- [Prefatory Note: I took part in a stirring program here in Berlin earlier this evening in support of three activists from Palestine and Israel
- who face criminal charges for disrupting a meeting featuring Zionist denials of Israeli crimes against humanity. Two of the three who face these charged are Jews born in Israel, and one a Palestinian born in Gaza, whose family was in audience, including his father who was in an Israeli
- prison for 18 years. It was an inspirational event that discussed with depth and insight the obstacles to support for Palestinian rights encountered in Germany because of the persistence of German guilt about the Nazi past. In my remarks I tried to convey the understanding that the only true way to erase that sense of the past is to oppose the ongoing Israeli crimes of states rather than be complicit by choosing to be silent in the face of evil. I post a poem that I wrote earlier today, and read at the end of my talk, perhaps a self-indulgent conceit on my part, but I share it here as a way of thanking so many friends near and far who sent me the most moving birthday greetings throughout the day, which made me feel that we who are supporting the Palestinian struggle are part of a growing community that will prevail at some point, and the two peoples now inhabiting Palestine can finally live in peace, and with dignity and equality. All of us agreed that peace can only happen once the apartheid structure of the present Israeli state is fully dismantled and a spirit of true equality for Palestinians and Jews is affirmed and implemented, not only for those living under occupation, but for Palestinians confined to more than 60 refugee camps, to those millions long victimized by involuntary exile, and by the Palestinian minority in Israel.]
- On My 88thBirthday: A Reflection
To be almost 90
And happy
With good health
Feels criminal
Amid Satanic happenings
Raising Images too dark
To be real
Children in Gaza
Are shot to death
Friday after Friday
By official assassins
Khashoggi’s murder
An unspeakable crime
Yet no more than a problem
For hard men of power
Events so dark
And so numerous
Casting shadows
Will despair be our fate?
Is this truly our world?
Are we even meant to survive?
My hope– to live
Long enough to shout
An everlasting ‘No’
And may so affirming
Become my last word
Become my testament
Of hope for all beings
Richard Falk
Berlin
November 13, 2018
]
Global Justice in the 21st Century 
Forgetting 2019: A Poem
31 Dec[Prefatory Note: At this age, having exhausted prose options, I indulge myself during holidays, by sharing poems that seek also your indulgence. I searched 2019 forsome glimmers of good news, and felt stymied. Of course, here, there, everywhere there were glorious private exceptions, yet hovering over the public marketplaces ofthe world I cringe beneath menacing storm clouds and below chaos and misery, and catastrophes waiting to happen. It is this spirit that I looked back on 2019, and yet reject despair, and pledge to fight for what I believe in 2020 with the conviction that it can happen, and of course should happen.]
Forgetting 2019
asphalt rain
darkens green fields
eco-extinction
flares Amazon skies
fake leaders slithering
toward real dangers
hither and yon
seek safe havens
gated nations
hiding from truth
screaming ‘no’
migrants fleeing despair
pleading ‘please’
hiding from evils
Aung San Suu Kyi
defending genocide
this fallen Nobelist
broadcasting abroad
her deadly message
two centuries ago
Walt Whitman
arrived in our midst
singing aloud
bewilderingly
of America’s future
later lost to predators
seizing their loot
robbing the land
turning dreams
to wilting flowers
our grief becomes
a betrayed destiny
tainted at birth
natives driven
off their sacred land
of holy innocence
the trusted voice
of Toni Morrison
is gone not lost
if we listen
if we listen
if we listen
all not yet all
lost futureless
nested eggs contain
our only hope
of what may yet come
of what to renounce
let’s start with gold
then learn not to hate
keep love joy truth
if we listen
if we listen
if we listen
Richard Falk
Santa Barbara, CA
December 31, 2019
Tags: 2019, America, Forgetting 2019, Poem, Walt Whitman