of Médecins Sans Frontières' Kunduz hospital in Afghanistan last month. I don't follow Twitter so I will wait for those of you who do to tell me if hashtag "Pray for patients burning on hospital beds" ever made trending status.

In the interview with former US Defence Intelligence Agency Chief, Michael Flynn, [see previous post] the interviewer rightly challenges Flynn about his inflammatory comment that the war against IS is a war against Islam. What Mehdi highlights, based on research by persons who have actually had face to face interactions with the members of these guerilla groups, is that the fighters are often not practicing Muslims.

"Mehdi Hasan: A lot of terrorism experts who have sat down with these guys, they say actually these guys are political, these guys are, as you say yourselves, are a political group using the religion as cover.

Michael Flynn: I don't agree. I don't agree. The guys that are the serious, the serious leaders of these groups absolutely believe that their version of Islam is the right version, is the correct version.

Mehdi Hasan: You say they are serious leaders. We are now seeing reports that ISIL, the top ranks of ISIL are filled with ex-Ba'athist army officers from the Saddam regime. They are not all religious fanatics as you seem to imply. I mean, MI5, Britain's domestic intelligence agency, did a study of several hundred terrorists a few years and found, I quote, "Far from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practice their faith regularly and could actually be regarded as religious novices.""  SOURCE

Adding to this information we are told by Trinbagonian investigative reporters and intelligence that in addition to the professionals among the Trinbagonian recruits,

"On assessments earlier in the year from intelligence sources...a number of those who had gone were from T&T’s criminal fringe element, rather than conservative Muslim basis, Dillon said that assessment was still on par and those persons were believed to be intelligent."  SOURCE 

So if our intelligence is accurate, some of these conscripts from Trinbago were already operating outside of the law before they made the decision to join IS. About those who could be described as religious zealots, did their indoctrination take place in Trinbago or on location in Syria?

For the time being, we can only watch and listen and try to learn as much as we can so that the conclusions that we arrive at will not be as facile and clichéd as the mainstream would desire. We, who have over time cultivated the reputation of being easy going, permissive and true adherents to no cause are now finding ourselves having to lift the veil. Caught between the continuing waves of violence upon which this colony was built and its continuing and increasingly virulent manifestations despite the promises of independence, the only hope for us, and for the world for that matter, lies in ruthless self-examination. Since September 7, a fragile calm has descended upon my homeland. I agree that for the families and communities still directly affected by violence, that is no consolation, but it is a window which we must utilise.

I am deeply saddened by violence because I do not believe that anything sustainable can be built upon it. You may bring about an illusory order or peace but that illusion will eventually crumble along with your temporary respite. Over time, festering internal trauma and external agents of reprisal will patiently and persistently circle and infiltrate your camp waiting for opportunities to strike back. You will forever be at war to protect any peace or society which is itself a product of war. That unbending third law of motion applies itself in our relations with each other, both at the personal and international levels. And at these times, I really question our outrage, our shock and awe and the delusions, the hypocrisy, and for the few, the innocent idealism upon which these responses are based. For every action there is a reaction.

For whom and for what should we promise to lay down our lives? The waters are so murky, we will never discover exactly how many turtles are stacked all the way down, who is abuser and abused, who are the chess players and who are the pawns, who is stretching and yawning and untroubled in the Devil's comfortable bed while young men are being encouraged to go out to face death. As Trinbagonians, we would have heard the warning in that local expression - What is joke for schoolboy is death for crapaud. Being descendants of both terrorists and the terrrorised, and having both frog and schoolboy running through our veins, we really should know better.

"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.

Mweh ka allay!
Guanaguanare