{"id":27760,"date":"2026-06-06T13:48:01","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T20:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/?p=27760"},"modified":"2026-06-06T14:04:32","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T21:04:32","slug":"from-1976-to-2026-neither-peace-nor-ceasefire-have-ever-been-keywords-so-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/?p=27760","title":{"rendered":"From 1976 to 2026, neither peace nor ceasefire have ever been keywords. So what?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe blues remembers everything the country forgot\u201d
\nGil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson, \u201cBicentennial Blues\u201d<\/p>\n

What does it mean to forget the meaning of peace? Of ceasefire? Or, what does it mean to never have known?<\/p>\n

In 1976, the year of the United States Bicentennial, the Welsh activist scholar Raymond Williams published Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society<\/em>. Williams was careful to state, and repeat often, that his work was a vocabulary, not a dictionary, that it was imbedded in and woven through the social and political usages and tendencies of both his time and the times that produced his times, and the people that made and were made by, in and through those times. In 1976, Williams\u2019 vocabulary included neither peace<\/em> nor ceasefire<\/em>. Nineteen words comprised the total of C-words. From capitalism<\/em> to culture<\/em>, C was the largest collection of words in his vocabulary. Peace<\/em> did not figure in among the nine words beginning with P, from peasant<\/em> to psychological<\/em>. In 1976, no one gave peace a chance \u2026 and why would they? Has anything changed since then?<\/p>\n

In 1976, the year of the United States Bicentennial, Gil-Scott Heron and Brian Jackson wrote<\/a> and recorded<\/a> Bicentennial Blues<\/em>. The song investigates reasons the United States is the \u201chome of the blues\u201d. A few stanzas in, after the initial explanation, the song explains:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe point is
\nThat the blues has grown
\nThe blues is grown now, full grown
\nAnd you can trace the evolution of the blues
\nOn a parallel line with the evolution of this country
\nFrom Plymouth Rock to acid-rock
\nFrom 13 states to Watergate
\nThe blues is grown
\nBut not the home
\nThe blues is grown
\nBut the country has not
\nThe blues remembers everything the country forgot<\/p>\n

It’s a bicentennial year and the blues is celebrating a birthday
\nAnd it’s a bicentennial blues<\/p>\n

America has got the blues and it’s a bicentennial edition
\nThe blues view might amuse you
\nBut make no mistake, it’s a bicentennial year
\nA year of hysterical importance
\nA year of historical importance\u201d<\/p>\n

And here we are, 2026, a year of hysterical importance, a year of historical importance, a year, five decades later, in which the blues remembers everything the country forgot.<\/p>\n

In 1982, June Jordan published \u201cApologies to all the people in Lebanon<\/a>\u201d. The poem opens:<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know and nobody told me and what
\ncould I do or say, anyway?<\/p>\n

They said you shot the London Ambassador
\nand when that wasn\u2019t true
\nthey said so
\nwhat
\nThey said you shelled their northern villages
\nand when U.N. forces reported that was not true
\nbecause your side of the cease-fire was holding
\nsince more than a year before
\nthey said so
\nwhat
\nThey said they wanted simply to carve
\na 25 mile buffer zone and then
\nthey ravaged your
\nwater supplies your electricity your
\nhospitals your schools your highways and byways all
\nthe way north to Beirut because they said this
\nwas their quest for peace
\nof mankind isn\u2019t that obvious?\u201d<\/p>\n

Here we are, decades later, and the \u201cquest for peace\u201d remains invasion, destruction, devastation, and death, and we continue to say, \u201cI didn\u2019t know and nobody told me and what could I do or say, anyway?\u201d Where is the vocabulary, where are the culture and society, in which peace and ceasefire are keywords, words of critical significance, rather than invitations to say, \u201cSo what?\u201d<\/p>\n

The illustration below appeared in yesterday\u2019s issue of The Guardian<\/a><\/em>. How many more times will we see such illustrations? So what?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(By Dan Moshenberg)<\/p>\n

(Illustration: Fiona Katauskas \/\u00a0The Guardian<\/em>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe blues remembers everything the country forgot\u201d Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson, \u201cBicentennial Blues\u201d What does it mean to forget the meaning of peace? Of ceasefire? Or, what does it mean to never have known? In 1976, the year of the United States Bicentennial, the Welsh activist scholar Raymond Williams published Keywords: A Vocabulary of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6849,114,6339,556,6850,5065,6807],"class_list":["post-27760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-ceasefire","tag-dan-moshenberg","tag-gil-scott-heron","tag-haunts","tag-june-jordan","tag-peace","tag-raymond-williams","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27760"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27765,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27760\/revisions\/27765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}