Lizzie Eldridge's Blog: Lorca by Candlelight, page 2

Stop The Genocide: Free Palestine

As I write – the 15th January 2024 – over 24,000 people in Gaza have been killed as the Israeli Zionists remain intent on fulfilling their decades-long mission of eradicating the Palestinian people. The vast majority of the dead are children and women. We have seen the videos. We have seen the images. We have heard the agonising screams.

The number of people killed by the inhumane IDF does not include the lifeless corpses beneath the rubble, nor those continually slaughtered in the Hamas-free West Bank. No-one and nowhere is safe in Palestine. The decomposing bodies of tiny babies in hospitals destroyed by Israel’s ruthless military machine leave us horrified. The sight of mothers and fathers weeping over the bloodied bodies of their dead children leaves us in tears. Scenes of people desperate for food being shot at by Israeli snipers leave us wondering to what debased levels evil can stoop.

We hear the voice of Wael Al-Dahdouh, the Gaza Bureau Chief for Al Jazeera, determined to carry on documenting the war crimes, while having just ‘the soul of my soul’, his eldest son. We are left humbled with awe, grief and profound respect.

Wael’s son, Hamza, also a journalist, was killed on the 7th January 2024 in a targeted attack on the vehicle in which he was travelling and in a supposedly ‘safe’ zone. Hamza was killed alongside another young journalist, Mustafa Thuraya. Less than a month earlier, Wael was injured in an Israeli attack that killed his friend and colleague, Samer Abu Daqqer, left to bleed to death for 5 hours because Israeli snipers stopped amy medical aid reaching him.

Last October, Wael lost his wife, his 15-year-old son, his 7-year-old daughter, and his grandson, when the house where they were sheltering came under fire from Israeli bombs. Wael was live on air when he got the news of their deaths. He went straight to the site of the explosion and began digging in the rubble with his bare hands. This is Gaza: you risk your life reporting on the atrocities and then you dig beneath the rubble for your family.

As Wael says: ‘Israel is targeting civilians and committing massacres against families. This is part of what Palestinian families living in Gaza go through every day.’

It is a genocide, aided, abetted and funded by the West, leaving the US and the UK drenched in the blood of the Palestinian people, willing parties to the frenzied blood lust of the merciless Zionists who, after 100 days of massacre and devastation, have no desire to place their hi-tech weapons of mass destruction on the ground. White flags, as we have seen time after time, mean nothing to those intent on killing, even when those flags are waved by the very people Israel is pretending to avenge.

The scale, nature and ferocity of this genocide is inconceivable. That it continues is an outrage to humanity. We must do everything we can to stop it; every single thing we can. Like and share posts on social media. Write to your MPs/MSPs. Sign and share petitions. Go to demos. Join protest groups. Wear the keffiyeh. Hold the Palestinian flag high above your head. We must do everything – no matter how big or small – we must do everything to stop this genocide.

#FreePalestine

The following 2 stories are my own response to the atrocities in Gaza and the unspeakable horrors being inflicted on the Palestinian people. They were originally published in Literary Revelations last December and reprinted with kind permision by Scottish PEN:

Flash Fiction by Lizzie Eldridge

All That Have Dark Sounds

This blog is named after and influenced by the Spanish writer, Federico García Lorca, murdered by fascists in 1936, right at the start of the Spanish Civil War. Nearly 100 years later and writers, poets, playwrights and artists continue to be killed by oppressive regimes across the world. The darkness of Gaza as we speak, the indescribable horrors being inflicted on millions of people there, is a heavy cloak hanging desperate over our heads. The sadistic brutality being meted out on a whole nation of people is beyond words until words seem futile.

Yet the Palestinian people, from within this bloodbath and carnage, continue to speak with their actions and their words: the selfless acts of people searching for survivors in the rubble; the respect paid at funerals for the thousands of the dead; the doctors and medical staff in the few remaining hospitals who work with the bare minimum of resources to care for the injured while corpses mount up outside and the bombs fall without mercy; the journalists who, mourning the loss of their families and colleagues, continue to bear witness to the atrocities all around; the UN and charity workers who, seeing their comrades killed and deprived of the humanitarian aid they need to give assistance, continue to speak out from this terrifying hell.

As Israel sadistically perpetrates its long-awaited act of genocide, with the shameful backing of the US and the UK, Palestinian voices have not, and never will be, silenced. They continue to speak out, to cry out, against evil. They cannot be silenced. They show us, in their agony and anguish, they show us the face of humanity. And it is our humanity that makes us bleed when they bleed, scream when they scream, want to hold them and protect them as they are dying. It is our humanity that wants to stop our children, our brothers and our sisters, our parents and our grandparents – we want to stop them dying. With all our humanity and empathy and sorrow, we want this atrocious genocide to stop.

Lorca lived, wrote and breathed the concept of duende, a Spanish word that has no direct translation into English. Duende is that vital impulse, that yearning, that need which balances on the knife-edge of life and death. Deep-rooted and unstoppable, it is a force that can never be silenced because it speaks to us, it embodies us, it engulfs us with the urgent necessity to find expression in the darkest of places. And we don’t have the means to ignore its call.

No wonder oppressive regimes hunt down the writers, the poets, the artists. No wonder they shoot us when we sing. No wonder they stamp their jackboots in our faces. They abhor the sight and sound of beauty. They despise the existence of truth. They hate all signs of humanity and goodness. They detest what it means to be human and so use obliteration as their bastard weapon of choice.

The pen is always mightier than the sword. Words have far greater power than guns. In the darkest night with all its blackest, darkest, bloodiest sounds, words can never be silenced. We will keep on singing till we bring the light.

All That Have Dark Sounds was first performed on Eat the Storms podcast Episode 2 Season 7 (May 2023). It was subsequently published in The Serulian (October 2023).

Bay Leaves and Butterflies

This video was released on Monday 16th October 2023 to mark the 6th anniversary of the assassination of the investigative journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia, in Malta.

Daphne was murdered for exposing corruption on a rampant scale, both in Malta and globally. The climate of impunity which enabled her killing still remains today.

Six years on and we have never stopped fighting for justice for Daphne. We won’t give up until justice is done.

The film was directed and produced by John Quinn (JohnQ Films); with thanks to Mick MacNeil and Darrin Zammit Lupi. The film was created in association with Scottish PEN.

Scottish PEN and the CCA

It was an honour and a privilege to be invited to read 2 of my stories at the CCA Glasgow. Both my stories connect to the brutal assassination of the investigative journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia, in Malta in 2017.

I’d been living in Malta for 10 years when Daphne was murdered and the whole landscape shifted. I became part of the protest movement demanding justice for her killing and I’ve continued this work since returning to Scotland nearly 4 years ago.

The assassination took place after decades of harrassment, arson attempts, legal threats and an ongoing dehumanisation campaign against Daphne. Despite this relentless intimidation, Daphne refused to stop exposing the rampant corruption in Malta until the moment she was killed, blown up in a car bomb just minutes from her home.

The final words on her blog post written minutes before her horrific murder were:

‘There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is dangerous.’

An independent public inquiry into Daphne’s assassination was fiercely resisted by Malta government. The inquiry submitted its report in July 2021. It concluded that the Maltese State must take responsibility for Daphne’s murder and that the disgraced ex-prime minister, Joseph Muscat, was responsible for creating the climate of impunity enabling her killing.

This climate of impunity still exists as none of the recommendations stipulated by the inquiry have been implemented. These recommendations are designed, amongst other things, to protect journalists from attempts on their lives.

Activists in Malta continue to risk their lives by speaking out against injustice and pushing for reforms to ensure justice for Daphne, safeguard the rule of law, and restore democracy and freedom of expression. I continue to fight for justice from Scotland and I’m grateful for the ongoing support from Scottish PEN.

If you want to support this campaign, follow Occupy Justice on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/occupyjusticemalta

Repubblika https://repubblika.org/

Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation https://www.daphne.foundation/en/

Join Scottish PEN https://scottishpen.org/

Photo Credit: Linda Jaxson

CCA Glasgow 19th September 2023

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it

So happy to see this story published in the wonderful Ellipsis Zine. This story is dedicated to the disgraced Boris Johnson and all the dirty oligarchs who sail in him

Stick that in your Pipe by Lizzie Eldridge

Reflections

It’s almost August. In Scotland, we’ve scarcely had a summer, but the seasons have moved on since winter and since last Christmas Eve when my dad died. While he was ill in hospital and me and my family were on a rollercoaster of hope and despair, I wrote several stories about my beautiful dad and I’m very grateful that nearly all of these have now been published. The piece that was published in Sixpence Society (see above image) was written and submitted when my Dad was alive. The email from the journal saying they wanted to publish it arrived only days before his funeral. The journal was published on the 6-month anniversary of his death.

My dad loved the word ‘serendipity’. I love the word ‘synchronicity’. The two words are descriptions of the same.

Another story, Into the light of the dark black night, appeared in Northern Gravy at about the same time. I grew up in Scotland and I was born in Yorkshire so the North has strong ties with who and what I am. And who and what I am is very much down to my dad. This extends far beyond biology and genetics, but connects to deep-rooted values and ethics. While I don’t share my dad’s Christian faith, his solid yet quiet sense of faith has made a lasting impact on me – the rebel, the anarchist, the woman who finally made it through the doors of AA in 2014 – inspired and supported by a man who didn’t judge me, but gave me his unspoken blessing as he always did.

Into the light of the dark black night is a line taken from the Beatles’ Blackbird, a song my dad loved and a band he introduced to me as a baby. Revolver is the first vinyl record I can remember and me and my brother and sister thought my dad looked like George Harrison at a time when both were young, even if this realisation was only made in hindsight.

The story published in Sixpence Society is called A Time of Confidences, the title taken from Simon and Garfunkel’s Bookends. Towards the end of my dad’s life, my stepmother took a CD player into the hospital. I turned up with Simon and Garfunkel Live in Central Park, a concert which, in 1982, me and my brother and sister recorded on video and watched again and again and again. We were one of the first families I knew to have a video and this was courtesy of my Dad, one of the founders of the Glasgow Media Group who did groundbreaking research into media bias. My dad taught me critical thinking from the age of dot.

I put on Simon and Garfunkel in my dad’s hospital room. ‘Do you like the music?’ I asked. ‘Yes, I do,’ he said, smiling and alert. ‘Yes, I do.’

On that final Christmas Eve, I went to visit my dad with my daughter. His breathing was very difficult. His eyes darted between our faces and I played Simon and Garfunkel to make the atmosphere as light and happy as possible. The nurses had quietly warned me he was going to die but I hadn’t listened to the subtext. They told me I didn’t have to wear protective clothing even though my dad now had Covid. They advised me that this would, of course, be at my own risk. They told me the one visitor rule no longer applied. I was oblivious to the meaning.

It sounds corny but truth is always stranger than fiction. Slip Sliding Away was playing when my dad began to lose his grasp on the living. He brought up a substance from his mouth which suddenly allowed his breath to clear. A nurse came in and lowered the sides of his bed. ‘Just sit with him,’ she said.

If memories are all we’re left with, then I have a thousand moments of joy which I can preserve for the remainder of my own life. I have years of love for and from a man who instilled all the good things in me. My beliefs and the things I fight for are the values he shared with me: human rights, freedom of speech, equality, and social justice.

My father might not have been perfect, but he came a close second. My father might not have been perfect, but I am blessed to have him as my dad. My father might not have been perfect, but as a wise and compassionate human being with an endless capacity to share, I cannot fault him.

Links to stories for and about my dad:

https://sixpencesociety.wixsite.com/journal/issues-pdf

Into the light of the dark black night by Lizzie Eldridge

Two Stories

https://www.canva.com/design/DAFbVc9A360/gnmiU754wArv0VB3i1NNcw/view?utm_content=DAFbVc9A360&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=publishsharelink#108

Tracks (Home Anthology, Pure Slush)

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Pure Slush

Home Lifespan Vol. 7

Very pleased and happy to have my story, Tracks, included in this anthology. Available to order as a paperback, epub or Kindle.

Two Stories

Snapshot and Lament

https://brieflywrite.com/2023/03/22/two-stories-lizzie-eldridge/This week, I had 2 pieces of microfiction published in Briefly Zine. Both stories are for and about my Dad, the beautiful John Eric Thomas Eldridge, who passed away on Christmas Eve 2022.

My Dad was right there when I was born. I arrived early and the midwife thought it was a false alarm so, because my Dad was an academic, the joke in my family was that he was on p97 of the Penguin Book of Childbirth when the midwife finally appeared at our home. I feel very privileged to have been there alongside my own daughter when my Dad died. It was painful, hard and deeply sad, but my Dad gave out so much joy throughout his life and I hold on to this. Always.

Snapshot

I was a bonnie wee lassie growing up in Glasgow. My Dad taught me not to be sectarian when it came to football. Hatred doesn’t mix well with anything, he said, passing me the ball in a moment of shared joy. I was a bonnie wee lassie with a Dad who showed me how to live. Lament

Bagpipes are traditional at a Scottish funeral, but I’d never buried my Dad before. Melodies aching of bleak hills and glens left me standing, alone, by a cold mountain, scanning the empty landscape to find him there again.

Scottish PEN’s Vigil for Daphne Caruana Galizia

On the 16th October 2022, Scottish PEN held a Vigil outside the Scotiish Parliament, Holyrood, Edinburgh. This marked the fifth anniversary of the brutal assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta.

The speakers were Ricky Monahan Brown (President of Scottish PEN), Nick McGowan-Lowe (NUJ Scotland), Richard Leonard (MSP), Joyce McMillan (NUJ Scotland), and Nik Williams (Index on Censorship). Messages of suport also came from James Dornan (MSP), Ross Greer (MSP) and Pauline McNeill (MSP). An additional message of support came from Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament, who has been at the forefront of the fight for justice since Daphne’s horrific murder on 16th October 2017.

The event saw Scottish PEN renew its demands for justice for Daphne Caruana Galizia on a day when voices across Europe called for Daphne’s killers to be caught and held to account.

The following link provides the text of a speech which I gave at the start of the Vigil with a strong and clear message to fellow activists in Malta and internationally:

”We are here, right beside you and with you, standing shoulder to shoulder and hand in hand. We are not going anywhere. We are here and we will always be here until we’ve achieved what we’re fighting for – full justice for Daphne Caruana Galizia.”

Scottish PEN’s vigil for Daphne