Pippa Rathborne's CONTRAblog: human rights

Showing posts with label human rights. Show all posts

Thursday, 15 November 2018

Iridescence

Natural pearl and diamond pendant, 18th century;
set with an oval diamond supporting a diamond bow motif
and a baroque drop-shaped natural pearl measuring approximately 16 × 18 × 26mm.

A natural pearl and diamond jewel of delicately wrought beauty once belonged to history's most glamorous scapegoats for the abuses and injustices of autocracy, the victim of nationalism and misogyny, reviled by women and men, the hated l'autrichienne, the Austrian bitch, Marie Antoinette, queen of France.

Political assassination is arguably justified, character assassination is not. Of all the offensive insults thrust at her, the most hurtful, far worse than all the salacious sexual slurs, the one that cut deepest, more humiliating than being deprived of shoes and false teeth in prison, more painful than beheading, was the Tribunal's allegation of incest with her son.

"If I have not replied it is because Nature itself refuses to answer such a charge laid against a mother. I appeal to all mothers here present – is it true?”

Marie Antoinette on her way to the guillotine, drawn by David, 16 October 1793. Image: Wikipedia.
She was 37 years old. Usually, press reports about celebrity women degrade them by mentioning their age, but in this case the vulgar habit of prejudging is justified by the shock of this woman's premature ageing due to suffering.

She, who was brought up to be a dynastic pawn, a bride and mother of kings, became the Eternal Feminine demonized. The modern perception of Marie Antoinette has shifted away from the inverted fairy story heroine, the romanticized narrative of an over-privileged but misunderstood star of the diamond-studded, blood-stained Versailles reality show, to the universal figure in women's history of wronged mother and foreigner.

Marie-Antoinette and her children by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, 1787

While she was imprisoned, she was separated from her children. As she prepared for death, her chief anxiety was about their fate. An 18th century princess endured the kind of degradation and psychological torture that tyranny in the modern world still inflicts on female immigrants and their families.

And there's the jewel itself, the progeny of animals and human skill, that natural pearl of iridescence beyond price, a man-made thing lovely enough to be the symbol of our atonement for our sins against nature and each other, sold for silly money, £25 million that should be spent on environmental conservation and humanitarian missions to reunite migrant families and release political prisoners.

Friday, 28 September 2018

Last Hope to Save Britain?

JOIN THE MARCH TO DEMAND

A FINAL SAY

ON THE BREXIT DEAL.

The politicians cannot deliver a workable deal. Our democracy is discredited if it does
not benefit the people.
This is the biggest fight of our lives to save our country and a decent quality of life for everyone,
the poor as well as the rich,
the sick as much as the healthy.
This march isn't just for Europhiles:
it is for all of us.

It is for our children;
it is for our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents who fought to give us
social and political rights we take for granted.

It is for people who care about education, environment and culture, for equality and justice, for music and science, for nursing and medicine, for affordable nutritious food
and humane farming standards, for their jobs.

It is for the freedom to follow your vocation in the modern world, unfettered by prejudice and ideology.

It's the last reality check before self-destruction.

A bad Brexit will cause more civil unrest in the long run than no Brexit.

Democracy was given to free the people,
not trap them.

March for a vote on the deal.
March for an option to Remain in the EU and reform it from within.

Get details of the march here

over 300,000 people have signed the
petition for a People's Vote
over 1 million people have signed
The Independent's petition for
a Final Say

#finalsay