When songs for freedom in a Welsh village hit the UK headlines
JVL Introduction
Paul Seligman writes about the enormous growth in Palestine solidarity activities in Wales over the last decade and more.
Here he focuses on the recent decision by Cardiff-born celebrity and pop star Charlotte Church to organise a singing event for Palestine.
She got in touch with Wendy Lewis, the Director of Côr Cochion Caerdydd (Cardiff Reds Choir) since 1987 and together they got to work.
The Bedwas Workmen’s Hall and Institute, from whose steps food aid was collected for Spain in the 1930s, was willing to host an event, “Songs of Freedom for Palestine with Charlotte Church, Côr Cochion and friends”, where others had cold feet.
The sold-out event on 24th February was a thumping success and over £5000 collected towards buying a replacement ambulance for Al Awda Hospital.
End of story? Oh No!
The Sun and the Mail weighed in the next day with fictions about genocidal songs being sung at this antisemitc event– all orchestrated it would appear by the Campaign Against Antisemitism.
Let Paul Seligman take up the story…
This article was originally published by Labour Hub on Wed 6 Mar 2024. Read the original here.
When songs for freedom in a Welsh village hit the UK headlines
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This event was in the finest traditions of Welsh internationalism. Paul Robeson would have stood with that choir to sing in glorious harmony.
Excellent expose of one wing of the world wide coincidence that is the CAA in the UK. From the cancellation of the Barbican as a venue for Pankaj Mishra to speak following his devastating irrefutable articl in the LRB about Israel, Gaza, Zionism and the Shoah, to Bedwas Hall, from the moment Corbyn was elected in 2015, though the plot to make Starmer leader to today, we see how this coincidence works to suppress freedom,justice, fairness and humanity. Quite extraordinarily wicked. Israel is a nightmare and the worldwide backlash against what it has done will last for centuries.
Meanwhile those Jewish people in the UK who are eagerly reported by Government, the speaker, Starmer and Sunak to be afraid to walk the streets on Palestine protest days, might like to be reminded that Jews walk on those marches , the ones CAA like people to call the wrong sort of Jew, like Americans are now the wrong sort of Americans for providing supplies via a port the Israeli’s deliberately stopped from developing, to feed starving children (rather too late).
The political social solidarity and anti-racism of Wales is something of a legend. It certainly attracted the late Paul Robeson. There Robeson made The Proud Valley (1940), donated to and performed for miners’ charities. Their reciprocal love for him was quite exceptional and continued after he suffered the McCarthyite black list.
“The Welsh communities he had helped took a leading role in the international ‘Let Paul Robeson Sing!’ campaign and petitioned the US Supreme Court on his behalf…In 1957, still unable to travel, he sang down the telephone line to a packed house of 5,000 people in the Porthcawl Pavilion for the Miners’ Eisteddfod. The listed theatre now has a ‘Paul Robeson Room’ in his honour, as does the Park and Dare Theatre, home of Treorchy Male Voice Choir who also performed at the Eisteddfod.”
So Charlotte is part of a noble Welsh tradition – see link
https://cadw.gov.wales/paul-robesons-wales