From sandinista at shaw.ca Wed Jun 1 02:44:23 2005 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 01:44:23 -0700 Subject: [m2c] On anglo-american Imperilaism and Islamophobia: An essay in imperial villain-making Message-ID: http://www.guardian.co.uk/india/story/0,12559,1490766,00.html An essay in imperial villain-making A fanatical Muslim despot was resisting the west, there were calls for regime change. We have, of course, been here before William Dalrymple Tuesday May 24, 2005 Guardian By the end of the 90s, the hardliners calling for regime change in the east found that they had a powerful ally in government. This new president was not prepared to wait to be attacked: he was a new sort of conservative, aggressive in foreign policy, bitterly anti-French, and intent on turning his country into the unrivalled global power. It was best, he believed, simply to remove any hostile Muslim regime that presumed to resist the west. There was no doubt who would be the first to be targeted: a Muslim dictator whose family had usurped power in a military coup. According to British sources, this chief of state was an "intolerant bigot", a "furious fanatic" with a "rooted and inveterate hatred of Europeans", who had "perpetually on his tongue the projects of jihad". He was also deemed to be "oppressive and unjust ... [a] sanguinary tyrant, [and a] perfidious negotiator". It was, in short, time to take out Tipu Sultan of Mysore. The president of the board of control, Henry Dundas, the minister who oversaw the East India Company, had just the man for the job. Richard Wellesley was sent out to India in 1798 as governor general with specific instructions to effect regime change in Mysore and replace Tipu with a western-backed puppet. First, however, Wellesley and Dundas had to justify to the British public a policy whose outcome had long been decided in private. Wellesley therefore began a campaign of vilification against Tipu, portraying him as an aggressive Muslim monster who divided his time between oppressing his subjects and planning to drive the British into the sea. This essay in imperial villain-making opened the way for a lucrative conquest and the installation of a more pliable regime that would, in the words of Wellesley, allow the British to give the impression they were handing the country back to its rightful owners while in reality maintaining firm control. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a politician in search of a war is not over-scrupulous with matters of fact. Until recently, the British propaganda offensive against Tipu has determined the way that we - and many Indians - remember him. But, as with more recent dossiers produced to justify pre-emptive military action against mineral-rich Muslim states, the evidence reveals far more about the desires of the attacker than it does about the reality of the attacked. Recent work by scholars has succeeded in reconstructing a very different Tipu to the one-dimensional fanatic invented by Wellesley. Tipu, it is now clear, was one of the most innovative and far-sighted rulers of the pre-colonial period. He tried to warn other Indian rulers of the dangers of an increasingly arrogant and aggressive west. "Know you not the custom of the English?" he wrote in vain to the nizam of Hyderabad in 1796. "Wherever they fix their talons they contrive little by little to work themselves into the whole management of affairs." What really worried the British was less that Tipu was a Muslim fanatic, something strange and alien, but that he was frighteningly familiar: a modernising technocrat who used the weapons of the west against their inventors. Indeed, in many ways, he beat them at their own game: the Mysore sepoy's flintlocks - as the examples for sale in an auction of Tipu memorabilia at Sotheby's tomorrow demonstrate - were based on the latest French designs, and were much superior to the company's old matchlocks. Tipu also tried to import industrial technology through French engineers, and experimented with harnessing water-power to drive his machinery. He sent envoys to southern China to bring back silkworm eggs and established sericulture in Mysore - an innovation that still enriches the region today. More remarkably, he created what amounted to a state trading company with its own ships and factories dotted across the Gulf. British propaganda might portray Tipu as a savage barbarian, but he was something of a connoisseur, with a library of about 2,000 volumes in several languages. Moreover, contrary to the propaganda of the British, Tipu - far from being some sort of fundamentalist - continued the Indo-Islamic tradition of syncretism. He certainly destroyed temples in Hindu states that he conquered in war, but temples lying within his domains were viewed as protected state property and generously supported with lands and gifts of money and even padshah lingams - a unique case of a Muslim sultan facilitating the Shaivite phallus veneration. When the great Sringeri temple was destroyed by a Maratha raiding party, Tipu sent funds for its rebuilding. "People who have sinned against such a holy place," wrote a solicitous Tipu, "are sure soon to suffer the consequences of their misdeeds." Tipu knew what he was risking when he took on the British, but he said, "I would rather live a day as a tiger than a lifetime as a sheep." As the objects in tomorrow's sale show, the culture of innovation Tipu fostered in Mysore stands record to a man very different from that imagined by the Islamophobic propaganda of the British - and the startling inaccuracy of Wellesley's "dodgy dossier" of 1799. The fanatical bigot and savage was in fact an intellectual. The whole episode is a sobering reminder of the degree to which old-style imperialism has made a comeback under Bush and Blair. There is nothing new about the neocons. Not only are westerners again playing their old game of installing puppet regimes, propped up by western garrisons, for their own political and economic ends but, more alarmingly, the intellectual attitudes that buttressed and sustained such imperial adventures remain intact. Despite over 25 years of assault by Edward Said and his followers, old-style Orientalism is alive and kicking, its prejudices intact, with columnists such as Mark Steyn and Andrew Sullivan in the role of the new Mills and Macaulays. Through their pens - blissfully unencumbered by any knowledge of the Muslim world - the old colonial idea of the Islamic ruler as the decadent, destructive, degenerate Oriental despot lives on and, as before, it is effortlessly projected on a credulous public by western warmongers in order to justify their own imperial projects. Dundas and Wellesley were certainly more intelligent and articulate than Bush or Rumsfeld, but they were no less cynical in their aims, nor less ruthless in the means they employed to effect them. ? William Dalrymple is the author of White Mughals www.williamdalrymple.com Guardian Unlimited ? Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 --------------------- Prospero, you are the master of illusion. Lying is your trademark. And you have lied so much to me (lied about the world, lied about me) that you have ended by imposing on me an image of myself. underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior, That ?s the way you have forced me to see myself I detest that image! What's more, it's a lie! But now I know you, you old cancer, and I know myself as well. - Caliban, in Aime Cesaire's "The Tempest" http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Wed Jun 1 02:44:36 2005 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 01:44:36 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Looking for Color in the Anti-War Movement Message-ID: Martinez: Looking for Color in the Anti-War Movement by Elizabeth (Betita) Martinez, courtesy of Z Magazine, from Colours of resistance, www.colours.mahost.org Part I: Why "Anti-War" has to be "Anti-Racist" too As a speaker at a San Francisco anti-war rally last fall, I tried to emphasize the importance of seeing the threatened war on Iraq in terms of this country's racism here and around the world. In that spirit, I ended my comments with a chant by some activists of color marching to the rally: "One, two, three, four/We don't want your racist war!" Few people in that mostly white crowd of some 15,000 chanted with me or clapped. I was troubled, but later that day a Bay Area anti-war movement leader told me, "You got off easy. In the 1970s, Black Panther leaders like Bobby Seale and Dave Hilliard were booed when they mentioned racism at early anti-Vietnam war rallies." Seeing racism as a separate, secondary issue is an old problem in the U.S. peace movement, which does not always realize that it must be anti-racist as well as anti-war. Today, with the "Permanent War" becoming all too permanent, that realization is all the more crucial. Do people really think the expanding U.S. empire will be stopped by white folks alone? The education, mobilization, organization, participation, and leadership of people of color in the anti-war movement have been recognized as important far more today than previously. More people of color can be seen at demonstrations than during the Vietnam war. We sometimes find people of color in the leadership of anti-war organizations. For example, they compose half of the Steering Committee of the national coalition United for Peace and Justice, which also voted to make people of color half of UPJ?s co- chairs and half of its Administrative Committee. Anti-war teach-ins in Spanish and bilingual publications are being produced. Such changes are good but questions persist. Why, for example, is there not more color in today?s anti-war movement when the troops who fight and die are disproportionately black, brown, and red? Why isn?t there more color when those who pay such a heavy price for cutbacks in vital social services due to military spending are often people of color? The first answer is the way that racism conditions the attitudes and conduct of many anti-war activists, often without their realizing it. There are also obstacles within communities of color, frequently rooted in experiences of racism, that impede their own anti-war organizing. We can begin with some thoughts about the first problem?how racist ideas and practice among white activists hold back building the strongest possible anti-war movement. ?Diversity Is Not Our Job? Throughout history, U.S. peace groups have been primarily composed of and led by whites, mostly middle-class men. On one level, this happens because anti-war whites usually reach out first to friends or acquaintances and this means other whites. That still holds true today for the anti-war movement and its frequent partner, the anti-corporate globalization or global justice movement. It has often held true for the white-led solidarity movements of recent years, like the main organizations supporting popular struggles in Central America, for example. It also holds true today even in racially diverse cities like San Francisco. The problem became obvious to this writer when four coalitions put on the big February 16, 2003 demonstration (Feb. 15 elsewhere). At meetings I attended of their coordinating committee, out of 25 representatives you might find a half dozen of color and an even smaller proportion under 40 years of age (few of whom played a leading role in the discussion). Far too many cases have occurred across the country of white activists showing ignorance, indifference, or arrogance toward people of color. Incidents might be as major as the Washington, D.C. protest against the World Bank and the IMF on April 16, 2000, when no Black or Latino leaders were asked to speak at the main event?an amazing omission, given the colors of Washington, DC. Or they might be as minor as when a Chicano in Sacramento, California encountered a peace activist leafletting at a food co-op. He asked if there would be speakers of color at the event she was promoting, and the activist replied, ?Diversity is not our job.? Cases of whites refusing to acknowledge and accept leadership from activists and organizations of color head the list of structural problems. Not calling on activists of color at meetings or favoring those deemed ?the most articulate? has been noted. White activists starting coalitions without input from or serious outreach to people of color and then calling the coalition ?citywide? have occurred, in places such as New York. White activists have used their greater resources to dominate a coalition. Sometimes the conflict concerns tactics. For example, whites planning civil disobedience may forget that immigrants and others of color risk jail, deportation and special police violence for participating. As a Chicano organizer commented, ?there are young white activists who do not think beyond the fact that they can get arrested and be out of jail overnight with no serious problems. They do not recognize that white privilege?combined with class privilege?can make this happen.? Often the problem is culture clash. It might be mar- ginalizing non-English speak- ing immigrants and rarely thinking of the need for translation of literature, meetings, or slogans. There can also be conflicts about style of work as basic as how a meeting is chaired. Participants of color may end up feeling that a meeting had a very ?white style??meaning a tendency to move in a strictly linear direction, with no time allowed for building trust and new leadership. The problem can be hard to finger at times. A person of color at a mostly white meeting may feel that veiled power relations are in operation, but be unable to identify just how. One Chicano student activist commented that while white-dominated meetings may be supposedly ?leaderless,? actually informal and therefore unaccountable leaders are calling the shots. Those same dynamics can be observed in all-white meetings, but the feeling of exclusion usually intensifies for a person of color. Such problems led to sharp criticism on a KPFA (Pacifica) ?Hard-Knock Radio? program, in which hip hop activists discussed whether the anti-war movement was a whites-only mission. One person said that organizers will call for peace around the world but ?when it comes to people of color here, they just want Peace on the Plantation.? There?s A War At Home, Too The racist practices described here are symptomatic of stubbornly held ideas that include, first, denying there is a war at home along with today?s wars abroad, and the two are intimately connected. Second, denying that both are racist wars (as well as apparently forgetting that U.S. foreign policy is fundamentally rooted in racism). Angela Davis once noted that the black community did not join the anti-Vietnam war movement in great numbers (even though blacks have been largely anti-war, one could add). One reason, she said, was that it did not see white peace activists energetically defending the Black Panthers, who were fighting a war for survival at the time. In the same spirit, David Graham Du Bois, stepson of the revered scholar, recently wrote in an ?Open Letter to the U.S. Peace Movement? that, confronted by the Iraq war, Black Americans ?are generally silent largely because there has been so little evidence that those who call us into the streets to demonstrate for peace understand how color racism and white supremacy are used in the United States against the interests of peace, justice and the pursuit of happiness for all peoples. It is not enough to call up the peace legacy of Martin Luther King, in speeches and slogans You must organize to end racism with the same enthusiam and determination as you organize to stop the war.? Similarly, Earl Ofari Hutchinson wrote in 1991 soon after the Rodney King beating in L.A., ?How is it that thouands of white activists can wage passionate campaigns against oppression and human rights abuses in Chile, El Salvador, South Africa but not in the ghettos and barrios of their own cities?? As these African Americans affirm, peace activists have often failed to recognize that there is a ?war at home? along with the wars abroad, and that the war at home includes an unending struggle with racism as shown in the criminalization of youth, the expanding prison industrial complex, ongoing inequality in social institutions like schools and housing, and a constant stream of actions to take back the gains of the 1960?s like affirmative action and bilingual education. Today the war at home has intensified. People of color suffer severely from its effects, as seen in massive new attacks in the name of Homeland Security. Under the Special Registration program, over 13,000 Arab, Muslim, South Asian, and North African males who complied with the program face deportation, almost all for minor immigration violations. This represents a huge increase in racial profiling and criminalizing immigrants, especially those of color. Another direct connection between the wars abroad and at home can be seen in the deadly cuts in funding education, health care, child care, and low-cost housing for the sake of gigantic military spending. These and other realities carry a stark message: the same capitalist, empire-building forces that impose the wars abroad also impose the war at home. The main victims of both are peoples of color. Both are racist wars. We cannot oppose one and not the other. Although white anti-war activists may recognize that communities of color are engaged in longstanding struggles against white supremacy and for self-determination, most do not see (or want to see) the linkage between those struggles and building the anti-war movement. That blindness underlies many of the problems we have seen in building anti-war unity across color lines. One simple example: lack of respect for leadership by people of color, in many situations. The drive for self-determination is also ignored in the way many white activists look at Palestine?s struggle against the Israeli occupation and fail to see its relationship to the whole U.S. empire-building project. Instead of solidarity, Arab American activists have noted, some whites say those who support Palestine?s struggle are anti-Semitic; some fear alienating Jews if they do support Palestine; some dismiss that struggle out of total ignorance about Israeli, Arab, and Islamic history, or they think Islam oppresses women across the board so too bad for Palestine. War Resisters League Resists What? A major example of resistance to defining the anti-war struggle as anti-racist can be found in the War Resisters League, which has been almost entirely white for 80 years. Last February David McReynolds of its Executive Committee, widely admired for his work against the Vietnam war, resigned from all posts. The immediate cause named by McReynolds was the vote by the WRL?s National Committee to retain a project called ROOTS (originally Youth Peace), which had been created several years earlier to increase the League?s young membership. ROOTS is staffed by people of color. In explaining his resignation, McReynolds wrote that by voting to retain ROOTS, the majority had set the League ?on a course which could result in the end of the organization. That course was to shift our primary focus from being a peace and disarmament organization to a ?broader focus? in which the League would be not only an ?antiwar? organization, but also an ?anti-racist? organization.? McReynolds commented that the causes of war ?sometimes?though not as often as the ?politically correct caucus? thinks?include racism I have seen Clergy and Laity Concerned, once a voice for peace and social change, vanish after it capitulated to its own ?politically correct? group whch insisted that if CALC was serious about racism it had to turn over a majority of its board to members of color. It did so ? McReynolds also stated very briefly and without examples that ?almost none? of ROOTS? material (primarily a youth-oriented newsletter) is pacifist, contrary to WRL basic principles. Some WRL members have questioned why being officially anti-racist is so controversial when the WRL had no great problem agreeing to declare itself anti-sexist. Today upheaval continues within the WRL, with hopes of positive change. ROOTS continues and WRL remains in the United for Peace and Justice (UPJ) coalition The Open Letter About Racism With many problems of racism in the movement surfacing during 2002-2003, the position taken by McReynolds and others in the WRL became ?the straw that broke the back of silence concerning those problems,? as a national UPJ leader told me. The result: an ?Open Letter About Racism in the Movement? circulated among thousands of activists shortly after the February 15/16, 2003 rallies. Issued by a multi-racial group in New York City, the Open Letter discussed white supremacy as experienced by its authors over a one-year period. It listed many of the problems already mentioned in this article. That Open Letter was an encouraging move, especially when compared to other events. For example, in April, 2003, in the Boston area, the popular white anti-racist speaker Tim Wise was scheduled to speak on the topic ?Racism and White Privilege in the Peace Movement.? Somehow his title was changed to ?Race and the Peace Movement.? White Efforts To Combat Racism As that Open Letter confirmed, anti-war white activists have been critical of racism in the movement. On a minimal level, they often express regret that their meetings include too few people of color. This regret can lead to no concrete action or tokenism. Alternately, they will agree, ?Yes, we must get more people of color involved,? but as Tonto might have said to the Lone Ranger, ?Who is ?we,? white man?? In other words, they aim to ?diversify? what continues to be their movement in their eyes, rather than seeking to build alliances between equals. More serious efforts by white anti-war activists to combat racist tendencies can be dated back decades. Anne Braden, the longtime, white southern anti-racist leader, wrote a groundbreaking article in 1987, ?Undoing Racism: Lessons for the Peace Movement,? offering analysis and concrete recommendations that work for today. An unusual example of whites collaborating to solve such problems with people of color as equals developed in September 2001 in the Albany, New York area. The Stand for Peace Anti-Racism Committee (SPARC) was formed ?to build an anti-racist, multi-racial movement for justice and peace.? SPARC organized a forum held last August 13 for people of color ?to discuss our involvement and leadership in working for peace and justice? and strategies for ?how we can make connections? in combatting the wars at home and around the globe. The forum drew a diverse group of 30 or more people, about one-third of whom had not been politically active in the past. Thus ?it turned out to be more of a speakout than an in-depth dicussion of strategic questions,? said African American scholar/activist Barbara Smith. But the spirit of the meeting was enthusiastic and participants expressed strong interest in continuing the dialogue at a follow-up meeting that same month. In November 2001, New York City (70 percent people of color) saw a group of 10 young(ish) white organizers and activists put out a powerful letter called ?An Anti-Racist Coalition? We have a long way to go.? They included members of mostly local groups working for the rights of welfare recipients, workers (UNITE), gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people (FIERCE) and others who had attended meetings to plan for an October 7 march. Their letter sharply criticized those meetings for marginalizing people of color as well as youth and working-class participants. It also presented many practical suggestions for improvement. Other ideas and actions have come from white anti-racist groups like Active Solidarity and Heads Up in the Bay Area, and AWARE in Philadelphia. Direct Action to Stop War, also of the Bay Area, which shut down San Francisco?s financial district the day after war was declared, saw positive efforts in anti-racist organizing. San Francisco?s Chris Crass, of the Challenging White Supremacy (CWS) Workshops, has put together an informal ?toolbox? for whites. It begins with a broad political recommendation: develop an analysis of war that connects U.S. empire-building abroad to the war at home. Understand that demands for peace without justice ring hollow in communities that face structural violence every day, whether the U.S. is dropping bombs elsewhere or not. The list includes what Sharon Martinas, creator of CWS programs, has called ?anti-racist toilet training,? for whites. For example: 1. Attend an anti-racist training and encourage other white activists to do so. Recognize how white privilege consistently socializes white activists to think of themselves as superior. 2. Instead of that eurocentric ?come join us? approach, check in with organizations of color working against war at home and abroad. 3. Respect the leadership of people of color. Be accountable; do what you say you will do. 4. Prioritize reading books by radical people of color, especially feminists. Learn more about the struggles of communities of color. 5. Set concrete goals for yourself that can be measured, such as: in one month, will talk with two white anti-racist activists in my community and two of color. 6. Remember that it is not your intentions or motives that count but the impact of your actions as a white person in a white supremacist society. The Black civil rights movement of the 1960?s shows it is possible for vast numbers of white people in this land to say a loud ?no? to actions and policies that exclude, demean, or marginalize people of color. Everyone should remember William Moore, Mickey Schwerner, Andy Goodman, Jonathan Daniels, Viola Liuzzo, and other white activists killed in the southern freedom struggle. Their lives were not worth more than any black life lost in that movement, but their commitment set an inspiring contemporary example for anti-racist whites. The time is more than ripe to show that commitment again. Whites should not only say ?no? to racism but also carry out energetic campaigns of ?yes? to any action that advances genuine collaboration. This is no simple or easy task, but what could be more worthwhile? A young white friend wrote last year, ?Wouldn?t it be beautiful if we could get thousands of white organizers all over the country to reject those old racist habits? To stop thinking of their work as the center of everything and educate other white folks too? To see why they have to fight racism along with militarism so the solidarity we talk about is real? Then we could truly say: another world is possible.? Part II: Anti-War Organizing Among People of Color An Emergency Summit Conference of Asian, Black, Brown, Puerto Rican, and Red people against the war was held in Gary, Indiana on June 3-4, the first such meeting ever held in the United States over 300 delegates attended the historic conference,? said the article in the newspaper El Grito del Norte. The year was 1971. The war was in Vietnam. Today people of color do not yet have the collective strength of those years and there are major obstacles to anti-war organizing in our communities. We cannot just blame racism from whites for blocking our participation if we are not doing everything possible to build effectively among ourselves. People of color need to be so strong, so numerous, and so effective that they cannot be ignored. The obstacles start with class issues. A widespread feeling exists in communities of color that anti-war activism can?t be a priority when folks are struggling with daily problems of survival?paying the rent, doctors? bills, bad schools, drugs in the ?hood?as well as direct racist attacks. Along with job and family, where?s the time? Poor and working-class African Americans may say, ?We can?t be protesting the war, we?ve got to be defending ourselves anti-war stuff is for white middle-class kids.? Immigrants, especially the undocumented, often keep quiet for fear of losing their livelihood or being deported if they speak out or sound ?un-American.? Older immigrants may say they feel gratitude or debt to the U.S. for their improved economic condition and their children?s. Low-income youth of color may be attracted to the military as the only road to college, a good job, and U.S. citizenship. Middle-class activists of color (as well as whites) sometimes say that grassroots people just don?t grasp foreign policy or don't want to be bothered. Actually those activists may really be blaming ?the masses? for a supposed lack of intelligence as a way of hiding their own unwillingness to struggle with complex international issues. When a brother says with well-founded cynicism, ?This war stuff is the same old crap??does that really mean he would never understand or care about the stakes? Anti-war organizing can be impeded by middle-class, conservative, often intensely anti-Communist organizations of color. They may oppose going against the war because it could undermine their work on what they call ?more important issues,? not to mention their financial support. Among Latinos, we find the League of Latin American Citizens (LULAC) not wanting Mexicano anti-war activists in this year?s Cinco de Mayo parade in Houston, Texas. Blacks have similar organizations as do South Vietnamese people in northern California. For African Americans, seeing Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice at the top adds a complicating perspective. If they had opposed the wars, their rare success as Blacks making it into the halls of power would have been impossible. These examples leave us asking not just where is the color in the anti-war movement but also ?where is the working class???a question for white activists also. Other obstacles to our anti-war organizing include: * The U.S. mass media with their lies, distortions and omissions of reality. Unlike white society, few people of color have access to alternative media (especially not in Chinese or other Asian languages). A Pew poll last April found that support for the Iraq war was far lower from immigrant Latinos?who often came from countries with direct knowledge of U.S. imperialism?than from Latinos born here, who had been barraged by mainstream media all their lives. * The feeling that there are no leaders and ordinary people cannot take the action needed without strong leaders (failing to think of themselves as leaders). * Among Blacks and Latinos, the contradiction of anger at U.S. racism existing alongside a desire for respect from the white-dominated society, and especially the opportunity to win that respect in wartime. Black poet Brian Gilmore, in the Progressive, quoted W.E.B. DuBois referring to these feelings as that tragic state of ?double consciousness.? * Identification with the U.S. as a nation, especially in relation to other countries: not nationalism, but nation-ism. * Fear of attending anti-war demonstrations because of repression by police, who target people of color. * A general dread of any contact with the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service), especially since 9/11. Thousands of Arab, Islamic people and South Asians in particular have suffered mass roundups, indefinite imprisonment without cause under brutal conditions, and deportation. The recent expulsion of many Cambodians, and the threatened expulsion of hundreds more, has intensified that dread. Earlier, under ?Operation Tarmac,? came the raids and subsequent firing of Latino immigrant airport workers, first in Salt Lake City in December 2001 and then Seattle in April, 2002, none on criminal charges. * For Latinos as for Asians, difficulty in unifying all their different nationalities against the war, given the diversity of class, language, politics, religion, attitudes about gender and sexuality, and others. * Dislike of working within the white-dominated anti-war movement, given its racist tendencies. A single meeting can turn you off. * Fear of conflict with pro-war family or friends. Hany Kahlil, of the United for Peace and Justice staff based in New York, has added several other very concrete problems, summarized as: 1. When you haven?t experienced your own power to keep a health clinic open or get a stop-sign on a street, for example, you have difficulty imagining you can take on something huge like a war, so why try? 2. It?s hard to sustain energy and hope if we don?t have measurable benchmarks for progress. For example, we need to see where our campaigns fall far short of stopping a war but are steps that strengthen our base and win allies. 3. Many groups have shied away from taking on the war in part because they are afraid of dividing their organization?s membership. We need to be prepared to struggle with our own people if necessary. That fear overlaps with the problem that much of our work is concentrated in the non-profit sector, which can make funding the priority. 4. Lack of capacity and resources. In the case of Black Americans, Bill Fletcher of TransAfrica Forum has said that, as a society, they are economically and psychologically depressed today. ?Worn down by all the deprivation and attacks of recent years, they are a battered people. Such a state of being leads many to think struggle is not worthwhile.? Overcoming The Obstacles Many individuals of color are opposed to the wars and empire-building even if they don?t participate in demonstrations or join anti-war organizations. What might overcome the obstacles and make them more ready to get involved? Anti-war organizers of color will say: education is key. That process must include drawing out the connections between people?s immediate concerns?the bread-and-butter issues?and the war. An obvious example is the brutal cutbacks in education, health care, child care, and other social services to finance the biggest military budget seen in years. Another is the vast increase in racial profiling and criminalizing immigrants of color by such means as the ?Special Registration? program. People of color have sometimes become active against the war in places where organizations already exist that have won respect for their work on an issue important to local residents. In New York and Chicago, for example, organized Latino opposition to U.S. militarism against Vieques, Puerto Rico made it natural to take on Bush?s wars and empire-building. The result has been one of the strongest pockets of Latino organizing in the U.S. Also in New York, anti-war activism has been launched by people of color already organized around such issues as welfare rights, reparations, and immigrant rights, like CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities. A group in Los Angeles, Centro (CSO), had a Latino base for years that enabled it to help Latinos Against the War win support. In these cases, the existence of trust together with education about how the foreign and domestic wars are connected helped pave the way for involvement. Monami Maulik, director of Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM) in New York has pointed out that the current war on terrorism criminalizes immigrant communities much as the ?war on drugs? crim- inalized African American and Latino communities for years. That kind of historical comparison helps advance the educational process. Immediate connections also exist. Korean Americans constantly hear U.S. threats to attack their homeland because of its nuclear weapons. To them, the war abroad and the war at home are inseparable; recently they have energetically organized educational events and protests in the U.S. Filipinos have similar connections. Even before the war, many were engaged, directly or indirectly, in opposing U.S. militarism and its puppets in the Philippines. Their anti-war organizing has been intensified by the firing of over 1,000 baggage screeners at airports in the Bay Area, the vast majority Filipino, for being non-citizens. A subtle linkage between U.S. wars abroad and the war at home can be found in the way African American activists often say they will join a struggle defined as ?against imperialism? rather than ?for peace.? Fighting U.S. imperialism echoes their own historical struggle, dating back to slavery. Black Workers for Justice in North Carolina issued a statement in late 2002 taking that anti-imperialist perspective even further. It emphasized the importance of ?concretely linking the struggles of all People of Color and the oppressed internationally for a better world.? >From all this organizing experience, one message emerges: perhaps the most effective way to build anti-war activism in communities of color is first to establish a base within each community, to begin where the people are, and grow. Organized activists of color then come to the table with white groups much more ready to form coalitions or alliances. At the same time, we can hope that the Anglo activists have developed anti-racist views and practices among themselves. We should also affirm the value of organizing according to communities other than those defined by color, such as women, gays, students, elders, the disabled, artists, and others. Learning From Our Histories Among the tools useful in advancing our anti-war organizing today is teaching our own histories of anti-war work. Martin Luther King spoke out against the Vietnam war in 1967 despite being strongly advised that he should ?stick to civil rights issues? or lose support. Julian Bond of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s (more recently Chair of the NAACP) opposed the Vietnam war. That cost him the seat he had won in the Georgia state legislature. In Harlem, thousands of African Americans marched against the draft. One sign carried the unforgettable words of Vietnam war resister Mohammad Ali: ?No Vietcong ever call me nigger!? Among Asian Pacific Islanders, intense organizing took place from coast to coast. It included the Bay Area Asian Coalition Against the War, the Asian Coalition Against the War in New York, and the Van Troi Anti-Imperialist Youth Brigade of Vietnamese people in Los Angeles. Japanese Americans organized in San Francisco?s J-Town, and Filipinos also in that city. At times activists in the three cities demonstrated simultaneously. One of the best-kept secrets about the anti-Vietnam war movement is the Chicano protests during 1970 in various parts of California. They even included Fresno, in the conservative Valley area, and culminated in the August 29, 1970 Chicano Moratorium against the war in Los Angeles. Some 20,000 people marched that day. In the middle of a peaceful rally we were tear-gassed, chased, and sometimes beaten by hundreds of police. Repression by police that afternoon left three Chicanos dead. Rub?n Salazar, a Los Angeles Times reporter whose articles had criticized the police, was shot to death as he sat inside a bar after the attack. As these stories reveal, standing against war is not new or alien to communities of color. We have our heroes and martyrs; we can be inspired by them. That heritage should be made known, especially to youth of color, some of whom have been very active in anti-war work. Education about the war, demonstrating against the cutbacks in spending on schools while more prisons are built, and opposition to military recruitment are three major issues for youth organizers. In Oakland, Youth Together has worked intensely in five high schools with school-wide teach-ins, workshops connecting the war with budget cuts, and mobilizing for major demonstrations. Other groups doing similar work in Oakland include the Youth Empowerment Center and the East Side Arts Alliance. Bojil (formerly Olin) has done leafletting and made flags, along with Conscious Roots and San Francisco City College students, as part of the Schools Not Jails Coalition. These youth, who include many Latinos, also do media work. In LA, Youth Organizing Communities with its Students Not Soldiers campaign has made military recruiters know they are unwelcome at two high schools including Roosevelt, the nation?s largest. YOC has also worked to make students aware that their parents must register with school authorities that they do not want personal information about their children given to the military. In Chicago the SW Youth Collaborative-Generation Y Project, with a strong base among Arab and Palestinian residents, has also done educational work on Palestine, Iraq, and other key issues. They will launch a Still We Rise campaign this fall. The educational and organizing work that can bring more people of color to oppose the Bush wars and empire-building must emphasize the connections with people?s daily lives and how they are hurt in material ways. Self-interest exists and must be shown. But there is another kind of consciousness to be raised. Let us remember the anger and sense of injustice people of color in this land can and do feel when they learn of what the U.S. has done to millions of people around the world, mostly people who look and struggle and suffer like them. The killing of up to 8,000 civilians in Iraq during the bombings last spring should be personally unacceptable to us all. It is a moral imperative that we affirm their humanity and thus our own. Never has there been a more important time to stand and shout at this nation?s rulers: No, no, not in our name. Go To Church Already Another crucial and often neglected constituency is church-goers. Anti-war organizing grew in Williamsburg, New York, as a result of El Puente?s building a base in local Catholic churches. On Good Friday this year some 5,000 Latinos in Williamsburg participated in a march combining the message of Good Friday with anti-war spirit. In Chicago, a community Methodist church brought together 100 other churches?mostly of Latinos and Blacks?in a coalition that held demonstrations and other anti-war activities. In Washington, DC last May, more than 1,000 grassroots Black people attended a peace rally at the Plymouth Congregational Church. Talk about the war and domestic evils such as police brutality and denial of health care stirred the crowd. Damu Smith, who heads Black Voices for Peace, emphasized that the event was ?coming out of the Black experience.? ' As anti-war organizers often ask, why aren?t people of color (as well as whites) doing more in the churches, especially since the leaders of all major denominations have spoken out against the U.S. wars? Women, Raise Your Voices In anti-war organizing by people of color, women are always a dynamic force?and the number keeps growing. Women of Arab origin head the list wherever they are found. Oakland?s Women of Color Resource Center listed 10 reasons why women should oppose the war in its Women, Raise Your Voices! Campaign. Last spring, the WCRC held a conference of leaders of women?s organizations across the country and continues to build on its belief that women are key to the anti-war movement. Anti-war groups of color have been working to join forces and form alliances. Nationally there is RJ911 (Racial Justice 911, meaning September 11, 2001), a network that has held two national meetings of people of color. It is still being built. In the Bay Area RJ911 was the main sponsor of an inspiring day when Bay Area activists formed and marched together for the first time as a contingent of color on February 16, 2003. Korean drummers banged out Mexican rhythms while Puerto Ricans danced salsa with blacks and Filipinos, and a sizeable number of Chinese marched with Latinos, thanks to having organized together for lowcost housing. San Francisco?s Institute for Multiracial Justice held meetings in April and June bringing together activists from various groups who wanted to develop new tactics for anti-war work. From Los Angeles, Strategic Action for a Just Economy (SAJE), the tenants? rights group of families, and others of color brought members to the Bay Area to join in and learn from local anti-war activities. Across the land, activists of color are working to develop the right strategy and tactics for organizing a movement that will grow beyond its initial, semi-spontaneous stage. They know, as do many white activists, that building a multi-racial, multi-national, multi-lingual, multi-class movement is our best hope for preventing illegal and inhuman assaults on the world?s most vulnerable people. For holding back the most powerful, most frightening empire ever seen. For transforming society into a world of peace with justice for all living creatures. A Chicana writer, educator, and social justice activist for over 40 years, Elizabeth (Betita) Martinez has published six books on popular struggles in the Americas. Currently she is director of the Institute for MultiRacial Justice. --------------------- Prospero, you are the master of illusion. Lying is your trademark. And you have lied so much to me (lied about the world, lied about me) that you have ended by imposing on me an image of myself. underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior, That ?s the way you have forced me to see myself I detest that image! What's more, it's a lie! But now I know you, you old cancer, and I know myself as well. - Caliban, in Aime Cesaire's "The Tempest" http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Wed Jun 1 02:44:34 2005 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 01:44:34 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Anti-Oppression Resources Message-ID: Below is a collection of links to anti-oppression resources from the SOA Watch webpage. The sections are: general information, exercises, articles about race, class, gender, abelism, anti-semitism, ageism, some audio pieces, films and training groups in the US. If anyone has other pieces that could get added (especially about anti-racist organizing) and/or information about anti-oppression training groups in Canda, please email hvoss at soaw.org - thanks! =========================== GENERAL INFORMATION =========================== OVERCOMING DISCRIMINATION Two parts: 1) Hidden Assumptions and Attitudes and 2) Ways We Can Work for Change http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=741 ___________________________ DEFINITIONS This compilation of terms is a tool, a guide to decipher some of the difficult language that is being used when discussing oppression. http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=629 ___________________________ PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF ANTI-OPPRESSION and SELF-CHECK MEETING GUIDELINES Compiled from the ?Anti-Racism Principles and Practices? by the Los Angeles Direct Action Network, Overcoming Masculine Oppression, the FEMMAFESTO and the RNC Clearinghouse http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=398 ___________________________ TOOLS FOR WHITE GUYS who are Working for Social Change (and other people socialized in a society based on domination) http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=471 =========================== EXERCISES =========================== LERANING SOCIAL ROLES - BOY/GIRL PIECE This activity continues self-reflective processes as participants write and share short pieces about how their gender identities were affected through childhood messages about what it meant to be a boy or a girl (also adaptible for race, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class, religion, and other identifiers). This activity can be used to introduce a discussion on gender issues, setting the groundwork for maintining a focus on talking about issues from one's own experience instead of their perceptions of the experiences of "those people." http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=630 THE POWER SHUFFLE Based upon "It's About Power" by Allan Creighton & Paul Kivel, and "Power Shuffle" by Harrison Simms http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=611 The Benefits of Being White Exercise http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=472 The Benefits of Being male Exercise http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=473 =========================== RACE =========================== White Female Liberals a.k.a. ?Progressives? As a black man that has been working in the non-profit, activist, academic world for the better part of the last decade I?ve become increasingly disappointed and angered by the inability of the progressive white women to acknowledge their continued oppression of peoples of color and the defense mechanisms they use the deflect attention away from themselves http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=918 Hispanic vs. Latino The terms Hispanic or Latino, used by many to classify the culture continues to be a source of contention because the former implies a connection to ancient Spain and its language while the latter represents a nationality, that of Latin America. http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=830 White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=696 Ten things everyone should know about race Our eyes tell us that people look different. No one has trouble distinguishing a Czech from a Chinese, but what do those differences mean? Are they biological? Has race always been with us? How does race affect people today? http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=634 Be Down With The Brown http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=628 Unlearning Racism Working Definition of Racism, Working Assumptions, Strategies for Winning Allies, Strategies for Being an Effective Ally http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=627 Cultural Etiquette: A Guide for the Well-Intentioned RACISM AND THE RACIAL STEREOTYPES it spawns are so subtly interwoven into the fabric of Western society that very often, even those with the best of intentions will display bad cultural manners. This does not necessarily mean one is a bad person. Sometimes people just don't know any better. http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=626 An Open Letter To Activists Concerning Racism In The Anti-War Movement Written and signed by several NYC activists. The letter gives specific examples of racist practices and dynamics. http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=604 A Black Mans Look at Faith Activists article written by a black man from Philadelphia during the trial against the SOA 43 in Columbus, GA in the summer of 2002 http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=468 Ten Things to Remember: Anti-Racist Strategies for White Student Radicals http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=491 Ain't Gonna Let Segregation Turn Us 'Round: Thoughts on Building an Inter-Racial and Anti Racist Student Movement http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=490 What is White Supremacy? http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=482 White Supremacy On My Mind: Learning To Undermine Racism http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=484 Anti-globalisation Activism Cannot Ignore Colonial Realities http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=483 White Privilege shapes the U.S. http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=481 Where was the Color in Seattle? http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=479 The language and rhetoric of race White folks are often parodied -- and rightly so -- for beginning sentences about race with the disclaimer, ?I?m not a racist, but ? What follows is more often than not an overtly racist statement. But just as often in white liberal circles these days, one hears the phrase flipped. http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=874 =========================== CLASS =========================== Class Matters http://www.classmatters.org/ Confronting Classism Class affects people not only on an economic level, but also on an emotional level. Classist attitudes have caused great pain by dividing people from one another and keeping individuals from personal fulfillment or the means to survive. http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=532 Center for Working-Class Studies http://www.as.ysu.edu/~cwcs/ Classism: Oppression Based on Class http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=622 =========================== GENDER =========================== Masculinity, Militarism and the School of the Americas (SOA/WHINSEC) The basic idea behind military training is to cultivate the prime example of masculinity in its most extreme form of violence. At the School of the Americas, soldiers learn how to use their force to dominate over others. http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=890 Challenging Capitalism & Patriarchy http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=910 Being An Ally Some guidelines for people wanting to be allies for LGBT people. http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=722 Taking The First Step: Suggestions To People Called Out For Abusive Behavior What responsibilities does the accused have to upholding a "process of accountability" regardless of their feelings of guilt or innocence? As survivors and communities how do we hold abusers responsible? http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=613 Patterns of Patriarchy Commonly Observed within Social Justice Movements http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=478 The Issues Facing Queer Prisoners http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=477 Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=476 Heterosexual Privilege Feature in ?Coming Out? http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=475 What is Heterosexual Privilege? http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=474 Redefining Rape The way we define a given word, and more specifically, who does the defining, has an enormous impact on how we think about that word and what it represents. It also dictates the nature of our relationship to the thing or concept the word symbolizes. This could not be more true for the word rape. http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=615 Sexuality, masculinity and men's choices http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=873 Transgender Terms Sheet The usage of these terms varies across communities, and new ways of talking about the perceptions and experiences of transpeople appear every day as more and more transpeople are coming out and talking about their lives. http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=621 =========================== ABELISM =========================== Accessibility Guidlelines for meetings, marches, demonstrations, general communication, arrest and jail concerns http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=650 Ableism, Accessibility and Inclusion 54 million Americans, almost 20% of the population are people with disabilities. We are the largest marginalized minority group in the US, and the only one that anyone can join at any time in their lives. http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=607 =========================== ANTI-SEMITISM =========================== Anti-Semitism Anti-Semitism can best be understood through a historical analysis. Persecution of Jewish people has a long history dating back about 3,000 years. Understanding how this oppression has persisted in different forms and seeing the cyclical pattern of anti-Semitism can help us recognize its continued existence and methods of functioning in today's world. http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=647 HOW TO STRENGTHEN THE PALESTINE SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT BY MAKING FRIENDS WITH JEWS Seeing the links between Jewish and Palestinian liberation is necessary in part because anti-Jewish oppression doesn't only harm Jews. Throughout history and in a consistent, predictable pattern, anti-Jewish prejudice has been used to disrupt people's resistance to oppression. http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=606 THE ROUGH BEAST RETURNS Anti-Semitism is back, taking the place of intelligent criticism of Israel and its policies. And if that wasn't bad enough, students are spreading the gibberish. http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=1015 =========================== AGEISM =========================== Agism Agism is action based on the belief that one age group is inferior to another. The action becomes oppressive when it is backed with power and resources (e.g. money and media). Agist beliefs are legitimized by theories (often "scientific") and myths, and serve to keep target ages out of competition for jobs and other resources. http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=649 Treating Children as Equals A mother asks us how mature we are with children. http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=632 Prejudice against older people - How Should We Combat it? One aspect of Ageism is prejudice against older people. It's pretty widespread, in its various forms. http://soaw.org/new/article.php?id=633 Z-Net Youth Watch http://www.zmag.org/youthwatch.htm =========================== AUDIO =========================== GenderTalk A web radio that speaks the language of gender ? and more http://www.gendertalk.com/ Race, Class and the War on Drugs Speakers from the forum "Race, Class and the War on Drugs" sponsored by the King County Bar Association. http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=5995 Tough Guise: Masculinity and Violence in the Media Two media critics, one aspiring and one accomplished, discuss the media and gender roles over breakfast. Interview conducted by Rob Callahan http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=2381 Transgender Rights Interview with Dawn Wilson, the Chair of the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition, www.ntac.org, and Katrina Rose, a TG attorney, writer and activist. http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=2047 Institutionalized Racism in the U.S. Society Anti--Racist activist Tim Wise speaks on the system of institionalized white supremacy, how it works, and how it must not be a part of any movement for a democratic society http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=3877 Male terrorism and the political economy of gender oppression Michael Parenti discusses the inferior role women have in every contemporary society, and the political factors that contribute to upholding patriarchy as part of the class system. http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=3232 =========================== FILMS =========================== The Color of Fear, (1994) A film about the state of race relations in America as seen through the eyes of eight North American men of Asian, European, Latino and African descent. In a series of intelligent, emotional and dramatic confrontations the men reveal the pain and scars that racism has caused them. What emerges is a deeper sense of understanding and trust. This is the dialogue most of us fear, but hope will happen sometime in our lifetime. Distributed by: StirFry Seminars & Consulting ~ 154 Santa Clara Ave ~ Oakland, CA 94610 phone: 510-420-8292 ~ on the web: www.stirfryseminars.org Not In Our Town (1995) Documentary about the people of Billings, Montana who joined together to stand up for Native American, African-American and Jewish neighbors who were under attack by white supremacists. Believing that ?If a community doesn?t respond, then the community accepts? racism, Billings residents moved into action and took a stand in response to a series of hate crimes. More information and discussion guides available at www.pbs.org/niot/. People Like Us: Social Class in America (2001) This film does not pretend to be a definitive documentary about class in America, but it can serve as a catalyst for discussion of issues of class that affect the country economically, socially and psychologically. It poses questions about self-perception, expectations and the ways in which Americans classify each other. It also provides a starting point to look at race in a complex society. Distributed by: Center for New American Media ~ Louis Alvarez ~ CNAM Film Library ~ 22-D Hollywood Ave. ~ Hohokus, NJ 07423 ~ phone: (800) 343-5540 Lock Down USA (1997) This video explores a variety of topics related to prisons and race. Specifically, Lock Down USA looks at the expansion of the prison population, the impact of ending educational opportunities for the incarcerated, the climate of fear promulgated by media coverage of crime, and how the media depicts law enforcement and the criminalization of youth. Distributed by: Deep Dish TV ~ 339 Lafayette Street ~ Second Floor ~ New York, NY 10012 phone: (212) 473-8933 ~ email: deepdish at igc.org Tough Guise: Violence, Media & the Crisis in Masculinity, (1999) This is the first educational video geared toward college and high school students to systematically examine the relationship between images of popular culture and the social construction of masculine identities in the U.S. at the dawn of the 21st century. The focus falls on a statistical correlation between violence/oppression and gender in our society. Distributed by: California Newsreel ~ P.O Box 2284 ~ South Burlington, VT 05407 phone: (877) 811-7495 ~ email: contact at newsreel.org RACE - The Power of an Illusion, (2003) The division of the world's peoples into distinct groups - "red," "black," "white" or "yellow" peoples - has became so deeply imbedded in our psyches, so widely accepted, many would promptly dismiss as crazy any suggestion of its falsity. Yet, that's exactly what this provocative, new three-hour series by California Newsreel claims. Race - The Power of an Illusion questions the very idea of race as biology, suggesting that a belief in race is no more sound than believing that the sun revolves around the earth. Distributed by: California Newsreel ~ P.O Box 2284 ~ South Burlington, VT 05407 phone: (877) 811-7495 ~ email: contact at newsreel.org =========================== TRAINING GROUPS =========================== Freedom Trainers is a group of organizing trainers around the country specializing in organizational change and development with a focus on community building. We are here to help organizations, groups and individuals dismantle oppression through trainings at the personal and organizational level. 524 Hancock St. ~ Brooklyn, NY 11233 phone: (347) 247-1147 http://www.freedomtrainers.org/ Training for Change 1501 Cherry St. ~ Philadelphia, PA 19102 phone: (215) 241-7035 http://www.trainingforchange.org/ The Ruckus Society 5111 Telegraph Ave. #326 ~ Oakland, CA 94609 phone: (510) 763-7078 http://www.ruckus.org/ Active Solidarity 755 54th St. ~ Oakland, CA 94609 phone: (415) 286-0504 http://www.activesolidarity.net/ Challenging White Supremacy Workshop 2440 - 16th. St. PMB #275 ~ San Francisco, CA 94103 http://www.cwsworkshop.org/ The People's Institute 7166 Crowder Blvd., Suite 100 ~ New Orleans, LA 70127 phone: (504) 241-7472 http://www.thepeoplesinstitute.org/ Youth Organizing Communities P.O. Box 1482 ~ Montebello, CA 90640 phone: (323) 780-7606 http://www.schoolsnotjails.com/ Virginia Organizing Project Dismantling racism and combating heterosexism workshops in Virginia. 703 Concord Avenue ~ Charlottesville, VA 22903-5208 phone: 434-984-4655 http://www.virginia-organizing.org/ SOUL (School of Unity and Liberation) SOUL's mission is to serve as a training center to develop a new multi-racial generation of young organizers. 1357 5th Street ~ Oakland, CA 94607 510-451-5466 http://www.youthec.org/soul/ --------------------- Prospero, you are the master of illusion. Lying is your trademark. And you have lied so much to me (lied about the world, lied about me) that you have ended by imposing on me an image of myself. underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior, That ?s the way you have forced me to see myself I detest that image! What's more, it's a lie! But now I know you, you old cancer, and I know myself as well. - Caliban, in Aime Cesaire's "The Tempest" http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Wed Jun 1 02:44:42 2005 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 01:44:42 -0700 Subject: [m2c] All of egypt will wear black on wednesday june 1 Message-ID: The Association of Egyptian Mothers (Rabetat al-Ummahat al- Misriyyat) has circulated this call via e-mail, and it's swiftly making the rounds of the Egyptian blogosphere; the Arabic original can be found at Rehab's. Thanks to Alif for the photo. This is my verbatim translation. An Invitation from the Association of Egyptian Mothers All of Egypt Will Wear Black on Wednesday, 1 June 2005 Honourable Citizens, Children of Egypt On 25 May, the day of the referendum, women and girls participating in peaceful demonstrations demanding democracy in Cairo at the Press Syndicate were subjected to harassment and sexual assault in public, perpetrated by simple people rented by thugs of the National Democratic Party and supervised by generals of the Interior Ministry. We the Egyptian Mothers who dream of a better future for the homeland and a better life for our children have decided to invite the Egyptian people to leave their homes as usual next Wednesday, the 1st of June, but wearing black on their way to work or while running their daily errands. Every citizen and responsible person before God disapproves of what happened, even if they are not political activists nor care for public activism. We only ask that they leave their house that day as on any ordinary day, but wearing black, and to invite those around them to do the same and explain to them the importance of this symbolic public protest. As for activists, we call on them in all of Egypt?s provinces to coordinate peaceful, silent vigils in front of their syndicates or in their universities or in certain public places they agree on, in silence and complete solemnity in their black clothes. The Egyptian Mothers is not a political movement, it is the voice of the silent majority of women, housewives and working women. But they have realised today that the Interior Ministry has overstepped all red lines, and that silence today is a crime and we must stand up in united formation as a united people to defend the Egyptian woman and girl. Our demand is clear, it is a single demand: the resignation of the Interior Minister. All of Egypt will wear black in silence on the 1st of June, from the extreme North to the extreme South, its men, women, youth, and aged people, sadness in its streets and a wound in its heart. The people?s demand is simply the resignation of the Interior Minister. We have stood by watching for a long time, but we have decided to go out next Wednesday, for the first time, in defense of the honour of Egypt?s women citizens, women and girls, in police stations and on the street and in demonstrations. On the 1st of June, all of Egypt will be dressed in black, for the sake of our daughters who were assaulted and had their clothes torn in the street because they dared to say enough instead of remaining silent. We will go out this time (and we are not from the Kifaya movement) to tell Interior whose role it was to protect us: the game is over. A day of silent popular mourning and a single demand: the resignation of the Interior Minister. Afterwards, we will either return to our homes and our daily lives, in the way of Egyptian women and their familiar struggle for their daily bread, family, and children since the dawn of this civilisation and throughout the history of this peace-loving homeland, or we will think of a next step if our demand is not met. We emphasise that we are not from the Kifaya movement and do not belong to any political force, legal or otherwise. But when the Egyptian woman pays the price of her political participation with the sanctity of her body and her honour, then every Egyptian mother and all of Egypt will go out in clothes of mourning to tell the Interior Minister: We want your resignation today now. We will see you all on Wednesday, the 1st of June, a normal day, in our black clothes, calmly, and in bitter silence, for the sake of a free future. --------------------- Prospero, you are the master of illusion. Lying is your trademark. And you have lied so much to me (lied about the world, lied about me) that you have ended by imposing on me an image of myself. underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior, That ?s the way you have forced me to see myself I detest that image! What's more, it's a lie! But now I know you, you old cancer, and I know myself as well. - Caliban, in Aime Cesaire's "The Tempest" http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Wed Jun 1 02:44:26 2005 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 01:44:26 -0700 Subject: [m2c] "No Woman's Law Will Rot This State": the Israeli Racial State and Feminist Resistance Message-ID: http://www.newprofile.org/showdata.asp?pid=819 "No Woman's Law Will Rot This State": the Israeli Racial State and Feminist Resistance [By: Ronit Lentin, Trinity College Dublin, 31/08/2004] Sociological Research Online, Volume 9, Issue 3, . To cite articles published in Sociological Research Online, please reference the above information and include paragraph numbers if necessary. Received: 26/4/2004 Accepted: 12/7/2004 Published: 31/8/2004 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Abstract This paper employs social theory and empirical observation, juxtaposing Israel as a 'racial state' (Goldberg, 2002) and the concept of femina sacra, a female version of Agamben's homo sacer or 'bare life' (Agamben, 1998), to think about some aspects of Israeli feminist peace activism since the onset of the second Intifada. Although Israeli feminist peace activism seems to discursively vacillate between essentialist motherhood narratives and subversive draft resistance practices, reading draft resistance narratives of young Israeli women conscripts, the paper tentatively suggests that where the state positions itself above morality, while evoking morality in its defence, feminist 'peace activism' in Israel/Palestine, though providing a potent counter-narrative to the Zionist narration of nation, does not destabilise the racial state, which is apparently gradually destroying itself while wilfully destroying its Others. I conclude by asking whether morally positioning itself in contrast to the racial state, such resistance can be theorised as gendered. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Keywords: Israel, Palestine, Racial State, Draft Resistance, Feminist Peace Activism ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Introduction Picture 1. 'Since that day, all I could think of was how to get out of the mess this state put me in... I decided not to lie or fake it...' (Draft resister Moran Farhan, cited by Mazali and Werner, 2004: 17, emphasis added). 1.1 According to O'Gorman and Jabri (1999), the feminist challenge to International Relations is about articulating women's positions and experiences of the international through the reworking of sites of 'the international' such as war, international institution building, and de/colonisation, by 'worlding women' (Pettman, 1996). 'Womaning' Israel-Palestine by positioning women in multiple ways along the complex intersections of power is at the heart of my analysis of the relationship between what I theorise as the racial masculinist Israeli state and its subversive draft resisting daughters (c.f. Lentin, 2000a). 1.2 This article employs social theory and empirical observation to think about some aspects of Israeli feminist peace activism since the onset of the al Aqsa Intifada. I begin by arguing, after David Theo Goldberg (2002), that Israel, like other modern nation-states, but in its own specific way, is a 'racial state', and juxtapose it with the concept of femina sacra, the female version of Agamben's homo sacer or 'bare life' (Agamben, 1998; see also Ghanem, 2003). I argue that Israeli feminist peace activism, although often vacillating between essentialist motherhood narratives and subversive draft resistance practices, discursively subverts masculinist Israeli sovereignty. [1] Re-reading some statements by Israeli feminist peace activists, and draft resistance narratives by young Israeli women conscientious objectors (New Profile, 2003), the article argues that where the state - privileging 'national security' - positions itself above morality, while evoking morality in its defence, feminist 'peace activism' in Israel/Palestine - despite inner divisions and streaks of essentialism - provides a potent counter-narrative to state might, yet does not destabilise the Zionist narration of nation, or the racial state itself. 1.3 The Israeli-Palestinian sociologist Huneida Ghanem (2003) and the Israeli-Jewish sociologist Hanna Herzog (2004) examine different resistance locations of Palestinian women citizens of Israel. While Ghanem posits the Palestinian woman as subjected to internal colonial edicts of having to guard her collective's honour and shame in the border zone between her Israeli and her Palestinian identities, Herzog positions educated Israeli-Palestinian women in a liminal intersection between shifting identities. However, while this article keeps the liminal positioning of Palestinian women's resistance in mind (inter alia, via the figure of the female suicide bomber, see Dworkin, 2003, beyond the scope of this article), I have chosen to concentrate on resistance strategies of young Israeli female draft resisters, interrogating in particular the gendering of such resistance. 1.4 Side by side with support by the majority of Israeli women (and men) for the war against the Palestinians, increasingly conceived as 'a war against terrorism', and with their willing and enthusiastic participation in military combat, [2] the work by Israeli women political activists doing peace, draft resistance and dialogue work across the divide - even though I am not proposing to essentialise women as peace makers - has the potential to subvert the racial state. 1.5 I have chosen to illustrate the article with photographs which represent women as Palestinian victims of the Israeli Defence Forces (1), Israeli and Palestinian anti-occupation 'Women in Black' demonstrators (2), and Israeli women draft resisters (3). [3] The Israeli Racial State and its Gendered Others 2.1 David Theo Goldberg (2002) posits all modern nation-states as 'racial states', which he theorises as 'states of power', asserting control over those within the state and excluding others from outside the state. Through border controls, the military, constitutions, the law, policy making, bureaucracy, and governmental technologies such as census categorisations, invented histories and traditions, ceremonies and cultural imaginings, the modern state is defined by its power to exclude (and include) in racially ordered terms. 2.2 Employing the term 'racism' is relatively recent in the Israeli context, with social scientists preferring instead to configure divides as 'ethnic' (regarding intra-Jewish divides between Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Jews, see e.g., Shohat, 1988; Hever et al, 2002; Shenhav, 2003), or 'national' (regarding the Israeli-Palestinian divide) rather than 'racial' - evincing an understanding of 'race' as pertaining to biology. Herzog, who conducted 108 interviews with Palestinian women citizens of Israel, only 18 of them mentioned the term 'racism', concludes, after Essed (1991), that avoiding the term 'racism' in the Israeli context is linked to 'the absence of legitimacy for the term in the dominant discourse in Israel and a strong tendency to construct the discourse about the relations between Jews and Palestinian-Arabs in national rather than civil terms (Herzog, 2004: 60-1; see also Balibar, 1991 on the racism-nationalism interface). 2.3 A comprehensive examination of the racialisation of Israeli state and society is beyond the scope of this article, however I propose that Israel is 'racial' in specific ways, without privileging 'race' as a biological concept, or, as Herzog (2004: 60) describes it, 'racism without race'. Bearing in mind the disavowal Herzog identifies, and in particular the theorisation of racism as '(developing) within nation-states that seek to consolidate their national project' (Herzog, 2004: 54), I suggest that the Israeli state is an illustrative rather than a paradigmatic exemplification of Goldberg's model of the modern state, where race and nation are defined in terms of each other to produce a coherent picture of the population in the face of a divisive heterogeneity - alternatively defined as standing outside or inside the state - as I briefly explore below. 2.4 The Israeli state, defined as the state of the 'entire Jewish nation' and not merely of its citizens, grants automatic citizenship to any Jew wishing to immigrate by strength of the racially-discriminating 'Law of Return', while opposing the right of return to Palestinians made refugees by the establishment of Israel in 1948 (Karmi, forthcoming) and by subsequent expulsions following the 1967 war and the occupation of Palestinian territories (Aminov, forthcoming). Furthermore, the state of Israel, through the offices of the Jewish National Funds, has designated 95 per cent of the state territory as 'state lands' and has enacted laws that differentiate between Jew and non-Jew making it illegal for non-Jews (read Palestinians) to lease state lands; between 1948 and 1973, the Jewish Agency established 594 Jewish settlements and not one Arab settlement (Aminov, forthcoming). 2.5 Citing demographic anxiety, according to which Jews might become a minority by 2020, the Israeli state continues to enact racial laws based on Jewish belonging - Judaism here conceptualised not merely as a religion, but also as nationality and ethnicity - to preserve Jewish demographic superiority. Recent examples are the 'Citizenship and Entry Act' (2003), which prohibits non-Jewish (read: Palestinian) spouses of Israeli Jewish citizens to enter the state, and the proposal to deport hundreds of Israeli-born children of migrant workers (Aloni, 2003: B9). 2.6 The modern state, according to Foucault (2003), can scarcely function without becoming involved with racism, which he sees as 'the break between what must live and what must die'. In constructing homogeneities, the state becomes a normalising, regulating biopower state. The deadly play between a power based on the sovereign right to kill and biopolitical management of life, though illustrated at its worst in the Nazi state, appears in all modern states, and racism is intrinsic to the nature of all modern normalising states, whose biological technologies occur in varying intensities, ranging from social exclusion to mass murder. Beyond the obvious demarcation between 'what must live and what must die' evidenced in daily incursions by the Israeli Defence Forces in the occupied territories, Abu-Saad (2004: 101-27) argues that the state of Israel has 'racially derogatory attitudes towards the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel' which result, among other things, in 'discriminatory practices in the state-run educational system'. 2.7 Giorgio Agamben (1998) develops Foucault's theorisation of the modern nation-state as a 'state of population', using a series of technologies to monitor and control the nation's biological life which becomes the problem of sovereign power. Beyond Foucault's 'life becoming the principal object of the calculations of state power', Agamben posits 'bare life' coinciding with the political realm: At once excluding bare life and capturing it within the political order, the state of exception actually constituted, in its very separateness, the hidden foundation on which the entire political system rested (Agamben, 1998: 9). 2.8 Agamben posits a sovereign power versus bare life binary: the sovereign is the point of indistinction between violence and the law, and the bearer of this link is called 'bare life', or homo sacer (Agamben, 1998: 10). If the sovereign, representing the unity of the people, embodies unlimited power insofar as he is identified with the biological life of the people, the existence of the person of homo sacer is reduced to bare life stripped of every right by virtue of the fact that anybody can kill him and he can save himself only in perpetual flight or in a foreign land (Agamben, 1998: 184). 2.9 Agamben (1998: 167-71) proposes the (concentration) camp as the paradigm of modernity and of political space at the point in which politics becomes biopolitics and homo sacer is virtually confused with the citizen. The camp is produced at the point at which the political system of the modern nation-state, founded on the land-territory-nation nexus, enters into crisis, and the state decides to assume direct care of the population's biological life. Agamben's suggestion that the reality of the camp fits contemporary life, can arguably be used to theorise not only the detention centres in Israel/Palestine, where Palestinian detainees are stripped of their rights in the name of (Israeli) sovereign power and of protecting the (Israeli) population, but also the entire occupied West Bank and Gaza, where Palestinians can be theorised as 'bare life' at the mercy of Israeli sovereign power. 2.10 Employing Agamben's homo sacer conceptualisation, Huneida Ghanem positions the Israeli state border as the signifier of the state of emergency (Israeli) Palestinians find themselves in: (The border) signified the violent severance of the lives and family ties they had before the Nakba, [4] and the loss of olive orchards to the other side of the border. In the shadow of the post-Nakba Military Government, the border became the scene of life in the shadow of death, where the Palestinian body was made by the Israeli authorities to undergo a transformation and become bare life, exposed and devoid of meaning, homo sacer (Ghanem, 2003). Femina Sacra? 3.1 Due to the link between birth and nation (deriving from nascere - to be born), the intersection of state racism and state sexism means that women, the producers of future generations of racially 'inferior' collectives, are often permanently banned as impure (c.f. Yuval-Davis and Anthias, 1989). Woman's body creates and contains birth-nations and demarcates territories, and is therefore the basis of nation-states. Yet woman - the gendered other of modernity - is often deleted from state protection and right (though not from state regulation) and sovereign power makes a further exception in relation to women's bare life, and women are often abandoned, because of their temporary-made-permanent ban (Agamben, 1998: 114). In this article I am positing the female version of Agamben's notion of homo sacer, femina sacra, to think about the precarious position of women vis a vis states, particularly in conflict situations. 3.2 An illustration of the precarious position of women in relation to state sovereign power is the rape camps in the former Yugoslavia, where woman, due to her sexual vulnerability and her function as a vehicle of ethnic cleansing, became femina sacra, at the mercy of male sovereign power: she who can not only be killed, but also impregnated, yet who cannot be sacrificed due to her impurity. 3.3 Rape of the 'enemy woman' is not only a sovereign technology of power and an ethnomarker, but also a powerful metaphor. It is remarkable that up to relatively recently, reports of widespread rapes of Palestinian women by Israeli soldiers were rare. In November 2003 Ha'aretz reported a horrific case in which a troupe of male soldiers gang-raped a young Bedouin girl prior to killing her and burying her in the sand during the 1948-9 'war of independence' (Lavie and Gorali, 2003). Benny Morris, 'new historian' turned apologist for the Israeli racial state, admitted that during the 1948 war, alongside the destruction of over 400 Palestinian villages and the expulsion of their inhabitants, and alongside several well documented massacres, rapes were a common occurrence, and that most rapes ended with murder. 'Because neither the raped nor the rapists like to report these cases, we have to assume that the dozen reported rape cases are not the whole story, rather the tip of the iceberg' (Shavit, 2004). [5] On the one hand, Israelis silenced these and later rapes, because, according to 1948 veteran and peace activist Uri Avneri, rapes supposedly 'did not happen for racist reasons. Having sex with an Arab woman was considered undignified' (Lavie and Gorali, 2003, emphasis added). This racist view was substantiated by the Palestinian political activist Suheir Aszzouni Mahshi, who wrote, already in 1995: The violations of women's rights by the occupation were particularly cruel. Many women were imprisoned, many were humiliated during interrogation; they were forced to undress and threatened with rape. I know of at least two who were raped with a stick, the implication being that they were not worthy of being touched (Mahshi, 1995: 8) 3.4 On the other hand, Palestinians too silenced the rapes because, as Ghanem suggests, the Palestinian (Israeli) female, charged with the collective's honour, was doubly colonised, both as homo sacer at the mercy of external Israeli colonialism, and female bare life controlled by internal (Palestinian) patriarchal colonialism (Ghanem, 2003; see also Ghanem, 1995). Mahshi is more explicit about the collusion between the Palestinian patriarchy and the Israeli occupation: 'The occupation authorities reinforced and exploited the traditional view of the importance of a girl's "honour" (connected to her virginity) in Palestinian society, and used it against women. Many women were forced into compromising positions and then they or their husbands, brothers or fathers were blackmailed and forced into collaboration with the occupation' (Mahshi, 1995: 8). From (Feminist) Silence to Essentialist Peace Activism 4.1 Having briefly outlined the specificities of Israel as a 'racial state', and positioned the Palestinian citizen and occupied subject as homo sacer at the mercy of Israeli sovereign power, let me now turn to a discussion of Israeli feminist peace responses to the al Aqsa Intifada. Herzog surveys feminist theorisations of the location of women's bodies in Israel 'as an arena for conducting population policy, involving, inter alia, 'population classification and categorisation according to regimes of justification that refer to collective traits (race, nationality, ethnicity etc)' and argues that women's experience in Israel is based on multiple layers of oppression and inclusion, allowing women to forge identities that are 'hybrid, changing, multidimensional and often conflicted and contradictory' (Herzog, 2004: 57). 4.2 While the homo sacer argument cannot be extended in a linear fashion to theorise Israeli feminist peace activists, I propose that in positioning themselves against state morality in an arguably gendered way, they can be theorised mot as forging a 'third space' between 'cultural, gender, class, national and racial structures that generates a continual ambivalence' as Herzog (2004: 53) proposes in relation to educated Palestinian Israeli women, but rather as agents of resistance who explicitly challenge the certitudes of the Israeli state of exception, while not necessarily subverting the entire Zionist logic. 4.3 At the start of al Aqsa Intifada many Israeli feminists initially joined other Israeli intellectuals in nurturing Israeli victimhood and blaming the Palestinian leadership, and, implicitly, Palestinian women, for the escalation in violence (see Abdo and Lentin, 2002). In October 2002, attempting to explain this initial self silencing, Shlomo Sand (2000) argued that 'apart from the Lebanon war, each Israeli-Arab confrontation saw the central intellectual players line up with the establishment, giving it the necessary legitimacy' (Karpel, 2000). However, by May 2002, after the siege of West Bank cities, and several massive suicide bombs, Israeli voices of peace and dialogue struggled to overcome the near universal support for the brutal Israeli war against the second Intifada. Developments such as the public refusal by high ranking reserve officers to serve in the occupied territories, and the growing, unprecedented, phenomenon of conscientious objection by young conscripts, as well as ongoing anti-occupation and anti-wall demonstrations, indicated that the Israeli 'peace camp', after its initial stunned self silencing, is rallying around. 4.4 Safran (1995) argues that Israeli women's peace groups (which date to the 1982 Lebanon War, but which came into the fore during the 1987-93 'first' Intifada), while opposing the oppression of the Palestinians by Israel, 'had a greater impact agitating for a voice for women in society'. Through peace groups, Safran argues, Israeli women, initially thought as undeserving of a voice in public affairs, challenged their 'traditional roles as mothers and keepers of the home-front and (took) positions on crucial political matters such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict' (Safran, 1995: 23; see Chazan, 1991, for an early mapping of Israeli women and peace activism). 4.5 There have been several sociological studies of Israeli feminist peace activism (e.g., Sharoni, 1993; Herzog, 1999; Shadmi, 2000; Emmet, 2004) critiquing, inter alia, the implicit middle class, heterosexual and Ashkenazi composition of the Israeli feminist peace movement. Another critique (Lentin, 2000b) is that Israeli feminist peace activism tends to maintain an essentialist discourse of women, and particularly mothers, as more adept than men at conflict resolution. [6] The veteran Israeli feminist peace activist Gila Svirsky makes this claim explicit when she writes: '(Israeli) women have consistently been a large part, if not the majority, of the rank-and-file peace activists, and have often led the pack in out-of-the-box thinking. ... Ever since "Women in Black" began its first vigil in January 1988, women's peace activism in Israel has consistently been more varied, more progressive, and more courageous than the peace activism of the mixed-gender peace groups' (Svirsky, 2002: 236). [7] Picture 2. 4.6 While some Israeli feminist peace activists resist the essentialist evocation of motherhood and the equation of women with peace, essentialism may persist, as was demonstrated for instance in a December 2001 Ha'aretz article reporting 'hundreds of mothers who object openly to their sons serving in the IDF in general and in the occupied territories in particular' (Abramovich, 2001: B6). The article cites New Profile member Orit Degani, who joined other mothers in opposing her son's military service: 'Like many other Israeli mothers, I had wanted my son to be an army paratrooper. Today I do not want to desert my son and I am finding more and more partners in this belief. These are mothers who don't want merely to save their sons but also to change this terrible reality' (Abramovich, 2001: B6). Degani's narrative progresses from nurturing the ultimate Zionist dream of 'my son, the paratrooper' to the maternal peace discourse of wishing to save her son from military service, while, at the same time, 'changing this terrible reality'. In 'Not a soldier's mother' Hannah Safran (2000) argues that had women's voice been included in the peace process from the start, feminists would not have had to resort to maternal arguments, as Israeli women are only listened to as the mothers of soldiers, not as political beings in their own right. 4.7 A potent resistance strategy is the relatively new and increasing phenomenon of draft resistance. In September 2003 Israeli society was stunned when 27 active and reserve senior air force pilots (all male) signed a declaration expressing their refusal to bomb civilian targets in the occupied territories (Mosko, 2003: 20). The pilots, many of them highly decorated soldiers, are not opponents of the racial state or of the occupation, and consciously speak from the heart of the Zionist ideology. In expressing concern for Israel's morality and 'refusing to become war criminals', they broaden the consensus against the ongoing excesses of the occupation, without, however, undermining the racial state itself. Without diminishing the pilots' courage, I would like to suggest that their statement was in line with the post Lebanon war history of peace activism in Israel initiated by high ranking (male) army officers, in organisations such as Peace Now, springing from the heart of the Zionist consensus and concerned mostly about the brutalisation of Israeli society (see Chazan, 1991). 4.8 In a military state such as Israel where discourses of national security overshadow all other considerations and where military service has been regarded, until recently, an unquestionable national duty (see e.g., Ben Eliezer, 1995; Lomsky-Feder and Ben Ari, 1999), conscientious objection is not formally recognised and draft resistance is a relatively recent phenomenon. Several organisations have been established to support conscientious objectors, both conscripts and reserve soldiers. The mission statement by Yesh Gvul (There is a Limit), for instance, reads: We, soldiers of the IDF, men and women, hereby declare that we will take no part in the continued oppression of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Territories, and we will not participate in political actions or in guaranteeing the settlements (http://www.yeshgvul.org) 4.9 Another organisation supporting conscientious objectors is New Profile, according to which the extent of draft resistance means that 'thousands of young women and men are currently avoiding conscription and combat duty'. New Profile regards everyone who does not enlist as a draft resister, and although many would not characterise their action in political terms, in practice, they are excluding themselves and stating that they are not part of the military game. In addition, desertion levels are rising fast, largely due to economic causes, and military prisons are overflowing. New Profile views this 'social resistance' as a form of draft resistance. According to New Profile founder-member Rela Mazali, 'a third of every cohort of candidates for service do not enlist at all (this includes the orthodox); another 20 per cent of those who do enlist drop out early on. The result is that about half of every age group either doesn't serve at all or does very partial service. Thus the declared objectors are just the tip of the iceberg, and if you look at the whole citizenry at a given age group (including about 20 per cent Palestinians), only a minority serves in the IDF (Mazali, personal email communication, 3 March, 2003; see also http://www.newprofile.org). 4.10 Israel is the only state to conscript women and therefore the only state where women's conscientious objection exists. According to New Profile, which puts special emphasis on women draft resistance, the IDF refuses to release data relating to women's draft resistance, but media sources indicate that '40 per cent of women conscripts do not enlist each year, and in the last decade the number of women who do not enlist for religious or conscience reasons has increased from 10 to 30 per cent. In contrast to men who refuse conscription, and who are jailed in military prisons, women's conscientious objection has gained the army's recognition' and they are eligible for discharge, providing they can persuade a military 'conscience committee', an arbitrary and often humiliating process (Werner and Mazali, 200416). Picture 3. 4.11 If motherhood and women's 'natural' peace making role are central themes in much Israeli feminist peace activism discourse, young women draft resisters express commitment to individual morality as opposed to state logic. In picture 3, draft resisters Noa Kaufman and Tal Matalon hold a placard reading 'Thou shalt not murder' (the original Hebrew version of the 'Thou shalt not kill' biblical commandment), with the letter 'zadik' in the word 'murder' painted in green also denoting the letter 'zadik' for Zahal - the Hebrew acronym for the IDF). 4.12 The 17 and 18 years old women draft resisters whose narratives were collected by New Profile anchor their decision in various key events and denote a commitment to an anti-state morality. For Tal Matalon the deciding event was the violent death of her friends Ofer Ron and Adi Shiran on March 31 2002 in a suicide bombing at the Matsa Restaurant in Haifa: We lit candles and brought flowers and sat and talked. And then Aviv asked me if I'm still going to refuse. And I said yes. Because it was obvious to me that yes... If people die, it should be stopped, right? More people shouldn't die, should they? But Aviv already stopped listening. For good, actually, because he never talked to me again... (Tal Matalon) 4.13 Noa Kaufman's decision was made during a Taayush joint Palestinian-Israeli demonstration in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Abu Dis on October 12 2002, where the demonstrators and the local Palestinians were tear gassed: I felt something crystallising... a hatred for those in uniform. I've always tried not to hate - to understand, to remember that friends of mine wear the same uniforms too and get the same orders, but at that point I felt like taking some soldier, pushing him into a sealed room, and filling it with tear gas...I was shocked by the force of my feelings, and I tried to imagine how those living under perpetual occupation hated the soldiers - living day by day with tanks wrecking their streets, destroying what they had been building all their lives, blowing up homes, shooting loved ones (Noa Kaufman). 4.14 For Danya Vaknin it was a 'terrorist' brought into the hospital ward in which she was volunteering: I heard the doctors whispering, there were rumours he was a terrorist. When I asked the head nurse she yelled at me and said it made no difference whether or not he was a terrorist and that if I had a problem with it I should leave and not come back. She's right. It doesn't matter if he's a terrorist or not...When I told my friends about it, they were stunned. Some of them were angry and said if they had been there, they would have let him die, and how could I even talk about something so immoral... (Danya Vaknin) 4.15 The women refuseniks share a belief that since 'men are more vital to the IDF' (Danya Vaknin), women's draft resistance, though significant for themselves, their families and friends, is not as significant. Furthermore, 'the positive discrimination of women as opposed to men in relation to the recognition of their right to refuse is a direct result of women's lower position in the military and in Israeli society as a whole. Women are discharged because they are not really important, they are not "the real thing" - that is "a combat soldier". Therefore, their refusal "does not count", is not reported in the media, and is not publicly visible' (Werner and Mazali, 2004: 16). Yet these women are learning to raise their voices 'against the background of the establishment of testosterone-laced refusenik movements', insisting that although 'we support the guys, our focus is the struggle against the occupation' (Galili, 2004). As draft resister Shani Werner expresses it: '... after the "conscience committee" I ... phoned home. There had been a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv... a young boy chose to commit suicide in order to kill Israelis. If only I could have told him about other Israelis, who refuse to be his occupiers...' (Werner and Mazali, 2004: 17). Conclusion: Gendering Resistance? 'If I have broken their laws / I will learn from it, and suffer gladly. / But if the crime lies with my judges / I wish my sentences upon them...' (Morrison, 2003: 30). 5.1 Huneida Ghanem (2003) engenders the relationship between the Israeli state and the Palestinians, by provocatively suggesting that the Palestinians escaped their lands in 1948 to guard the family honour. Ghanem argues that Palestinian women were charged with guarding the collective's lost honour: the Palestinian female who 'does nothing' so as not to infringe the (sexual) code of honour is parallel to the 'good Arab' whose collaboration with the Israeli occupation means 'doing nothing' while having his lands confiscated 5.2 I have similarly attempted in this article to engender or 'woman' the relationship between the Israeli state and women draft resisters. For the title of the article I have deliberately quoted Creon's statement that women's morality would not deter him from maintaining state sovereignty (Morrison, 2003). Like Antigone, who knows that breaking state rule does not mean breaking the rules of morality, Israeli women draft resisters position themselves as moral agents set against the 'very broad consensus' of state might: I know what I think about the situation in Israel and how to solve this long, ongoing conflict. I just know that I myself along with other conscientious objectors resisting the draft... have made the most moral choice possible. We've refused to enlist in the IDF. We've disrupted a very broad consensus, but it's very important to disrupt it, important for people to start asking questions (Danya Vaknin, emphases added). 5.3 In conclusion, I want to ask whether Israeli female draft resistance can usefully be theorised as a gendered opposition to the racial state, bearing in mind that male draft resistance is as courageous and as potent, but also that male draft resisters are 'taken more seriously' by the IDF and are more often jailed than women resisters. For ?i?ek (2002), apparently adhering to the male/public versus female/private domain divisions, Antigone does not speak merely as a female subject. In appealing to Creon, she acts in the masculine public domain of politics. Creon and Antigone are the binary opposites of the symbolic social order: state versus family, the legal order versus the divine order, sovereign power versus femina sacra. Antigone subverts the existing social order by representing the death impulse; while still alive, she is already dead, or, as Huneida Ghanem puts it, living 'life in the shadow of death'. 5.4 According to ?i?ek's reading of Judith Butler (2000), Antigone acts as a spokesperson for all subversive 'pathological' demands for acceptance in the public domain. But she is more than homo sacer (or femina sacra), since, according to Agamben, in today's 'post-politics', democracy masks the fact that we are all ultimately 'homines sacri' at the mercy of the sovereign power of the racial state (?i?ek's, 2002: 108-110). In the Israeli-Palestinian context, all Palestinians under the Israeli occupation are reduced to homines sacri; they are objects of discipline, but never equal citizens. The real achievement of the draft resisters, in response to Creon's statement that 'no woman's law will rot this state', and refusing to go on serving the racial state, is closing the distance between homo sacer and your fellow human. 5.5 However, although most casualties of war are men, women are the symbolic representations of the 'raped nation' (Lentin, 1999). They signify the border zone between inside and outside, and are subject to the controlling gaze of both racial state and racialised subject collective. Beyond symbolism, we need to theorise women's multiple and heterogeneous material realities to chart the relations between state and woman in all their complexities. The subject position 'woman' possesses no essentialist privilege in doing peace work, yet feminist peace activists, and in particular female draft resisters - in calling attention to their marginal position in relation to 'state matters' such as occupation, war and security, and in choosing to put their bodies in otherwise masculine public spaces - have the potential to subvert the racial state, and bear witness not only to its masculinising militarism, but also to the wilful destruction of the racial state's occupied Others. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Notes 1 See Lentin, 2000a for an analysis of Israeli Zionism as a masculinist construction in opposition to the feminisation of the Jewish diaspora. 2 The liberal feminist struggle to incorporate women into military combat roles in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) was won after the successful appeal in 2000 by Alice Miller to be recruited as a pilot by the Israeli air force, until then a strictly male preserve (Noga, 2000: 34-6). At present women have access to 83% IDF positions, and 450 women-soldiers are serving in IDF infantry combat units, mostly guarding the relatively 'safe' borders with Egypt and Jordan, so as to release men for the 'more important' duties of policing the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza (Hadar, 2003). 3 The photographs used in this article were emailed by a variety of Israeli and Palestinian peace organisations, and photographer credits are not always available. Picture 1 is of an Israeli soldier aiming his weapon at a Palestinian mother and her two children. Picture 2 is of an Israeli-Palestinian women's peace demonstration, 29 December 2001, sent by Bat Shalom (http://www.batshalom.org). Picture 3 depicts draft resisters Noa Kaufman and Tal Matalon at a New Profile demonstration (http://www.newprofile.org/english). 4'Nakba' is the name given by Palestinian to the 1948 catastrophic dispossession of their lands by the Israeli state. Israelis refer to 1948 as 'the war of independence' (see contributors to Abdo and Lentin (2002) for women's account of their families' memories of the Nakba. 5 Morris, whose research has sparked off the 'new history' of the Israeli 1948 war, argues that the atrocities he describes justify ethnic cleansing: 'There is no justification for rapes or massacres. These are war crimes. But in certain situations expulsion is not a war crime. I don't think that the 1948 expulsions were war crimes... There are historical circumstances which justify ethnic cleansing. I know this term is utterly negative in 21st century discourse, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide, your own nation's genocide, I prefer ethnic cleansing' (Shavit, 2004). 6 Israeli feminist peace organisations include 'Women in Black', who continue to hold silent weekly vigils; 'Bat Shalom' - the Israeli part of the joint Israeli-Palestinian feminist peace organisations The Jerusalem Link; 'New Profile - the Movement for the Civil-isation of Israeli Society', whose members support conscripts and reservists who resist the draft; the 'Coalition of Women for a Just Peace' (see Svirsky, 2002); and more recently Machsom Watch, whose members (described as 'typical Jewish grandmothers', see Ebbesen, 2003) monitor human rights infringements at military checkpoints which control the movement of Palestinians (Machsom meaning 'checkpoint' in Hebrew) in the occupied territories(http://www.machsomwatch.org) and 'Women against the Wall', who protest against the building of the separation wall between pre-1967 Israel and the Palestinian occupied territories (http://www.geocities.com/women_against_the_wall). 7 Beside a belief in the greater ability of women as peace makers, many feminist peace activists, while intent on dismantling the occupation, are not opposed to Israeli sovereignty, as a journalist wrote of one member of Machsom Watch: 'Ora is not opposed to fences in principle. She wants the Israeli government to end the occupation, withdraw to the Green Line and build a border. "There will still be terror"' she said' "but we will be justified if we hit back" (normblog.typepad.com/2004/02/machsom_watch). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Acknowledgements I wish to extend thanks to the two anonymous reviewers and the editors of Sociological Research Online whose comments have assisted me to re think this article. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- References ABDO, Nahla and Ronit Lentin (eds.) (2002) Women and the Politics of Military Confrontation: Palestinian and Israeli Gendered Narratives of Dislocation. Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books. ABRAMOVICH, Dorit. (2001). 'Four mothers and more', Ha'aretz, 28 December 2001: B6. 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Calling the Equality Bluff: Women in Israel. New York: Pergamon Press. DWORKIN,Andrea (2003). 'The women suicide bombers', Feminista http://www.feminista.com/archives/v5n1/dworkin.html EBBESEN, Anna (2003) 'Machsom watch', The Palestine Monitor: The Voice of Civil Society, 21 September 2003 http://www.palestinemonitor.org/eyewitness/Westbank/machsom_watch.html EMMET, Ayala (2004) Our Sisters' Promised Land: Women Politics and the Israeli Palestine Coexistence. Michigan University Press. ESSED, Philomena. 1991. Everyday Racism: Reports from Women of Two Cultures. Claremont, CA: Hunter House. FOUCAULT, Michel (2003) Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College de France, 1975-6. London: Allen Lane. GALILI, Lilly (2004) 'Even in refusal' there is no equality', Haaretz 21 January 2004. GHANEM, Huneida (1995) 'Palestinian women political prisoners: A sociological perspective', Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics and Culture, 2(3): 32-36. GHANEM, Huneida (2003) 'Between fence and gender: Borders and their effect on establishing national gendered identity'. Paper presented at the Israeli Anthropological Association Annual Conference, 28-9 May 2003, Neve Ilan. GOLDBERG, David Theo. 2002. The Racial State.Oxford: Blackwell. HADAR, Dea. (2003) 'Grilillas ready for action', Ha'aretz, 29 November 2003. HERZOG, Hanna (1999) 'A space of their own: Social-civil discourses among Palestinian Israeli women in peace organizations', Social Politics: International Studies of Gender, State and Society, 6: 344-69. HERZOG, Hanna (2004) 'Both an Arab and a woman: Gendered, racialised experiences of female Palestinian citizens of Israel', Social Identities, 10/1: 53-82. KARMI, Ghada (forthcoming) 'The right of return and the unitary state in Israel/Palestine'. Race Traitor. KARPEL, Dalia. (2000). 'The fall of the Israeli intellectual', Ha'aretz Magazine, 27 October: 50-54. LAVIE, Aviv and Moshe Gorali (2003) 'I saw fit to remove her from the world', Ha'aretz, 29 October, 2003. HEVER, Hanan, Yehouda Shenhav and Pnina Motzafi-Haller (eds.) (2002) Mizrahim BeIsrael: Iyun Bikorti Mechudash (Mizrahis in Israel: New Critical Discussion). Tel Aviv; Hakibbutz Hameuchad. LENTIN, Ronit. (1999). "The rape of the nation: Women narrativising genocide". Sociology Research Online 4 (2) http://www.socresonline.org.uk/socresonline/4/2/lentin.html LENTIN, Ronit (2000a). Israel and the Daughters of the Shoah: Reoccupying the Territories of Silence. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books. LENTIN, Ronit (2000b) 'The (self) silencing of the (feminist) lambs: Israeli and Palestinian women struggling to come to terms with the lost possibilities of peace in the Middle East', Paper presented at the Euro Forum, EUI, Firenze, November 22, 2000. LOMSKY-FEDER, Edna and Eyal Ben Ari (eds) (1999) The Military and Militarism in Israeli Society. Albany: State University of New York Press. 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Noga, no. 39: 15. SAND, Shlomo. (2000). Intellectuals, Truth and Power: From the Dreifus Affair to the Gulf War. Tel Aviv: Ofakim, Am Oved. SHADMI, Erella (2000) 'Between revolution and conformism, feminism and nationalism: Women In Black in Israel', Women's Studies International Forum, 23(1): 23-34. SHARONI, Simona (1993) Conflict Resolution Through Feminist Lenses: Theorising the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict from the Perspectives of Women Peace Activists in Israel. Fairfax: George Mason University, Unpublished PhD thesis. SHAVIT, Ari (2004) 'Waiting for the barbarians', Haaretz Magazine, 6 January 2004. SHENHAV, Yehouda (2003) HaYehudim-HaAravim: Leumuit, Dat VeEtniut (The Arab-Jews: Nationalism, Religion and Ethnicity). Tel Aviv: Am Oved. SHOHAT, Ella (1988) 'Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the standpoint of its Jewish victims', Social Text, 7: 1-36. SVIRSKY, Gila (2002) 'Feminist peace activism during the al-Aqsa Intifada,' in Nahla Abdo and Ronit Lentin (eds.) Women and the Politics of Military Confrontation: Palestinian and Israeli Gendered Narratives of Dislocation. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books. WERNER, Shani and Rela Mazali (2004) 'A movement of female "conscientious objectors" in Israel', Gender Research in Israel, Haifa: Israel Association for Feminist and Gender Studies, 14: 16-17. YUVAL-DAVIS, Nira, and Floya Anthias (eds.) (1989) Woman - Nation - State. London: MacMillan. ?I?EK, Slavoj. 2002. Welcome to The Desert of the Real: Five Essays on September 11 and Related Dates. Tel Aviv: Resling (Hebrew translation: Rina Marx). --------------------- Prospero, you are the master of illusion. Lying is your trademark. And you have lied so much to me (lied about the world, lied about me) that you have ended by imposing on me an image of myself. underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior, That ?s the way you have forced me to see myself I detest that image! What's more, it's a lie! But now I know you, you old cancer, and I know myself as well. - Caliban, in Aime Cesaire's "The Tempest" http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From faiza_mjd at yahoo.ca Wed Jun 1 18:49:59 2005 From: faiza_mjd at yahoo.ca (faiza) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 17:49:59 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [m2c] Zapatista Soccer (from ZNet) Message-ID: <7689262.1117673399937.JavaMail.SYSTEM@zombie> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 18940 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/margins-to-centre/attachments/20050601/3f677030/attachment.txt From sandinista at shaw.ca Thu Jun 2 03:57:32 2005 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 02:57:32 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Report: 4032 killed, 44666 injured since September 29, 2000 in Palestine Message-ID: http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=11423&Itemid=2 Report: 4032 killed, 44666 injured since September 29, 2000 Saed Bannoura, IMEMC & Agencies Monday, 30 May 2005 The Palestinian National Information Center reported that the Israeli army killed since the beginning of the Intifada in September 29, 2000, 4032 residents, and injured 44666, excluding 8435 residents who received treatment by field medical teams. The total number of Palestinian children killed during the Intifada arrived to 750, in addition to 732 residents, including 262 females, who were killed when the army shelled Palestinian homes. Also, Israeli soldiers killed 344 members of the Palestinian security, and 817 school students and teachers. According to the report, the army killed 325 Palestinians in extrajudicial assassinations. 131 residents, including children, aged people and pregnant women, died on military checkpoints after the army delayed the ambulances or cars transferring them to hospitals and medical facilities. 50 residents were killed by settlers, 36 medics were killed by the army, in addition to 36 Civil Defense members, 9 reporters, and 220 athletes. 728 attacks against journalists were reported. 4800 school students were injured after the army fired at schools, or at students on their way to school or back from it. 8500 detainees are still in Israeli prisons, 624 detainees were arrested before the Intifada, 1389 school or university students are still in detention, including 330 children; 196 teachers were also arrested. Currently, there are 900 detainees suffering from chronic diseases, and 123 female detainees, including 42 who were sentenced, 73 detained without trial, and 8 in administrative detention. Army shelled residential neighborhoods since October 1, 2001 until April 30, 2005, 31712 times. The number of homes completely damaged by military shelling and operations arrived to 69843, including 7995 in the Gaza Strip, 63099 homes were partially damaged, including 22897 in the Gaza Strip. 590 public buildings and security facilities were damaged, 12 universities and schools were closed by military orders, 316 schools and buildings which belong to the Ministry of Education were shelled, 43 schools were used by the army as military camps. Also, Israeli soldiers bulldozed 76867 Dunams of farmlands, uprooted 13555290 trees, and leveled 770 agricultural barracks and agricultural storage rooms, 765 farms, 16 tractors damages, in addition to considerable damages in agricultural gear. 9077 workshops and stores were completely damaged since October 1, 2001. Also, soldiers bulldozed farms used for livestock, which resulted in killing 899767 chickens used for eating, 350292 chickens used for laying eggs, 12132 cows and sheep, and 15265 bee cells. Army also bulldozed 403 wells, and 207 homes which belong to farmers. Number of unemployed residents arrived to 272.000, 26.3%; poverty rate arrived to 67.6%. Since March, 29, 2003, army annexed 234664 in order to construct the separation wall in the West Bank. Last Updated ( Monday, 30 May 2005 ) --------------------- Prospero, you are the master of illusion. Lying is your trademark. And you have lied so much to me (lied about the world, lied about me) that you have ended by imposing on me an image of myself. underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior, That ?s the way you have forced me to see myself I detest that image! What's more, it's a lie! But now I know you, you old cancer, and I know myself as well. - Caliban, in Aime Cesaire's "The Tempest" http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Thu Jun 2 03:57:38 2005 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 02:57:38 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Give Girls School, Not Domestic Work Message-ID: http://womensenews.com/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2314 Give Girls School, Not Domestic Work Run Date: 06/01/05 By Pat Orvis WeNews commentator As more girls and young women are pressed into domestic work around the world, Pat Orvis held an Internet chat with one who is 12 and working in a household in Kathmandu, Nepal. "Girls," the young woman said, "should be allowed to study." Editor's Note: The following is a commentary. The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily the views of Women's eNews. UNITED NATIONS (WOMENSENEWS)--Pabitra Bhandari has to be up by 5 a.m. every day, in the Kathmandu suburb of Nepal, where she keeps house for a young professional couple. She cleans, does the wash, walks the dog and babysits. Sure, the 5-year-old hits Bhandari and pinches her. But the job is better than some for domestic servants in Nepal's capital city. One big privilege: 12-year-old Bhandari gets three hours a day to attend a special school for children like herself, who've been farmed out to help support poor families back in the villages. Bhandari is just one of untold millions of female domestic workers. Some 90 percent of them are females between 12 and 17 years old, a major reason, according to The United Nations Children's Fund, that women are not getting education and represent 70 percent of the world's poorest. The situation galls some high-school and middle-school students from in the U.S. northeast, who have formed a nonprofit organization called Girls Learn International, Inc. Late last month the group met in Manhattan to launch a student campaign for universal girls' education. Young women such as Bhandari desperately need Girls Learn and more efforts like it. Under-Age Servants Growing In many countries, including Nepal, the number of under-age servants is growing every day because instability caused by civil conflict--added to chronic poverty in many villages--is giving parents additional reasons for sending their children into servitude. According to Human Rights Watch, Communist insurgents have for nine years "challenged the Nepali government," whose security forces in turn have become one of the world's worst perpetrators of enforced 'disappearances.' Throughout the country, says Stella Tamang, a member of one of Nepal's several indigenous populations, schools have been turned into barracks and thousands of children have been kidnapped by the insurgents to become child soldiers. Their parents have no idea where they are, or if they will ever see these children again, says Tamang, who was just in New York to help facilitate the fourth annual U.N. conference on indigenous issues. If all that Tamang says is true, Bhandari may be lucky not to attend one of the regular schools in Nepal. She attends an informal "children's education class," from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. six days a week, together with 14 others sent to the city by their parents to work as domestics. One quarter of them are boys. Bhandari's program is one of 17 such centers run for 700 children in Kathmandu alone by a nongovernmental organization there called Children, Women in Social Service and Human Rights, which, through UNICEF, recently arranged for an Internet chat between Bhandari and me. Keyboarding the Answers As UNICEF's assistant communications officer for Nepal, Rupa Joshi, helped translate and provide the English keyboarding for her, Bhandari received questions from me. For her it was 10 a.m. one morning in downtown Kathmandu. For me it was 10 p.m. in Manhattan. Her answers left me once again with that stunned awareness of just how connected far-flung worlds can be via Internet. Not all children forced to work also get to study, Bhandari said. "There are many children working in homes who are not allowed to study even three hours." And some others who don't work as hard as Bhandari, she would mention later in passing. "When I compare my work with those of my friends, I feel I have a tougher job." For example, "They do not have to wipe the floor like I do. My employers cannot stand a grain of sand in the passageway." And, does she tell them what their daughter does to her? "I tell them sometimes, but not often, because they sometimes scold me that I was not able to play with her properly." And do her brothers work, back in the village? "My brothers only do a little bit of housework. Like fetching fodder for the cattle. They do not go to work." And if, at 12, she can work and take care of herself in a stranger's household, could she not take care of her folks? "When I become a teacher and work, I feel I can support my parents." "Others have to understand," came an outpouring of Bhandari's feelings across my computer screen as Joshi did her best with the keyboarding to keep up, "that all children need to be educated." Girls, especially, must be educated "in order to improve the lives of the women and children." Once girls are allowed to study, the letters exploded on my computer screen, "They have the opportunity to become someone great." Looking Forward to Going Home "I feel very sad about this," Bhandari finally confided in me, after a number of opening exchanges. "I remember my family very much, and am looking forward to the day when I can go home and be with them." At one point I complimented the poem she had written for the best friend she was missing back in the village. "You can be that friend too," Bhandari replied at once. "I can write poems for you, too." And she did start one for me before our hour-long chat ended: "Please don't break and throw away the wood that has been cut in the forest. Please don't tear and throw away the letter my friend, that I have written to you." (Pabitra, to new friend in New York) The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child has guaranteed that all children are entitled to the same rights, regardless of any differences, including gender. Far more than my friendship, Bhandari and girls and young women around the world need those rights enforced. Pat Orvis is a U.N. correspondent who has traveled on assignment in all the world's developing regions and written extensively about global issues. For more information: Educational Goals for Girls Remain Unmet: http://womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2281/ Girls Learn International, Inc.: http://www.girlslearninternational.org/ United Nations Development Fund for Women: http://www.unifem.org --------------------- Prospero, you are the master of illusion. Lying is your trademark. And you have lied so much to me (lied about the world, lied about me) that you have ended by imposing on me an image of myself. underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior, That ?s the way you have forced me to see myself I detest that image! What's more, it's a lie! But now I know you, you old cancer, and I know myself as well. - Caliban, in Aime Cesaire's "The Tempest" http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Thu Jun 2 03:57:38 2005 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 02:57:38 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Residents of Mexico Border City March Sunday to Protest Violence Against Women, Children Message-ID: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB7NJ4YB9E.html May 29, 2005 Residents of Mexico Border City March Sunday to Protest Violence Against Women, Children The Associated Press CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) - More than 100 citizens of this violent northern border city marched Sunday to protest the deaths of hundreds of women and the recent sexual abuse and slaying of a 7-year-old girl. The march was led by the group "Juarez for Peace," and came two days after a separate protest for the same cause, organized by state legislators, drew more than 20,000 people, including university students. Ciudad Juarez, a city of 1.3 million people across from El Paso, Texas, has become the focus of international attention because of a string of largely unsolved killings against women. Federal investigators say more than 350 women have been killed here since 1993. About 100 of the killings follow an eerily similar pattern in which young women were sexually assaulted, strangled and dumped in the desert outside the city. In addition, four very young girls - some of them sexually abused - have been killed in Ciudad Juarez so far this year, officials from the U.N. child welfare organization UNICEF said earlier this month. Among them was 7-year-old Airis Estrella Rodriguez, whose body was found last Sunday hidden in a barrel and covered with cement. Patricia Gonzalez, Chihuahua's attorney general, said experts have determined that three men - one possibly a serial sexual killer - were responsible for her death. A forensic profile of the killer suggests he had two accomplices and crosses the U.S.-Mexico border frequently, Gonzalez said. Last week, Ciudad Juarez Mayor Hector Murguia said he would propose the death penalty be instituted and applied to those who kill children. Last Wednesday, thousands of teachers marched through Juarez to demand authorities find a 22-year-old elementary school teacher who went missing three weeks ago. AP-ES-05-29-05 2011EDT This story can be found at: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB7NJ4YB9E.html --------------------- Prospero, you are the master of illusion. Lying is your trademark. And you have lied so much to me (lied about the world, lied about me) that you have ended by imposing on me an image of myself. underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior, That ?s the way you have forced me to see myself I detest that image! What's more, it's a lie! But now I know you, you old cancer, and I know myself as well. - Caliban, in Aime Cesaire's "The Tempest" http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Thu Jun 2 03:57:35 2005 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 02:57:35 -0700 Subject: [m2c] The U.N. Deals With Women's Health: 'We Buy Coffins' Message-ID: http://www.peacewomen.org/resources/HIV-AIDS/LewisHIVAIDS05.html http://www.theday.com/eng/web/news/re.aspx?re=63c08bea-911f-45c0-915c-cc62bc 9ee784 Speech delivered at the University of Pennsylvania's Summit on Global Issues in Women's Health Stephen Lewis, UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, Philadelphia, USA, 26 April 2005 I well realize that this is a conference on women's global health, and everything I'm about to say will apply to that generic definition. But the more I thought of the subject matter, the more I want to use HIV/AIDS in Africa as a surrogate for every international issue of women's health, partly because it's what I know best; partly because it's an accurate reflection of reality. I've been in the Envoy role for four years. Things are changing in an incremental, if painfully glacial way. It's now possible to feel merely catastrophic rather than apocalyptic. Initiatives on treatment, resources, training, capacity, infrastructure and prevention are underway. But one factor is largely impervious to change: the situation of women. On the ground, where it counts, where the wily words confront reality, the lives of women are as mercilessly desperate as they have always been in the last twenty plus years of the pandemic. Just a few weeks ago, I was in Zambia, visiting a district well outside of Lusaka. We were taken to a rural village to see an "income generating project" run by a group of Women Living With AIDS. They were gathered under a large banner proclaiming their identity, some fifteen or twenty women, all living with the virus, all looking after orphans. They were standing proudly beside the income generating project ... a bountiful cabbage patch. After they had spoken volubly and eloquently about their needs and the needs of their children (as always, hunger led the litany), I asked about the cabbages. I assumed it supplemented their diet? Yes, they chorused. And you sell the surplus at market? An energetic nodding of heads. And I take it you make a profit? Yes again. What do you do with the profit? And this time there was an almost quizzical response as if to say what kind of ridiculous question is that ... surely you knew the answer before you asked: "We buy coffins of course; we never have enough coffins". It's at moments like that when I feel the world has gone mad. That's no existential spasm on my part. I simply don't know how otherwise to characterize what we're doing to half of humankind. I want to remind you that it took until the Bangkok AIDS conference in 2004 --- more than twenty years into the pandemic --- before the definitive report from UNAIDS disaggregated the statistics and commented, extensively, upon the devastating vulnerability of women. The phrase "AIDS has a woman's face" actually gained currency at the AIDS conference in Barcelona two years earlier, in 2002, and even then it was years late. Perhaps we should stop using it now as though it has a revelatory dimension. The women of Africa have always known whose face it is that's withered and aching from the virus. I want to remind you that when the Millennium Development Goals were launched, there was no goal on sexual and reproductive health. How was that possible? Everyone is now scrambling to find a way to make sexual and reproductive health fit comfortably into HIV/AIDS or women's empowerment or maternal mortality. But it surely should have had a category, a goal, of its own. Interestingly, the primacy of women is rescued (albeit there's still no goal) in the Millennium Project document, authored by Jeffrey Sachs. And while mentioning maternal mortality, allow me to point out that this issue has been haunting the lives of women for generations. I can remember back in the late 90s, when I was overseeing the publication of State of the World's Children for UNICEF, and we did a major piece on maternal mortality and realized that the same number of annual deaths --- between 500 and 600 hundred thousand --- had not changed for twenty years. And now it's thirty years. You can bet that if there was something called paternal mortality, the numbers wouldn't be frozen in time for three decades. I want to remind you that within the UN system, there's something called the Task Force on Women and AIDS in Southern Africa. Permit me to tell you how it came about, and where it appears to be headed ... and I beg you to see this as descriptive rather than self-indulgent. In January of 2003, I traveled with the Executive Director of the World Food Programme, James Morris, to four African countries beset by a combination of famine and AIDS: Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi and Lesotho. We had surmised, at the outset, that we would be dealing primarily with drought and erratic rainfall, but in the field it became apparent that to a devastating extent, agricultural productivity and household food security were being clobbered by AIDS. We were shocked by the human toll, the numbers of orphans, and the pervasive death amongst the female population. In fact, so distressed were we about the decimation of women, that we appealed to the Secretary-General of the United Nations to personally intervene. And he did. He summoned a high level meeting on the 38th floor of the UN Secretariat, with TV conferencing outreach to James Morris in Rome and to the various UN agencies in Geneva, and after several agitated interventions, the Secretary-General struck a Task Force on Gender and AIDS in Southern Africa, to be chaired by Carol Bellamy of UNICEF. If memory serves me, Carol Bellamy determined to focus on seven of the highest prevalence rate countries: studies were done, recommendations were made, costs of implementation were estimated, monographs were published. And here's what festers in the craw: the funding for implementation is not yet available. The needs and rights of women never command singular urgency. There's an odd footnote to this. Within the last two months, a number of senior students at the University of Toronto Law School, compiled papers dealing with potential legal interventions on a number of issues related to HIV/AIDS in Africa. One of the issues was, predictably, gender. Not a single student, over the course of several weeks, whether on the internet or wider personal reading, came across the Secretary-General's Task Force (although one student said that she had a vague recollection that such a thing existed). The Task Force findings are clearly not something the UN promotes with messianic fervour. I want to remind you that as recently as March, there was tabled, internationally, the Commission on Africa, chaired by Prime Minister Tony Blair ... indeed established by Tony Blair. It has received nothing but accolades, particularly for the analysis and recommendations on Official Development Assistance, on trade and on debt. The tributes are deserved. The document goes further down a progressive road than any other contemporary international compilation. With one exception. I want it to be known --- because it's not known --- that the one aspect of this prestigious report which fails, lamentably, is the way in which it deals with women. There is the occasional obligatory paragraph which signals that the Commission recognizes that there are two sexes in the world, but by and large, given that women are absolutely central to the very integrity and survival of the African continent, they are dealt with as they are always dealt with in these auspicious studies: at the margins, in passing, pro forma. And it's not just HIV/AIDS; it's everything, from trade to agriculture to conflict to peace-building. Maybe we should have guessed what was coming when there were only three women appointed out of seventeen commissioners. They had the whole world to choose from, and they could find only three women ... it doesn't even begin to meet the Beijing minimum target of thirty percent. We're not just climbing uphill; we might as well be facing the Himalayas. I want to remind you, finally, of the arrangements we've made within the United Nations itself. HIV/AIDS is the worst plague this world is facing; it wrecks havoc on women and girls, and within the multilateral system, best-placed to confront the pandemic, we have absolutely no agency of power to promote women's development, to offer advice and technical assistance to governments on their behalf, and to oversee programmes, as well as representing the rights of women. We have no agency of authority to intervene on behalf of half the human race. Despite the mantra of 'Women's Rights are Human Rights', intoned at the International Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993; despite the pugnacious assertion of the rights of women advanced at the Cairo International conference in 1994; despite the Beijing Conference on women in 1995; despite the existence of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, now ratified by over 150 countries; we have only UNIFEM, the UN Development Fund for Women, with an annual core budget in the vicinity of $20 million dollars, to represent the women of the world. There are several UNICEF offices in individual developing countries where the annual budget is greater than that of UNIFEM. More, UNIFEM isn't even a free-standing entity. It's a department of the UNDP (the United Nations Development Programme). Its Executive Director ranks lower in grade than over a dozen of her colleagues within UNDP, and lower in rank than the vast majority of the Secretary-General's Special Representatives. More still, because UNIFEM is so marginalized, there's nobody to represent women adequately on the group of co-sponsors convened by UNAIDS. You see, UNAIDS is a coordinating body: it coordinates the AIDS activities of UNICEF, UNDP, the World Bank, UNESCO, UNFPA, WHO, UNDCP (the Drug Agency), ILO and WFP. UNIFEM asked to be a co-sponsor, but it was denied that privilege. So who, I ask, speaks for women at the heart of the pandemic? Well, UNFPA in part. And UNICEF, in part (a smaller part). And ostensibly UNDP (although from my observations in the field, "ostensible" is the operative word). Let me be clear: what we have here is the most ferocious assault ever made by a communicable disease on women's health, and there is just no concerted coalition of forces to go to the barricades on women's behalf. We do have the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS, launched almost by way of desperation, by some international women leaders ... like Mary Robinson, like Geeta Rao Gupta, but they're struggling for significant sustainable funding, and their presence on the ground is inevitably peripheral. I was listening to the presentations at the dinner last night, and thinking to myself, when in heaven's name does it end? Obstetric fistula causes such awful misery, and isn't it symptomatic that one of the largest --- perhaps the largest --- contributions to addressing this appalling condition has come not from a government but from Oprah Winfrey? I was noting, just in the last 48 hours, that Save the Children in the UK has released a report pointing out that fully half of the three hundred thousand child soldiers in the world are girls. And if that isn't a maiming of health --- in this case emotional and psychological health --- then I don't know what is. And perhaps you notice the rancid irony: women have achieved parity on the receiving end of conflict and AIDS, but nowhere else. Female genital mutilation, the contagion of violence against women, sexual violence in particular, rape as a weapon of war --- Rwanda, Darfur, Northern Uganda, Eastern Congo --- marital rape, child defilement, as it is called in Zambia, sexual trafficking, maternal mortality, early marriage ... I pause to point out that studies now show that in parts of Africa, the prevalence rates of HIV in marriage are often higher than they are for sexually active single women in the surrounding community; who would have thought that possible? ... The overall subject matters you're tackling at this conference strike to the heart of the human condition. All my adult life I have accepted the feminist analysis of male power and authority. But perhaps because of an acute naivet?, I never imagined that the analysis would be overwhelmed by the objective historical realities. Of course the women's movement has had great successes, but the contemporary global struggle to secure women's health seems to me to be a challenge of almost insuperable dimension. And because I believe that, and because I see the evidence month after month, week after week, day after day, in the unremitting carnage of women and AIDS --- God it tears the heart from the body ... I just don't know how to convey it ... these young, young women, who crave so desperately to live, who suddenly face a pox, a scourge which tears their life from them before they have a life ... who can't even get treatment because the men are first in line, or the treatment rolls out at such a paralytic snail's pace ... who are part of the 90% of pregnant women who have no access to the prevention of Mother to Child Transmission and so their infants are born positive ... who carry the entire burden of care even while they're sick, tending to the family, carrying the water, tilling the fields, looking after the orphans ... the women who lose their property, and have no inheritance rights, and no legal or jurisprudential infrastructure which will guarantee those rights ... no criminal code which will stop the violence ... because I have observed all of that, and have observed it for four years, and am driven to distraction by the recognition that it will continue, I want a kind of revolution in the world's response, not another stab at institutional reform, but a virtual revolution. Let me, therefore, put before the conference, two quite pragmatic responses which will make a world of difference to women, and then a much more fundamental proposal. Many at the conference will not know this, but the Kingdom of Swaziland recently made history when it received from the Global Fund on AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, money to pay a stipend --- modest of course, but of huge impact --- to ten thousand caregivers, looking after orphans, the vast majority being women. The Swaziland National AIDS Commission (that may not be the precise name), reeling from the exploding orphan population, made the proposal for payment to the Global Fund, and it swept through the review process with nary a word. The amount is roughly $30/month, or a dollar a day ... not a lot to be sure, but clearly enough to make a great difference. My recommendation is that this conference orchestrate the writing of a letter, to be signed by people like Mary Robinson, Geeta Rao Gupta, and prominent women from academia, and have that letter sent to every African Head of State and Minister of Health, urging them to ask for compensation for caregivers, using the Swaziland precedent. And the second pragmatic proposal? I would recommend, with every fibre of persuasion at my command, that the conference collaborate directly with the International Partnership on Microbicides, whose remarkably effective Executive Director, Dr. Zeda Rosenberg, will be here on campus on Thursday. She will tell you what she needs and how to go about getting it. The prospect of a microbicide, in the form of a gel or cream or ring, which will prevent infection, while permitting conception --- the partner need not even know of its presence --- can save the lives of millions of women. The head of UNAIDS, Dr. Peter Piot, who will be known to many of you, recently suggested that the discovery of a microbicide may be only three to four years off. That's almost miraculous: short of a vaccine --- and we must never stop the indefatigable hunt for a vaccine --- a microbicide can transform the lives of women, and dramatically reduce their disproportionate vulnerability. What's needed is science and money. You can help with both. On the more fundamental front, I want to suggest that the process of UN reform, now urgently underway, be confronted with arguments that spare no impatience. I have heard the President of Botswana use the word extermination when he described what the country is battling. I have heard the Prime Minister of Lesotho use the word annihilation when he described what the country is battling. I sat with the President of Zambia and members of his cabinet not long ago, when he used the word holocaust to describe what the country is battling. The words are true; there's no hyperbole. The words apply, overwhelmingly, to women. That being the case, there has to be a proportionate response. It seems to me that the response should proceed on two simultaneous fronts. First, let me say that I was thrilled by the suggestion from Mary Robinson, and others, that Penn State act as a kind of coordinator for the surprising numbers of initiatives, unrelated one to the other, occurring under the auspices of many universities. The practice of twinning, the practice of using various Faculties as training centres, the practice of American and Canadian universities bridging the gap in capacity until the developing country can take over ... all of that is to the good, and it needs coordination. But there's more, I would submit, for you to do. Within multilateralism, that is within the UN system, wherein lies the best hope for leadership, there must be a change in the representation of women. There must emerge, for Women's Global Health, and certainly for HIV/AIDS, an agency, an organization, a powerful Think Tank, whatever the entity --- it can start on the outside, and then claim equal presence amongst the co-sponsors of UNAIDS, and thrust its advocacy upon the Secretariat, the Agencies, the member states, in unprecedented volume and urgency. Nor does this entity confine itself solely to women's global health, although that is the entry point. It insists on the 50% rule ... just start your evidence-gathering by identifying the numbers of senior women, agency by agency, secretariat department by secretariat department, diplomatic mission by diplomatic mission, and when you've recovered from the shock of learning that the multilateral citadel knows nothing of affirmative action, then begin your unrelenting advocacy. This must become a movement for social change. It needs leadership. Why not this University, why not this conference? And let me emphasize; there's nothing limiting about this concept. We're looking towards the day when governments are finally made to understand that women constitute half of everything that affects humankind, and must therefore be engaged in absolutely everything. Why would it not be possible to build a movement, committed to the rights of women, in the first instance amongst nursing and medical faculties across the world, and take the world by storm? You have resources, knowledge and influence available to no others. The terrible problem is that you've never marshalled your collective capacities. Second, a similar movement must be directed, I would submit, to Africa itself. I'm hesitant here, because there are enough neo-colonial impulses around without my being presumptuous in making recommendations for Africa, and indeed for women. But I must bring myself to say what I know to be true: the African leadership, at the highest level, is not engaged when it comes to women's health. There's so much lip service; there's so much patronizing gobble-de-gook. The political leadership of Africa has to be lobbied with an almost maniacal intensity on the issues of this conference, or nothing will change for women. That, too, will take a monumental effort. In my fantasies, I see a group of African women, moving country to country, President to President, identifying violations of women's health specific to that country, and demanding a change so profound that it shakes to the root the gender relationships of the society. I know that African women leaders like Wangari Matthai and Gra?a Machel and many prominent cabinet ministers, committed activists and professionals think in those terms; what is needed is a massive outpouring of international support from their sisters and brothers on the planet. I'm 67 years old. I'm a man. I've spent time in politics, diplomacy and multilateralism. I know a little of how this man's world works, but I still find much of it inexplicable. I don't really care anymore about whom I might offend or what line I cross: that's what's useful about inching into one's dotage. I know only that this world is off its rocker when it comes to women. I must admit that I live in such a state of perpetual rage at what I see happening to women in the pandemic, that I would like to throttle those responsible, those who've waited so unendurably long to act, those who can find infinite resources for war but never sufficient resources to ameliorate the human condition. I'm excited of course about the Millennium Development Goals, and I'm equally excited that with the leadership of the British, this next G8 Summit in the summer might just possibly spawn a breakthrough. And there are countless numbers of people working to that end. But I have to say that I can't get the images of women I've met, unbearably ill, out of my mind. And I don't have it in me either to forgive or to forget. I have it in me only to join with all of you in the greatest liberation struggle there is: the struggle on behalf of the women of the world. --------------------- Prospero, you are the master of illusion. Lying is your trademark. And you have lied so much to me (lied about the world, lied about me) that you have ended by imposing on me an image of myself. underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior, That ?s the way you have forced me to see myself I detest that image! What's more, it's a lie! But now I know you, you old cancer, and I know myself as well. - Caliban, in Aime Cesaire's "The Tempest" http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Fri Jun 3 03:10:37 2005 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 02:10:37 -0700 Subject: [m2c] India's suicide epidemic is blamed on the British Message-ID: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=638638 by Cahal Milmo The Independent online edition (May 16 2005) Trade reforms backed and funded by the British Government have caused an agricultural crisis in India which has sparked an epidemic of suicide among impoverished farmers, a leading charity claims today. More than 4,000 farmers have killed themselves in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh since a programme of free-market measures was implemented by a "hardline liberalising regime" with the help of a GBP 1.65 million grant from the Department for International Development (DfID). A study for Christian Aid claims that the dramatic increase in the suicide rate, which saw 2,115 farmers take their lives last year compared with 588 in 2003, is directly linked to British support for policies joining aid to economic liberalisation in developing economies. Research found that farmers in Andhra Pradesh who had traditionally grown their own food were persuaded between 1999 and 2004 to swap to cash crops and incurred large debts which they were unable to pay due to wildly fluctuating global prices. The result has been a catalogue of family tragedies among thousands of peasant farmers who were forced to approach unscrupulous money lenders to fund fertilisers, pesticides and water boreholes that produce little or no financial return. Among the methods of suicide chosen by victims has been to drink the pesticide they hoped would transform their economic prospects. Daleep Mukarji, director of Christian Aid, said: "It is a scandal that the British Government has backed policies and pumped British taxpayers' money into schemes which have contributed to poor Indian farmers killing themselves. "The report shows in stark detail the damage that is done to poor people when the dogma of so-called 'free' trade is pursued in the name of poverty relief". The study commended DfID, which has spent GBP 248 millio on aid to Andhra Pradesh since 2000, for its work on improving health and education in the region. But it found that the ministry was also bankrolling the closure, restructuring and privatisation of 43 state-run enterprises, including agencies supporting farmers. The programme, run by the ultra-liberal state government of Andhar Pradesh until it was voted out of office last year, was advised by consultants from the London-based Adam Smith International - a commercial enterprise affiliated to the right-wing free-market think tank, the Adam Smith Institute. The consultants were working for the Implementation Secretariat - a body set up by the state government with the help of a GBP 1.65 million grant from DfID. Professor Jayati Ghosh, an academic in Delhi who chaired a commission on farmers' welfare charged with investigating the results of free market reforms, said it was clear that there was direct link between the suicides and the liberalisation measures. He said: "The crisis of suicides is very clearly a result of public policy. And this has been guided by and substantially determined by agencies like DfID." The Christian Aid study found that the reform programme, which was also backed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, aimed to turn much of farming in India into "agribusiness". Among the measures taken by the Implementation Secretariat in Andhra Pradesh between 1998 and last year was the closure of four state agencies, including one which sold farmers machinery and tools at subsidised rates. Another body which provided a reliable source of seed to poor farmers was reduced to a "dormant" state. In the decade from 1991, the area of farmland in India used to grow traditional grains such as rice declined by 18 per cent. In the same period, land dedicated to the production of cotton and sugar cane increased by 25 per cent and 10 per cent respectively. At the same time, subsidies for fertilisers were slashed and cheaper loans from banks were reduced, resulting in farmers going to private lenders charging interest rates of at least 36 per cent to fund new crops that rapidly became worthless on the global market because of over-production and cheap imports. A survey of forty farmers who committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh found that each on average owed 106,000 rupees (GBP 1,300) - roughly five to ten times their normal income. The Christian Aid report said: "These are not deaths from just one area or from just one type of farming. This is suicide on a scale that is surely unique in modern times. The immediate cause of these deaths is debt. This debt was brought on by a number of factors, all of which, except for the weather, can be ascribed to liberalisation." Both Adam Smith International, which said it had had no role in drawing up the liberalisation policy, and DfID denied that there was a direct link between the high levels of suicide and the market reforms. The Government announced earlier this year that there should no longer be a formal link between aid and economic liberalisation. A DfID spokesman said: "Our support for economic reform in Andhra Pradesh, including the privatisation of state-owned enterprises, has helped safeguard the livelihoods of around two million people. Without reform, the state government would have continued to spend hundreds of millions of pounds subsidising loss-making enterprises." --------------------- Prospero, you are the master of illusion. Lying is your trademark. And you have lied so much to me (lied about the world, lied about me) that you have ended by imposing on me an image of myself. underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior, That ?s the way you have forced me to see myself I detest that image! What's more, it's a lie! But now I know you, you old cancer, and I know myself as well. - Caliban, in Aime Cesaire's "The Tempest" http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Fri Jun 3 03:10:41 2005 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 02:10:41 -0700 Subject: [m2c] 'Obsession with Zimbabwe smacks of racism' Message-ID: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=123&art_id=qw1115874187334B 252 Published on the Web by IOL on 2005-05-12 07:00:27 'Obsession with Zimbabwe smacks of racism' Dubai - Africa's economic upliftment should not be jeopardised by the perceived problems in Zimbabwe, Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said in Dubai on Wednesday. Addressing media during a visit to the United Arab Emirates, Dlamini-Zuma said Nepad should not be associated with just one country. "We resent the idea that if the rest of the world or the West does not like what one country does, then all of Africa must suffer. "Why should Africa suffer collective punishment, even if there were problems in Zimbabwe. Does all of the EU suffer because of problems in Northern Ireland?" 'Zimbabwe is correcting an historic injustice' Being divided only by the Limpopo River, South Africa knew Zimbabwe's problems better than any other country, she said. "Zimbabwe is correcting an historic injustice. We may not agree with the methods but we agree with the correction of an injustice." She said the obsession with Zimbabwe smacked of racism. "This whole hullabaloo is about black people taking land from white people. There is an element of racism." She stressed that South Africa believed in a more orderly way of land redistribution. "In South Africa we are going through a process of buying back land. We believe these things must be done in this orderly fashion. " However, South Africa would not police Zimbabwe. "This is not how we conduct our relations. When it rains there is a border between us, when there is no rain there is no border. So we know the problems of Zimbabwe better than anyone." She said if Zimbabwe should collapse Britain, the United State or the European Union would not be affected. "South Africa will be affected. If there is a crisis, even the white people will have to cross over to South Africa to get flights to Britain." South Africa would never stoop to military intervention. "Governments must be changed through peaceful means and the ballot," she said. She said although Africa would accept the support of the West to see Nepad succeed, it would not stoop to pressure to "police Zimbabwe". - Sapa ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- ? Independent Online 2004. All rights reserved. IOL publishes this article in good faith but is not liable for any loss or damage caused by reliance on the information it contains. --------------------- Prospero, you are the master of illusion. Lying is your trademark. And you have lied so much to me (lied about the world, lied about me) that you have ended by imposing on me an image of myself. underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior, That ?s the way you have forced me to see myself I detest that image! What's more, it's a lie! But now I know you, you old cancer, and I know myself as well. - Caliban, in Aime Cesaire's "The Tempest" http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Fri Jun 3 03:15:44 2005 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 02:15:44 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Facts about Military Spending Message-ID: http://www.incite-national.org/involve/military.html FACTS ABOUT THE MILITARY SPENDING Consider the following... At $305 billion, the U.S. military budget request for FY'01 is more than five times larger than that of Russia, the second largest spender. It is more than twenty-two times as large as the combined spending of the seven countries traditionally identified by the Pentagon as our most likely adversaries (Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria). It is more than the combined spending of the next twelve nations. The United States and its close allies spend more than the rest of the world combined, accounting for 63% of all military spending. Together they spend over thirty times more than the seven rogue states. The seven potential "enemies," Russia and China together spend $106 billion, less than one-half (35%) the U.S. military budget. Global military spending has declined from $1.2 trillion in 1985 to $785 billion in 1998. During that time the U.S. share of total military spending rose from 30% to 36% in Fiscal Year 1999. President Clinton approved an increase for the Pentagon of $112 billion over 6 years . . . . . . and the General Accounting Office has estimated that it would cost more than $112 billion to renovate and upgrade our schools? The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the remaining costs of the Air Force's Cold War-designed F-22 fighter are $45 billion (about $20 billion already spent) . . .while the Children's Defense Fund projects that fully funding Head Start pre-school program over the next 6 years beyond the Clinton budget would cost an additional $44 billion? WOMEN AND THE U.S. MILITARY IN EAST ASIA Key Points Negative effects of U.S. militarism on women and children in East Asia include sexual exploitation, physical and sexual violence, and the dire situation of many Amerasian children. Instead of seeing U.S. troops sent home and military bases closed after the collapse of the Soviet Union, East Asians have seen signs that the U.S. military is digging in deeper. The concept of security is too militarized and does not include the human rights of women and children and the protection of the physical environment. Despite reconciliation talks between North and South Korea, the U.S. has declared that it will maintain 100,000 troops in East Asia for the next 20 years even if the Koreas are reunited. Joint Vision 2020, a Pentagon planning document, concluded that Asia will replace Europe as the key focus of U.S. military strategy in the early 21st century and pointed to China as a potential adversary. Instead of seeing U.S. troops sent home and military bases closed after the collapse of the Soviet Union, East Asians have seen signs that the U.S. military is digging in deeper and that the cold war in the region continues, despite the lack of credible threats to the United States. The popular resentment??and especially the anger of many Asian women??at the U.S. military presence in East Asia was highlighted in a series of meetings and protests that occurred around the G8 Summit in Okinawa. Contributing to the focus of the U.S. military??s impact on women was another incident in Okinawa of sexual harassment a couple of weeks before the July 2000 Summit??this case involving a drunken Marine accused of molesting a 14-year-old schoolgirl while she slept in her home. Currently there are 37,000 U.S. military personnel in Korea and some 63,000 in Japan, including 13,000 on ships home-ported there. The islands of Okinawa, the southernmost prefecture of Japan, house 39 bases and installations (75% of all U.S. bases in Japan) although Okinawa is only 0.6% of the country??s land area. Stationed in Okinawa are 30,000 troops and another 22,500 family members. There were extensive U.S. bases in the Philippines until 1992. In 1991, the Philippine Senate voted against renewal of their leases. The U.S. subsequently proposed a Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) to cover situations when U.S. troops are in the Philippines for joint exercises or shore leave. The VFA gives access to Philippine ports and airports on all the main islands for refueling, supplies, repairs, and rest & recreation ? & R)??potentially far greater access than before, but under the guise of commercial arrangements and without the expense of maintaining permanent workforces and facilities. The VFA was ratified by the Philippine Senate in May 1999. Research conducted by a group called Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence shows that U.S. troops in Okinawa have committed more than 4,700 reported crimes since 1972, when Okinawa reverted to Japanese administration. Many of these were crimes of violence against women. In Korea, too, the number of crimes is high. A particularly brutal rape and murder of a barwoman, Yoon Kum Ee, in 1992 galvanized human rights advocates to establish the National Campaign for the Eradication of Crime by U.S. Troops in Korea in order to document these crimes and help victims claim redress. Violence against women is seriously underreported, due to the victims?? shame and fear or their belief that perpetrators will not be apprehended. Women who work in the bars, massage parlors, and brothels near U.S. bases are particularly vulnerable to physical and sexual violence. The sexual activity of foreign-based U.S. military personnel, including (but not exclusively) through prostitution, has had very serious effects on women??s health, precipitating HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions, drug and alcohol dependency, and mental illness. In Korea, Japan, and the Philippines, Amerasian children born to women impregnated by U.S. troops are a particularly stigmatized group. They are often abandoned by their military fathers and raised by single Asian mothers. They live with severe prejudice and suffer discrimination in education and employment due to their physical appearance and their mothers? ? low status. Those with African-American fathers face even worse treatment than those having white fathers. Health effects linked to environmental contamination caused by military operations also need detailed investigation. In Okinawa, a 1996 report on babies born to women living near Kadena Air Force Base showed significantly lower birth weights than those born in any other part of Japan, attributable to severe noise generated by the base. At White Beach, a docking area for nuclear submarines, regional health statistics show comparatively high rates of leukemia in children and cancers in adults. In 1998, for example, two women from White Beach who were in the habit of gathering local shellfish and seaweed died of liver cancer. The drinking water from wells in the area of former Clark Air Force Base (Philippines) is contaminated with oil and grease. At 21 of the 24 locations where groundwater samples were taken, pollutants that exceeded drinking water standards were found, including mercury, nitrate, coliform bacteria, dieldrin, lead, and solvents. These contaminants persist in the environment for a long time and bioaccumulate as they move up the food chain. Problems with Current U.S. Policy Key Problems Military personnel are trained to dehumanize "others" as part of their training for war. Their pent-up frustration, aggression, and fear are absorbed by East Asian communities, especially women and children, through reckless driving, assaults, and military prostitution. The Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs) between the U.S. and host governments ensure legal protection for U.S. bases and military personnel but do not adequately protect local communities from crime by U.S. troops. The U.S. accepts no legal responsibility for environmental cleanup of bases. In the eyes of host communities, U.S. troops stationed overseas often seem arrogant and insensitive. They usually know little about the country??s history and culture. They speak only English, pay their way with dollars, and live in spacious, fenced-off enclaves at higher standards than most local citizens. Military personnel are trained to dehumanize "others" as part of their preparation for war. This process, and the experience of combat, can make them edgy, fearful, frustrated, alienated, or aggressive??negative feelings that are often vented on host communities, especially women. Sexism is central to a militarized masculinity, which involves physical strength, emotional detachment, the capacity for violence and killing, and an appearance of invulnerability. Male sexuality is assumed to be uncontrollable and in need of regular release, so prostitution is built into military operations, directly or indirectly, with the agreement of host governments. Suzuyo Takazato of Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence, told the San Jose Mercury News, "These young troops go out into the field all day and are trained to be aggressive and to kill.... They may change out of uniform and into a T-shirt and jeans, but their attitude does not change." Although the military has a policy of "zero tolerance" for sexual violence and harassment, and most military personnel do not violate women, this is an officially recognized problem in U.S. military families, for women in the military, and in communities near bases in this country and overseas. Military leaders often attribute it to a few "bad apples," but these incidents happen far too often to be accepted as aberrations. Women organizers see them as systemic??an integral part of a system of military violence. Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs) vary depending on host country laws and each government??s power and willingness to negotiate terms. For example, the SOFA between the U.S. and Germany includes more detailed procedures for jurisdiction over personnel who commit crimes than do SOFAs with Japan or Korea. It also commits the U.S. military to cooperating in finding fathers and advising them to pay child support to German women who have children by U.S. troops, a provision completely absent from the SOFAs with Japan or Korea, and from the VFA with the Philippines. Host governments are in different power positions in relation to the U.S., though none of them come to SOFA negotiations as equal partners with the United States. SOFAs are based upon dysfunctional assumptions about national security. They ensure legal protection for U.S. bases and military personnel but do not provide genuine security for local communities, nor do they assure the security of the American people. Although U.S. officials claim to have implemented adequate procedures for dealing with crimes against people in host communities, U.S. troops are not always tried by local courts, even when cases involve serious injury or death. It took enormous public outcry before those responsible for abducting and raping a 12-year-old Okinawan girl in September 1995 were handed over to Japanese authorities, stood trial in a Japanese court, and began serving seven-year sentences in Japan. In other cases where local people know of punishment, it is often trivial. Sometimes perpetrators are moved beyond reach to another posting, perhaps back to the United States. SOFAs (including the VFA) make no reference to Amerasian children, who are often abandoned by their fathers. No government takes responsibility for the dire situation of these children, who have no legal standing in the United States. The 1982 Amerasian Immigration Act, which sought to address the situation of Vietnamese Amerasian children, does not cover people born in Japan or the Philippines. To qualify under this act, one must be born between 1951 and 1982. One must also have documentation that the father is a U.S. citizen, formal admission of paternity, and a financial sponsor in the United States. Environmental contamination affects whole communities but is most significant for women and children, because they tend to show signs of disease earlier than men. Militaries cause more pollution than any other institutions. Bases store fuel, oil, solvents, and other chemicals as well as weapons, including defoliants like Agent Orange, depleted uranium-tipped bullets, and nuclear weapons. The SOFAs with Japan and Korea do not hold the U.S. responsible for the cleanup of contamination. In the Philippines, records of environmental contamination were incomplete and unavailable to concerned nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) for several years. Studies??both by the People?s Task Force for Bases Cleanup and by environmental consultants??show that the U.S. military did not follow its own guidelines on cleanup. In Okinawa, community leaders are trying to get information about contamination and assurances that the U.S. will take responsibility for cleanup, even though the SOFA with Japan explicitly excludes this. In both the Philippines and Okinawa, women are gathering information from local people who have worked on the bases or who live nearby. Host governments have downplayed contamination or denied its existence for fear of fueling antibase sentiment (Korea) or deterring prospective investors (Philippines). Environmentally induced illnesses may not be apparent for many years, and it is difficult to establish a clear cause-and-effect relationship. Determined efforts by NGOs, researchers, and some elected Philippine officials, as well as deaths of children born in contaminated areas have at last resulted in official recognition of the existence of military contamination in the Philippines. Written by Gwyn Kirk, Rachel Cornwell, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. For more information on how you can resist having your tax dollars go towards supporting violence against women in the Third World, contact the East Asia-U.S. Women?s Network Against U.S. Militarism, 353 - 30th St., San Francisco, CA 94131; Voice: (415) 550-7947; Fax: (415) 550-7947. Email: gwyn at igc.org or mor at sfsu.edu. INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence incite_national at yahoo.com --------------------- Prospero, you are the master of illusion. Lying is your trademark. And you have lied so much to me (lied about the world, lied about me) that you have ended by imposing on me an image of myself. underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior, That ?s the way you have forced me to see myself I detest that image! What's more, it's a lie! But now I know you, you old cancer, and I know myself as well. - Caliban, in Aime Cesaire's "The Tempest" http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Mon Jun 6 04:07:22 2005 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 03:07:22 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Going To Places That Scare Me: Personal Reflections On Challenging Male Supremacy Message-ID: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=12&ItemID=4075 Going To Places That Scare Me Personal Reflections On Challenging Male Supremacy by Chris Crass; August 21, 2003 part I: ?How can I be sexist? I?m an anarchist!? "What do you mean I'm sexist?" I was shocked. I wasn't a jock, I didn?t hate women, I wasn't an evil person. "But how can I be a sexist, I'm an anarchist?" I was anxious, nervous, and my defenses were up. I believed in liberation, for fighting against capitalism and the state. There were those who defended and benefited from injustice and then there?s us, right? I was 19 and it was 1993, four year after I got into politics. Nilou, holding my hand, patiently explained, ?I'm not saying you're an evil person, I'm saying that you're sexist and sexism happens in a lot of subtle and blatant ways. You cut me off when I'm talking. You pay more attention to what men say. The other day when I was sitting at the coffee shop with you and Mike, it was like the two of you were having a conversation and I was just there to watch. I tried to jump in and say something, but you both just looked at me and then went back to your conversation. Men in the group make eye contact with each other and act like women aren?t even there. The study group has become a forum for men in the group to go on and on about this book and that book, like they know everything and just need to teach the rest of us. For a long time I thought maybe it was just me, maybe what I had to say wasn't as useful or exciting. Maybe I needed to change my approach, maybe I was just overreacting, maybe it's just in my head and I need to get over it. But then I saw how the same thing was happening to other women in the group, over and over again. I'm not blaming you for all of this, but you're a big part of this group and you're part of this dynamic.? This conversation changed my life and it?s challenge is one I continue to struggle with in this essay. This is an essay for other white, middle class, raised male who identify themselves as male, left/anarchist organizers struggling to build movements for liberation. I want to focus on my own experience of dealing with issues of sexism and anti-sexism from an emotional and psychological centered perspective. I?m choosing this focus because it is personally challenging, it has proved effective in working with men against sexism and because of consistent feedback from women who I organize with not to ignore these aspects of the work. Rona Fernandez of the Youth Empowerment Center in Oakland writes, ?Encourage men/gender privileged folks to examine the role of emotions (or lack thereof) in their experience of privilege. I?m saying this because I think men/gender privileged folks also suffer under the system of patriarchy and one of the most dehumanizing ways they suffer is in their inability/difficulty in expressing feelings.? Clare Bayard of Anti-Racism for Global Justice puts it pointedly in addressing gender privileged activist men, "It took years of study and hard work to develop your political analysis, why do you think emotional understanding should just come to you, it requires work as well." This essay looks to the leadership of women, women of color in particular, who write about and organize against patriarchy in society and sexism in the movement. The work of Barbara Smith, Gloria Anzaldua, Ella Baker, Patricia Hill Collins, Elizabeth ?Betita? Martinez, bell hooks and so many others who provide the political foundations, visions and strategies for the work gender privileged white men need to do. Additionally, there are more and more gender privileged men in the movement working to challenge male supremacy. There are thousands of us who recognize that patriarchy exists, that we have privileges as a result, that sexism undermines movement , that women, transgendered folks and genderqueer people have explained it over and over again and said ?you all need to talk with each other, challenge each other and figure out what you?re all going to do.? And yet there are far more white men in the movement who agree sexism exists in society, perhaps in the movement, but deny their personal involvement in it. Lisa Sousa, who is part of the San Francisco Independent Media Center and AK Press, told me that in recent discussions she?s had in groups about sexism and gender, she?s heard the following responses from men: "we are all oppressed", "we should be talking about class", "you are just using gender as a way to attack such and such". When she raised the issue that women leave the majority male group soon after joining, the responses included: "men leave our group too, women are not leaving more, people leave its a fact in volunteer organizations", "we just need to recruit more women, if women leave, there's more where they came from". These comments are so familiar and while it is tempting to distance myself from the men who made them, it?s important that I remember when I made those comments. As a person who believes in movement building and collective liberation, it?s important for me to connect with the people I?m organizing with. As a person with privilege organizing others with privilege, that means learning to love myself enough to be able to see myself in people who I would much rather denounce and distance myself from. It also means being honest about my own experiences. When I think back to that conversation with Nilou and her explaining how sexism operated. I remember trying not to shutdown and I tried to listen. The word "But" repeated over and over again in my mind, followed by ?it was a misunderstanding, I didn't mean it that way, I didn?t know you felt like that, I wasn't trying to do that, I would love to see you participate more, I don't understand, no one said they didn't want to hear what you have to say, we all believe in equality, I love you and would never do anything to hurt you, it was circumstances not sexism, I don't know what to do.? Looking back ten years later, it?s amazing to me how often that same list of ?buts? comes running to mind. I?m more like those ?other? men that I?d like to admit. Nilou spent hours and hours talking with me about sexism. It was tremendously difficult. My politics were shaped by a clearly defined dualistic framework of good and bad. If it was true that I was sexist, then my previous sense of self was in question and my framework needed to shift. Looking back, this was a profoundly important moment in my growth, at the time it felt like shit. Two weeks later, at our anarchist study group meeting, Nilou raised her hand. "Sexism is happening in this group." She listed the examples she had told me. The defensive reaction that I experienced was now amplified by the 5 other men in the room. Other women started speaking up. They too had experienced these dynamics and they were tired of taking it. The men were shocked and defensive; we began listing all the reasons why claims of sexism were simply misunderstandings, misperceptions. With genuine sincerity we said, ?But we all want revolution.? After the meeting, the woman who had been in the group the longest sat me down. April had been part of the United Anarchist Front for well over a year and she too gave me example after example of sexist behavior. Men in the group didn't trust her to handle responsibilities, even if they were newer. She wasn't looked to for information about the group, nor were her opinions asked for on political questions. Others joined our conversation and men continued to challenge the assertion of sexism. April put forward an example that she had just clearly explained to me and men denied it as a misunderstanding. A few minutes later, I restated the exact same example given by April and this time it was met with begrudging agreement from other men that perhaps in this case it was sexist. April called it out immediately, I hadn?t even fully realized what happened. I looked at April as she broke it down. April's words coming from my mouth were heard and taken seriously. There it is. I didn?t really want to believe that sexism was happening, but now I saw it. I felt horrible, like a kick to the stomach. Nilou and April desperately trying to get us to agree that there was a problem. How could this be happening when I hadn?t intended it to? I was scared to say anything. Two months later, I was sitting in a men's caucus silently. We didn't know what to talk about. More specifically, we were scared, nervous, dismissive and didn't put energy into creating a useful discussion about sexism. Nilou and April had suggested we spend a day talking about sexism and we'd start with caucuses. "What are the women talking about", we asked ourselves. When the group re-united the discussion quickly turned into women defending themselves, defending their understandings of their own experiences. I felt horrible and struggled to believe what I was hearing. I felt completely clueless about how to move in a useful way. Several people of all genders left early in tears, disillusioned and overwhelmed by powerlessness. My Mom had observed part of our discussion and asked to speak. "You're all taking on enormous issues and these issues are hard. It makes me happy to see you all at such young ages seriously talk about it. It shows that you really believe in what you're fighting for and it's a conversation that doesn't happen in one day." I could feel the heaviness in the room as we looked at each other, many with tears in their eyes. It was clear that challenging sexism was far more then learning how to make eye contact with women in group discussions, it was challenging a system of power that operates on the political, economic, social, cultural, psychological level and my internalized superiority was but the tip of an iceberg built on exploitation and oppression. Part II: ?What historical class am I in?? "Do you know what class you're in?" Being a white, middle class, male taking Women?s Studies and Ethnic Studies classes for all seven years that I was in school, I was asked that question a lot. In a Black Women's history class, someone offered to help me figure out where I needed to go. I understood why people asked me and I understood that the question wasn't just about class as in a room, but class as in a social category in a white supremacist, patriarchal, heterosexist, capitalist society hell bent on maintaining control. I knew what class I was coming from and I knew that my relationship to Women?s Studies and Ethnic Studies was complicated. I knew some people didn't want me in those classes and I knew that my very presence made others feel uncomfortable. And many of the teachers and some of the students told me that they were glad I was there. It helped me see how complex these struggles are and that there aren?t easy answers. I went to community college for four years and then San Francisco State for three. The majority of my teachers were women and people of color. I had grown up in a generally segregated community and had few role models, authority figures, mentors or teachers who were people of color. What I read and studied in college - women of color feminism, Black liberation struggle, Chicano/a history, colonialism from the perspective of American Indian history, labor history and organizing, queer theory, anti-racism from the perspective of immigrant and refugee women - had a profound impact on me. However, having people of color and women of color in particular grade me, instruct me and guide me was incredibly important to my development on psychological levels that I wasn't necessarily aware of at the time. Having people of color and women with progressive/left/radical politics leading my educational development was a subversive shifting of the power relationships that wasn't mentioned on the syllabus but was central to my studies. Learning in majority women and people of color settings also had a deep impact, because it was the first time that I had ever been in situations where I was a numerical minority on the basis of race or gender. Suddenly race and gender weren?t just issues amongst many, they were central aspects of how others experienced, viewed and understood the world. The question I sometimes thougtht silently to myself, ?why do you always have to talk about race and gender?, was flipped on it?s head; ?how can you not think about race and gender all the time?? Over time I developed a strategy for school. I'd stay pretty quiet for the first month or so of class, pushing myself to really listen. In the first week of class I?d say something to clearly identify myself as opposed to white supremacy and patriarchy (sometimes capitalism) as systems of oppressions that I benefit from, so people knew where I was coming from. This was generally met with shock, excitement and a sign of relief. I participated in dialogue more as I tried to develop trust through listening and being open to the information, histories and stories. While this strategy incorporated anti-sexist goals, it was also about presenting myself in a certain way. The other part of the strategy was to participate and raise questions and other perspectives in my Western Civics, Political Science and other white, male dominated classes. People of color and women I worked with were clear that this was something they felt I had a responsibility to do. "They expect it from us and dismiss us as angry, emotional, stuck in victim mode. You need to use your privilege to get heard by white people and men." The goal wasn't to necessarily change the perspective of the Professor but to open up space for critical dialogue about race, class and gender with the other students who were mostly white and often mostly male. This was extremely useful learning as well, because frequently I came across as cold, angry, self-righteous or unsure of myself, none of which were particularly helpful. If my goal is to yell at men and white people to alleviate my own guilt and shame for being white and male, then perhaps that's a useful tactic. If my goal is to actually work with folks to embrace anti-racism and feminism, then I needed to be more complex and real with myself. I grew up believing that I was a lone individual on a linear path of progression with no past. History was a set of dates and events that, while interesting to learn, had little or no relationship to my life. I was just a person, doing my own thing. Then I started to learn that being white, male, middle class, able-bodied, mostly heterosexual and a citizen of the United States meant that not only did I have privileges, but that I was rooted in history. I was a part of social categories - white, male, hetero, middle class. These are all groups that have history and are shaped by history. Part of being in those groups means being deemed normal, the standard which all others are judged. My images of just being ?my own person? were now joined by images of slave ships, indigenous communities burned to the ground, families destroyed, violence against women, white ruling class men using white poor men to colonize white women, peoples of color and the Earth. I remember sitting in an African American women's history class, one of two white people, one of two men, the other 15 people Black women and I'm the only white man. We were studying slavery, Ida B. Wells? anti-lynching campaign and the systematic raping of enslaved African women by white male slave owners - millions of rapes, sanctioned and protected by law. Simultaneously hundreds of Black men were lynched by white men who claimed to be protecting white women from Black male rapists. I sat there with my head down and I could feel history in my nauseated stomach and in my eyes filling with tears. Who were those white men and how did they feel about themselves? I was scared to look into the faces of the Black women in that room. "While there is mixing of races because of love," the Professor said, "our people are so many shades of Black because of generation after generation of institutionalized rape." Who am I and how do I feel about myself? Part III: ?this struggle is my struggle? ?I haven?t the faintest notion what possible revolutionary role white heterosexual men could fulfill, since they are the very embodiment of reactionary-vested-interest-power.? - Robin Morgan from the introduction of Sisterhood is Powerful "Face your fear/ the fear is you/ you cannot run/ you cannot hide/ the fear is you/ in the end, what have you done/ can it be true that the damage you bring is greater then the good you make/ face your fear/ embrace your fear/ the pain inside is the truth inside/ let it out/ let it out/ when the socialization is gone/ what is left/ the fear is more real then the hope you create/ where will you go/ what will you do/ let it all go cuz it's already you/ can I move forward/ can I move forward/ open it all up/ you know it's all true/ the hope is you" -white boy emo-hardcore I have and do go through periods of hating myself, feeling guilty, afraid. I know in my heart that I had a role in liberation struggle and I know through practice that there was useful work that I could do, but still the question haunts me, "Am I just fooling myself?" That is, am I fooling myself to believe that I am more useful then problematic. To be clear, I think Robin Morgan?s quote is useful to struggle with, but not to get stuck on. I grew up believing that I was entitled to everything. I could go anywhere and do anything and wherever I went I would be wanted/needed. Patriarchy and heterosexism also taught me, in subtle and blatant ways, that I was entitled to women's bodies, that I was entitled to take up space and put my ideas and thoughts out there whenever I wanted to, without consideration for others. This is a very different process of socialization than most other people in this society who are told to shut up, keep it to themselves, hide who they really are, get out of the way and to never forget how lucky they are to be allowed here to begin with. I think it?s healthy to not assume you're always needed, to learn to share space and power and to work with others to realize the role that you in fact can and should play. What is unhealthy is how rare it is for gender privileged men to talk with each other about these issues and support each other through the process. Laura Close, an organizer with Students for Unity in Portland, discussed this in her essay, "Men in the Movement". She writes, "Every day young men wake up and decide to get involved in activism. Often they encounter language and discussions about their male privilege that alienate and silence them without anyone actually supporting them to decolonize their minds. Consider what it would be like for ally men to take our younger/newer guys out to coffee and talk about his own experiences as a guy in the movement. Talk about what you've learned! Consider what it would mean for men to cheer on other men who are making progress towards becoming allies." She put out a challenge for men to mentor other men engaging in anti-sexist work. I knew she was right, but the idea of really doing it made me nervous. Sure, I had plenty of close gender privileged friends, but to make a political commitment to develop relationships with other men and open up with them about my own struggles with sexism seemed terrifying. Terrifying because I could handle denouncing patriarchy and calling out other men from time to time, but to be honest about my own sexism, to connect political analysis/practice to my own emotional/psychological process, to be vulnerable? Pause. Vulnerable to what? Remember when I said that in Women?s Studies classes I would identify myself as opposed to patriarchy, white supremacy and sometimes capitalism? The level of consciousness of feminism, let alone political commitment to it amongst most gender privileged men in college was so low that just reading one feminist book and saying ?I recognize that sexism exists? meant I was way advanced. While the level of consciousness and commitment is generally higher in activist circles, it?s not that much higher. I have had two major struggles going on most of my political life - genuinely wanting to be down for the cause and feeling a deep level of fear that I wasn?t coming anywhere close to that commitment. It?s far easier for me to make declarations against patriarchy in classrooms, political meetings and in writing then it is to practice feminist politics in my personal relationships with friends, family and partners. This is particularly difficult when political men, like myself, make so little time to talk with each other about this. What am I afraid to admit? That I struggle everyday to really listen to voices I identify as women?s. I know my mind wanders quicker. I know that my instant reaction is take men?s opinions more seriously. I know that when I walk into rooms full of activists I instantly scan the room and divide people into hierarchies of status (how long they?ve been active, what groups they?ve been part of, what they?ve written and where it?s been published, who are their friends). I position myself against them and feel the most competitive with men. With those I identify as women, the same status hierarchies are tallied, but sexual desirabilty enters my hetero mindset. What is healthy sexual attraction and desire and how does it relate to and survive my training to systematically sexualize women around me? This gets amplified by the day-to-day reality that this society presents women as voiceless bodies to serve hetero-male desire, we know that. But what does it mean for how I communicate with my partners who are women and who I organize with? How does it translate into how I make love, want love, express love, conceptualize love? I?m not talking about whether or not I go down on my partner or say I love you, I?m talking about whether or not I truly value equality in our relationships over getting off on a regular basis. The fact that my partners have provided far more emotional and financial support then I have for them. I?m talking about having almost never zoned out on what a gender privileged man is saying because I thought about him sexually. I?ve repeatedly found myself zoned out thinking about sex while listening to women speak who are organizers, leaders, visionaries, my friends, my comrades. I?m all about crushes, healthy sexual desire and pro-sex politics, that?s not what I?m talking about. I?m talking about power, entitlement and women?s leadership marginalized by hetero male desire. I wish I didn?t get defensive on a regular basis, but I do. I get frustrated and shut down conversations about how power operates between my partner and I. I get defensive about how the world interacts with us and how that influences our dynamics. I know that there are times when I say, ?ok, I?ll think more about it? when really I?m thinking, ?leave me alone?. This isn?t a confessional so that I will be forgiven. This is an on-going struggle to be honest about how deeply shaped I am by patriarchy and these systems of oppression. Patriarchy tears me up. I have so many fears about whether or not I?m capable of being in healthy loving relationships. Fears about whether or not I can be genuinely honest and connected with myself so that I can then open up and share with others. Fears about organizing to genuinely build and share power with others The scars of patriarchy are on every single person I interact with and when I push myself to see it, to really look and take the time to think about it, I?m filled with sadness and rage. bell hooks, in her book All About Love, writes that love is impossible where the will to dominate exists. Can I genuinely love? I want to believe. I want to believe in a political practice for gendered privileged men forged in opposition to patriarchy. I do believe that as we struggle against oppression, as we practice our commitments, we actualize and express our humanity. There are moments, experiences and events when I see patriarchy challenged by all genders and it shows what we can do. I believe that this is our lives? work and that at its core it?s a fight for our lives. And in this fight we realize that even in the face of these systems of oppression, our love, beauty, creativity, passion, dignity and power grows. We can do this. post script: ?we must walk to make the struggle real? While it?s necessary to get into the hard emotional and psychological issues, there is also an endless supply of conrete steps we can take to challenge male supremacy. An organizer working on Palestinian Liberation wrote me saying, ?some things gender privileged people can do: offer to take notes in meetings, make phone calls, find meeting locations, do childcare, make copies and other less glamorous work. Encourage women and gender oppressed people in the group to take on roles men often dominate (e.g. tactical, mc-ing and event, media spokespeople). Ask specific women if they want to do it and explain why you think they would be good (don?t tokenize). Pay attention to who you listen to and check yourself on power-tripping.? She is one of hundreds of thousands of women and gender oppressed people who has outlined clear, concrete action steps that people with gender privilege can take to challenge sexism and work for liberation. There is an abundant supply of work to be done. The larger issue for me has been, ?what will it take for me to actually do that work, to actually prioritize it and follow through on it?? In additional to men talking with each other as discussed above, we also need to hold each other accountable to follow through. There are a lot of heavy emotional issues that come up in doing this work and it?s critical that we help keep each other from getting lost and help each other take concrete steps forward. Asking ourselves, ?how does our work support the leadership of women?? ?How am I working to share power in my organizing?? ?How am I making myself open to hearing feedback from gender oppressed people about my work?? Each of these questions generates next steps to make it happen. Examining and challenging privilege is a necessary aspect of our work, but it?s not enough. Men working with other men to challenge male supremacy is just one of many, many strategies needed to develop women-led, multiracial, anti-racist, feminist, queer and trans liberationist, working class based, anti-capitalist movements for collective liberation. We know that sexism will work to undermine movement building. The question is, what work will we do to help build movement and in the process expand our ability to love ourselves and others. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Much love to the editorial crew on this essay: Clare Bayard, Rachel Luft, J.C . Callender, Nilou Mostoufi, April Sullivan, Michelle O?Brien, Elizabeth ?Betita? Martinez, Sharon Martinas, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Rahula Janowski and Chris Dixon Further Reading -Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment -bell hooks, Feminist Theory from Margin to Center -Paul Kivel, Men?s Work: How to Stop the Violence that Tears Our Lives Apart -Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: women in the international division of labour -Barbara Smith, The Truth that Never Hurts: writings on race, gender and freedom --------------------- Prospero, you are the master of illusion. Lying is your trademark. And you have lied so much to me (lied about the world, lied about me) that you have ended by imposing on me an image of myself. underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior, That ?s the way you have forced me to see myself I detest that image! What's more, it's a lie! But now I know you, you old cancer, and I know myself as well. - Caliban, in Aime Cesaire's "The Tempest" http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Mon Jun 6 04:07:29 2005 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 03:07:29 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Lynne Stewart Speaks" by Mumia Abu-Jamal Message-ID: LYNNE STEWART SPEAKS ====================== [Col. Writ. 5/14/05] Copyright '05 by Mumia Abu-Jamal Attorney Lynne Stewart has a long and distinguished career as a radical lawyer who has worked on cases that most lawyers look down their noses at. Today, for taking on the case of the blind Egyptian sheik, Abdel Omar Rahman, a man charged with inspiring the first bombing of the World Trade Center, and trying to defend his case publicly, Stewart (and her colleagues and codefendants, professional Arabic translator, Mohammed Yousry, and paralegal, Ahmed Abdel Sattar) stand convicted of aiding and abetting terrorism. At the heart of the case, almost unbelievably, are prison regulations, called SAMs (or Special Administrative Measures), which are designed to isolate prisoners. Stewart and the other lawyers signed these regulations, never thinking that the State would use these rules, put in place by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, to interfere with legal representation of their client. Of course, they were wrong, and in a recent interview, Stewart explained what lay behind the convictions: "I really do think there was a pervasive fear out there. I think that the government -- you know when we talk about fascism, we talk about textbook fascism, but really it's an emotion more than anything else -- and I think that the jury bought into 'we have to protect the country and the way to do that is to back the government.' You know it's classic to say 'If we do what the government tells us, if we do what the government thinks best, then we will be safe.' Which raises that other question, doesn't it, about whether an empire abroad can ever have a democracy at home?" Stewart explained the alleged basis of the SAMs violation: "After Sheik Omar was convicted he was sent to the middle of America and that wasn't good enough for the government, so they imposed on him these very harsh prison regulations... He was only allowed one phone call a month to his family and one a week to his lawyers and that was it. He was not allowed to communicate with the media at all. And there were various other things as well: no outside visitors who were not family, not even for religious reasons. So, these very, very restrictive regulations were put in place. And then the lawyers, all of us, myself, Ramsey Clark, Abdeen Jabara; we all were asked to sign on that we were aware that he was under those and that we would abide by them. But it was our thinking: well, of course, these prison regulations can not interfere with the legal work. And so as a result we did what we thought we had to do for the client, that is, keeping him advised of those events and things that would influence his case and be important for him to know and understand ... [S]o they put these very harsh regulations, one of them included the media. And, of course, what I did was I made a press release just as we had been doing for the last four years. And it was only after September 11th that this act which had been done in 2000 suddenly became actionable in the government's eyes. I always like to talk about, you know, they're moving the line. You know they talk about I crossed the line, but they moved the line after September 11th, and then they moved it again, of course, to get this conviction by bringing in all sorts of extraneous, but very prejudicial, things." 'Prejudicial', like a videotape of the notorious Osama bin Laden, being shown to the New York jury! With such tactics as these, we should be surprised that we were surprised, that she, Yousry and Sattar were convicted. Stewart, Yousry and Sattar a planning vigorous appeals, and Stewart has been supported by groups such as the National Lawyers Guild, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Some of the more toney, and wealthy law firms have been somewhat slower to support Stewart, but even conservatives, like Judge Andrew Napolitano, in a *New York Times* op-ed piece, called the convictions a "perverse victory in the Justice Department's assault on the Constitution." Napolitano, a frequent Fox News contributor, wrote: "In the good old days, only Congress could write federal criminal laws. After 9/11, however, the attorney general was allowed to do so. Where in the Constitution does it allow that? [fr. Napolitano, Andrew P., "No Defense", *New York Times* (online), 2/17/04; http://nytimes.com/2005/02/17/opinion/ 17napolitano.html? ]. Well said. But to paraphrase Tina Turner, 'What's the Constitution got to do with it?' The law is an instrument of politics and power. Lynne Stewart transgressed *politically*, not legally, and the trial was but a formality. The Constitution, like the Declaration of Independence, is endlessly invoked, but often ignored when it comes to how courts really rule, and how life is really lived. It's up to people, folks like you, to organize to make change a reality. Words on paper have never sufficed. Support Lynne Stewart, Mohammed Yousry, and Ahmed Abdel Sattar! Copyright 2005 Mumia Abu-Jamal [Check out Mumia's latest: *WE WANT FREEDOM: A Life in the Black Panther Party*, from South End Press (http://www.southendpress.org); Ph. #1-800-533-8478.] ==============================================> The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia! PLEASE CONTACT: International Concerned Family & Friends of MAJ P.O. Box 19709 Philadelphia, PA 19143 Phone - 215-476-8812/ Fax - 215-476-6180 E-mail - icffmaj at aol.com AND OFFER YOUR SERVICES! Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at: Mumia Abu-Jamal AM 8335 SCI-Greene 175 Progress Drive Waynesburg, PA 15370 WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!! Submitted by: Sis. Marpessa Subscribe: mumiacolumns-subscribe at topica.com Read: http://topica.com/lists/mumiacolumns/read Subscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailing icffmaj at aol.com! --------------------- Prospero, you are the master of illusion. Lying is your trademark. And you have lied so much to me (lied about the world, lied about me) that you have ended by imposing on me an image of myself. underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior, That ?s the way you have forced me to see myself I detest that image! What's more, it's a lie! But now I know you, you old cancer, and I know myself as well. - Caliban, in Aime Cesaire's "The Tempest" http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Mon Jun 6 04:07:28 2005 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 03:07:28 -0700 Subject: [m2c] COINTELPRO Target Jennifer Dohrn on Mark Felt Message-ID: Democracy Now - June 2, 2005 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/02/1445253 Jennifer Dohrn: "I Was the Target Of Illegal FBI Break-Ins Ordered by Mark Felt aka 'Deep Throat'" AMY GOODMAN: ... Well, let's turn to that story of the break-ins that the F.B.I. authorized. On Tuesday, the family of Mark Felt publicly said they hoped history would view him as a hero for being Deep Throat. This is Felt's grandson, Nick Jones. NICK JONES: The family believes my grandfather, Mark Felt, Sr., is a great American hero who went well above and beyond the call of duty at much risk to himself to save his country from a horrible injustice. We all sincerely hope the country will see him this way, as well. AMY GOODMAN: But not everyone is praising Mark Felt. A group of former Nixon aides are criticizing him for betraying the Nixon administration. Former Nixon advisor, Pat Buchanan, says Felt was corrupt for revealing White House secrets. G. Gordon Liddy also criticized Felt. Liddy organized the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate complex. G. GORDON LIDDY: He's certainly not a hero, because the law enforcement official who obtains knowledge of the commission of a crime and has the evidence of it, and who did it and so forth is ethically obliged to go to the grand jury and bring his evidence in there so an indictment can be obtained and justice can be done. He didn't do that. Instead, he selectively leaked it to a single news source. AMY GOODMAN: That was G. Gordon Liddy. Liddy himself was convicted of conspiracy, burglary, and illegal wiretapping in connection with Watergate. He served four-and-a-half years in prison before having his twenty-year sentence commuted by President Jimmy Carter. JUAN GONZALEZ: While Felt's name will forever now be linked to helping expose the Watergate scandal, he is also connected to another dark moment in U.S. history: the F.B.I.s Counter Intelligence Program, known as COINTELPRO. Under the leadership of J. Edgar Hoover, the F.B.I. carried out an extensive campaign of surveillance and neutralization of political groups, including the Black Panthers, the American Indian Movement, the Young Lords and Vietnam Veterans Against the War. AMY GOODMAN: In 1980, Mark Felt, along with Edward Miller became the highest ranking F.B.I. officials to be convicted of criminal charges since J. Edgar Hoover became head of the agency in 1924. The two officials were convicted by a jury of conspiring to violate the Constitutional rights of American citizens, for ordering F.B.I. agents to secretly break-into the homes of friends and relatives of the militant anti-war group, the Weather Underground. In September 1980, government prosecutors said in court that Felt's actions were a, (quote), violation of the rights of all people of this country, violations that cannot and will not be tolerated as long as we have a Bill of Rights. JUAN GONZALEZ: Felt and Miller were later pardoned by President Ronald Reagan who credited them for bringing a, (quote), end to the terrorism that was threatening our nation. In 1983, a federal judge ordered that Felt and Miller's criminal record be swept clean. Felt and Miller were the only F.B.I. officials convicted in connection to COINTELPRO. Felt never denied the break-ins but argued that they were done in the name of national security. He claimed that the Weather Underground had extensive ties to foreign powers and that break-ins were part of a foreign intelligence investigation. We're joined now in our studio by Jennifer Dohrn, who was the target of F.B.I. break-ins ordered by Felt. Her sister, Bernadine Dohrn, was a founder of the Weather Underground and was on the run from the federal government during the 1970s. Government documents show that F.B.I. agents repeatedly broke into Jennifer's home. In 1978, she filed a civil suit against Felt and Miller. The suit was settled in 1983, out of court. AMY GOODMAN: We welcome you to Democracy Now!, Jennifer Dohrn. JENNIFER DOHRN: Thank you. Thank you for having me here today. AMY GOODMAN: Well, it's good to have you with us. When you heard that Deep Throat had been revealed, and it was Mark Felt, your response? JENNIFER DOHRN: My response was that history needed to be reviewed, re-looked at, re-examined, and this was a great time to look at the comparisons between what happened in the early 1970s to me and many others and what in fact is happening now around Iraq and the building of a counterintelligence system. AMY GOODMAN: Tell us about what happened to you. Where did you live? JENNIFER DOHRN: I lived in New York primarily. I was based in New York. I was very, very active in the anti-war movement and in support of the Black Freedom Movement and the Puerto Rican liberation struggle, and I was followed night and day by the F.B.I. I had my apartments, several apartments, wiretapped. Apartments next to me were rented by F.B.I. agents who kept continuous 24-hour surveillance of every sound made in my apartment. I was followed up and down the streets. I would get a job, the F.B.I. would go in after me, and I would then be fired from the job. It was around-the-clock harassment. AMY GOODMAN: Were you aware of it at the time? JENNIFER DOHRN: I was aware of a lot of it. I was certainly aware of being followed a lot. I was -- assumed that perhaps my phones were tapped, and I had no idea of the level of extent under which I was being surveilled. I had no idea that break-ins were repeatedly happening into my apartments. I remember when I was pregnant with my first born feeling extremely vulnerable because I was being followed a great deal of the time, and then it was revealed when I received my Freedom of Information Act papers, over 200,000 documents, that there actually had been developed by Felt a plan to kidnap my son after I birthed in hopes of getting my sister to surrender. So, my imagination -- AMY GOODMAN: The F.B.I. plans? JENNIFER DOHRN: Yes. AMY GOODMAN: To kidnap your son? JENNIFER DOHRN: Yes. AMY GOODMAN: How did it say that in the documents? JENNIFER DOHRN: It said that this was a plan that had been developed and ultimately was not implemented. JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, -- JENNIFER DOHRN: Pretty amazing. JUAN GONZALEZ: It became clear, I guess in the early 1980s, the extent of this -- of the illegal break-ins and illegal activities. Wesley Swearingen, a former F.B.I. agent, actually testified that he had conducted -- he was basically a full-time burglar for many years. JENNIFER DOHRN: Like 238, or at least, he recorded. JUAN GONZALEZ: At least 238 burglaries in Chicago and Los Angeles, and that New York there was a special squad of the F.B.I., Squad 47, that was basically assigned to find the Weathermen. Apparently J. Edgar Hoover was obsessed with the Weathermen, as were L. Patrick Gray who then succeeded him. And so, the presumption was that the main reason that they were surveilling you so much and burglarizing your apartments was in search for Bernadine Dohrn and her relationship to the Weathermen, right? JENNIFER DOHRN: I think that was the primary assumption, but in fact, what was happening was great surveillance and breaking of the law, illegal acts, directed, authorized, built, engineered by Felt against the entire movement of protest. I think it's important, especially when I hear the earlier clips, it's being billed as Watergate brought down Nixon. My view is that the victory of the Vietnamese people and the vibrant movement in this country brought down Nixon. And the whistleblowing to have Watergate be exposed was critical, but we have to set the record straight historically. And in fact, what was being done to me, which was severe and continual, was small compared to the strategy that was implemented by Felt against other movements in this country. AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go for a minute to your sister, Bernadine Dohrn. She doesn't join us in the studio or on the phone, but I want to go back to an excerpt of a 2002 documentary called The Weather Underground. It goes back, way back, to the news clips. BERNADINE DOHRN: My name is Bernadine Dohrn, and I was part of the Weather Underground from -- well, its hard to say when it started -- 1970 to 1980. I was underground for eleven years. There's no way to be committed to non-violence in the middle of the most violent society that history has ever created. I'm not committed to non-violence in any way. AMY GOODMAN: That was Bernadine Dohrn more recently and going back in those last comments in 1969. So, they were pursuing you to get her? Did they succeed? JENNIFER DOHRN: Did they succeed in getting her? No. They never did. And they were also pursuing me because I represented one of many, many, many millions of voices in this country that said, No more! We were not going to stand for this war continuing in Vietnam. We were not going to stand for the extreme repression that was coming down against the Puerto Rican and Black and American Independence Movement. Really important that I was a symbol, and what happened to me was real, in search of my sister, but that COINTELPRO, which Mark Felt is responsible for really implementing was much wider than we ever have come to really understand. AMY GOODMAN: Now, Mark Felt was the ultimately convicted. Government prosecuted him. JENNIFER DOHRN: Yes. He actually was. AMY GOODMAN: You didn't testify at that trial? JENNIFER DOHRN: I was not asked to testify, and it's interesting that the concrete thing that he could be convicted of were burglaries against me and several other people, break-ins, which were documented and recorded. So we had evidence to convince him. AMY GOODMAN: But you were cited many times in the trial. JENNIFER DOHRN: Many times. And, in fact, after his conviction, he was pardoned by Reagan, his first act in office, and we conducted a civil suit. And the reason that I participated in the civil suit against Mark Felt was because I did feel that his actions against me, the break-ins, were just the tip of the iceberg. And the only way to really get public attention and knowledge to what was happening to the Black Movement and to the Puerto Rican Movement in this country were to get at these documents. AMY GOODMAN: What did you settle for? JENNIFER DOHRN: We settled for minimal. It was essentially closed. We settled for basically lawyers' fees. By the early 1980s, the ability to get F.O.I.A. files was already being restricted. And now it's seriously jeopardized, as a way to have some transparency or accountability for what this counterintelligence network is about in this country. JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, you know, I can testify, having been a member of the Young Lords back in those days that the numerous break-ins that occurred in the homes of Young Lord members, including my own, back in 1972, clearly were political break-ins and that people -- that the things that were stolen had nothing to do with valuable goods of a drug dealer, but were clearly break-ins looking for material and information, and I remember back in 1972, when I was arrested by 13 F.B.I. agents for violating the selective service laws at the time and refusing to serve in Vietnam, I was questioned for about eight hours at F.B.I. headquarters before I was arraigned, and virtually all of the questions that the F.B.I. agents asked me were not about the Young Lords, not about the selective service, but were: When was the last time you saw Bernadine Dohrn? When was the last time that you saw Robbie Roth? When was the last time you saw Mark Rudd? They were obsessed with finding the Weathermen and being able to break a group that they saw sending a bad signal of white progressive Americans and radical Americans uniting with the Black and Latino liberation struggles at the time. AMY GOODMAN: So when you heard that Mark Felt was Deep Throat, I bet you haven't realized for all of these years that you had a connection to Deep Throat, Juan? JUAN GONZALEZ: Right, that he authorized some break-ins of my apartments. JENNIFER DOHRN: Well, I was repeatedly stopped and was brought into stations saying I was Bernadine Dohrn just as a form of harassment, obviously. She was safely tucked in the Underground. But I think the ability, our being white, educated, that we could get into the Pentagon or the Capitol or any place we wanted, we were supposed to be the future dream of what they wanted -- the government wanted to do, and instead, we decided to ally ourselves, rightly so, with the struggle for justice in this world. And so the passion to get us was intense. AMY GOODMAN: President Reagan said, when he pardoned Mark Felt, four years ago, Thousands of draft evaders and others who violated the selective service laws were unconditionally pardoned by my predecessor. He was talking about Carter. Reagan said, America was generous to those who refused to serve their country in the Vietnam War. We can be no less generous to two men who acted on high principle to bring an end to the terrorism that was threatening our nation. Your response, Jennifer Dohrn? JENNIFER DOHRN: I would really ask who is committing the terrorism, and that what we were doing was legitimate protest for our civil rights and for rights of people around the world and that this has to be preserved today. I mean, if anything, this story of Mark Felt coming out now should be for people in this country to really look at the challenge to our civil rights, what's happening with this immoral war in Iraq, and ask for accountability. That's what needs to be done. So, that's the legacy of Mark Felt, the legacy should be to look at his responsibility for acts that authorized repression, murder, imprisonment of people for life, Herman Bell, David Gilbert, Leonard Peltier and took away civil rights from people who were dissenting. This is supposed to be democracy now. AMY GOODMAN: It's interesting you raise Leonard Peltier, because in his memoirs, Mark Felt's memoir, The F.B.I. Pyramid, he wrote of his involvement in overseeing the activities of the F.B.I. during the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee by members of the American Indian Movement. AIM members have accused him of having a significant role in hatching an illegal counterintelligence program targeting AIM. JENNIFER DOHRN: So this should be the legacy of Mark Felt, and this should be the historical record that gets set straight. I do support people whistleblowing, I think it's been critical in terms of what's going on in Iraq, torture at Guantanamo Bay. All of these things have to be brought out, but his -- we need a balanced view of his responsibility. ... AMY GOODMAN: Just before we go to investigative journalist, David Wise, with Jennifer Dohrn still in our studio, I think there was one last story we wanted to hear from you, and that was a trophy that the burglars got when they broke into your apartment. JENNIFER DOHRN: Right. Apparently on one of the break-ins, they took a pair of my underwear and put it in a glass case and gave it as a trophy gift to Mark Felt. JUAN GONZALEZ: And this was discovered how? JENNIFER DOHRN: This was discovered it was actually leaked to me by someone in the press years later who had gone over my F.O.I.A. files. AMY GOODMAN: Jennifer Dohrn, thanks for joining us. --------------------- Prospero, you are the master of illusion. Lying is your trademark. And you have lied so much to me (lied about the world, lied about me) that you have ended by imposing on me an image of myself. underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior, That is the way you have forced me to see myself I detest that image! What's more, it's a lie! But now I know you, you old cancer, and I know myself as well. - Caliban, in Aime Cesaire's "The Tempest" http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Mon Jun 6 04:07:27 2005 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 03:07:27 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Muslim feminist calls for ending Islam's 'ideological stalemate' Message-ID: http://www.islamtoday.ca/doc/dailyTimes/DalilyTimes.htm Thursday, June 02, 2005 Muslim feminist calls for ending Islam?s ?ideological stalemate? By Khalid Hasan Washington: A literalist interpretation of the Quran that has gained ascendancy in much of the Islamic world has resulted in the violation of the holy book?s overriding normative principles, such as delivery of justice to all, argues a young Muslim feminist progressive. According to Farzana Hassan-Shahid, a Muslim writer based in Toronto, an ?ideological stalemate? has been reached in the Muslim world. She believes that a ?blatant contradiction? has emerged between the contextual injunctions of the Quran and its normative principles of justice and benevolence. ?Needless to say, this has happened due to social conditions that are drastically different from those prevalent in seventh century Arabia. The Quran?s contextual verses primarily sought to regulate conditions already in existence then. While these were effective in establishing social justice at that time, the same injunctions expressed as literalist applications in the form of laws such as the Qanooon-Shahadat Ordinance, or the Hadood and Blasphemy laws have created gross imbalances and injustices in contemporary Muslim societies.? Writing in Islam Today, an online discussion forum, Ms Hassan-Shahid maintains that such literalist interpretations of the Quran have ended up violating the normative Quranic principles of egalitarianism, pluralism and respect for human life. ?Unfortunately, such literalist applications continue to enjoy ascendancy in the Muslim world and the Quran?s primary objective of delivering justice to all has been sacrificed at their altar. Where, for example is the Quran?s normative principle of justice being upheld when rape victims are barred from testifying in Hadood cases? Are the Qanoon Shahadat Ordinance and the Zina Ordinance consistent with Islam?s holistic approach to solving societal problems? Quite the contrary, such applications of the sacred texts have created an environment of hostility, a gross inequity in gender relations and an antipathy towards religious minorities - conditions that are completely antithetical to the spirit of the Quran. This begs the question: if indeed a conflict has arisen between normative and contextual Islam creating the above cited inequities, which of the two should be upheld?? she asks. Ms Hassan-Shahid points out that reformists have sought to explain certain legislative injunctions of the Quran as time-specific regulations with exclusive applicability in the context of seventh century Arabian society. This would automatically reduce their scope and applicability in any other society or era which may be vastly different form seventh century social structures. ?Injunctions pertaining to polygamy, minority rights, apostasy, women?s testimony, and gender relations would fall under this category of time-specific societal regulations. Modernists believe that although such legislative measures were perhaps necessary to regulate early Islamic society, it is largely the principles behind the specific injunctions that are universal and eternal, not the specific applications. These universal principles, they assert can be expressed in a number of ways suited to the changing demands of evolving Islamic communities,? she argues. Because of this unresolved problem, there is today an ?ideological impasse? in the Muslim world for which there seems to be no end in sight. This impasse is further strengthened by both sides resorting to platitudes which tend to be oblivious to the real issues. ?Regardless of whether Muslims acknowledge the contradiction between Islam?s normative principles and its literalist interpretations, the effort to bring about much needed social reform in Muslim countries must continue,? she suggests. An earnest review of the Qanoon-Shahadat Ordinance, Zina Ordinance, Blasphemy Laws, or any other discriminatory laws is urgently required, she argues, in order to eradicate the ?oppression of the weak? that is so prevalent in Muslim countries such as Pakistan. ?Nothing short of repealing these unjust laws will suffice, if Muslims are to practise and uphold the Quran?s overriding, normative principles, both in their personal lives as well as at the societal level,? she adds. --------------------- Prospero, you are the master of illusion. Lying is your trademark. And you have lied so much to me (lied about the world, lied about me) that you have ended by imposing on me an image of myself. underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior, That ?s the way you have forced me to see myself I detest that image! What's more, it's a lie! But now I know you, you old cancer, and I know myself as well. - Caliban, in Aime Cesaire's "The Tempest" http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Mon Jun 6 04:07:26 2005 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 03:07:26 -0700 Subject: [m2c] White Australia Abusing Asian Mothers And Children Message-ID: http://www.countercurrents.org/aus-polya010605.htm White Australia Abusing Asian Mothers And Children By Gideon Polya 01 June, 2005 Countercurrents.org A fundamental social norm for humanity is respect for mothers and infants. For most of us it would be inconceivable that in a rich, democratic society a mother would be held in custody for years without charge or trial and without contact with her child; it beggars belief that having giving birth in custody to a further child, the woman and her new infant would continue to be held in custody for years. Yet that is exactly the "new norm" being established by resurgent racism and paranoid insecurity in 21st century White Australia. A three year old Chinese, Australia-born infant Naomi and her Chinese Malaysian mother Virginia Leong have just been released from an Australian immigration detention centre. Ms Virginia Leong has been held in "mandatory detention" without charge or trial for about 4 years and has not seen her first-born child for all of that period. Ms Leong gave birth to a further child, Naomi, who has now spent her whole life incarcerated behind razor wire in an Australian "detention centre" (concentration camp). Naomi Leong was born 3 years ago and has spent all her life in prison. A Sydney psychiatrist who has been examining the imprisoned infant has detailed the dreadful psychiatric impact of the prison environment on the now 3 year old child - "She'd become mute and listless and staring into space and banging her head and has a major separation anxiety problem from her mum. And this has, I guess, been, it's something we notice in children and parents when they've been in detention for years anyway" (see ABC On-line transcript: http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2005/s1376204.htm). The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (the peak psychiatrists' professional body in Australasia) has renewed calls for the abolition of the policy of "mandatory detention" for asylum seekers because of its awful impact on the mental health of both adult and child prisoners (see ABC On-line: http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2005/s1375920.htm). Now a FURTHER case has arisen of an infant having been born to a Chinese mother in the custody of Australian Immigration authorities; this infant has been imprisoned for 3 years and is STILL in custody. The newly born child of a refugee Vietnamese couple currently in Immigration custody will no doubt also face years of detention in an abusive, violent and traumatizing environment. It must be stated that many Australians are deeply upset by the continuing gross human rights abuses of refugees and especially of children. Many doctors (including the peak psychiatrists' professional organization) have repeatedly spoken out about the appalling impact of abusive, indefinite imprisonment on the psychiatric health of both adults and children. White Australia has had an appalling 2 century history of invasion, dispossession, genocide, slavery and cruel human rights abuses of indigenous and Pacific Island peoples. Thus the 19th century saw genocide of indigenous (aboriginal) people, horrible massacres and deportations of Chinese and slavery of Pacific Islanders. In the 20th century surviving indigenous Australian people lived in dire poverty and were subject to enforced removal of tens of thousands of children from their mothers and further gross human rights abuses (they were not even counted as ordinary citizens until after 1967). The middle 1970s saw the end of Australian participation in the Vietnam War and the repeal of the racist White Australia Policy that had excluded non-European immigrants from Australia since Federation in 1901. However after 2 decades of qualified "decency" the deeply entrenched racism of White Australia re-surfaced in the 1990s with participation in the genocidal Gulf War and the subsequent Sanctions War against Iraq. The 21st century has so far seen Australian participation in the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and increasingly paranoid, hard-line policies towards desperate Muslim refugees fleeing the Middle East and Central Asia. Thousands of adult refugees (and hundreds of children) have been indefinitely incarcerated behind razor wire in "detention centres" (concentration camps) variously located in remote deserts, on remote islands and in several cases in large cities. This paranoid, racist policy of mandatory detention of refugees has been euphemistically called "border protection", has achieved overwhelming support from a profoundly conservative electorate and has secured 2 convincing electoral wins for the conservative Liberal-National coalition. Unfortunately the extreme powers given to ordinary Police and Immigration officers combined with a conservative electorate and dishonest media has led to outrageous human rights abuses in Australia in recent years. Thousands of generally Asian and Muslim refugees and hundreds of their children have been indefinitely incarcerated behind razor wire in abusive and traumatizing concentration camps. However it now appears that as many as 200 Australian citizens or residents have been detained "unlawfully" under racist Australian laws in recent years i.e. in addition to the gross abuses of the "natural law" outlined above. This horrendous collection of "unlawful" abuses has come to light because of media and government investigations into a succession of extraordinary recent scandals. Thus an ill German-origin Australian citizen Cornelia Rau (a former air hostess) was wrongfully and abusively detained for nearly a year, first by Police and thence at a desert Immigration detention centre. An ill Philippines-origin Australian citizen Vivian Alvarez Solon was wrongfully detained in 2001 after sustaining severe injuries in a car accident and deported to the Philippines, leaving behind two children, of whom one was "given away" by authorities; Vivian Solon was only recently found in a Filipino hospice for the dying as a result of media publicity (although it is now known that government officials had been long aware of her illegal deportation). More recently, a Chinese-origin Australian citizen was illegally imprisoned in a detention centre (despite ample identification on his person) due to refusal of authorities to simply pick up his passport from his home. His lawyer eventually secured his release but warned that all non-European Australian citizens should now carry their passport with them to avoid similar arbitrary detention. Non-European "visible minorities" (mainly Chinese, Vietnamese, Middle Eastern and South Asian people) constitute about 6% of the Australian population and indigenous Australians about 2%. "Have you got your passport?" is set to become a standard semi-serious comment within the "visible minorities" in racist White Australia. Of course the current resurgent racism in White Australia is part of a bigger picture. White Australia participated in 2 centuries of racist, violent and brutal British imperialism on all continents except for the Americas. In the post-1950 era the under-5 infant mortality in countries in which Australia has been involved militarily as a UK and/or US ally (most notably Korea, Indo-China, Iraq and Afghanistan) has totalled about 35 million. The latest UN and UNICEF reports (2005) indicate that the total post-invasion avoidable mortality (excess mortality) in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghanistan Territories has been 1.9 million - and the post-invasion under-5 infant mortality has totalled 1.5 million (for detailed articles see: http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gpolya/links.html). All Western civilian deaths from jihadist or Arab insurgency violence (currently totalling about 5,000 for the last 20 years) are assiduously reported in Australia. However the mainstream media of White Australia steadfastly refuse to report the horrendous civilian death toll from Anglo-American imperialism (democratic Nazism) in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories. Peace is the only way. Decent people throughout the world are morally obliged to inform everyone about horrendous continuing avoidable mortality in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan and can also act responsibly by ethically assessing their investments, purchases and other dealings with the countries of the Anglo-American Coalition, including racist White Australia. Dr Gideon Polya 29 Dwyer Street, Macleod, Melbourne, Victoria, 3085, Australia e-mail: gpolya at optusnet.com.au website: http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gpolya/links.html Day & night telephone: +61 3 9459 3649 Credentials: Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003), and is currently writing a book on global mortality - numerous articles on this matter can be found by a simple Google search for "Gideon Polya" and on his website: http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gpolya/links.html --------------------- Prospero, you are the master of illusion. Lying is your trademark. And you have lied so much to me (lied about the world, lied about me) that you have ended by imposing on me an image of myself. underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior, That ?s the way you have forced me to see myself I detest that image! What's more, it's a lie! But now I know you, you old cancer, and I know myself as well. - Caliban, in Aime Cesaire's "The Tempest" http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Tue Jun 7 23:54:17 2005 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 22:54:17 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Cambodia: A Victim Of 'Aid' Message-ID: http://www.newstatesman.com/200505300015 The New Statesman May 30, 2005 John Pilger reads an expose of aid As the workings of foreign aid in Cambodia demonstrate, behind the charade of "loans", "assistance" and "partnerships" lies systematic western plunder and corruption. By John Pilger From the air, there appeared to be nobody, no movement, not even an animal, as if the great population of Asia had stopped at the Mekong River. Even the patchwork of rice paddies and fields was barely discernible; nothing seemed to have been planted or growing, except the forest and lines of tall wild grass. On the edges of deserted villages, often following a pattern of bomb craters, the grass would follow straight lines; fertilised by human compost, by the remains of thousands upon thousands of men, women and children, it marked common graves in a nation in which as many as two million people, or between a third and a quarter of the population, were "missing". That was Cambodia as I found it 26 years ago, in the wake of the Khmer Rouge, whose murderous rule had followed an inferno of American bombs. Shortly afterwards, Jim Howard, Oxfam's senior engineer and fireman, joined me and sent his first cable: "Fifty to 80 per cent human material destruction is the terrible reality. A hundred tons of milk per week needed by air and sea for the next two months starting now repeat now." Thus began one of the boldest aid operations of the 20th century which surmounted an American and British-led embargo designed to punish Cambodia's liberator, Vietnam. By the sheer ingenuity and political wisdom of its actions and domestic campaigns, Oxfam saved and restored countless people. Later, by demanding that the west stop supporting the Khmer Rouge in exile, Oxfam incurred the hostility of the Thatcher and Reagan governments and was threatened with the loss of its charitable status. This was clearly meant as a warning to the independent aid organisations, or "NGOs", lest they became too "radical". Many have since embraced a version of corporatism and a closeness to the British government, whose neoliberal trade policies remain a source of much of the world's poverty. On 27 May, ActionAid will publish an extraordinary, damning report, Real Aid: an agenda for making aid work. With the G8 meeting due at Gleneagles in Scotland in July, and the Blair government propagating the nonsense that it is on the side of the world's poor, the report reveals that the government is inflating the value of its already minimal aid to poor countries by a third, and that the bulk of all western aid is actually "phantom aid", which means that it has nothing to do with the reduction of poverty. The ActionAid study describes a gravy train of overpriced "technical assistance" and "consultancies", of careerism and scant accounting. Britain frequently exaggerates its aid figures (by including debt relief) and America binds its aid to trade and ideology and its "interests". In fact, real aid accounts for just 0.1 per cent of rich countries' combined national income. Set against the UN's minimum "target" of 0.7 per cent, this is barely a crumb. Cambodia is a prime example. One of the poorest countries in the world, Cambodia was never allowed to recover from the trauma inflicted by Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger and Pol Pot. During the 1980s, with Pol Pot expelled by the Vietnamese, an American and British-led embargo made reconstruction almost impossible. Instead, a "resistance" was invented by the Americans, with the British SAS contracted to train the Khmer Rouge in secret camps in Thailand and Malaysia. In 1990, when the United Nations finally arrived in Cambodia to organise "democracy", it brought corruption on an unprecedented scale, along with Aids and "aid". This was misrepresented as a "triumph" for the "international community". Cambodia today is a victim of this "aid". As in Africa, the "donors" (the west and Japan) have perpetuated the myths of a "basket case": that Cambodians cannot do anything for themselves and that genuine development aid and rapacious capitalism are compatible. No finer symbols are Cambodia's fluorescent-lit sweatshops, making consumer goods for a fraction of their retail price in the west, overlooking hovels where children play in malarial cesspools. Of course, fake or "phantom" aid and rapacious capitalism are compatible. The ActionAid report quotes Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch: "In the 1980s there was a popular T-shirt satirising US army recruitment commercials with the slogan: 'Join the army. Travel to exotic, distant lands. Meet exciting, unusual people. And kill them.' In the new millennium, it could be rephrased: 'Join the aid community. Travel to exotic, distant lands. Meet exciting, unusual people. And make a killing.'" Roughly half of all aid to Cambodia is spent on "technical assistance", or TA. Between 1999 and 2003, this amounted to $1.2bn. What is TA? It is an invasion of "international advisers" on whom up to $70m was spent in 2003 alone. Add to them "international consultants", who each cost more than $159,000. By contrast, the cost of a genuine foreign aid worker in a truly independent NGO is less than $45,000, and the cost of recruiting a Cambodian expert is an eighth of this. More than 740 foreigner advisers and experts earn nearly as much as Cambodia's 160,000 civil servants, who get as little as $25 a month. In many ministries, the pay of foreign advisers exceeds the entire annual budget. It is more than twice the budget of the agriculture ministry and four times that of the justice ministry. Foreign aid workers constantly complain about local corruption, often justifiably, but they rarely identify and measure their own legitimised corruption. "There has been no systematic analysis of the effectiveness of TA in Cambodia," says ActionAid. "Government of Cambodia officials [have] suggested that this is because donors don't want to recognise the ineffectiveness of their aid." The Council for the Development of Cambodia says that the foreigners "create parallel systems to the government. They don't transfer capacity. The experts just provide reports which no one reads . . . donors always complain about the lack of human resources [but] Cambodians are human beings . . ." The report cites a scheme to protect villagers from flood, in which Britain's Department for International Development is involved. Even though it is promoted as "community-based", three-quarters of the budget is being spent on foreign consultants, offices and administration. Cambodia has three separate national economic plans, each designed by a different foreign agency. One of the biggest donors is the US government agency Usaid, notorious for its bloody political interventions throughout the world. Usaid funds Cambodian opposition groups, "human rights advisers" and newspapers that are in line with George W Bush's idea of "good governance". Even the most basic humanitarian aid is tied to American business. For example, oral rehydration salts, which are essential in the tropics, must be bought in the United States at five times the price of the same product made in Cambodia. There are good people in the foreign NGOs in Cambodia, and there are a number of effective schemes. But "partnership" with local people is a word both governments and aid agencies abuse. Cambodians get what they are given, such as World Bank and IMF "loans", which come with the kind of outrageous conditions that have so damaged countries such as Zambia. More than 600,000 Cambodians were killed by American bombs in the 1970s. As the CIA later admitted, the devastation provided a catalyst for the Khmer Rouge horror. Thousands of child deaths were subsequently caused by an economic blockade, which the British government backed. I see that Tony Blair, like newsreaders and other celebrities, has been wearing the fashionable "Make Poverty History" wristband. How perverse. Like those nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America long plundered in the name of western "interests", Cambodia has a right to unconditional reparations so that it can meet the urgent needs of its people, not the demands of those claiming to care. Real Aid: an agenda for making aid work by Patrick Watt and Romilly Greenhill [http://www.actionaid.org]) --------------------- Prospero, you are the master of illusion. Lying is your trademark. And you have lied so much to me (lied about the world, lied about me) that you have ended by imposing on me an image of myself. underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior, That ?s the way you have forced me to see myself I detest that image! What's more, it's a lie! But now I know you, you old cancer, and I know myself as well. - Caliban, in Aime Cesaire's "The Tempest" http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Tue Jun 7 23:54:14 2005 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 22:54:14 -0700 Subject: [m2c] What Indians and Palestinians share Message-ID: www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=7983 ZNet | Israel/Palestine What Indians and Palestinians share by Justine McCabe; May 31, 2005 Controversy over Indian rights in Connecticut recently intensified when the federal government reversed its recognition of Stonington's Eastern Pequots and Kent- based Schaghticoke tribes. Overall, officials and the public appear pleased. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said, ?One reason this is so historic is because no positive recognition decision has been reversed before. This is a first for the nation, which makes it all the more significant and satisfying,? according to The Litchfield County Times. Clearly, it's not satisfying for Connecticut's indigenous peoples as their rights and attachment to the land continue to be challenged even centuries after first contact with European settlers. Due-process arguments put into high relief the irony experienced by America's native peoples in obtaining recognition: they must prove they exist. They must demonstrate that their people and cultures actually survived government intentions to eradicate them and seize land on which survival depended. Meanwhile, the original injustice is submerged in a bureaucratic system organized to disavow it: even applying for BIA recognition costs millions, encouraging many tribes to resort to casino investors despite their corruption of traditional native values. Indian participation (let alone success) in this admittedly suspect process arouses only insecurity and hostility among my non-Indian Kent neighbors. Tellingly, references to original dispossession and the enduring traumatic impact of European contact are circumvented. Expressions of collective responsibility or apologies are absent. Most Americans experience a kind of collective denial about our shameful history. Yet its legacy lives dangerously on ? not just at home but also in our foreign policy. As Attorney General Blumenthal began challenging Schaghticoke recognition, then-Palestinian presidential candidate Mahmoud Abbas was visiting some of the 400,000 Palestinian refugees in camps in Lebanon, reassuring them that their right to return to their homes in what is now Israel would not be abandoned in future negotiations. There are more than 6 million Palestinian refugees who have been waiting to go home since the 1947-49 Naqba (?catastrophe?). Most refugees live within 60 miles of their former homes, some close enough to see and weep for lost orchards and fields. Like America's native peoples, Palestinians bear the burden of proof of their existence and right to their ancestral lands. Possession of keys and deeds, or official registration as refugees with the U.N. haven't succeeded. Neither has international law. In fact, in keeping with several bodies of law, the U.N. explicitly conditioned Israel's 1949 U.N. admittance on its implementation of Resolution 194 affirming Palestinians' inalienable right to return home. Despite this, Israel has refused to allow its native peoples to return. The U.S. has implicitly supported this since the Truman administration. Indeed, American Indian dispossession is older than that of the Palestinians. But the same national formative act ? and its denial ? constitute a significant component of the ?special relationship? touted between the U.S. and Israel. This denial begs attention to fully explicate the complacency of American foreign policy in the face of undeniable antipathy toward the U.S. that has only grown since the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Like Americans, Israelis ?know? what their own historians have amply documented: Palestinian dispossession is the foundation of their state. Between 1947 and 1949, more than 75 percent of the native population was expelled by Zionist forces that seized their lands for exclusive Jewish-Israeli use. Then, in 1967, 35 percent of the population of Palestinian Gaza and the West Bank were forced out, some made refugees twice in a generation. But for Palestinians and Israelis, this colonial past is present. Every day since 1967, the 3.3 million Palestinians in the Occupied Territories continue to experience the post-modern version of manifest destiny: 400,000 Jewish settlers facilitate an ongoing Israeli land grab ? 200,000 during the Oslo ?peace? period. In the past four years alone, Israel confiscated over 56,000 acres of Palestinian land, razed another 18,000 acres of farmland, uprooted over 1.1 million trees. Over 250 miles of Israeli-only bypass roads and hundreds of checkpoints have created more than 200 disconnected Palestinian reservations. Even if Israel evacuates Gaza, Prime Minister Sharon insists that the huge (illegal) West Bank settlements will stay. His intention is underscored by the soon-to-be-completed ?separation? wall, which will seize another 15 percent of West Bank land and leave 600,000 Palestinians in an open-air prison between it and the Green Line. Meanwhile, Israel's non-Jewish citizens cannot rent, own or live on ?state? lands reserved exclusively for Jews ? 93 percent of the country. Under Israel's Law of Return, any Jew born anywhere can immigrate to Israel and become a citizen, yet indigenous refugees cannot go home. Why does Israel continue violating international law? Its answer embraces that historically familiar ? but no less ethnocentric ? assertion: to maintain its ?Jewish? character. Yet even within the Green Line, Israel is now, and has always been, a multicultural land where about 28 percent of its citizens are non-Jews, including at least 20 percent who are Palestinian. But to the world's formerly colonized people ? the vast majority of the world's population ? there's strong identification with the injustice to Palestinians that sustains hostility toward Israel and the U.S., and threatens the security of Americans as well as Israelis. At the deepest psychological level, American Indians and Palestinians bear witness to the fact that human attachment to home and land can neither be dismissed nor divided by politicians with impunity. But it's not too late. Israel has not reached the entrenched U.S. condition that reduced American Indians to less than 1 percent of our population (about a third of whom live on reservations to which they were confined over a century ago). Instead, 78 percent of Jewish-Israelis occupy only 15 percent of the country, making it feasible for Palestinian refugees to return to largely unoccupied land with little displacement of Israelis living there now. Sharing the land is a matter of fairness and international will, not viability. Like the European colonization of America, the colonization of Palestine began with the imperial mindset that particularly flourished in the 19th century. We give Israel billions of dollars annually in aid, weapons and political support to underwrite those 19th-century colonial practices for which, surely, most 21st century Americans and Europeans are ashamed, however much they may want to forget. We cannot return to colonial America to undo the degradation of our own native peoples. But we can act to make sure ethnic cleansing doesn't continue in Palestine, now, in our names and with our money. Justine McCabe, Ph.D., is a cultural anthropologist and clinical psychologist who lives in New Milford. --------------------- Prospero, you are the master of illusion. Lying is your trademark. And you have lied so much to me (lied about the world, lied about me) that you have ended by imposing on me an image of myself. underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior, That ?s the way you have forced me to see myself I detest that image! What's more, it's a lie! But now I know you, you old cancer, and I know myself as well. - Caliban, in Aime Cesaire's "The Tempest" http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From hachew at gmail.com Fri Jun 10 21:37:05 2005 From: hachew at gmail.com (Huibin Amelia Chew) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 23:37:05 -0400 Subject: [m2c] Fallujah: Plenty of Women Raped by American Soldiers" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: -----Original Message----- From: mary lynn [mailto:mllynn2 at yahoo.com] Sent: Friday, June 10, 2005 1:16 PM To: MaldenAreaCommunities AtWork MACAWccom; UJP Articles Cc: pat riley; David Goodman; John Grebe; john r harris; sandra harris; marie jackson-miller; Richard Krasner Subject: Fallujah: Plenty of Women Raped by American Soldiers" "They are nearby the secondary school for girls inside Fallujah. When people came back to Fallujah the first time they found so many girls who were totally naked and they had been killed." Also see below: Iraq Puts Civilian Toll at 12,000 ? Go to Original The Failed Siege of Fallujah By Dahr Jamail Dahr Jamail Iraq Dispatches Friday 03 June 2005 Amman, Jordan - After two devastating sieges of Fallujah in April and November of 2004, which left thousands of Iraqis dead and hundreds of thousands without homes, the aftermath of the US attempt to rid the city of resistance fighters in an effort to improve security in the country continues to plague the residents of Fallujah, and Iraq as a whole. Simmering anger grows with time among Fallujans who, after having most of their city destroyed by the US military onslaught, have seen promises of rebuilding by both the US military and Iraqi government remain mostly unfulfilled. "There are daily war crimes being committed in Fallujah, even now," said Mohammed Abdulla, the executive director of the Study Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Fallujah (SCHRDF). His organization works within the destruction of Fallujah, trying to monitor the plight of residents, bring them reconstruction aid, and document the war crimes and illegal weapons that were used during the November siege. "Now we have none of the rebuilding which was promised, which people need so desperately in order to get their lives back in order," said Abdulla during a recent interview with Asia Times Online in Amman. Doctors working inside the city continue to complain of US and Iraqi security forces impeding their medical care. Along with the continuance of strict US military checkpoints, residents in the city say the treatment they receive from both the US military and Iraqi security forces operating inside Fallujah is both degrading and humiliating. This treatment is also being perceived by most as intentional. "The checkpoints are too obstructive," said Dr. Amer Ani, who volunteers at Fallujah General Hospital. "Fighting has resumed inside the city, because in the last two weeks there have been man-to-man clashes in different districts of the city. This has caused ambulances to have difficulty entering and exiting the city, especially the main hospital. "I work in the refugee camp on the border, and because of the checkpoint on the outskirts of the city, no patients from that camp can enter the city," said Ani. "Thus, they are forced to go to another clinic 14 kilometers from them, whereas the closest treatment in the city is less than one kilometer from them." Ani went on to add that the main hospital and several primary health clinics in the city need rebuilding, but the building materials are being prevented from entering by US forces. Dr. Riyad al-Obeidy, who works in Ramadi, is also currently volunteering inside Fallujah. "Previously, the Ministry of Health was delivering aid into the city, but now this is prohibited, for unknown reasons," he said. "Thus, now there are shortages of external fixators, surgical sets for operations, and trauma equipment. There is really a humanitarian health problem. People are living as refugees inside their city, living in tents - so we have lack of clean water and hygiene, so there is rampant spreading of typhoid. With summer coming, this will all get worse." Promises made prior to the siege by the Iraqi government and US military to assist in reconstruction of the city appear to have fallen flat. According to SCHRDF's Abdulla, "There is some reconstruction, but this is only being done by Fallujans and because the government of Iraq is only helping just a little." That point was also made by Dr. Abrahim Aziz (last name changed to protect identity), who works as a volunteer inside Fallujah. "There is a little rebuilding happening now, electric wires are being replaced," he said during a phone interview from Fallujah. "But the hospitals and clinics have only been painted and the holes in the walls closed up." Dr. Fawzi, an engineer who owns a cement factory in Fallujah, said the southern districts of Fallujah remain closed, and only 10% of the buildings and homes destroyed have been rebuilt by residents themselves. Fawzi was involved in negotiating compensation for residents of the city, and presented a figure of US$600 million to the US military, who agreed to pay the amount. But the Iraqi government did not agree. "We went to Baghdad but the [then-premier Iyad] Allawi office told us we could have only $100 million, and they couldn't promise anything because everything would change with the elections [of January]," said Fawzi. "We disputed this amount, and the government said they would give us 20% of the $600 million, which we refused because this was not enough. At this meeting were Americans, military and civilian both, and members of the Iraqi government." Dr. Aziz said that only 10% of the promised compensation had been paid out to date, and added that the health situation was "horrible, we are now having cholera outbreaks". Recent drinking water tests performed by SCHRDF found that there was no potable water available inside Fallujah. "Everybody knows this, and this is why we are making announcements for people to boil their water for 10 minutes," said Abdulla. According to him, two-thirds of the city lacks electricity because so many electrical wires were cut, and any reconstruction occurring at the moment is only being carried out by the residents of Fallujah, with no outside help. "There is little financial aid coming from the government, if any at all." Dr. al-Obeidy said the same. "There are some payouts being made, but it is a small amount. But then recently the Iraqi government stopped all the compensation payments. So now the people are very angry about this, especially because the Americans promised to give each family $500, but there is nothing until now," he said. "So if a house is completely destroyed, how can $500 be enough? It cannot." While it is estimated that 80% of the residents of Fallujah have returned home, roughly 60% of the houses and buildings inside the city sustained enough damage to make them inhabitable. Most people continue to live in tents, or amid the rubble of their homes. Curfews remain in the city, with residents not allowed on the streets past 9pm, and entire districts remain without power. Abu Nawaf, a 42-year-old businessman who lives near the Jolan quarter of the city, said in a recent phone interview from Fallujah, "There is no rebuilding happening here at all and the Americans and Iraqi National Guard [ING] are patrolling all the time, even the side streets." Abdulla commented on the volatile situation: "There is no law in the streets, and there was a case of an ING killing an Iraqi policeman and people asked for an inquiry." He added: "Americans were inside with the ING who are peshmerga [members of the Kurdish militia]. The ING inside now are all peshmerga and BaDr. forces [Shi'ite militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution] who are doing the same humiliations and bad treatment that the Americans are doing." The SCHRDF has reported that US soldiers currently occupy seven primary schools in the city, causing children to study in tents. Meanwhile, Nawaf continues to look for his three brothers who remain missing. The US military painted on his home that three bodies were found there, but Nawaf has been unable to locate them and insists they remain missing. Recent clashes and roadside bombs in Fallujah have greatly impeded any return to normalcy within the city, along with ongoing complaints from residents of harassment and poor treatment from the security forces. Thus reconstruction, as important as it is for the city, remains in the background for residents who continue to testify of alleged war crimes during the most recent siege, as well as seething resentment over the destruction and lack of rebuilding in their city. "There are plenty of women in Fallujah who have testified they were raped by American soldiers," said Abdulla. "They are nearby the secondary school for girls inside Fallujah. When people came back to Fallujah the first time they found so many girls who were totally naked and they had been killed." As Nawaf's situation shows, the number of missing people remains one of the larger concerns. "We don't have a total number of people killed because so many people are missing ... this makes it impossible for now to get an accurate count of the dead," said Abdulla. Another Iraqi doctor who is a member of an Iraqi medical team that also investigates human-rights issues, reported that his group estimates that 60,000 Iraqis are in detention facilities throughout Iraq. During the interview in Amman, he said the US military had only registered the names of 17,000 detainees; they are being held without charges and their whereabouts unknown, even to their families. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the doctor said, "Of course this only pushes people more towards the resistance, because people are eventually left desperate enough to begin fighting the Americans. People can only take so much." Dr. Fawzi, who is also reporting to the SCHRDF, expressed concern about the number of people missing from Fallujah. "For deaths, we counted over 750 at first," he commented. "There are so many missing people and it is so difficult to have the figures of dead and detained, even though we know so many more were killed. People are afraid to admit their son might be detained because the Americans might arrest or retaliate against the rest of the family." Thus, the suffering of the residents of Fallujah continues as fighting simmers once again within the devastated city and the drastic heat of summer approaches. "The Americans have committed a very big massacre to the people of Fallujah. The crime of Fallujah is the greatest crime ever," Abdulla said sternly. "This will remain as a black spot in American history forever. Whatever the American people will do, even if they get rid of those liars who are in their government, they will need a long time for people to forget what they have done in Iraq and in Fallujah in order for us to deal with them as a civilized people who have humanity." Abdulla, like residents of the city, wondered why the US military will not let unembedded media into Fallujah. "Why have they not let the media inside Fallujah," he asked. "If America says she is right, then why did she stop two UN investigators from getting inside Fallujah?" With the initial justification for the siege of Fallujah being that the military operation was conducted in order to bring security and stability for the elections of January 30, it is clear that this goal was not obtained. Scores of Iraqis died on that day alone, and the situation throughout Iraq has only continued to deteriorate since. More recently, since the latest interim government in Iraq was sworn in in April, well over 750 Iraqis have been killed in violence that continues to spread throughout the war-torn country. Thus, rather than improving security and stability in Fallujah and Iraq, the siege of Fallujah has accomplished nothing more than devastating the city and spreading the Iraqi resistance into other cities, such as Qaim, Beji, Baquba, Mosul, Ramadi, Latifiya and many areas of Baghdad. It could easily be argued now that the siege of Fallujah accomplished the exact opposite of its stated goals - rather than bringing increased security and stability, it has inflamed tempers, deepened sectarian rifts and spurred the Iraqi resistance into levels of attack rarely seen prior to the siege. Abdulla paints a dismal picture with his final comments on the situation in Fallujah: "The mood is that people will never forget what was done to them and their city. I don't think we'll see the end of this. People will never forget to have their revenge on the American troops, but they would like to prepare themselves for another attack. This is what the Fallujan negotiators had warned the Americans of. Lack of security, which is ongoing in Iraq now, is one these results." ________________________________ Dahr Jamail is an independent journalist from Anchorage, Alaska. He has reported from inside occupied Iraq for eight months. He is currently reporting from Amman, Jordan. ________________________________ Go to Original Iraq Puts Civilian Toll at 12,000 By Ellen Knickmeyer The Washington Post Friday 03 June 2005 Insurgency claiming about 20 people a day. Baghdad - Violence in the course of the 18-month-long insurgency has claimed the lives of 12,000 Iraqis, Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said Thursday, giving the first official count for the largest category of victims of bombings, ambushes and other increasingly deadly attacks. At least 36 more Iraqi civilians, security force members and officials were killed Thursday in attacks that underscored the ruthlessness and growing randomness of much of the violence. The day's victims included 12 people killed when a suicide attacker drove a vehicle loaded with explosives into a restaurant near the northern city of Kirkuk. In Baghdad, gunmen opened fire on a market area crowded with civilians, killing nine, the Defense Ministry said. The US military reported that two soldiers were killed Wednesday, by a bomb and by small-arms fire, in the western city of Ramadi. Thursday's violence demonstrated the ability of insurgents to keep up attacks despite a week-old security operation in Baghdad billed as the most aggressive yet by Iraq's new government, in office for less than two months. The checkpoints and raids that leaders have dubbed Operation Lightning have brought all roads in and out of the capital under government control, said Jabr, the minister in charge of Iraq's police forces. The actions are meant to expose insurgent hideouts in the city, he told reporters from some foreign news organizations, adding, "Within the next few months, we can deal with all of the killings and assassinations." Jabr said security forces had detained 700 "terrorists" and killed 28 during the operation. The Defense Ministry said Wednesday that 680 people had been detained but that all but 95 had been released for lack of evidence warranting prosecution. Interior Ministry statistics showed 12,000 civilians killed by insurgents in the last year and a half, Jabr said. The figure breaks down to an average of more than 20 civilians killed by bombings and other attacks each day. Authorities estimate that more than 10,500 of the victims were Shiite Muslims, based on the locations of the deaths, Jabr said. There have been 1,663 US military deaths since the United States led the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, according to the Pentagon's official count. Bombings and other insurgent strikes have killed thousands of Iraqi security force members. No official totals have been released for those dead, or for the total number of civilian casualties since the start of the war. The US military says it does not keep a comprehensive tally of people it has killed in combat, although it has released numbers of dead in major operations and has acknowledged civilians it has killed if it has become generally known that those people died during a US firefight or attack. Jabr said the government figures showed that Shiites had suffered the bulk of insurgent attacks. No Sunni Muslim mosques, for example, had been destroyed, he said. Iraq's insurgency is led largely by members of the Sunni Arab minority that was toppled from power with Saddam Hussein. Foreign Arab fighters are largely blamed for the suicide bombings that now claim most of the lives. Jabr, in some of his first extended remarks to reporters since becoming interior minister, said he saw no legitimacy in the cause of the Sunni Arab fighters. "I have not seen any 'resistance,' " Jabr said in response to a question about clemency for so-called resistance fighters who lay down their arms. "There is terror, and all sides have agreed that anyone raising guns and killing Iraqis is a terrorist." Jabr denied that the police operation in Baghdad was unduly focusing on Sunnis, saying many of the operation's commanders were Sunnis. He also said the new government was trying to reform the Interior Ministry, including expelling officials and officers found to have tortured detainees or others. As an opposition member under Hussein, he said, he had lost 10 members of his family to torture. "I would not accept that anyone practice torture against anyone," he said, adding that he would "personally follow up" on all such allegations. Jabr also denied reports that members of the BaDr. militia, Shiite fighters trained in exile in Iran, were complicit in the killing of Sunni clerics last month. Investigation showed that no BaDr. members were involved, he said. The true killers are "terrorists who are killing Shiite clerics and Sunnis to incite strife," he said. The day's violence included two car bombs near the northern oil city of Kirkuk. A bomb attack at a roadside restaurant apparently targeted bodyguards of one of Iraq's deputy prime ministers, Rosh Nouri Shaways, said Col. Abbas Mohammed Amin, police chief of Tuz, where the attack occurred. Shaways, an ethnic Kurd, was not present, but five of his guards and seven other people were killed, according to police and defense officials. Two more people died at Arafah, the site of one of Iraq's first oil wells. A suicide car bomber there detonated his explosives at the entrance to a compound for the national oil company and the US and British consulates, Lt. Col. Adel Zain Abidin said. In Baqubah, in central Iraq, a suicide car bomber killed Hussein Alwan Tamimi, the deputy chairman of the Diyala provincial council, as he was accompanying his ill sister to the hospital, according to a fellow council member, Khadija Khuda Yakhsh. Four of the official's bodyguards also died. The sister was wounded. In Mosul, also in the north, attackers blew up two motorcycles rigged with explosives next to a coffee shop frequented by police officers, killing five people, the Associated Press reported. Gunmen firing randomly from three speeding cars killed nine Iraqis in a crowded market area in Baghdad, a Defense Ministry official told the AP. Interior Ministry officials gave a slightly different account, saying the victims had been waiting at a bus stop. A bomb caused the deaths of three motorists at Mahmudiyah, 15 miles south of Baghdad, and attackers with guns and a bomb killed a woman in Baghdad's Dora neighborhood, police and hospital officials told the AP. In political developments, negotiators were unable to find a formula by which more Sunni Arabs would help draft the country's constitution. Writing a new constitution is the main mandate of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari's government, which faces a mid-August deadline to finish a draft that can be put before voters. Sunnis largely boycotted Jan. 30 elections for the National Assembly and as a result are underrepresented on the constitution-writing committee. Sunni blocs came forward for the first time last month to say that they wanted a role. The drafting of the charter has started while negotiators decide whether political parties, regional votes or other means should be used to pick Sunni delegates. "National Assembly members are willing to make this succeed," a Sunni negotiator, Salih Mutlak, said after talks Thursday. "They cannot write the constitution in the absence of the Sunni representation," he added. "If they do, it will be rejected by the people." __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -- I wager that this little incident will be shoved aside with one of those silly Pentagon apologies that don't really sound like apologies, you know: "It was an unfortunate incident, but Sgrena shouldn't have been in Iraq in the first place. Journalists should stay safely in their own countries and listen for our daily military statements telling them democracy is flourishing and Iraqis are happy." ...The event of the week ... wasn't covered by Western press. ...there weren't enough beds... The doctors threatened a strike if the National Guard began pulling the civilians out of beds. The National Guard decided the solution to the crisis would be the following- they'd gather up some of the doctors and nurses and beat them in front of the patients. So several doctors were rounded up and attacked ... (someone said there was liberal use of electric batons and the butts of some Klashnikovs). The doctors decided to go on strike. -- http://www.riverbendblog.blogspot.com/ From hachew at gmail.com Sun Jun 12 13:12:13 2005 From: hachew at gmail.com (Huibin Amelia Chew) Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 15:12:13 -0400 Subject: [m2c] Women Construction Workers - NYTimes.com: Doing Nails for a Living, With a Hammer In-Reply-To: <42ac8817.5f320368.14de.748bSMTPIN_ADDED@mx.gmail.com> References: <42ac8817.5f320368.14de.748bSMTPIN_ADDED@mx.gmail.com> Message-ID: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/12/jobs/12homefront.html?8dpc Doing Nails for a Living, With a Hammer SEEKING THE PROPER CONSTRUCTION Veronica Session of Brooklyn has been working as a carpenter - "good honest work and good honest money" - for 16 years. By LOUISE KRAMER Published: June 12, 2005 WHEN Veronica Session was leaving work on a recent afternoon, she noticed a picture of a naked woman freshly penciled on the wall. She was hardly surprised. Ms. Session, a carpenter who was finishing an interiors job in Manhattan, said it was common practice for construction workers to scribble suggestive drawings on unprimed walls they know will soon be painted over. As she has done many times before, rather than wait for the paint job, Ms. Session, 46, decided to grab a brush and paint over the image herself. Ms. Session, who lives in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, switched from a low-paying bank job to carpentry 16 years ago, and still finds that besides skills, it takes inner strength to succeed. "This is good honest work and good honest money with a living wage," she said. "But there is an unpleasant environment involved. This would not fly in a regular office." Operation Punch List, a group of about 250 New York City tradeswomen, including Ms. Session, is increasing efforts to get better access to jobs in the notoriously patriarchal construction field. The group's financing proposal to the City Council for the 2006 Tradeswomen's Conference said that $30 billion in construction activity is expected to flow into New York in the next decade. Advocacy organizations have been trying to improve the job picture for tradeswomen since the 1980's, with limited results. Women represent less than 2.5 percent of the city's construction work force, according to the 2000 census. That is up only slightly from 1 percent in 1993, and below the national average of 3.1 percent, according to Operation Punch List, named after the list of items to be finished or changed at the end of a construction job. "We still have exactly the same issues," said Kathy Rodgers, president of Legal Momentum, formerly the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, which is working with Operation Punch List. Women in construction face the same problems that women in other formerly male-only fields do, Ms. Rodgers said. "Some of the women are taunted at the job and given bad assignments. There is stereotyping that it is not women's work, that they don't want to get dirty, that they are too weak physically." Those stereotypes serve to block capable women from high-paying jobs, Ms. Rodgers said. Construction is one of the few professions in which salaries can reach six figures for workers with only a high school diploma. The hourly wage for a unionized carpenter in New York is close to $40. Forest City Ratner Companies, the development firm, strives to have members of minorities and women make up 20 percent of the workers at its projects, according to Bob Sanna, an executive vice president. "Since the 1980's, we have seen a significant rise of minority participation on the job site, but not as much for women," he said. Women in executive positions have fared much better, he said. To some degree, increasing women's representation in the construction trades is an orphan cause. No single group with hiring power, whether contractors, unions or developers, has embraced it. But signs of progress are emerging. In March, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg formed the Mayor's Commission on Construction Opportunity in an effort to help members of minorities, women, returning veterans and new high school graduates get jobs. The city estimates that 260,000 construction jobs will be created in New York during the next 30 years by major development projects, including those in Downtown Brooklyn, Lower Manhattan and the Far West Side. The commission is looking at creating recruitment and retention programs and a high school for construction trades, said Ben Branham, a spokesman for the Department of Small Business Services. Operation Punch List and Legal Momentum are seeking $75,000 from the City Council for a conference on the construction industry early next year. It would bring together tradeswomen, builders, developers, contractors and unions to discuss ways that barriers to women can be overcome. But amid these meetings, the sound of jackhammers is already growing louder, and Ms. Session wants to make sure she, and younger women, get a piece of the action. "There are still those who think I should be home baking," she said. This column about the local economy appears every other week. E-mail address: homefront at nytimes.com. The doctors decided to go on strike. -- http://www.riverbendblog.blogspot.com/ From hachew at gmail.com Sun Jun 12 21:27:11 2005 From: hachew at gmail.com (Huibin Amelia Chew) Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 23:27:11 -0400 Subject: [m2c] Material on Recruiters' Misogyny/Homophobia & Allround Badness Message-ID: this is just a start, but I thought I'd share this response to my earlier query for flyers on recruiters' misogyny/homophobia. I would love to see something like this fleshed out -- is there anyone who would be interested in working on this with me? anyone who already has better material? thanks, -Amee ----- Forwarded message from skobasa at snet.net ----- Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 21:15:54 -0400 From: skobasa at snet.net Reply-To: skobasa at snet.net Subject: Re: Fwd: Request for Material on Recruiters' Misogyny/ Homophobia To: sarah.stillman at yale.edu from CCCO...go to http://www.objector.org/before-you-enlist.html for other resources WARNING: Joining the Military Is Hazardous To... Military recruiters tour the country selling a dangerous product with glamorous ads, just like tobacco companies or drug pushers. The ads promise opportunity and adventure - but don't believe the hype. Joining the military is hazardous to your education. The military isn't a generous financial aid institution, and it isn't concerned with helping you pay for school. Two-thirds of all recruits never get any college funding from the military. Only 15% graduated with a four year degree. What about going to school while you're in? Many GIs report that military life leaves them too busy and exhausted -- and doesn't really make time for them to go to class. Joining the military is hazardous to your future. Joining the military is a dead end. After you've spent a few years in the military, you're 2 to 5 times more likely to be homeless than your friends who never joined. And, according to the VA, you'll probably earn less too. The skills you learn in the military will be geared to military jobs, not civilian careers; when you come out, many employers will tell you to go back to school and get some real training. As former Secretary of Defense Cheney declared, "The reason to have a military is to be prepared to fight and win wars....it's not a jobs program." Joining the military is hazardous to people of color. During the Gulf War, over 50 percent of front-line troops were people of color. Overall, over 30 percent of enlisted personnel but only 12 percent of officers are people of color, who are then disciplined and discharged under other than honorable conditions at a much higher rate than whites. When recent studies showed a slight dip in young African-Americans' (disproportionately high) interest in the military, the Pentagon reacted with a new ad campaign. They're targeting Latino youth with special Spanish-language ads. The recruiters' lethal result: tracking high achieving young people in communities of color into a dead-end, deadly occupation. Joining the military is hazardous to women. Sexual harassment and assault are a daily reality for the overwhelming majority of women in the armed forces. The VA's own figures show 90 percent of recent women veterans reporting harassment - a third of whom were raped. Despite the glossy brochures that advertise "opportunities for women," the military's inherent sexism is evident from sergeants shouting "girl!" at trainees who don't "measure up," to the intimidation of women who speak out about harassment and discrimination - not to mention military men's sexual abuse of civilian women in base communities. Joining the military is hazardous to your civil rights. If you aren't willing to give up your rights, the military isn't for you. Once you enlist, you become military property: you lose your right to come and go freely, you're ordered around 24 hours a day, and you can be punished by your command without trial or jury. Free speech rights are severely limited in the military. You can be punished for being honest about being lesbian, gay or bisexual. Worst of all even if you hate your job, you can't quit. Joining the military is hazardous to your health. The military can't guarantee you'll be alive at the end of your eight-year commitment: they can't even promise you won't be desperately ill from "mystery illnesses" like those of the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars. Whether it's atomic testing in the 1950s, Agent Orange during the war against Vietnam, or experimental vaccines and toxic weapons in the Persian Gulf, the military shamelessly destroys the health of its personnel -- and then does its best to downplay and ignore their suffering. Joining the military is hazardous to the environment. The U.S. military is the single largest and worst polluter in the world, from toxins at bases to nuclear-tipped missiles to the destruction of ecosystems from South Vietnam to the Persian Gulf. And in today's military, the tanks and weapons are coated with depleted uranium from toxic nuclear waste! Joining the military is hazardous to our lives. The "adventure" in the commercials is code for war, the "discipline" code for violence. The military trains recruits to employ deadly force, yet recruiters rarely discuss the dehumanizing process of basic training, the psychological costs of killing, or the horrors of war. The ads lie because the product is lethal -- not just to you, but to all of us. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- "There are plenty of women in Fallujah who have testified they were raped by American soldiers... They are nearby the secondary school for girls inside Fallujah. When people came back to Fallujah the first time they found so many girls who were totally naked and they had been killed." -- Mohammed Abdulla, executive director of the Study Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Fallujah, quoted in http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/newscommentary/000251.php -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: unnamed Type: text/html Size: 5978 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/margins-to-centre/attachments/20050612/1001c374/attachment.txt From hachew at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 11:44:20 2005 From: hachew at gmail.com (Huibin Amelia Chew) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 13:44:20 -0400 Subject: [m2c] Material on the War & Women In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: fyi, looking around for material on war/women, I found these useful leaflets already made by INCITE: http://www.incite-national.org/issues/warinfo/leafletlong.pdf http://www.incite-national.org/issues/warinfo/leafletshort.pdf ("The 'War of Terror' Intensifies Violence Against Women of Color, Third World Women, and their Communities") check out their website: http://www.incite-national.org/issues/warinfo/index.html peace, -Amee -- "There are plenty of women in Fallujah who have testified they were raped by American soldiers... They are nearby the secondary school for girls inside Fallujah. When people came back to Fallujah the first time they found so many girls who were totally naked and they had been killed." -- Mohammed Abdulla, executive director of the Study Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Fallujah, quoted in http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/newscommentary/000251.php From sandinista at shaw.ca Thu Jun 30 15:14:45 2005 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 14:14:45 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Moderator's Note Message-ID: Hi everyone, its been 6 months since i started this list. there are currently about 25 people subscribed. there were lots of reaons why i thought it worth starting a list like this but unfortunately i havent had enough time to put into that it deserves. things have become even more hectic for me so i will be taking a break from email altogether till about mid-late august. i'll leave the list running in case people want to post anything. all posts to margins to centre get logged on the www and our articles come up on google searches. there have been quite a few things i have posted to the list that were entirely unavailable anywhere on the net before then. i think this sort of thing is particularly useful to people around the world that might have access to computers but not libraries. although i started with the hope of scanning articles and essays (and whole books) to put on here, because of lack of time i ended up forwarding mostly news items. i still think this is usefull too as more and more magazines and websites are having articles available online for only a certain period (often just 2 weeks) and then you need to purchase a subscription to see the archives. This way people can still read the whole article through lists like this one. some of my forwards were directly from news services and the articles were unavailable online altogether. i want to thank everyone for joining the list and i hope you all stick around. salaams, usman