Today marks the 25th Anniversary of Our Close Encounter of the First Kind - Planting the seed for Soul Mates / Twin Flames / Spiritual Partners / ONENESS!
Thank You; I AM ETERNALLY GRATEFUL for all that WAS; all that IS and all that WILL BE in the ETERNAL PRESENT MOMENT!...Ish'Allah
I'm right here waiting for us to be ETERNALLY ONE (when we're ready)
I have surrendered to God's and our LOVE; I AM PEACHY!
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Dear Neytiri,
Those two words “Dear
Neytiri” take me away to another time when we used to Skype each other. I used to tell you about my new friends and my new life. And
you used to tell me about the grand time my mom and dad were having in heaven.
Truth is
nothing. What you believe to be true is everything. And the main thing that I
used to believe was that I would be with you forever. Forever. The
reason it has taken me so long to write to you is that I see that I have been a
fool. I’ve spent my life fooling myself.
Every letter I’ve ever
written to you has been a love letter. How could they have been anything else?
I can see now that all of them except this one were bad love letters. Bad love letters beg for love back. Good love letters ask for nothing. This, I’m pleased to announce is
my first good love letter to you because
there is nothing more for you to do. You’ve already done everything. I have
enough of you in my head to last forever. So please don’t ever
worry about me. I’m peachy. I really am. I have everything.
If I had one wish, it would be that your life brings you a taste
of the happiness you have brought to me. That you can feel what it’s like to find God and
love. To Thine Own Self, Be True!
Your friend forever,
Jake
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1988 – Human Rights Now Tour
THE EVENT
The year 1988 marked the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The aim of the Concerts for Human Rights Foundation World Tour, featuring performances by Tracy Chapman, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Peter Gabriel and Youssou N’Dour at venues in 19 cities from London to Buenos Aires, was to raise world consciousness of humn rights and of the plight of political prisoners world-wide.
- 2 Sept, Wembley Stadium, London, England
- 4 Sept, Palais Omnisport Bercy, Paris, France
- 5 Sept, Palais Omnisport Bercy, Paris, France
- 6 Sept, Népstadion, Budapest, Hungary
- 8 Sept, Stadio Communale, Turin, Italy
- 10 Sept, Camp Neru, Barcelona, Spain
- 13 Sept, Estadio Nacional, San Jose, Costa Rica
- 15 Sept, Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, Canada
- 17 Sept, Stade Olympique, Montreal, Canada
- 19 Sept, John F. Kennedy, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- 21 Sept, Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- 23 Sept, Oakland Coliseum, Oakland, CA, USA
- 27 Sept, Tokyo Dome, Tokyo, Japan
- 30 Sept, Jawaharlai Nehru Stadium, Delhi, India
- 3 Oct, Olympiako Stadio, Athens, Grece
- 7 Oct, New National Sports Stadium, Harare, Zimbabwe
- 9 Oct, Stade Houphouet Boigny, Abidjan, Ivory Coast
- 12 Oct, Estadio Palmeiras, Sao Paulo, Brazil
- 14 Oct, Estadio Mundialista de Mendoza, Mendoza, Argentina
- 15 Oct, Estadio River Plate, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Tracy Chapman, talkin’bout Amnesty and the Human Rights Now Tour: «
Like Nelson Mandela, all over the world people are in prison for their political beliefs. I think mostly, people are unaware of that. They don’t think it exists and this is where, maybe this tour is gonna help because they don’t understand really how much simply writing letters and calling people does. Y’know, it really put pressure on government officials to do what they can to let these people out.
They’re not necessarily individuals who have been politically known, they’re just people out there fighting for what they believe in or voicing their opinion and they end up in jail.
There’s lots of ways that an individual can try and help people and the position that I’m right now, I think I can do a lot more by doing these kind of things that I could, maybe, in some other situation. » – From Official Human Rights Now ! Tour book, 1988
« I think that Amnesty International, as an organization, does good work, and one of the reasons I got involved in this tour is because I think it’s important that people be made aware of what Amnesty does, the kinds of concerns that the organization has, and the kinds of things it is accomplishing by making human rights violation known to people throughout the world. »
« As a black American, and an American in general, I have a real interest in the quality of people ‘s lives in the United States, and that’s reflected in my music. As a country, we tend to look outside instead of looking inside when it comes to human rights ; people don’t see the United States in the same way that they see other countries. But we clearly violate people’s human rights in the States. And maybe this tour will have caused some people, particularly in America, to re-examine their own lives and to see in what ways people are suffering and in what ways they made be able to help. »
« I also hope this tour will have encouraged people from all over to get involved. I hope it will have raised people’s consciousness around the world, and maybe it will have put some pressure on governments to make changes for the people. »
« The really wonderful thing about this tour is that as far as communicating to people is concerned, music is universal. Even if you don’t understand the words to a song, you can feel the rhythm of it. You can appropriate the melody. And from those things you can get a sense of the emotions behind a song. »
« This tour was the chance of a lifetime –to have performed in the places we performed in and, on top of that, to have it all mean something too. » – From Human Rights Now ! The Official Book Of The Concerts For Human Rights Foundation World Tour, Text by James Henke. Bloomsbury, 1988. p.24.
LISTEN TO TRACY CHAPMAN’S AT THE FINAL NIGHT OF THE TOUR IN BUENOS AIRES
HBO CONCERT VIDEO
A three-hour film documenting the final concert in Buenos Aires together with highlights of the preceding world tour was aired once by HBO in the USA on December 10th 1988, International Human Rights Day
TRACY CHAPMAN VIDEOS
Freedom Now
VIDEOS FROM THE BUENOS AIRES CONCERT, October 15, 1988
Across The Lines, Tracy Chapman
Freedom Now, Tracy Chapman
Get Up, Stand Up (w/ Springsteen, Sting, Gabriel & N’Dour)
Chimes of Freedom (w/ Springsteen, Sting, Gabriel & N’Dour)
VIDEO ARCHIVESHuman Rights Now Tour in Paris, France 2
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Human Rights Now! was a worldwide tour of twenty benefit concerts on behalf of Amnesty International that took place over six weeks in 1988. Held not to raise funds but to increase awareness of both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on its 40th anniversary and the work of Amnesty International, the shows featured Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Sting, Peter Gabriel, Tracy Chapman, and Youssou N'Dour, plus guest artists from each of the countries where concerts were held.
Human rights activists and former prisoners of conscience from around the world, led by Sonny Venkatrathnam from South Africa, participated in the tour. At each location, the artists and Amnesty leaders held a press conference to discuss human rights, and concert-goers were provided with copies of the Universal Declaration in their language and opportunities to sign the Declaration themselves and join the worldwide human rights movement.
The tour was made possible in part by a grant from the Reebok Foundation. The twenty concerts were the second stage of what subsequently became known collectively as the Human Rights Concerts - a series of music events and tours staged by the US Section of Amnesty International between 1986-1998.
Contents
[hide]Background[edit]
Like most such ventures there were problems that had to be surmounted. The cost of mounting the events in Third World countries meant that the tour required significant financial support; the Reebok Foundation filled this gap and thereby made the tour possible. Concert-goers in the developed nations purchased tickets for the shows at typical benefit prices. Prices were intentionally set low for the concerts in the Third World.
The tour was announced in April, with Sting and Gabriel as the headlining acts. Jackson Browne and Robert Cray were also at the initial announcement but in the end did not participate. Springsteen joined later, announcing his role during a July radio broadcast of a concert of his in Stockholm, Sweden.
There were also dilemmas about some of the countries and venues. Certain concerts were planned for remote locations. In some cases host governments were not happy to have the touring superstars preaching freedom and democracy in their backyard. Among Communist countries, Healey was only able to get into Hungary, and then only after a change in government led to a new opening. A member of the Soviet Politburo attended the Budapest concert, leading to the first official meeting between representatives of Amnesty International and the government of the U.S.S.R.
In the final event, the tour did indeed go to places rarely if ever visited by Western popular music acts, including India and Equatorial Africa. E Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons would later say that being in Africa and seeing black people literally everywhere he went was a revelation.
Performances[edit]
Musical themes[edit]
The tour artists generally arranged their individual sets around themes of politics, freedom, and courage; Gabriel previewed the eerie "Of These, Hope" from his upcoming Passion: Music for The Last Temptation of Christ. Sting performed "They Dance Alone", about the relatives of "the invisible ones" in Chile and Inti Illimani, Los Prisioneros and the entire line-up played a rendition of Victor Jara's "El Aparecido". Sting had written the song the year before, inspired by his engagement with human rights activists on the earlier tour; during the Mendoza and Buenos Aires performances, Sting danced with mothers and wives of the disappeared. Springsteen seemed less sure of his approach and peppered his set with standard concert favorites like "Cadillac Ranch" and "Glory Days", but also introduced his sets with locally relevant human rights messages connected to songs such as "War" and "Born in the U.S.A.". In Argentina also played like a guest artist Charly Garcia and Leon Gieco. Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo make a parade on stage.
Tour artists also played some on each other's material. Sting sideman Branford Marsalis played with N'Dour; Gabriel, Springsteen, and E Streeter Nils Lofgren joined Sting's set at times; Tracy Chapman sang the Kate Bush part on Gabriel's "Don't Give Up", while N'Dour reprised his role on "In Your Eyes"; and Sting took a verse of Springsteen's "The River", while his keyboardist David Sancious staged a mini-reunion with the E Street Band on other numbers. (As it happened, these were the last regular shows the E Street Band would play for more than a decade.) Baez led the Oakland audience in a verse of "Happy Birthday to You" to Springsteen, who had turned thirty-nine the day of the show; the two then performed a duet on Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind". (Baez also opened the three U.S. dates with performances of the spiritual "Oh Freedom" and John Lennon's "Imagine".)
Highlights of the final Buenos Aires show were shown on HBO and worldwide on December 10, 1988 (the actual fortieth anniversary of the Declaration), and broadcast on Westwood One radio.Read more: http://www.about-tracy-chapman.net/1988-human-rights-now-tour/#ixzz2ghyhx7IX
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