In the wood

To visit this wood
one does need no green card, yet;
even in winter.

Als het net even anders was gegaan

Tekst: Willem Wilmink Muziek: Herman van Veen

Als Hitler toch de oorlog had gewonnen,
wat weinig had gescheeld met die V-2,
hadden we dan nog levensmidd'lenbonnen
of viel de toestand achteraf best mee ?
We kwamen zonder een niet-jood verklaring
weer op normale wijze aan de poen
en er was geen verzekerde bewaring
voor de zigeuners die geen mens iets doen
er zou geen jood en geen zigeuner meer bestaa,,
als het net even anders was gegaan.

Geen Surinamers waren hier gekomen
en geen Molukker was Europeaan
Geen gastarbeider was in dienst genomen
of toch ? het vuile werk moet ook gedaan.
Van concentratiekampen zou men praten:
ach, dat valt wel mee, er wordt zoveel beweerd.
We zouden het rustig daarbij kunnen laten
want geen getuige was teruggekeerd.
De nazi's hadden het veel grondiger gedaan,
als het net even anders was gegaan.

Hitler had een spierwitte snor gekregen
werd door de meerderheid gerespekteerd
als vader van de autowegen
en hij had Musschert al geliquideerd.
Wie zouden zich in 't openbaar vertonen ?
wie zouden ons regeren uit Den Haag ?
wie zouden er in grote huizen wonen ?
misschien dezelfde rijken als vandaag ?
Wij vonden vast wel weer een zin in ons bestaan,
als het net even anders was gegaan.

Voor homosexuelen streng verboden
zou er te lezen staan op de cafe's.
Wat afweek van de norm, dat zou men doden
men kocht Mercedessen en B.M.W.'s
om dan als heersers langs de weg te razen
dat iedereen hun macht en welvaart zag
en het verzet was werk geweest van de dwazen
en Engeland verarmde met de dag.
Wat zich verrijkt was de haat en rassenwaan,
als het net even anders was gegaan.

We weten allemaal dat Hitler heeft verloren.
We zijn toen van de tyrannie gered
maar zou ik anders ook een lied doen horen ?
een bloed -en bodemlied ? of juist een van verzet ?
Zou er in zulke uitzichtsloze tijden
nog iets bestaan als hier en daar een sprank
van moed en hoop, die boeken doet verspreiden
Jan Campert en van Randwijk, Anne Frank ?
Zou dan het goede, schone, ware nog bestaan,
als het net even anders was gegaan

Yolocaust

Certain young contemporaries obviously need to be taught the hard way. And not only on January 27.

Yolocaust


P.S. When I decided to post this, there were quite a few more photos. 
Since, most of the "artists" took the offer to send an email to undouche them:  "I'm on one of the pictures and suddenly regret having uploaded it to the internet. Can you remove it?"Even the two young gentlemen who found so funny to post their photo adding "Jumping on dead Jews".

P.P.S. Meanwhile all photos have been removed. 

On the Road

Like trees are passing
a presidency does pass.
A fart in the wind

Ich tanze mit dem Tod

Herman van Veen

The Dangerous Vice of a Weak Character

The will for power ... far from being a characteristic of the strong, is, like envy and greed, among the vices of the weak, and possibly their most dangerous one.
Hannah Arendt

Measles of Mankind

Nationalism is an infantile disease.
It is the measles of mankind.
Albert Einstein
The World As I See It, 1935

Presidency No Place for Amateurs

One can never be sure that when a man becomes the President of the United States his sense of power and of purpose and his own source of self confidence will show him how to help himself enhance his personal influence.... The Presidency is no place for amateurs.
Richard Neustadt,
Presidential Power, 1964

Good Night, and Good Luck

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? 
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the black man bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the black man, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free?  Not me?
Surely not me?  The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

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

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The abuse and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again

Langston Hughes

Ten years ago

In memoriam Hrant Dink.

What is Next?

The lyrics you find here.

Laughing Lhursday*

* [For first time visitors]:
Typo in the title?
Nah.
It's just that I would not let a tiny T spoil an avantgardistic alliteration.

Untouchable 96

Leonardo Sciascia's statue
in Racalmuto,
his native town in Sicily.

Leonardo Sciascia (January 8, 1921 – November 20, 1989)

Leonardo Sciascia Web (italiano)