Invasion Day +47 As Easter fast approaches for many in the west, there will be little time for celebration in Ukraine. The war enters what might well be Putin's own 'One Hundred Days.'
The world waits nervously to see the outcome of this terrible battle now unfolding. With continued bravery and acts of heroism, sacrifice and unimaginable suffering each day, Ukraine may hold. And with it freedom and democracy will live on. We must hold fast to Ukraine. We must continue to strive for peace in the most visible experience of reported war the world has ever witnessed. Russians are stained with the blood of a generation and it will take another generation to remove it from their dark-soiled souls.
Some of them, the brave of the blue and the white, can consider themselves innocent, but all are tarnished and their veins are clogged with the cries of the dying. None can hold their heads high ever again for their hiding and the horror of their negligence will weigh upon their shoulders when the war is over. For then they will see what they now refuse to see, the national genocide of a neighbour, the slaughter of their friends and family. None will escape.
Today, we are honoured with some of the most moving and hauntingly vivid images of our collective journey so far, three poems from an influential and well-known social commentator for peace, Semra Eren-Hijar, and from a sixteen year old hero of Kharkiv, Lina, who sings for us on 'Happiness' as a cluster bomb destroys her street. We all, companions of Hoggy the Yimp, should all listen in awe. We leave the messages for today with Semra and with Lina in humility and wonder for their words and their music.
We had a very full mail box today and will look to publish all letters in due course but today we wanted the two correspondents below to have the space because the messages are so powerful. Please keep joining us, writing to us and sharing this site wherever you feel you can. Thank you all.
Please, if you feel you can, respond to the call below if at all possible, even a few pounds to Hoggy's Fund for 'Hogsward Fellowships' to help Lina and Lora survive will help enormously. Thank you all most sincerely. Hoggy.
Todays Letters:
From Semra Eren-Hijar, Writer, Sociologist and Documentary Film-maker, London
Dear Hoggy,
I am sending you three of my very short poems for the blog (all my poems are in the same format) along with the photos which I have copyright permissions for.
It's very sad what’s going on in Ukraine and also in Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen.
Children are dying every day in the world in areas of war, of hunger and from abuse.
It does make me feel so sad, I can’t even watch the news sometimes, it’s just too much.
With best wishes for your blog and the work for peace you are joining powerfully with, together we can make such a difference.
Semra Eren-Nijhar
London
Three Poems by Semra Eren-Nijhar
1.
We shout out
The wrath
Within us
For the fragmentation
For the dragging
Of young people
To wars.
Death does
Not have
Any Heroes!
2.
The birds
Flap their wings
To infinity
As they sense
Freedom
Most beautifully.
3.
During war
While children
Running
Without hope
In the garden
Of death
A white dove
Flies out
Of every
Mother’s
Heart
Grieving
For the loss
Of her child.
Dear Semra,
Thank you so much for these beautiful and haunting poems; they are powerful, artful and wise with the grip of the current, desperate need for peace. They are poems of great purpose, passion and inspiration.
Thank you for them and your support of the blog, we are suitably humbled by having an influential writer such as yourself write for peace here.
We hope that these poems will inspire and encourage others to continue writing, we have had some incredibly moving poems sent in already.
One of the aims of this blog at the moment is to try and ally with other like minded people and suppoirt their blogs or sites, thus collectively strengthening the cause. As you say not just for Ukraine but for peace more generally. Yemen is just awful and forgotten by the west, or shamefully ignored for complicity?
We very much look forward to hearing more from you if it is at all possible?
With very best wishes,
Hoggy.
Semra Eren-Nijhar is a very well-known author, sociologist, documentary film maker and policy strategist on diversity and migration covering Turkish people living in Europe. She has been researching social policy across Europe and Turkey for the last thirty years and has worked as an adviser in the House of Lords for over seven years. She had photographic exhibitions in Britain, the European Parliament-Belgium and Turkey. Semra worked for many years to launch the London Turkish Heritage Day (2014) to raise the profile and to recognise the contribution of Turks in the UK and has won many prestigious awards for her work. She is the author of eleven influential books amongst an important global contribution to the creation of peaceful communities. We are honoured that she is supporting our work in this way and we look forward to supporting her own work in any way we can. Hoggy.
Dear Hoggy,
'Can You Help Lina and Lora?'
This is Anna from Khrakiv, I hope you are all well?
I am now safely in Malton but still in touch every day with all my students there. I am teaching them English on line as they are still in Ukraine. Now I have up to seven classes each day, every day, everyone wants to learn better English.
I would like to tell you about two girls from a vulnerable family. Lina and Lora. They live in Kharkiv, my big city in the eastern Ukraine which is now being shelled and bombed by the Russians every single day.
A while ago, a cluster bomb exploded just in front of their house and the shockwave and fragments broke all the windows in their apartment. Because of frequent air strike alarms, Lina and her grandmother have to spend a lot of time in the basement hiding.
Lora and another grandmother fled to the western Ukraine and are staying in a refugee camp because they are short of money to rent accommodation.
Lina I sixteen years old, is keen on music and she is studying hard to become a conductor.
Here is a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGOwY67Jivs
Lora who is nineteen years old is going to find a part-time job as a dance instructor if they manage to flee abroad.
These girls are from a vulnerable family and need financial support. I've been trying to persuade Lina to leave Kharkiv and flee to the west as if the Russians occupy Kharkiv, you have probably seen what they do to the locals, especially women and girls.
Those girls are both my students and I really feel for what they have to go through at such a young age.
Here is the beautiful song by Lina, just after the cluster bomb destroyed her street.
This is a photo of the girls before the war started.
Lina made the song which is based on the poem by Ivan Franko, a famous Ukrainian poet.
Happiness.
What is happiness? It is an illusion, It is a ghost, shadow, delusion… Oh you, my illusion, Betrayal and beloved! A source of joy, feelings You're a crystal glass! Misconceptions of my life You are fatally mistaken! I wanted to catch you, here, And immediately his wings fell. I didn't have to live with you, I couldn't live without you.
If Hoggy’s Fund can help them it would be so good.
Thank you all for your continued support,
Anna.
Dear Anna, Lina and Lora,
How beautiful the song is, so moving, such a lovely voice, so young, too young for war.
Thank you all and to Lina we say how we admire her courage and her voice for Ukraine.
We shall certainly support these two and hopefully our other friends will help through Hoggy's Fund in due course.
Thank you so much for what you are doing for all your students, you are a hero for Ukraine without doubt, it is humbling to be able to help.
Today’s post is very powerful because along with this amazing song we have three beautiful peace poems sent in from a Turkish poet and peace campaigner in London.
It all helps.
We are looking to expand the viewing as although we have had nearly 800 site visits up to today, we would like to reach more people but decline the social media outlets for safety reasons at present unless people wish to advocate for us on their own sites which would be great. If we can afford to pay Ina when she arrives here for one day a week with Hoggy then we may be able to manage the site safely for our correspondents.
Thank you again, tears are in our eyes here.
With every wish for safety and peace, our hearts are bleeding too.
Hoggy
Dear correspondents and readers all,
If anyone can help fund Lina and Lora and this position through donating to Hoggy's Fund which we have just set up with four trustees then please can they let Hoggy know? Thank you very much, I am sure you cannot fail to be moved by the correspondents in today's post?
Hoggy
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