This morning I woke up thinking of my old friend Huw Davies, who took his own life in early 1994.

Huw Davies: via PhotoAccess, Canberra

Huw was a talented art photographer and ‘life artist’.

His friends adored him for his kindness, his compassion, his amazing energy and above all for a wonderful sense of humour.

About a year before his death, I had an intense debate with Huw about prospects for humanity. I took the optimist side, arguing we’re not only part of creation, but a special and significant part – for all our faults and weaknesses.

Huw – in blacker mood than I’d  seen him before – countered that humans are more like a lethal virus. I clearly remember him saying that if humans ever truly escape from the bounds of this planet, we’ll screw up the rest of the universe too.

I still can’t agree with Huw about that. Yet 15 years on, it’s hard to adduce much evidence he was wrong. I don’t think Huw believed all humans as intrinsically evil. His point was about the powerful (those most likely to head for the stars).

Perhaps our outward progress is stalled until we develop the wisdom to coexist and co-evolve?

I wish Huw was still around to continue the discussion.

In the last years of his life, Huw Davies developed a style for retouching photos by fingerpainting. The similarity with the painting style of Vincent Van Gogh was obvious. Somewhat later, he became intensely depressed and took his own life, like Vincent before him.

Along with a self portrait (copied from the website of the PhotoAccess in Canberra, a community organisation of which Huw was a founder-member), I’ll illustrate this tribute with a moving retrospective of the work of Van Gogh, accompanied by the haunting lyrics of Don MacLean.

The world will not go back to sleep again, Gaza.

More ships are on the way…

Even Israeli brutality at its worst has not scared off the brave activists who flock from around the world to support freedom and justice for Gazans – and for Palestinians as a whole.

“All Aboard the Mavi Marmara”, an inspiring protest song by David Rovics in the tradition of Woody Guthrie, is the sound track for a moving and informative video.

Suzanne Vega: a sad disappointment

Suzanne Vega, whom I’d fondly imagined over decades to be an intelligent and humane individual, apparently hasn’t got the message: playing in segregationalist Israel is no game!

Ms Vega cheapened herself this year in the eyes of many fans by performing in the Zionist State and giving comfort to its Jewish supremacists, desperate to avoid cultural isolation from a world community that’s lost patience with Israeli malevolence.

How many shekels was it worth, Suzanne?

Not for the first time within the last year, an aging rock star has performed in worse-than-Apartheid Israel and breached the growing global cultural boycott. How sad!

The days of cost-free collaboration with worse-than-Apartheid Israel are over. I hope you get heckled at your concerts, Suzanne. If I ever get to one again, I’ll heckle you myself.

These posters by the brilliant young artist Carlos Latuff illustrate the case for boycotting Israel.

They may not impress jaded cynics, but will help inspire a new, less corrupt generation of musicians and poets…

Dont play in worse-than-Apartheid Israel! (illustration by Carlos Latuff)

More like this at the DesertPeace website.

Boycott Israeli goods! (illustration by Carlos Latuff)

I just couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to email Elton John and ask him not to play in worse-than-Apartheid Israel.

Elton John: Greedy Suckass and Recidivist Apartheid Stooge

So unlike Joan Armatrading, he was spared my emails.

Like Joan Armatrading, Elton John played recently in Israel. He jetted in and out last week on the same day, dodging interviews: just a quick cash snatch.

The Israeli media is jubilant and the packaged ‘good news’ story soon bounced around the world. From India to Indiana, we’ve all been informed that Elton John took a swipe at artistes observing the cultural boycott of Israel. “We do not cherry-pick our consciences” he said.

Not exactly a deep thinker.

Toadying to Zionists pays off if naff parties and cozying up to reactionary bullies are your thing. Elton knows. He got a well-publicized invite to Rush Limbaugh’s wedding.

But Elton is the guy who has to look at himself in the mirror each day.

Omar Barghouti of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel put it well:

“Elton John was on the wrong side of history during the South Africa cultural boycott when he put interest over principles and played Sun City when hardly any self-respecting artist would do the same,” he says. “He is choosing to do the same with Israel.”