435
Stephane Hessel
In this blogposting…
* AGM XL* Daffodils and Leaks
* You Must Remember This…
* In Memoriam: Stephane Hessel
Enter here…
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AGM XL
Our fortieth AGM - yes, I know; FORTIETH!!!! - will take place at 1100 this upcoming Thursday 7 March, when we will be mustered at Grey’s Monument.
If you arrive and don’t see anyone, look outside the branch of Thornton’s - mmmmmmmmmm - at the top of Grainger Street, just a few yards away.
Better still, look inside Thornton’s….
See you next Thursday….
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DAFFODILS AND LEAKS
In the meantime, though, we’ve only got as far as March 1 - St David’s Day. So, as usual, in his honour and that of the lovely country of which he is the patron saint (and which, as you can see, is lucky enough to have TWO of the most strikingly dramatic national flags in the world)…
HAPPY ST DAVID’S DAY!
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YOU MUST REMEMBER THIS….
Despite the admittedly lofty average age of we truckshunters, I don’t often give in to the temptation of ‘good old days’ reminiscences. We tend to live for the excitement of the here and the now.
But, once a while, it gives you a nice warm feeling to look at photos like the ones scattered here and let the memories come flooding back….
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IN MEMORIAM: STEPHANE HESSEL
This is what I wrote about Stephane Hessel two years ago, in blogposting 252 (February 2011)…
'Something very strange and unsettling is happening in France at the moment. And it’s all because of a book. Well, not a book, even. A pamphlet. It’s only about 6 pages long and France is getting very worked up about it.
It was written by a 93-year old man called Stephane Hessel and it’s called Indignez-Vous!, which translates roughly as Get Angry!
Stephane is a national hero in France; a survivor of Nazi concentration camps and of the Resistance - and a passionate believer in ‘peace and people’. And Get Angry! is an incitement to do exactly that. To rescue the world of work and art and social responsibility and dignity from the claws of the venal, the corrupt and the avaricious.
It is inflaming many parts of French society. Sarko himself (the 'Garden Gnome', as his millions of detractors call him there) is unsettled by it. It has been translated into English and several other languages. You may find some extracts from it on the internet.
M Hessel’s personality, his heroic history and his conclusions about the world we have created for ourselves and our children have combined to inspire me to read his treatise - in French (just in case anything gets lost in translation). This means that I’m only up to page 2 - and I’m already primed to agitate, protest and complain as volubly as I can.
When I and my generation had a chance to change the world for the better, in the 60s, we failed catastrophically. Instead, we produced the cesspit of money-grubbing corporate selfishness through which we’re all wading now. Putting Number One first is now the expected norm and the ideals of selflessness that inspired post-war social welfare policies throughout western Europe are under attack.
I want to be living proof, though, that you’re never too old to Get Angry!'
M Hessel died last Tuesday, aged 93.
You can read a lot more about this astonishing man on, for example, Wikipedia ( - at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St%C3%A9phane_Hessel; if the link doesn’t work, cut and paste it into the Search box of your internet browser).
He was, and remains, one of my heroes.
Let’s get together on this one. Every year, on February 26, let’s set aside some time to ‘get angry’ about the hateful, 'privatised' world of theft, greed and venality which we are now forced to endure - and which Stephane Hessel reviled so elegantly - and so much.
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CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or email me: truckshunters@googlemail.com
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