The History of Demecser

Nihil recte sine exemplo docetur aut discitur...

In Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg country. The seal of the Local Authority of the Town of Demecser: Shield shaped, the Seal is divided into three major sections.On the upper left white section there stands a black contoured faint yellow water tower with two green trees in the front. On the upper right section there're three yellow wheat ears on a green background. The bottom section of the Seal is a fish-shaped area, inside there's a brown fish swimming left. Over this area there's a strong, black line. The Seal is encircled by golden olive branch on the left and golden oak-branch on the right. The two branches are tied up together by the bottom by a golden ribbon. The village of Demecser is located at a distance of 25 kilometres northeast of Nyíregyháza, in an area where the regions of Közép-Nyírség and Rétköz meet. It is accesssbile on a minor road branching off from trunk road No. 4 at Székely. The Budapest-Záhony main railway line runs through the settlement.As it is attested by numerous archeological finds the area of contemporary Demecser was inhabited as early as ancient times. The village is registered by archeologists and museologists as a place of the earliest finds of the so called ’Great Plain linear patterned pottery’. The patterns are mostly engravings of simple geometrical forms, but examples representing the later Körös-Szamos area painted pottery were also found. The name of the settlement was first mentioned in a document around 1261-1267, according to which in the vicinity of the village of Kék Governor Sándor Kárászi purchased an estate called Kendemecher. As it is attested by some other sources the name of the settlement first occured in a deed of gift of approximately 1270-1272, according to which King Stephen V bestowed the settlement on Sándor Kárászi.Due to a decision brought by the Palatine in 1331, Miklós, the son of Sándor Kárászi lost part of the village; it is also known that his brother had the intention of selling the other part of the village to a man called Pál Magyar. István, a member of the Kállay branch of the Balogh-Semjén clan registered a protest against this intention on the grounds of owning the settlement himself. In spite of this fact it seems to be certain that eventually Pál Magyar was able to purchase the village of Demecser, with the surrounding swamps and 30 fish ponds for an amount of 400 silver forints. The stone building of the village church, which was constructed to honour St. George existed as early as this period. In 1354 Demecser was given to Erzsébet, the daughter of Pál Magyar, as part of her dowry.The 15th century brought a change in the history of Demecser. It was in this period that the settlement obtained the right to hold fairs and it was raised to the rank of market town. In 1415 Demecser as well as its outer fields were obtained by the members of the Czudar family.Demecser was a market town from 1460 to 1886. Its right to hold fairs was first mentioned in a document of 1466. It can be concluded form the date that these privileges were most likely to have been given to the settlement by King Mathias. Bessénytanya, Bodótanya, Borzsovatanya, Fekete-tanya, Idatanya, Kolbárttanya, Vártanya, Verestanya, Fellegvártanya, Kistanya were also parts of Demecser in this period. The owners of the settlement were the members of the Várady and Kállay families.According to the tax register of 1556 Demecser had 32 tax paying households, so the number of inhabitants is estimated to have been about 160-165 people. In 1588 there were 93 serfs in the village and they belonged to the members of the Várady family. Due to the swamps of Rétköz the area was relatively sparsely populated because people could only settle down at some heights. In 1611, when the male branch of the Várady family died out members of various nobiliary families claimed the right to Demecser. In the middle of the 17th century István Lónyay was one of its owners and he was given the right of ownership of part of the village by the palatine.Others obtained parts of the settlement by right of mortgage. There were times when part of the village was a royal possession.The census of 1720 registered 14 units of land held in villeinage, two dry mills and three water mills in the village.In the period of the liberation of the serfs the members of the Barkóczy and the Jósa families owned the village. It was only later that other families, including the Pazonyi, Szabó, Györy, Cseepey, Vay and Répássy families came into the ownership of smaller or of larger estates in the area. The number of Demecser’s inhabitants in that period was 839, the size of its ploughlands was 244 acres, and the rest of the village’s outer fields was pastures and fishing ponds. In 1870 there were 220 houses at Demecser and the number of its inhabitants reached 1385. The area of the settlement was 6467 acres then.By the census of 1900 the village had 226 houses and 2021 inhabitants. Due to the rise of capitalism the number of Demecser’s inhabitants further increased at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. It was also the period when the Tisza river got regulated, a network of canals was constructed in the eastern half of the country, the Nyíregyháza-Ungvár railway line opened, and in connection with the rising popularity of pickled cabbage production, cooperage and starch production developed.Local economy thrived in this period and it had a beneficial influence on village life and society.In 1931 the number of village houses was 538 and the number of Demecser’s inhabitants reached 4,000. A seven-classroom school operated in the village and by their religious affiliations the inhabitants formed Roman Catholic, Calvinist and Israelite congregations. It was also in the 1930s that some local roads were constructed, others got paved. These roads link Demecser to the neighbouring settlements. After the world war the development of Demecser was blocked by the politics of artificial centralisation and its straight outcome, disproportionate development. The development of Nyíregyháza was prioritised in this period and the nearby Záhony also played a special role. The number of inhabitants was still on the rise in this period and the settlement gained its present-day size in the 1960s and 1970s.In the meantime politicians became increasingly aware of the disadvantages of the politics of centralisation and due to this change Demecser has acquired a new role as the centre of the Rétköz region. From the mid-70s onward a slow but steady development started in the village.As of April 15, 1973 the local governments of Demecser and of the nearby village of Székely joined and the settlement was raised to the rank of township. In 1977 the village of Kék also joined in.In 1975 a wool-spinning factory was established in Demecser, thus the proportion of industry and the number of industrial employees increased in the region. Demecser became a regional centre of 10 villages, for 20,000 inhabitants, who worked in two factories, an agricultural cooperative as well as in service industries and various government institutions.The political and social democratisation and the establishment of a market-oriented economy created the possibilities for civil development. This development coincides with new ownerships and this change has also created some conflicts and social tensions in local industry, agriculture, trade and services as well.The local agricultural cooperative ceased to exist. The two factories- the distillery and the textile factory- were privatised and due to this change they lost their former markets.Their activities narrowed down and they had problems with their competitors, too. The factory owners changed on several occasions but none of them could stabilise the economic status of the factories .These hardships in local industry resulted in rocketing unemployment figures and subsistence worries all obver the settlement.In spite of these difficulties from 1990 to 1994 the local gas network was constructed, the heating system of public institutions was modernised, and many village roads were paved.



Munkaszolgálatosok:

Név: Brown Emeri
Szül. hely: Demecser
Szül idő: 1921
Tábor/Tartózkodási hely/Cím:
Ukrajna
Információforrás:
eydut


Név: Farkas Éliás
Szül. hely: Demecser
Munkásszázad:
108/26
Információforrás:
POR


Név: Farkas Lajos
Szül. hely: Demecser
Munkásszázad:
8/2


Név: Glück Ernő
Szül. hely: Demecser
Munkásszázad:
261/7
Információforrás:
8749


Név: Glück Miksa
Szül. hely: Demecser
Tábor/Tartózkodási hely/Cím:
Ukrajna
Munkásszázad:
105/2
Információforrás:
POR


Név: Grósz Jenő
Szül. hely: Demecser
Szül idő: 1919
Tábor/Tartózkodási hely/Cím:
Schachendorf / Csajta


Név: Leichtmann Endre
Szül. hely: Demecser
Tábor/Tartózkodási hely/Cím:
Lengyelország
Munkásszázad:
101/95
Információforrás:
POR


Név: Schwarcz László
Szül. hely: Demecser
Munkásszázad:
107/307
Információforrás:
POR


Név: Schwarcz Pál
Szül. hely: Demecser
Munkásszázad:
101/307
Információforrás:
POR

Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory...



Jozsef (Yakov) Gunczler,
son of Menyhert (Menachem Aaron) 1824
From Kemecse register books.
The books started 1875, but entries of Demecser are only from 1886 to 1894.

http://www.stevemorse.org/genealogy/documents.html?direct=0&root=megan&fullname=&noancestortree=1&family=Gunczler
Birth
Date: July 1, 1888
Place: Demecser
Name: Herman Gunczler
Father: Jozsef Gunczler publican, his birthplace is unknown
Mother: Pepi Weisz, her birthplace is Demecser
Mohel: Jacob Gottlieb
Bathen or godfather: Jakab Roth merchant in Demecser
died January 19, 1920
cemetery in Demecser, Hungary






Herman (Avraham Tsvi) Gunczler, age 12
son of Jozsef (Yacov)
tombstone says died 8 Iyyar 5661(April 27, 1901),
but death record says May 17 1901 (28 Iyyar 5661),
cemetery in Demecser, Hungary



Lina (Leah), daughter of Mor Tvi,
second wife of Jozsef Gunczler
died 12 Ab 5692 (August 14, 1932)
cemetery in Demecser, Hungary



Iren (Ruchel), daughter of Lorinc (Yuda Aryeh) Klein,
wife of second Herman Gunczler
died 10 Sivon 5701 (June 5, 1941)
cemetery in Demecser, Hungary

Margit & Herman Wasser
Demecser Hungary, December 1927

Magda Gintzler, Demecser, April 10, 1940

                

Dubner Sarolta, FERENC, ILONA, JÓZSEF Sara Simon

1919szept10 Gubner ferenc túlélte

19430309?

Túlélés

http://www.remeny.org/remeny/2014-2-szam/weisz-gruner-aliz-agak-gyoker-nelkul-reszlet/

A gőzmozdony fülsiketítő sistergéssel lassított és leállt. Testvéremhez rohantam, nagy izgalmamban nem is vettem észre, hogy közben elájult, ájultan feküdt a padlón. Ekkor szinte eszemet vesztve utolsó erőmmel rázni kezdtem. Ébresztgettem; éreztem, nekem se’ sok hiányzik az ájuláshoz. És mintha valahonnan, nagyon messziről hallanám… a nevünkön szólongatnak… jól hallok?!A nevünket kiáltaná valaki? A szellőzőhöz rohantam, és akkor láttam, hogy három csonttá fogyott férfi közeleg. Tudniillik, a Csapon felvett adatainkat a Vöröskereszt továbbította a nyíregyházi hitközségi irodába azzal, hogy úton vagyunk hazafelé.

Nehezen ismertem fel őket, pedig mindössze egy év telt el, mióta utoljára találkoztunk. Ez az év elég volt ahhoz, hogy a felismerhetetlenségig rájuk nyomja bélyegét. Amint közeledtek, hangjuk mind ismerősebbnek tűnt, s én is magamból kikelve kezdtem őket nevükön szólítani. Krausz Elek, Weisz Nuszi és Gubner Simon. Mindhármukat jól ismertem. A vagon ajtaját félretolva, egymás után ugráltak fel; a könnyeiket férfi létükre sem tudták visszatartani. Nem kérdezgettek sokat, de testvéremet leemelték a vagonból. Ellenkezni próbáltam, nem akartam utunkat megszakítani. Csak annyit feleltek: nincs értelme tovább folytatni az utat, nem jött vissza senki.(…)

1945. március eleje volt. Bár tudtuk a valót, hogy otthon senki sem vár bennünket, mégis elindultunk Kékre, ami hat kilométernyire volt Demecsertől. Gyalog tettük meg az utat, a három jófiú kíséretében. Házunktól már csak pár lépés választott el, amikor hallottuk a kiskapu nyikorgását, s egyszerre csak elénk szaladt családunk jó öreg Fickó névre hallgató kutyája. Hangos szűköléssel, ugatással ugrált körülöttünk, mégis óvatos távolságban, mintha csak érezte volna a csíkos láger-ruhánkból áradó krematóriumfüst szagát. Síró, nyüszítő vonításban tört ki örömében, majd váratlanul világgá szaladt, többé nem is láttuk.(…)

Hogy kik jöttek vissza? Emlékeim legszörnyűbb része ez, nem hallgathatom el. Drága anyám, Ibolya, Sándorka, Lacika és a nyolc éves, szépséges szőke, kékszemű Gizella testvéreim a krematórium martalékává váltak. Legidősebb testvérbátyám, Miklós tífuszt kapott sok száz bajtársával együtt. Lágerüket az éj leple alatt körülzárták és rájuk gyújtották, benn égtek elevenen. Ez volt a hírhedt szobibori láger. Zoltán testvérem 22 éves volt; nem bírta tovább a fagyot, az éhséget, bajtársai a Don-kanyarnál temették el. Drága Jóska testvérem húsz éves volt, ártatlan, szelíd gyermek. Egy irgalmas, keresztény család bújtatta Királyhelmecen. A gyilkos csendőrök felfedezték és felakasztották, bajtársai tanúskodtak róla.(…)

A szomorú végösszeg a következő: a kéki kilencvenhat zsidó lélekből csupán tízen maradtunk.

Ismét tavasz jött. Épphogy betöltöttem tizenkilencedik életévemet. A szép-ábrándos álmok helyett szörnyű víziók kísértettek: kápók kínoztak, kegyetlen aufseherinek korbácsütései riasztottak álmomból. Vérebek hajtotta népem szerencsétlen tömegei meneteltek végtelen sorokban a krematóriumok felé. Vigasztalást ki adott volna? Erre az idősebbek voltak hivatva. De hová lettek az idősebbek? Hitler gyilkos kiszolgálói gyökerestől kiirtották népem. Így maradtunk itt-ott megtépázott ágak – gyökértelenül.(…)

DEMECSER.
Hozzátartozik : Balázsitanya,
Bersény tanya. B o d ó ta n y a , B orzsovatanya.
Feketetanya, Fellegvártanya.
Idatanya, Kislánya. Kolbárttanya,
Vártanya, Verestanya.
Nk., nyirbogdányi j., (székh.:
Kemecse) 3234 1., rkat., ref., te,
6433 kh., tsz., püig., jb., adóhiv.:
Nyíregyháza, jfjßi (1 km.),
73- ( t e .
Községi biró: László Albert.
Vezető jeggző: Széli Sándor.
Körorvos: Neumann Hermán.
Földbirtokosok: Ehrenreich Adolf
(939) — özv. Elek Dezsőné (664)
pazonyi Elek László (971) — Felső-
szabolcsi Tiszai Árment. Társaság
(104) — Grosz Soma (152).
Szőlőbirtokosok: özv. Elek D.-né
(17) — pazonyi Elek László (24).
Orvos: Kiss Emil. Ács és építési vállalkozók: Horváth
Pál — Kovács Menyhért —
Kremniczki Sándor.
Asztalosok: Enyedi József — Ősz
Imre — Potornai János — Szabó
József.
Bádogosok: Berger József — Braun
Ferenc — Groszmann Mór.
Borbél yok: Csernai János — Fabu
József — Kővári Gusztáv. Burgonyakemény.-, liszt-, szörp-,
cukor-, dextringyár: Demecseri
Ipartelepek Rt.
Cipészek: Groszmann József —
Grünwald Mór — Laskás László
— Leiche Hermann — Petrényi
János — Révész Dániel — Szabó
János.
Csizmadiák: Tokarschi Im re —
Vass András.
Fakereskedők: Glück Ede — Penner
Mózes — Teremki Kálmán.
Fogyasztási szövetk.: "Hangya
Ért. és Fogv. Szöv.
Hentesek: Daróczi Miklós — Vida
József — Vida Pál.
Káposztasavanyitó: Demecs. Ipartelepek
Rt.
Kerékgyártók: Herczeg Lajos —
Simon József.
Kocsigyártó: Szabó Kálmán.
Kocsmárosok: Bütykös Pál — özv.
Grünczéler Józsefné — Juhász
Pálné — Müller Dávidné — Róth
Jakab — Weisz Hermann — Weisz
Mátyás.
Kovácsok: Enyedi József — Ferkó
Miklós — Tál Gábor — Talus M.
Kőműves: Zöllner József.
Lókereskedök: Czura Mihály —
Weisz Imre.
Malomtulajdonos: Teremy József
hengergözmalma. Mészárosok: Groszmann Hermann
— Groszmann Mór.
Mészkereskedő: Gauerfried Jakab
(Demecser köz). Mozgóképszínház: Nemzeti mozgó
Pénzintézetek: "Demecser és Vidéke
Nép- és Postásbank m. szöv.
f. a. — "Demecser és Vidéke
Takpt. Rt. Szatócsok: Bernák Sári —
Braun Béla — Csintalan Gyula
— Fehér Ferenc — Gelbmann
Sámuel — Glück Emil — Goldfarb
Emil — Groszmann Mózes
Hevesi Elekné — Juhász Pál —
Kacsik József — Kalla Ábrahámné
— Leicht Hermann —
Leichtmann Hermann — Reichmann
Béla — Teremi Kálmán
Weisz Imréné. Szikvizgyártó: Gubner Simon. Terménykereskedők: Leicht M.
— Leichtmann Dávid — Weisz
Hermann — Weisz József. Textiláru kereskedő: Leicht B.
Vaskereskedő: Groszmann Mór.
Vegyeskereskedő: Glück H.

Régi képek Demecser környékéről

A házi vászonneműt régen a patakban mosták, sulykolták. A sulykoló teljesen díszítetlen.


Csöllő

Szövésnél a vetélőben lévő orsóra csöllővel gombolyítják rá a fonalat. Ezt a munkát rendszerint gyerekek végzik.A szövésnél a vetélőben lévő orsóra csöllővel gombolyítják a fonalat. Ezt a munkát rendszerint gyerekek végzik. A csöllő tengelyével egybeépített fakerék a forgást segíti elő. A nádorsóra csavarják a kenderfonalat, és a csöllő vályújában vannak a már felgombolyított orsók.

 Hosszúkás krumpliverem

A dohánypórék felkötése a szerdiafákra

Régi Demecseri ház 1922

A gémeskutunkon a kulcsoskúthorog, ilyen lakat volt, le tudtuk venni róla a vedret  vízhúzásnál a kulcsot kiveszik, a vödröt a horogba illesztik, majd újra a kulcsot elfordítják rajta. 

Kétféle sortávolságú sorozó  Répa, káposzta és kukorica soroló Tarlógereblyéhez hasonló szerkezeten a növény sortávolságának megfelelő távolságra fogak. Az egymástól nagyobb távolságra lévő fogak a kukorica, kisebb távolságra lévők pedig a káposzta sorolására valók

Dohánypajta

Nyitott ajtóval

Dohány sorozó

A ház előtt álló láda a gabonszuszék, ami a termény tárolására szolgált. Az eresz alatt tartották régen Oldalai deszkákból vannak összeróva.  

Szalmatalicska

Istálló

Kerekverem A krumpli, sárgarépa, zöldség, karalábé és minden vermelni való zőldségféle ebben kötött ki.

Hosszúkás krumpliverem középen deszkából készült szellőző nyílások. A nyílásokat erős fagy esetén szalmával betömik

Szalmakarám a disznóknak a meleg nyári napokra 

Káposztatorzsa

Mosótekenő

Tengeri kas vagy góré Facölöpön áll, léc oldalakkal és zsindely tetővel. Oldalain rések, hogy a tengeri jól száradhasson, akár 200 zsák tengeri is elfér bele. 

Veréce ajtó Nyári lécajtó a nyárikonyhára teszik fel, és csak ezt csukják be, hogy a baromfi ne tudjon a konyhába menni, viszont a levegő "járhatja a konyhát". 

Vályogból készült disznóól és tyúkól. A kocsiszín oldalai vesszőből fontak. A kocsiszín és a disznóól náddal, a tyúkól zsindellyel fedve. 

A Tice Dombrád Beszterec és Halász Demecser között, a Ticce széles, tiszta, csolnakokkal mindig

járható ér, sűrű nádasok között. Hajdan a Tiszába vágó folyóvíz, mintegy négymérföldnyi hosszúságú volt és Kisvárdá-tói az ibrányi elpusztult régi vár alatt szakadt a Szár nevü tóba. Tóth György jegyző 1864-ben így küldte be Pesty Frigyesnek. Kerekes József társulati főmérnök úr értesítese szerint a Járat a Ticébe vezetett, Demecser és Gégény között Járat-folyásnak hívták. 

Egy régi pecsét

Pazonyi  Elek Dezső László és Dezső közös pecsétje

http://acta.bibl.u-szeged.hu/38193/1/fold_002_003_004.pdf

Gipsies music and dancing in Hungary

Gott wie gross ist deine zoo...

This articles contains stories of good  and bad, which are illustrative of their titles: “The Preference of Goodness to Riches,” “The Contrast between Inhumanity and  Compassion,” “The Exaltation of Humility, and the Abasement of Pride,” “The Necessity of Correction for Idleness and Perverseness,” “The good and naughty ,” and “The fatal Effects of Mistaken Fondness.” In these article, the well-behaved are universally  admired and loved, and those who are ill-behaved are shunned. I am thoroughly aware that the point which is likely to excite the attention of my readers to a greater degree than any other in the previous chapter, is the reference contained therein to the secret things write. My orations are a tropical forest, full of strength and majesty, tangled in luxuriance, a wilderness of  self-repetition. Utterly unsuited to form a book without immense abridgment, they contain materials adapted equally for immediate political service and for permanence as a work of wisdom and of genius. To prepare them for the press is an arduous and responsible duty: the best excuse which I can give for having assumed it, is, that it has been to me a labour of love. My task I have felt to be that of a judicious reporter, who cuts short what is of temporary interest, condenses what is too amplified for his limits and for written style, severely prunes down the repetitions which are inevitable where numerous[*] audiences are addressed by the same man on the same subject, yet amid all these necessary liberties retains not only the true sentiments and arguments of the speaker, but his forms of thought and all that is characteristic of his genius. Such an operation, rightly performed, may, like a diminishing mirror, concentrate the brilliancy of diffuse orations, and assist their efficacy on minds which would faint under the effort of grasping the original. These are words of magic to the rich and poor, noblemen and peasant alike, if he be a true Hungarian. Nevertheless I have to confess my conviction, that nothing can wholly compensate for the want of systematic revision by the author himself; which his great occupations have made impossible. The mistakes in the reports of the speeches are sometimes rather subtle, and have not roused my suspicion. There are two kinds of gipsies. The wandering thief, who can not be made to take up any occupation. These are a terribly lawless and immoral people, and there seems to be no way of altering their life and habits, altho much has been written on the subject to improve matters; but the Government has shown itself to be helpless as yet. These people live here and there, in fact everywhere, leading a wandering life in carts, and camp wherever night overtakes them. After some special evil-doing they will wander into Rumania or Russia and come back after some years when the deed of crime has been forgotten. Their movements are so quick and silent that they outwit the best detectives of the police force. They speak the gipsy language, but often a half-dozen other languages besides, in their peculiar chanting voice. Their only occupation is stealing, drinking, smoking, and being a nuisance to the country in every way.  The other sort of gipsies consist of those that have squatted down in the villages some hundreds of years ago. They live in a separate part of the village, usually at the end, are dirty and untidy and even an unruly people, but for the most part have taken up some honest occupation. They make the rough, unbaked earth bricks that the peasant cottages are mostly made of, are tinkers and blacksmiths, but they do the lowest kind of work too. Besides these, however, there are the talented ones. The musical gipsy begins to handle his fiddle as soon as he can toddle. The Hungarians brought their love of music with them from Asia. Old parchments have been found which denote that they had their songs and war-chants at the time of the "home-making," and church and folk-songs from their earliest Christian period. Peasant and nobleman are musical alike—it runs in the race. The gipsies that have settled among them caught up the love of music and are now the best interpreters of the Hungarian songs. The people have got so used to their "blackies," as they call them, that no lesser or greater fête day can pass without the gipsy band having ample work to do in the form of playing for the people. Their instruments are the fiddle, 'cello, viola, clarinet, tárogato (a Hungarian specialty), and, above all, the cymbal. The tárogato looks like a grand piano with the top off. It stands on four legs like a table and has wires drawn across it; on these wires the player performs with two little sticks, that are padded at the ends with cotton-wool. The sound is wild and weird, but if well played very beautiful indeed. The gipsies seldom compose music. The songs come into life mostly on the spur of the moment. In the olden days war-songs and long ballads were the most usual form of music. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were specially rich in the production of songs that live even now. At that time the greatest gipsy musician was a woman: her name was "Czinka Panna," and she was called the Gipsy Queen. With the change of times the songs are altered too, and now they are mostly lyric. Csárdás is the quick form of music, and tho' of different melodies it must always be kept to the same rhythm. This is not much sung to, but is the music for the national dance. The peasants play on a little wooden flute which is called the "Tilinko," or "Furulya," and they know hundreds of sad folk-songs and lively Csárdás. While living their isolated lives in the great plains they compose many a beautiful song. It is generally from the peasants and the musical country gentry that the gipsy gets his music. He learns the songs after a single hearing, and plays them exactly according to the singer's wish. The Hungarian noble when singing with the gipsies is capable of giving the dark-faced boys every penny he has. In this manner many a young nobleman has been ruined, and the gipsies make nothing of it, because they are just like their masters and "spend easily earned money easily," as the saying goes. Where there is much music there is much dancing. Every Sunday afternoon after church the villages are lively with the sound of the gipsy band, and the young peasant boys and girls dance. Meanwhile my readers may be curious to think how I am related to this worthy  who writes; but this indeed I cannot tell..

Beware when the great got lets loose a thinker on this  library ...

My darling

This world is a comedy for those that think, a tragedy for those that feel...

The writing is my passion, my love, my one big talent. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life, and it comes with both successes AND failures. The best thing I can do is keep my head up, learn from my mistakes, and strive to do my best. Sings from the heart, dreaming from the soul, smile to the stars, love like you'll never let go. I love your that's my secret. no hearts,no pretty drawings,no poems or cryptic messages. I love you. before i met you i never knew what it was like to look at someone and smile for no reason. life is a dance from one stage to the next. People hate you because they want to be just like you... work like you don't need money, dance like nobody's watching, love like you've never been hurt. Being happy doesn't mean everything is perfect, it means you've decided too see beyond the imperfections. The only reason people hold on to memories so tight is because memories are the only thing that won't change when everything else does. I don't wanna close my eyes.i don't wanna fall asleep cause i'll miss,baby and i don't wanna miss a thing. “To those who can dream there is no such place as faraway.True friendship comes when silence between two people is comfortable.One who looks for a associates without faults will have none. “If we would build on a sure foundation in friendship, we must love friends for their sake rather than for our own. “Don't wait for people to be friendly, show them how.  I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I do not believe I deserved my friends.  A friend is one who believes in you when you have ceased to believe in yourself. True friends are two people who are comfortable sharing silence together. He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words. The man who has no problems is out of the game. Love, we say, is life; but love without hope and faith is agonizing death. Your friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you. If love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question? Those who do not know how to weep with their whole heart don't know how to laugh either. Lips that taste of tears, they say, Are the best for kissing. Tears are the silent language of grief. People seldom notice old clothes if you wear a big smile. A smile is a curve that sets everything straight. The world always looks brighter from behind a smile. Start every day with a smile and get it over with. A smile is the light in the window of your face that tells people you're at home. Always remember to be happy because you never know who's falling in love with your smile.Everyone smiles in the same language.I've never seen a smiling face that was not beautiful.Smile - sunshine is good for your teeth. Every day you spend without a smile, is a lost day.If you don't start out the day with a smile, it's not too late to start practicing for tomorrow.You're never fully dressed without a smile.A smile can brighten the darkest dayPeace begins with a smile. Why does it take a minute to say hello and forever to say goodbye? How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard. Goodbyes are not forever. Goodbyes are not the end. They simply mean I'll miss you Until we meet again! The reason it hurts so much to separate is because our souls are connected. May the sun shine, all day long, everything go right, and nothing wrong. May those you love bring love back to you, and may all the wishes you wish come true! A man never knows how to say goodbye; a woman never knows when to say it. Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened. Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else. Be yourself" is about the worst advice you can give some people. Live your life crazy,and love every second of it. Giving up doesn't always mean you are weak; sometimes it means that you are strong enough to let go. I never knew until that moment how bad it could hurt to lose something you never really had.

I am a man more sinned against than sinning  ...

Revolt Against the World

Some books are to be tasted others to be swallowed and some few to be chewed and digested...

This booklet is for people who are dissatisfied with their lives. If you are happy with your present existence, we have no argument with you. However, if you are tired of waiting for your life to change...Tired of waiting for authentic community, love and adventure...Tired of waiting for the end of money and forced work... Tired of looking for new pastimes to pass the time... Tired of waiting for a lush, rich existence... Tired of waiting for a situation in which you can realise all your desires... Tired of waiting for the end of all authorities, alienations, ideologies and moralities... ...then we think you'll find what follows to be quite handy. One of the great secrets of our miserable yet potentially marvellous time is that thinking can be a pleasure. This is a manual for constructing your own self-theory. Constructing your self-theory is a revelutionary pleasure, the pleasure of constructing your self-theory of revolution. Building your self-theory is a destructive/constructive pleasure, because you are building a theory-of-practice for the destructive/constructive transformation of this society.Self-theory is a theory of adventure. It is as erotic and humorous as an authentic revolution.The alienation felt as a result of having had your thinking done for you by the ideologies of our day, can lead to the search for the pleasurable negation of that alienation: thinking for yourself. It is the pleasure of making your mind your own. Self-theory is the body of critical thought you construct for your own use. You construct it and use it when you make an analysis of why your life is the way it is, why the world is the way it is. (And 'thinking' and 'feeling' are inseparable, since thought comes from subjective, emotive experience.) You build your self-theory when you develop a theory of practice -- a theory of how to get what you desire for your life. Theory will be either a practical theory -- a theory of revolutionary practice -- or it will be nothing... nothing but an aquarium of ideas, a contemplative interpretation of the world. The realm of ideals is the eternal waiting-room of unrealised desire.  Those who assume (usually unconsciously) the impossibility of realising their life's desires, and of thus fighting for themselves, usually end up fighting for an ideal or cause instead (ie the illusion of selfactivity or self-practice). Those who know that this is the acceptance of alienation will now know that all ideals and causes are ideologies. Whenever a system of ideas is structured with an abstraction at the centre -- assigning a role or duties to you for its sake -- this system is an ideology. An ideology is a system of false consciousness in which you no longer function as the subject in your relation to the world. The various forms of ideology are all structured around different abstractions, yet they all serve the interests of a dominant (or aspiring dominant) class by giving you a sense of purpose in your sacrifice, suffering and submission. Religious ideology is the oldest example, the fantastic projection called 'God' is the Supreme Subject of the cosmos, acting on every human being as 'His' subject. In the 'scientific' and 'democratic' ideologies of bourgeois enterprise, capital investment is the 'productive' subject directing world history -- the 'invisible hand' guiding human development. The bourgeoisie had to attack and weaken the power that religious ideology once held. It exposed the mystification of the religious world in its technological investigation, expanding the realm of things and methods out of which it could make a profit.The various brands of Leninism are 'revolutionary' ideologies in which their Party is the rightful subject to dictate world history, by leading its object -- the proletariat -- to the goal of replacing the bourgeois apparatus with a Leninist one.The many other forms of the dominant ideologies can be seen daily. The rise of the new religiomsyticisms serve the dominant structure of social relations in a round about way. They provide a neat form in which the emptiness of daily life may be obscured, and like drugs, make it easier to live with. Volunteerism (shoulder to the wheel) and determinism (it'll all work out) prevent us from recognising our real place in the functioning of the world. In avant-garde ideology, novelty in (and of) itself is what's important. In survivalism, subjectivity is preempted by fear through the invocation of the image of an impending world catastrophe.In accepting ideologies we accept an inversion of subject and object; things take on a human power and will, while human beings have their place as things. Ideology is upside-down theory. We further accept the separation between the narrow reality of our daily life, and the image of a world totality that's out of our grasp. Ideology offers us only a voyeur's relationship with the totality.In this separation, and this acceptance of sacrifice for the cause, every ideology serves to protect the dominant social order. Authorities whose power depends on separation must deny us our subjectivity in order to survive themselves. Such denial comes in the form of demanding sacrifices for 'the common good','the national interest','the war effort','the revolution' ...We get rid of the blinkers of ideology by constantly asking ourselves... How do I feel? Am I enjoying myself? How's my life? Am I getting what I want?  Why not? What's keeping me from getting what I want? This is having consciousnessof the commonplace, awareness of one's everyday routine. That Everyday Life -- real life -- exists, is a public secret that gets less secret every day, as the poverty of daily life gets more and more visible. The construction of self-theory is based on thinking for yourself, being fully conscious of desires and their validity. It is the construction of radical subjectivity. Authentic 'consciousness raising' can only be the 'raising' of people's thinking to the level' of positive (non-guilty) self-consciousness: developing their basic subjectivity, free of ideology and imposed morality in all its forms. The essence of what many leftists, therapy-mongers, racism awareness trainers and sisterisers term 'consciousness raising' is their practice of beating people into unconsciousness with their ideological billyclubs. The path from ideology (self-negation) to radical subjectivity (self-affirmation) passes through Point Zero, the capital city of nihilism. This is the windswept still point in social space and time... the social limbo wherein which one recognises that the present is devoid of life; that there is no life in one's daily existence. A nihilist knows the difference between surviving and living. Nihilists go through a reversal or perspective on their life and the world. Nothing is true for them but their desires, their will to be. They refuse all ideology in their hatred for the miserable social relations in modern capitalist-global society. From this reversed perspective they see with a newly acquired clarity the upside-down world of reification(i), the inversion of subject and object, of abstract and concrete. It is the theatrical landscape of fetishised commodities, mental projections, separations and ideologies: art, God, city planning, ethics, smile buttons, radio stations that say they love you and detergents that have compassion for your hands. Daily conversation offers sedatives like: "You can't always get what you want", "Life has its ups and downs", and other dogmas of the secular religion of survival.'Common sense' is just the nonsense of common alienation. Every day people are denied an authentic life and sold back its representation. Nihilists constantly feel the urge to destroy the system which destroys them each day. They cannot go on living as they are, their minds are on fire. Soon enough they run up against the fact that they must come up with a coherent set of tactics that will have a practical effect on the world. But if a nihilist does not know of the historical possibility for the transformation of the world, his or her subjective rage will coralise into a role: the suicide, the solitary murderer, the street hoodlum vandal, the neo-dadaist, the professional mental patient... all seeking compensation for a life of dead time. The nihilists' mistake is that they do not realise that there are others who are also nihilists. Consequently they assume that common communication and participation in a project of self-realisation is impossible.  To have a 'political' orientation towards one's life is just to know that you can only change your life by changing the nature of life itself through transfermation of the world -- and that transformation of the world requires collective effort. This project of collective self-realisation can properly be termed politics. However,'politics' has become a mystified, separated category of human activity, Along with all the other socially enforced separations of human activity, 'politics' has become just another interest. It even has its specialists -- be they politicians or politicos. It is possible to be interested (or not) in football, stamp collecting, disco music or fashion. What people see as 'politics' today is the social falsification of the project of collective self-realisation -- and that suits those in power just fine. Collective self-realisation is the revolutionary project. It is the collective seizure of the totality of nature and social relations and their transformation according to conscious desire. Authentic therapy is changing one's life by changing the nature of social life. Therapy must be social if it is to be of any real consequence. Social therapy (the healing of society) and individual therapy (the healing of the individual) are linked together: each requires the other, each is a necessary part of the other. For example: in spectacular society we are expected to repress our real feelings and play a role. This is called 'playing a part in society'. (How revealing that phrase is!) Individuals put on character armour - a steel-like suit of role playing is directly related to the end of social role playing. To think subjectively is to use your life -- as it is now and as you want it to be -- as the centre of your thinking. This positive self-centring is accomplished by the continuous assault on externals: all the false issues, false conflicts, false problems, false identities and false dichotomies.People are kept from analysing the totality of everyday existence by being asked their opinion of every detail: all the spectacular trifles, phoney controversies and false scandals. Are you for or against trades unions, cruise missiles, identity cards... what's your opinion of soft drugs, jogging, UFO's, progressive taxation?  These are false issues. The only issue for us is how we live. There is an old Jewish saying, "If you have only two alternatives, then choose the third". It offers a way of getting the subject to search for a new perspective on the problem. We can give the lie to both sides of a false conflict by taking our 'third choice' -- to view the situation from the perspective of radical subjectivity. Being conscious of the third choice is refusing to choose between two supposedly opposite, but really equal, polarities that try to define themselves as the totality of a situation. In its simplest form, this consciousness is expressed by the worker who is brought to trial for armed robbery and asked, "Do you plead guilty or not guilty?". "I'm unemployed", he replies. A more theoretical but equally classic illustration is the refusal to acknowledge any essential difference between the corporate-capitalist ruling classes of the 'West' and the state-capitalist ruling classes of the 'East'. All we have to do is look at the basic social relations of production in the USA and Europe on the one hand, and the USSR and China on the other, to see that they are essentially the same: over there, as here, the vast majority go to work for a wage or salary in exchange for giving up control over both the means of production and what they produce (which is then sold back to them in the form of commodities). In the case of the 'West' the surplus value (ie that which is produced over and above the value of the workers' wages) is the property of the corporate managements who keep up a show of domestic competition. In the 'East' the surplus value is the property of the state bureaucracy, which does not permit domestic competition but engages in international competition as furiously as any other capitalist nation. Big difference. An example of a false problem is that stupid conversational question, "What's your philosophy of life?". It poses an abstract concept of 'Life' that, despite the word's constant appearance in conversation, has nothing to do with real life, because it ignores the fact that 'living' is what we are doing at the present moment.  In the absence of real community, people cling to all kinds of phoney social identities, corresponding to their individual role in the Spectacle (in which people contemplate and consume images of what life is, so that they will forget how to live for themselves). These social identities can be ethnic ('Italian'), racial ('Black'), organisational ('Trade Unionist'), residential ('New Yorker'), sexual ('Gay'), cultural ('sports' fan'), and so on: but all are rooted in a common desire for affiliation, for belonging. Obviously being 'black' is a lot more real as an identification than being a 'sports' fan', but beyond a certain point these identities only serve to mask our real position in society. Again, the only issue for us is how we live. Concretely, this means understanding the reasons for the nature of one's life in one's relation to society as a whole. To do this one has to shed all the false identities, the partial associations, and begin with oneself as the centre. From here we can examine the material basis of life, stripped of all mystification. For example: suppose I want a cup of coffee from the machine at work. First of all, there is the cup of coffee itself: that involves the workers on the coffee plantation, the ones on the sugar plantations and in the refineries, the ones in the paper mill, and so on. Then you have all the workers who made the different parts of the machine and assembled it. Then the ones who extracted the iron ore and bauxite, smelted the steel, drilled the oil and refined it. Then all the workers who transported the raw materials and parts over three continents and two oceans. Then the clerks, typists and communications workers who co-ordinate the production and transportation. Finally you have all the workers who produce all the other things necessary for the others to survive. That gives me a direct material relationship to several million people: in fact, to the immense majority of the world's population. They produce my life: and I help to produce theirs. In this light, all partial group identities and special interests fade into insignificance. Imagine the potential enrichment of one's life that is presently locked up in the frustrated creativity of those millions of workers, held back by obsolete and exhausting methods of production, strangled by alienation, warped by the insane rationale of capitalaccumulation! Here we begin to discover a real social identity: in people all over the world who are fighting to win back their lives, we find ourselves. We are constantly being asked to choose between two sides in a false conflict. Governments, charities and propagandists of all kinds are fond of presenting us with choices that are no choice at all (eg the Central Electricity Generating Board presented its nuclear programme with the slogan 'Nuclear Age or Stone Age'. The CEGB would like us to believe that these are the only two alternatives -- we have the illusion of choice, but as long as they control the choices we perceive as available to us, they also control the outcome). The new moralists love to tell those in the rich West how they will 'have to make sacrifices', how they 'exploit the starving children of the Third World'. The choice we are given is between sacrificial altruism or narrow individualism. (Charities cash in on the resulting guilt by offering us a feeling of having done something, in exchange for a coin in the collecting tin.) Yes, by living in the rich West we do exploit the poor of the Third World -- but not personally, not deliberately. We can make some changes in our life, boycott, make sacrifices, but the effects are marginal. We become aware of the false conflict we are being presented with when we realise that under this global social system we, as individuals, are as locked in our global role as 'exploiters' as others are in their global role as the exploited. We have a role in society, but little or no power to do anything about it. We reject the false choice of 'sacrifice or selfishness' by calling for the destruction of the global social system whose existence forces that decision upon us. It isn't a case of tinkering with the system, of offering token sacrifices or calling for 'a little less selfishness'. Charities and reformers never break out of the terrain of the false choice. Those who have a vested interest in maintaining the present situation constantly drag us back to their false choices -- that is, any choice which keeps their power intact. With myths like 'If we shared it all out there wouldn't be enough to go round', they attempt to deny the existence of any other choices and to hide from us the fact that the material preconditions for social revolution already exist. Any journey towards self-demystification must avoid those two quagmires of lost thought -- absolutism and cynicism; twin swamps that camouflage themselves as meadows of subjectivity. Absolutism is the total acceptance or rejection of all components of particular ideologies, spectacles and reifications. An absolutist cannot see any other choice than complete acceptance or complete rejection . The absolutist wanders along the shelves of the ideological supermarket looking for the ideal commodity, and then buys it -- lock, stock and barrel. but the ideological supermarket -- like any supermarket -- is fit only for looting. It is more productive for us if we can move along the shelves, rip open the packets, take out what looks authentic and useful, and dump the rest. Cynicism is a reaction to a world dominated by ideology and morality. Faced with conflicting ideologies the cynic says: "a plague on both your houses". The cynic is as much a consumer as the absolutist, but one who has given up hope of ever finding the ideal commodity. The process of dialectical thinking is constructive thinking, a process of continually synthesising one's current body of self- theory with new observations and appropriations; a resolution of the contradictions between the previous body of theory and new theoretical elements. The resulting synthesis is thus not some quantitative summation of the previous and the new, but their qualitative supersession, a new totality. This synthetic / dialectic method of constructing a theory is counter to the eclectic style which just collects a rag-bag of its favourite bits from favourite ideologies without ever confronting the resulting contradictions. Modern examples include libertarian capitalism, christian marxism and liberalism in general. If we are continually conscious of how we want to live, we can critically appropriate from anything in the construction of our self-theory: ideologies, culture critics, technocratic experts, sociological studies, mystics and so forth. All the rubbish of the old world can be scavenged for useful material by those who desire to reconstruct it. The nature of modern society, its global and capitalist unity, indicates to us the necessity of making our self-theory a unitary critique. By this we mean a critique of all geographic areas where various forms of socio-economic domination exist (ie both the capitalism of the 'free' world and the state-capitalism of the 'communist' world), as well as a critique of all alienations (sexual poverty, enforced survival, urbanism, etc). In other words, a critique of the totality of daily existence everywhere, from the perspective of the totality of one's desires. Ranged against this project are all the politicians and bureaucrats, preachers and gurus, city planners and policemen, reformers and militants, central committees and censors, corporate managers and union leaders, male supremacists and feminist ideologues, psyche-sociologists and conservation capitalists who work to subordinate individual desire to a reified 'common good' that has supposedly designated them as its representatives. They are all forces of the old world, all bosses, priests and creeps who have something to lose if people extend the game of seizing back their minds into seizing back their lives. Revolutionary theory and revolutionary ideology are enemies -- and both know it. By now it should be obvious that self-demystification and the construction of our own revolutionary theory doesn't eradicate our alienation: 'the world' (capital and the Spec tacle) goes on, reproducing itself every day. Although this booklet had the construction of self-theory as its focus, we never intended to imply that revolutionary theory can exist separate from revolutionary practice. In order to be consequential, effectively to reconstruct the world, practice must seek its theory, and theory must be realised in practice. The revolutionary prospect of disalienation and the transformation of social relations requires that one's theory be nothing other than a theory of practice, of what we do and how we live. Otherwise theory will degenerate into an impotent contemplation of the world, and ultimately into survival ideology -- a projected mental fogbank, a static body of reified thought, of intellectual armour, that acts as a buffer between the daily world and oneself. And if revolutionary practice is not the practice of revelutionary theory, it degenerates into altruistic militantism, 'revolutionary' activity as one's social duty. We don't strive for a coherent theory purely as an end in itself. For us, the practical use value of coherence is that having a coherent self-theory makes it easier for someone to think. As an example, it's easier to get a handle on future developments in social control if you have a coherent understanding of modern social control ideologies and  techniques up to the present. Having a coherent theory makes it easier to conceive of the theoretical practice for realising your desires for your life. In the process of constructing self-theory, the last ideologies that have to be wrestled with and determinedly pinned down are the ones that most closely resemble revolutionary theory. These final mystifications are a) situationism b)councilism. The Situationist International (1958-1971) was an international revolutionary organisation that made an immense contribution to revolutionary theory. Situationist theory is a body of critical theory that can be appropriated into one's self-theory, and nothing more. Anything more is the ideological misappropriation known as situationism. For those who newly discover it, SI theory has a way of seeming like 'the answer I've been searching for for years', the answer to the riddle of one's dead life. But that's exactly when a new alertness and self-possession become necessary. Situationism can be quite the complete survival ideology, a defence mechanism against the wear and tear of daily life. included in the ideology is the spectacular commodity-role of being 'a situationist', ie a radical jade and ardent esoteric. Councilism (aka 'Workers' Control', 'Syndicalism') offers 'self- management' as a replacement for the capitalist system of production. Real self-management is the direct management (unmediated by any separate leadership) of social production, distribution and communication by workers and their communities. The movement for self-management has appeared again and again all over the world in the course of social revolution. Russia in 1905 and 1917-21, Spain in 1936-7, Hungary in 1956, Algeria in 1960, Chile in 1972 and Portugal in 1975. The form of organisation most often created in the practice of self-management has been workers' councils: sovereign general assemblies of the producers and neighbourhoods that elect mandated delegates to co-ordinate their activities. The delegates are not representatives, but carry out decisions already made by their assemblies. Delegates can be recalled at any time, should the general assembly feel that its decisions are not being rigorously carried out. Councilism is this historical practice and theory of self- management turned into an ideology. Whereas the participants in these uprisings lived a critique of the social totality, beginning with a critique of wage labour, of the commodity economy and exchange value, councilism makes a partial critique: it seeks not the self-managed, continuous and qualitative transformation of the whole world, but the static, quantitive self-management of the world as it is. The economy thus remains a separate realm cut off from the rest of daily life and dominating it. On the other hand a movement for generalised self- management seeks the transformation of all sectors of social life and all social relations (production, sexuality, housing, services, communications, etc), councilism thinks that a self-managed economy is all that matters. It misses, literally, the whole point: subjectivity and the desire to transform the whole of life. The problem with workers' control is that all it controls is work. The world can only be turned right-side-up by the conscious collective activity of those who construct a theory of why it is upside-down. Spontaneous rebellion and insurrectionary subjectivity alone are not sufficient. An authentic revolution can only occur in a practical movement in which all the mystifications of the past are being consciously swept away. reification -- the act of converting people, abstract concepts, etc into things, ie commodities. Very interesting articles about my blog. Found it quite enlightening and have to say that I will likely not submit work to them if this proves true. I posted a blog entry recently on my own site detailing some of my experiences.

La plupart des hommes emploient la premiere partie de leur vie a rendre l'autre misérable ...

Why our future depends on libraries, reading

Habent sua fata libelli...

I'm an incredibly fast reader and I usually tear through a book in under two days. So as you can imagine its hard find something I havent read in the Genre I enjoy.   It's important for people to tell you what side they are on and why, and whether they might be biased. A declaration of members' interests, of a sort. So, I am going to be talking to you about reading. I'm going to tell you that libraries are important. I'm going to suggest that reading fiction, that reading for pleasure, is one of the most important things one can do. I'm going to make an impassioned plea for people to understand what libraries and librarians are, and to preserve both of these things. And I am biased, obviously and enormously: I'm an author, often an author of fiction. I write for children and for adults. For about 30 years I have been earning my living though my words, mostly by making things up and writing them down. It is obviously in my interest for people to read, for them to read fiction, for libraries and librarians to exist and help foster a love of reading and places in which reading can occur. So I'm biased as a writer. But I am much, much more biased as a reader. And I am even more biased as a British citizen. And I'm here giving this talk tonight, under the auspices of the Reading Agency: a charity whose mission is to give everyone an equal chance in life by helping people become confident and enthusiastic readers. Which supports literacy programs, and libraries and individuals and nakedly and wantonly encourages the act of reading. Because, they tell us, everything changes when we read. And it's that change, and that act of reading that I'm here to talk about tonight. I want to talk about what reading does. What it's good for. It's not one to one: you can't say that a literate society has no criminality. But there are very real correlations. And I think some of those correlations, the simplest, come from something very simple. Literate people read fiction. Fiction has two uses. Firstly, it's a gateway drug to reading. The drive to know what happens next, to want to turn the page, the need to keep going, even if it's hard, because someone's in trouble and you have to know how it's all going to end … that's a very real drive. And it forces you to learn new words, to think new thoughts, to keep going. To discover that reading per se is pleasurable. Once you learn that, you're on the road to reading everything. And reading is key. There were noises made briefly, a few years ago, about the idea that we were living in a post-literate world, in which the ability to make sense out of written words was somehow redundant, but those days are gone: words are more important than they ever were: we navigate the world with words, and as the world slips onto the web, we need to follow, to communicate and to comprehend what we are reading. People who cannot understand each other cannot exchange ideas, cannot communicate, and translation programs only go so far. The simplest way to make sure that we raise literate children is to teach them to read, and to show them that reading is a pleasurable activity. And that means, at its simplest, finding books that they enjoy, giving them access to those books, and letting them read them.  (god only knows who they are)

I don't think there is such a thing as a bad book for children. Every now and again it becomes fashionable among some adults to point at a subset of children's books, a genre, perhaps, or an author, and to declare them bad books, books that children should be stopped from reading. I've seen it happen over and over; 

It's tosh. It's snobbery and it's foolishness. There are no bad authors for children, that children like and want to read and seek out, because every child is different. They can find the stories they need to, and they bring themselves to stories. A hackneyed, worn-out idea isn't hackneyed and worn out to them. This is the first time the child has encountered it. Do not discourage children from reading because you feel they are reading the wrong thing. Fiction you do not like is a route to other books you may prefer. And not everyone has the same taste as you. Well-meaning adults can easily destroy a child's love of reading: stop them reading what they enjoy, or give them worthy-but-dull books that you like, the 21st-century equivalents of Victorian "improving" literature. You'll wind up with a generation convinced that reading is uncool and worse, unpleasant. We need our children to get onto the reading ladder: anything that they enjoy reading will move them up, rung by rung, into literacy. Holly read nothing but safe stories of settlers on prairies for the rest of her teenage years, and still glares at me when Stephen King's name is mentioned.) And the second thing fiction does is to build empathy. When you watch TV or see a film, you are looking at things happening to other people. Prose fiction is something you build up from 26 letters and a handful of punctuation marks, and you, and you alone, using your imagination, create a world and people it and look out through other eyes. You get to feel things, visit places and worlds you would never otherwise know. You learn that everyone else out there is a me, as well. You're being someone else, and when you return to your own world, you're going to be slightly changed.

Empathy is a tool for building people into groups, for allowing us to function as more than self-obsessed individuals. You're also finding out something as you read vitally important for making your way in the world. And it's this : The world doesn't have to be like this. Things can be different. Fiction can show you a different world. It can take you somewhere you've never been. Once you've visited other worlds, like those who ate fairy fruit, you can never be entirely content with the world that you grew up in. Discontent is a good thing: discontented people can modify and improve their worlds, leave them better, leave them different.

And while we're on the subject, I'd like to say a few words about escapism. I hear the term bandied about as if it's a bad thing. As if "escapist" fiction is a cheap opiate used by the muddled and the foolish and the deluded, and the only fiction that is worthy, for adults or for children, is mimetic fiction, mirroring the worst of  the world the reader finds herself in. If you were trapped in an impossible situation, in an unpleasant place, with people who meant you ill, and someone offered you a temporary escape, why wouldn't you take it? And escapist fiction is just that: fiction that opens a door, shows the sunlight outside, gives you a place to go where you are in control, are with people you want to be with(and books are real places, make no mistake about that); and more importantly, during your escape, books can also give you knowledge about the world and your predicament, give you weapons, give you armour: real things you can take back into your prison. Skills and knowledge and tools you can use to escape for real. Another way to destroy a child's love of reading, of course, is to make sure there are no books of any kind around. And to give them nowhere to read those books. I was lucky. I had an excellent local library growing up. I had the kind of parents who could be persuaded to drop me off in the library on their way to work in summer holidays, and the kind of librarians who did not mind a small, unaccompanied boy heading back into the children's library every morning and working his way through the card catalogue, looking for books with ghosts or magic or rockets in them, looking for vampires or detectives or witches or wonders. And when I had finished reading the children's' library I began on the adult books. They were good librarians. They liked books and they liked the books being read. They taught me how to order books from other libraries on inter-library loans. They had no snobbery about anything I read. They just seemed to like that there was this wide-eyed little boy who loved to read, and would talk to me about the books I was reading, they would find me other books in a series, they would help. They treated me as another reader – nothing less or more – which meant they treated me with respect. I was not used to being treated with respect as an eight-year-old. But libraries are about freedom. Freedom to read, freedom of ideas, freedom of communication. They are about education (which is not a process that finishes the day we leave school or university), about entertainment, about making safe spaces, and about access to information.I worry that here in the 21st century people misunderstand what libraries are and the purpose of them. If you perceive a library as a shelf of books, it may seem antiquated or outdated in a world in which most, but not all, books in print exist digitally. But that is to miss the point fundamentally. I think it has to do with nature of information. Information has value, and the right information has enormous value. For all of human history, we have lived in a time of information scarcity, and having the needed information was always important, and always worth something: when to plant crops, where to find things, maps and histories and stories – they were always good for a meal and company. Information was a valuable thing, and those who had it or could obtain it could charge for that service. In the last few years, we've moved from an information-scarce economy to one driven by an information glut. According to Eric Schmidt of Google, every two days now the human race creates as much information as we did from the dawn of civilisation until 2003. That's about five exobytes of data a day, for those of you keeping score. The challenge becomes, not finding that scarce plant growing in the desert, but finding a specific plant growing in a jungle. We are going to need help navigating that information to find the thing we actually need. Libraries are places that people go to for information. Books are only the tip of the information iceberg: they are there, and libraries can provide you freely and legally with books. More children are borrowing books from libraries than ever before – books of all kinds: paper and digital and audio. But libraries are also, for example, places that people, who may not have computers, who may not have internet connections, can go online without paying anything: hugely important when the way you find out about jobs, apply for jobs or apply for benefits is increasingly migrating exclusively online. Librarians can help these people navigate that world. I do not believe that all books will or should migrate onto screens: as Douglas Adams once pointed out to me, more than 20 years before the Kindle turned up, a physical book is like a shark. Sharks are old: there were sharks in the ocean before the dinosaurs. And the reason there are still sharks around is that sharks are better at being sharks than anything else is. Physical books are tough, hard to destroy, bath-resistant, solar-operated, feel good in your hand: they are good at being books, and there will always be a place for them. They belong in libraries, just as libraries have already become places you can go to get access to ebooks, and audiobooks and DVDs and web content. A library is a place that is a repository of information and gives every citizen equal access to it. That includes health information. And mental health information. It's a community space. It's a place of safety, a haven from the world. It's a place with librarians in it. What the libraries of the future will be like is something we should be imagining now. Literacy is more important than ever it was, in this world of text and email, a world of written information. We need to read and write, we need global citizens who can read comfortably, comprehend what they are reading, understand nuance, and make themselves understood. Libraries really are the gates to the future. So it is unfortunate that, round the world, we observe local authorities seizing the opportunity to close libraries as an easy way to save money, without realising that they are stealing from the future to pay for today. They are closing the gates that should be open. According to a recent study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, England is the "only country where the oldest age group has higher proficiency in both literacy and numeracy than the youngest group, after other factors, such as gender, socio-economic backgrounds and type of occupations are taken into account". Or to put it another way, our children and our grandchildren are less literate and less numerate than we are. They are less able to navigate the world, to understand it to solve problems. They can be more easily lied to and misled, will be less able to change the world in which they find themselves, be less employable. All of these things. And as a country, England will fall behind other developed nations because it will lack a skilled workforce. Books are the way that we communicate with the dead. The way that we learn lessons from those who are no longer with us, that humanity has built on itself, progressed, made knowledge incremental rather than something that has to be relearned, over and over. There are tales that are older than most countries, tales that have long outlasted the cultures and the buildings in which they were first told. I think we have responsibilities to the future. Responsibilities and obligations to children, to the adults those children will become, to the world they will find themselves inhabiting. All of us – as readers, as writers, as citizens – have obligations. I thought I'd try and spell out some of these obligations here. I believe we have an obligation to read for pleasure, in private and in public places. If we read for pleasure, if others see us reading, then we learn, we exercise our imaginations. We show others that reading is a good thing. We have an obligation to support libraries. To use libraries, to encourage others to use libraries, to protest the closure of libraries. If you do not value libraries then you do not value information or culture or wisdom. You are silencing the voices of the past and you are damaging the future. We have an obligation to read aloud to our children. To read them things they enjoy. To read to them stories we are already tired of. To do the voices, to make it interesting, and not to stop reading to them just because they learn to read to themselves. Use reading-aloud time as bonding time, as time when no phones are being checked, when the distractions of the world are put aside. We have an obligation to use the language. To push ourselves: to find out what words mean and how to deploy them, to communicate clearly, to say what we mean. We must not to attempt to freeze language, or to pretend it is a dead thing that must be revered, but we should use it as a living thing, that flows, that borrows words, that allows meanings and pronunciations to change with time. We writers – and especially writers for children, but all writers – have an obligation to our readers: it's the obligation to write true things, especially important when we are creating tales of people who do not exist in places that never were – to understand that truth is not in what happens but what it tells us about who we are. Fiction is the lie that tells the truth, after all. We have an obligation not to bore our readers, but to make them need to turn the pages. One of the best cures for a reluctant reader, after all, is a tale they cannot stop themselves from reading. And while we must tell our readers true things and give them weapons and give them armour and pass on whatever wisdom we have gleaned from our short stay on this green world, we have an obligation not to preach, not to lecture, not to force predigested morals and messages down our readers' throats like adult birds feeding their babies pre-masticated maggots; and we have an obligation never, ever, under any circumstances, to write anything for children that we would not want to read ourselves.We have an obligation to understand and to acknowledge that as writers for children we are doing important work, because if we mess it up and write dull books that turn children away from reading and from books, we 've lessened our own future and diminished theirs.We all – adults and children, writers and readers – have an obligation to daydream. We have an obligation to imagine. It is easy to pretend that nobody can change anything, that we are in a world in which society is huge and the individual is less than nothing: an atom in a wall, a grain of rice in a rice field. But the truth is, individuals change their world over and over, individuals make the future, and they do it by imagining that things can be different. Look around you: I mean it. Pause, for a moment and look around the room that you are in. I'm going to point out something so obvious that it tends to be forgotten. It's this: that everything you can see, including the walls, was, at some point, imagined. Someone decided it was easier to sit on a chair than on the ground and imagined the chair. Someone had to imagine a way that I could talk to you in London right now without us all getting rained on.This room and the things in it, and all the other things in this building, this city, exist because, over and over and over, people imagined things.We have an obligation to make things beautiful. Not to leave the world uglier than we found it, not to empty the oceans, not to leave our problems for the next generation. We have an obligation to clean up after ourselves, and not leave our children with a world we've shortsightedly messed up, shortchanged, and crippled.We have an obligation to tell our politicians what we want, to vote against politicians of whatever party who do not understand the value of reading in creating worthwhile citizens, who do not want to act to preserve and protect knowledge and encourage literacy. This is not a matter of party politics. This is a matter of common humanity.Albert Einstein was asked once how we could make our children intelligent. His reply was both simple and wise. "If you want your children to be intelligent," he said, "read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales." He understood the value of reading, and of imagining. I hope we can give our children a world in which they will read, and be read to, and imagine, and understand.

La lecture de tous les bons livres est comme une conversation avec les plus honnêtes gens des siècles passés qui en ont été les auteurs...