From sandinista at shaw.ca Tue Jun 20 17:15:15 2006 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 16:15:15 -0700 Subject: [m2c] AI: Business as Usual: Violence against Women in the Globalized Economy of the Americas Message-ID: http://www.amnesty.ca/archives/business_as_usual_report.php Business as Usual: Violence against Women in the Globalized Economy of the Americas Posted: 31 May 2006 Throughout Cuidad Juarez (Mexico) pink crosses stand as a stark reminder of the hundreds of women and girls who have been murdered or gone missing over the past decade. ? AI Canada Yes we?re scared. But we women are determined not to give up our struggle to defend our territory and out culture against the oil companies. We?re good people but now they are calling us terrorists. Soraya Cisneros, Sarayaku Indigenous leader, Ecuador Serious and widespread violations of the basic rights of women, including violence, are longstanding and commonplace throughout the Americas. In 1979 the United Nations adopted a treaty which aims to end the discrimination at the heart of the human rights abuses that are the daily reality for women around the world. The UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women optimistically notes that ?the establishment of the new international economic order based on equity and justice will contribute significantly towards the promotion of equality between men and women.? The UN has gone on to finalize a Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women. The Organization of American States has adopted the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women. But serious human rights violations and pervasive violence against women continue in every corner of the Americas. A complex web of factors fuels violence against women, including gender discrimination, impunity, poverty and racism. Amnesty International is concerned that inadequate attention has been paid to the degree to which trade and investment policies can contribute to increasing economic inequality and vulnerability of women to violence. Far from realizing the UN?s hope of an economic order based on equity and justice, new economic policies are a backdrop to ongoing, serious human rights violations and violence for women throughout the Americas. The Globalized Economy of the Americas A number of interconnecting institutions, polices and agreements are at the heart of the new, globalized economic order - worldwide and in the Americas. All ostensibly aim to reduce barriers to a free flow of trade and investment among countries. The reach of international institutions such as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank extends throughout the hemisphere. Numerous existing and proposed regional free trade and investment agreements also have strong impact, including the North American Free Trade Agreement, a possible Free Trade Area of the Americas, and a number of emerging deals among Canada, the United States, Central America, the Dominican Republic, Caribbean states and the nations of the Andean Community. Canada already has one-on-one agreements with Chile and Costa Rica. Few of these institutions or agreements, though, have in any way explicitly incorporated respect for human rights. Canada pursues an ambitious program of expanding trade and investment throughout the hemisphere. But Canada has yet to demonstrate human rights leadership in the Americas and has failed to sign on to any of the human rights treaties within the Organization of American States (OAS) including the important Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women. Canada and the United States are the only two nations in the OAS that have not ratified that convention. Women at risk This briefing paper highlights three contexts in which the vulnerability of women puts their human rights at risk: impacts of economic changes and upheaval on women in Indigenous communities; the specific threats faced by women migrants; and the violence against women who speak out against economic changes in order to defend human rights. Indigenous Women Througout the Americas, Indigenous women and their families often live on lands rich in water, oil, gas, forests, minerals and biodiversity. Already the victims of a long history of dispossession, Indigenous peoples have expressed concern about how economic liberalization policies have opened the door to foreign companies eager to exploit natural resources on Indigenous lands, sometimes risking the rights of Indigenous peoples, exposing Indigenous women to violence and jeopardizing the environment on which they depend. The briefing paper highlights particular concerns in Ecuador and Colombia. Migrant Women Migration is a growing phenomenon in the globalized economy of the Americas, and it is increasingly clear that many of the migrants are women - who are particularly susceptible to violence and exploitation. Migrant women in the Americas experience violence and other serious human rights abuses along their journey of migration and when they have arrived in new cities or countries. The briefing paper highlights particular concerns associated with migration across the U.S./Mexico border and violence experienced by migrant women who remain in Mexico. Woman, Globalization and Social Protest Many countries of the Americas are experiencing considerable opposition, resistance and social protest against policies of economic globalization. Amnesty International is concerned that in too many instances, peaceful and legitimate protest and dissent has been met with violence. Whether through the excessive use of force by police or military personnel, militarization in the face of open rebellion, or the tactics of covert, para-state agents, women who oppose or questions aspects of the globalized economy are increasingly vulnerable. The briefing paper highlights the cases of a range of women activists in Guatemala, Ecuador, Colombia and Mexico. Recommendations Amnesty International believes it is vitally important that Canada revises its laws, policies and approaches to human rights, business, trade and investment so as to strengthen the protection of the fundamental human rights of women in the Americas. The briefing paper makes recommendations in five areas: 1. strengthening human rights protection in the Americas; 2. implementing a human rights-based approach to trade and investment; 3. protecting the rights of Indigenous peoples; 4. protecting the rights of migrant workers; and 5. ensuring Canadian companies respect human rights. --------------------- 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 20 17:20:20 2006 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 16:20:20 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Pentagon lists homosexuality as disorder Message-ID: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060619/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/military_gays Pentagon lists homosexuality as disorder By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer Mon Jun 19, 6:48 PM ET A Pentagon document classifies homosexuality as a mental disorder, decades after mental health experts abandoned that position. The document outlines retirement or other discharge policies for service members with physical disabilities, and in a section on defects lists homosexuality alongside mental retardation and personality disorders. Critics said the reference underscores the Pentagon's failing policies on gays, and adds to a culture that has created uncertainty and insecurity around the treatment of homosexual service members, leading to anti-gay harassment. Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Jeremy M. Martin said the policy document is under review. The Pentagon has a "don't ask, don't tell" policy that prohibits the military from inquiring about the sex lives of service members but requires discharges of those who openly acknowledge being gay. The Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military, at the University of California at Santa Barbara, uncovered the document and pointed to it as further proof that the military deserves failing grades for its treatment of gays. Nathaniel Frank, senior research fellow at the center, said, "The policy reflects the department's continued misunderstanding of homosexuality and makes it more difficult for gays and lesbians to access mental health services." The document, called a Defense Department Instruction, was condemned by medical professionals, members of Congress and other experts, including the American Psychiatric Association. "It is disappointing that certain Department of Defense instructions include homosexuality as a 'mental disorder' more than 30 years after the mental health community recognized that such a classification was a mistake," said Rep. Marty Meehan (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass. Congress members noted that other Pentagon regulations dealing with mental health do not include homosexuality on any lists of psychological disorders. And in a letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Monday, nine lawmakers asked for a full review of all documents and policies to ensure they reflect that same standard. "Based on scientific and medical evidence the APA declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1973 ? a position shared by all other major health and mental health organizations based on their own review of the science," James H. Scully Jr., head of the psychiatric association, said in a letter to the Defense Department's top doctor earlier this month. There were 726 military members discharged under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy during the budget year that ended last Sept. 30. That marked the first year since 2001 that the total had increased. The number of discharges had declined each year since it peaked at 1,227 in 2001, and had fallen to 653 in 2004. ___ On the Net: Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil Copyright ? 2006 The Associated Press --------------------- "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." V in "V for Vendetta." http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Tue Jun 20 17:20:22 2006 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 16:20:22 -0700 Subject: [m2c] "Dark Genius: Octavia E. Butler (1947-2006)" by Mumia Abu-Jamal Message-ID: DARK GENIUS: OCTAVIA E. BUTLER (1947-2006) ======================================== [Col. Writ. 5/13/06] Copyright 2006 Mumia Abu-Jamal When I first came to prison, a journalist-friend's wife sent me a packet of novels by a writer I never heard of. The writer was Octavia E. Butler, and the books were titled *Mind of My Mind* (1977), *Kindred* (1979), and *Wild Seed* (1980). I read them with greedy delight, and the characters, Black body-switching and shape shifting immortals walked through centuries the way we walk through doors, imbedded themselves so deeply in mind that I dreamt of them, for days thereafter: the feral, somewhat cynical Doro, a being who moved from soul to soul, with memories as hoary as the pyramids, and knew everything -- but death; the sensitive, loving Anyanwu, a being who lived first in Nigeria, but shifted shape when survival, or curiosity, demanded it, and who traveled the dreaded Middle Passage from Africa to America -- and lived as man, as woman, as crone, as bird, or dolphin; who tasted life as various entities for 300 years. From that day to this I've read every book by Octavia E. Butler that I could get my hands on, and never felt anything less than amazement and wonderment at pages end. Some say Octavia E. Butler was an anomaly in the genre known as science fiction (sci-fi, for short), given her blackness, and her womanness. And while it made her a living, it's only fair to say that she gave far more to the genre, than it returned. As a reader of sci-fi since I was a boy, I became quietly troubled by the monochromatic nature of the visions created by writers in the field. It was almost as if, in crafting ideal futures, those tomorrows were meant to be white. Octavia E. Butler utterly shattered those visions, and half a dozen more, perhaps forever. I've never had the pleasure of her presence, but through her books (more than a dozen) and a recent publication of remembrances by friends of hers, I encountered a brilliant writer, and a perceptive critic, not just of imagined times to come, but of our common present. One of her former students of the Clarion West Writer's Workshop wrote that Butler said much of her work wasn't so much science fiction, as it was "save the world" fiction, but she lamented that too many people didn't really listen to the messages in her writings. It's all there: the human (and indeed *in*human!) condition. Love, hate, greed, arrogance, madness, power-hunger, terror, pain .... how we act toward each other as the aliens known as male and female; as Blacks; as whites, as humans; as extra-terrestrials; as powerful, as powerless; as adults, as children. I'm told that she rebelled at the label, 'genius', but she was that -- and more. The MacArthur 'genius' awards apparently thought she was certainly one, and awarded her a grant in 1995. She won every award that the sci-fi community can bestow, the Hugo, the Nebula, and the Locus. She was widely admired by many people who found it difficult to call sci-fi home. In a LOCUS Magazine obituary to the esteemed writer, she is quoted in a rare instance of self-description as "comfortably asocial -- a hermit in the middle of Seattle -- a pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist always, a Black, a quiet egoist, a former Baptist, and an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive." A great soul recently passed this way. Lucky for us, Octavia E. Butler's many books remain among us, as torches to light our way down the dark, unknown corridors of tomorrow. Octavia Estelle Butler (1947-2006). Copyright 2006 Mumia Abu-Jamal [Source: Howle, Leslie, "Octavia E. Butler", *LOCUS: The Magazine of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Field*, [April 2006: Iss. 543], pp. 67-68.] Copyright 2006 Mumia Abu-Jamal [Mr. Jamal's recent book features a chapter on the remarkable women who helped build and defend the Black Panther Party: *WE WANT FREEDOM: A Life in the Black Panther Party*, from South End Press (http://www.southendpress.org); Ph. #1-800-533-8478.] =============================== "When a cause comes along and you know in your bones that it is just, yet refuse to defend it--at that moment you begin to die. And I have never seen so many corpses walking around talking about justice." - Mumia Abu-Jamal MUMIA'S COLUMNS NEED TO BE PUBLISHED AS BROADLY AS POSSIBLE TO INSPIRE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT AND HELP CALL ATTENTION TO HIS CASE. The campaign to kill Mumia is in full swing and we need you to **please** contact as many publications and information outlets as you possibly can to run Mumia's commentaries (on-line and **especially off-line**)!! The only requirements are that you run them *unedited*, with every word including copyright information intact, and send a copy of the publication to Mumia and/or ICFFMAJ. THANK YOU!!! Keep updated by reading ACTION ALERTS!! at http://www.mumia.org, http://www.onamove.com/ and their links. ======================================== To download Mp3's of Mumia's commentaries visit http://www.prisonradio.org or http://www.fsrn.org ==============================================> 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! --------------------- "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." V in "V for Vendetta." http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Tue Jun 20 17:25:34 2006 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 16:25:34 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Iraq's War Porn Message-ID: Its worth it to click the link as all of the links for pictures that the article refers to don't appear after pasting. u http://www.alternet.org/story/37572/ Iraq's War Porn By David Swanson, Tomdispatch.com Posted on June 15, 2006, Printed on June 20, 2006 An artist should keep a human skull on the desk as a constant reminder of death, of the need to -- in the words of a currently popular country tune -- live like you were dying. A peace activist should keep a photo in his or her wallet of a small Iraqi child torn to pieces -- a constant reminder to live like others are dying. The trouble is that we find it almost unbearable to look at such images. We believe the war would end if the corporate media showed such images, yet we turn our faces away if they're placed in front of us; even more so, if they happen to be images of torture or of soldiers enjoying humiliating Iraqis. Worst of all are the gruesome images that soldiers have created themselves in this new digital age as war trophies. If such images were in our wallets, we wouldn't want them to give anyone the impression that we took some sort of sick pleasure in seeing Iraqis blown apart. Yet some of those images have come to us over the Internet from U.S. soldiers who evidently found exactly that pleasure in taking and posting them. As hard as we find it to look at the images, we find it a hundred times harder to try to think our way inside the minds that could do such a thing. We're afraid that, once there, we couldn't freely leave. We know, of course, that the parents of a murdered child will never be free of the horror, that the soldiers who did it will never forget, and that the people those soldiers live with when they come back home will not be unaffected. To properly address claims that some wars are good wars and that the worst deeds of war are performed by "bad apples," we have to have a clear picture of what war is, including the worst of it. If we leave out an understanding of the worst of war, all of our thinking must be distorted. Therefore, look at this picture. Did you look? Those are children who, as likely as not, were running and playing in the months before our government launched a war on the basis of lies. I don't know how those particular children died, but most of the deaths in this war, like all modern wars, are civilian ones, many the result of bombing. This is what "collateral damage" looks like. Now look at this image. These are mild images. I'm going very easy on you. This child is alive, but wounded --quite probably wounded psychologically as well. Does the woman holding this child look grateful and liberated? Does she look like she will have an easy time forgiving the people who did this? Why do I write "the people who did this"? Why can't I be honest and write "us"? The United States government launched this war, making us responsible for everything that happens in it. This image is far more powerful than Edvard Munch's "The Scream." I don't know what happened, but I know that this is a picture of unbearable rage. I've looked at many images like this one in which, even if I have no way of learning the details, war is presented far more powerfully than could be done in words. Here's someone with enough years ahead of him to forget and forgive. But think how hard it will be for him to do so. Then think how easily we will forgive ourselves for not having done more to prevent this war or end it sooner. Who will have the easier time, and should it be that way? There are stories in our media now about U.S. troops killing civilians -- men, women, and children in cold blood. Sometimes these killings are described as motivated by revenge for Iraqi hostility and ingratitude. But who told our soldiers that the Iraqis would be grateful for being invaded, shock-and-awed, and occupied? Who spread that lie? Not the Iraqis. And who told our soldiers that it was acceptable to kill the "hadji" (the term they appropriated in a racist way for Iraqis)? Who taught our young men and women to place bags over Iraqi heads? These people have faces. The bags take away the stories those faces might tell. To defend the United States, our soldiers have been sent by the Bush administration to "handle" people who never threatened us and who live in a nation that never threatened us by: pinning them to the ground; holding guns to their heads; parading them naked; leaving them handcuffed in the dirt, creating scenes that concentration camp guards from Nazi Germany would have flinched at far less than the rest of us; surely the "hadjis" are not human if we can treat them this way, if their limbs can be found lying about in the street like fruit off a tree; if piles of their corpses present logistical rather than legal problems. But to say that our soldiers, or some of our soldiers anyway, do not see the Iraqis as humans is not to suggest that they see them simply as objects. Rather, they surely see them as enemies, as "evildoers," as "insurgents," as "terrorists." Such creatures are almost by definition, beyond sympathy, entirely alien, and not just to be randomly harmed, but abused. Here is a U.S. soldier posing with two Iraqi boys. They are all giving a thumbs-up signal, and one of the boys is holding a sign he is surely incapable of understanding that says: "Lcpl Boudreaux killed my dad then he knocked up my sister!" With some images from this war, we cannot know if, or to what extent, they were posed. This one, however, is clearly a performance and we are the audience. We are supposed to laugh. And, in a sense, the sign in this photo is certainly true. At least some U.S. soldiers have evidently become so accustomed to killing and torturing that it dominates their thinking. What dominates your thinking, what concerns you, often comes out in humor. It is quite likely that the soldier in this photo has not murdered or raped anyone, but perhaps he has seen such things done by others. Given the nature of our war in Iraq, though, it is entirely possible that he has committed such acts. Think about the images from Abu Ghraib. Here's one to remind you, one you may not have seen before. The question we should ask ourselves is not just why our soldiers tortured this man, but why someone took a photo of it. How had such acts become behavior to take pride in, to record as keepsakes? And are a few bad apples really capable of creating such conditions? A photograph presupposes an audience, someone to enjoy or appreciate it. Here's an image of a young female prisoner in Abu Ghraib raising her shirt as she was certainly forced to do. Someone expects us to enjoy that as pornography. Instead, it offers a glimpse of a world of unfathomable humiliation and abuse, the very same world that produced the image above of the bleeding man. If you go to this collection of image galleries and scroll down to the very bottom, you will see a couple of folders labeled "War Trophy Photos." I must leave it to your judgment whether you want to see them or not. I trust you to want to see them for the right reasons. These are images of corpses and body parts mutilated and displayed, in close-up, laid out on a platter for cannibals. These are images that no one should find it easy to view, not even surgeons. But they are part of the true story of what this war is about and what all wars are about. Many of these images were sent by American soldiers to a website that marketed pornography. Presumably, these were viewed as war pornography. Presumably, they were created by people who have come to love war. And I don't mean people who avoid going to wars and then send other people's children to fight and die or be turned into people who could do this. I don't think Dick Cheney and George Bush flip through these photos in the evening, but I think they have a duty to do so until they can't stand it anymore and bring our troops home. By "people who have come to love war," I mean soldiers who signed up for college money or adventure and were trained as sociopathic killers. Recently, in Newsweek, I read a comment from an American soldier in Iraq who mentioned that one of his buddies had run over a family with his tank. Personally, I don't want to live in a society with that in our magazines, but as long as it's happening, I want it printed on the front page, and I want photos with it. Update: On June 9, soon after I wrote that, I got my wish. The U.S. military killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, took a photo of his dead head, blew it up to enormous proportions, and displayed it in a frame at a press conference. From the way it was framed, the head could have been connected to a body or not. Presumably this was meant to be not only proof of his death, but a kind of revenge for al-Zarqawi's beheading of Americans. The image would fit perfectly in a collection of war trophy photos. Is there any mystery about where rank and file soldiers learn to behave this way? David Swanson, the Washington Director of Democrats.com and of ImpeachPAC.org, is co-founder of the AfterDowningStreet.org coalition, creator of MeetWithCindy.org, and a board member of Progressive Democrats of America. A former newspaper reporter, he was the press secretary for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign. His website is davidswanson.org. ? 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/37572/ --------------------- "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." V in "V for Vendetta." http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Thu Jun 22 15:19:51 2006 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 14:19:51 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Feminism: the missing ingredient for the Guatemalan Left Message-ID: http://www.socialism.com/fsarticles/vol27no2/feminism.html Freedom Socialist ? Vol. 27, No. 2 ? April-May 2006 Radical Women Feminism: the missing ingredient for the Guatemalan Left by Quimy de Le?n Radical Women is proud to help disseminate this courageous indictment of sexism on the Guatemalan Left by a female revolutionary and health worker. It has been slightly abridged. Political participation in a left party seems to be a concern for some members of social and popular organizations. I consider it fundamental that women discuss and analyze how a feminist agenda can be incorporated in that milieu. Their fears seem reasonable when it comes to the issue of power, the base of the patriarchal culture, within the "old structural forms" of guerrilla organizations with a military and hierarchical tradition. In these groups, the paradigm of the fight went from the armed struggle to the ballot box, but the political practice based on conspiracy, sectarianism, and calumny remains intact, as does the dominance of male, adult, urban, and non-indigenous populations. This occurs as well in nonpartisan popular and social organizations, even those of women, as part of the political imperative to maintain the status quo. It is essential to overcome those practices, to propose others, and to get involved. As a woman who participates in party politics, I think the party can be an important tool (not the only one, though) to bring about profound changes and transformations in society, by means of winning control of the state. Party work is crucial, as is the building of popular power and community organizing around health, water, natural resources, life. These movements must be strengthened by working together with grass-roots organizations and left parties on common issues and interests. The participation of women is difficult in mixed-gender environments or in relationships with party comrades (which can include even one's own partner), since we are not provided the same openings. A woman, especially if she is young, can be punished for thinking, for being autonomous and independent, for having her own ideas and innovative political proposals based on conviction, commitment, and revolutionary principle. She can be punished with sexual harassment, disloyal competition, gossip, insults, aggression, and conspiracy, and discredited by the group's leaders. Thus, women's political talent and abilities become, in other people's eyes, a product of the charm, coquettish behavior and manipulation that are "typical of women." Our experiences and participation can even be attributed to "patrons, tutors, or mentors" who do enjoy legitimacy. This is all because we threaten the power of established leaders and outshine them, causing disillusionment with what is supposed to be a different kind of project. It is necessary to think about a historic revolutionary project of the Left that can embrace all tendencies including feminism. This project must understand how the neoliberal economic model directly affects women's lives, especially indigenous and rural women. It should also denounce U.S. strategies for colonization. Leftist organizations must fight for a revolution from within in order to bring about social change. They must also propose new ways of using power, and promote equality and respect for differences. It must be done in a favorable environment for women to frankly identify those practices that are promoted by the dominant ideology through power relations. --------------------- "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." V in "V for Vendetta." http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Thu Jun 22 15:19:52 2006 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 14:19:52 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Gender Resource Guide Message-ID: havent had a chance to fully explore this Eldis gender resource Guide, but it seems really good. found the link through WOMEN'S UN REPORT NETWORK WUNRN http://www.wunrn.com/news/06_12_06/06_12_06.htm u Latest news: Eldis Gender Resource Guide http://www.eldis.org/gender/ Important: Please click website Link to access subsite resources. This is page 1 of multiple pages of references. Website Link provides access to additional pages of document resources. ............................................................................ ........................................................... The reality of trade in the Americas: a gender perspective This paper examines the reality of trade in the Americas. It examines the impact of trade and trade negotiations form a critical gender focused perspective. It gives an overview of the different regio.... ( International Gender and Trade Network (IGTN), 2006) More ... Costs and benefits of policy experiment in Cambodia Using an international policy experiment that has been under way in Cambodia for the last six years, this paper demonstrates how trade agreements can create jobs and improve working conditions, pay, a.... ( Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), 2004) More ... Assessing the availability of microfinance lending to poor women in Western Europe In Western Europe many women have difficulty accessing bank lending, and borrow funds via informal networks of family and friends. Given this context, many interested in women?s entrepreneurship see g.... ( European Microfinance Network (EMN), 2006) More ... What did the structural adjustment era do for women? It is widely acknowledged that the structural adjustment era of the eighties and nineties, with its focus on market liberalisation, had few positive impacts at the local level. In fact, many argue the.... ( Economic and Political Weekly (EPW), India, 2006) More ... EU and WTO responsibilities in gender, environment and development This report tackles EU's inconsistent trade policy with social justice, gender justice and environmental sustainability. The report analysis the EU position at the World Trade Kong in December 2005 an.... ( Women in Development Europe (WIDE), 2006) More ... The cashew nut industry in India and power relations in global value chains This report explores the impacts of an expanding global market for cashew nuts on the livelihoods of women workers in the cashew processing industry in India. The report is based on fieldwork in Keral.... ( International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), 2006) More ... Good practices in ending violence against women This report argues that the root causes of violence against women are dominant gender norms and the unequal power balance between men and women. The report is divided into two main parts. It first des.... ( Deutsche Gessellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), 2005) More ... Gender implications of structural adjustment programmes This paper provides a critical review of selected literature emerging from the African, Latin American, Caribbean and Asian countries that have adopted structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) and thro.... ( Economic and Political Weekly (EPW), India, 2006) More ... Challenges for Mayan girls' education This study looks at the various disadvantages Mayan girls face in attaining education in Guatemala. The study?s main findings include: in rural areas in Guatemala, levels of educational attain.... ( Population Council, USA, 2006) More ... Tools for monitoring projects that combat human trafficking This document provides tools for monitoring projects that combat trafficking of women and children. The guidelines consist of three parts including a theoretical framework for participatory monitorin.... ( International Labour Organization (ILO), 2005) More ... More on gender: the complete listing of latest additions --------------------- "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." V in "V for Vendetta." http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Thu Jun 22 15:19:53 2006 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 14:19:53 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Sex slaves to the market Message-ID: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1744428,00.html Sex slaves to the market Millions of lives are being tormented by minefields inside and outside the bedroom Madeleine Bunting Saturday April 1, 2006 Guardian There's an advert emblazoned on the sides of double-decker buses for a computer game: "Paste your girlfriend's white bits here." Another irritating sexualisation of public space, another insistent, insidious message of how culture shapes expectations of our sexuality, another reminder of one's own powerlessness to assert other images of sexuality with anything like comparable prominence. Imagine: could I have an equivalent number of double deckers trumpeting the message that sex is the magical experience of mutual giving? Boring ... duh ... The problem about our pervasive cultural sexism is that the debate is tilted all one way. Pornography is colonising all other forms of media; occasionally a brave voice such as that of the New York magazine writer Ariel Levy speaks out, but, despite the force of her arguments, a multimillion-pound industry will carry on churning out the websites, DVDs and magazines that are distorting our sexual mores. They may recruit a naive cheerleader - such as Kate Taylor on these pages last week - but she's only a token; this phenomenon is driven by the market. While the cash rolls in, millions of lives are muddled, sometimes even ruined, by the multiple misconceptions being peddled. Men and women plot their way with bitter bravado through a minefield of sexual mores that bear little relation to their own desire for sexual fulfilment: they recount the mismatched expectations, the lack of romanticism and the huge quantities of alcohol required to mask the self-doubt. Peer pressure engineers a culture of sexual availability: men no longer need to seduce women - they've outsourced that role to a media culture - while women's capacity to consent has been culturally massaged long before they ever get near the bed. The rise of raunch - the explicit flaunting of one's sexuality - is all about how we've been persuaded to market ourselves, to advertise our desirability. The latter is no longer a process of conscious and playful revelation but must be in yer face - I'm sexy, geddit? It's as boring as preferring to eat slabs of meat off a chopping board than a plate of pleasingly arranged, deliciously cooked food. Another of the many concepts of the market that have infiltrated intimacy is an instrumentalism: "I get this need met in return for meeting her need on that"; when people talk honestly about their relationships, you can often hear the totting up of an emotional account. At its crudest there is no responsibility to the other person beyond the striking of the deal. That instrumentalism absolves the individual from any wider consideration of their lover's wellbeing. The only responsibility is to pop the question and register the one-word answer: yes or no. It is a very thin concept of consent. So a woman can defend her decision to sleep with a man she knows to be deeply in love with her because she's feeling lonely and wants a bit of sex on the grounds that he consented - he knew the deal. He's left feeling heartbroken and abused; she has exploited his emotional vulnerability. The inadequacy of this truncated responsibility was made clear in the collapse of a rape trial in Swansea last November because "drunken consent is still consent". Aren't the ethics of all intimate relationships, especially sexual ones, based on response-ibility? You can't divorce responding to a person (which sex is) from responsibility for the lover's wellbeing as well as your own. There are other metaphors of the market distorting our behaviour: the compulsion to compete and excel is now as true of the bed as the office or the housing market. We've deregulated the market in intimacy over the last 30 or so years; as the taboos and inhibitions have been dismantled, so the pressure to sexually perform has emerged. Can you provide the best orgasms ever? Looking ahead, one can see how the proliferation of virtual reality will only multiply current confusion. As porn technology becomes ever more sophisticated, the boundary between relationships with real people and fantasy creatures will become increasingly blurred; hence the sense of foreboding prompted by the aforementioned bus advert. In the future we may look back on Loaded with a degree of nostalgia - two-dimensional pictures, a more contained experience than the smells, physical sensations and images pumped out of a computer. Virtual reality's fantasy is control - how will that further confuse the capacity of a 19-year-old to decipher consent? The intriguing question is why we have been susceptible to this reconfiguration of our sexuality in line with market principles. The answer is that we've been seduced by a dream of sexual liberation, but what we've ended up with is a tatty cardboard-cutout version - perhaps the people who are the most promiscuous are the least liberated, the least likely to have a purchase on the total abandonment of sexual pleasure. There's been no golden age when people succeeded in matching their desire for sexual pleasure with their needs for emotional fulfilment and security; this has probably been the arena of human relationships most riven with conflicting and contradictory irrationality throughout history. Just don't make the false assumption that we are more liberated than previous generations: we are as badly served by cultural conventions as ever. m.bunting at guardian.co.uk Guardian Unlimited ? Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 --------------------- "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." V in "V for Vendetta." http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Thu Jun 22 15:19:54 2006 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 14:19:54 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Gender, Race, Islam & the War on Terror - online @ www.workingtv.com Message-ID: Gender, Race, Islam & the War on Terror; http://www.workingtv.com/gender-race-islam.html A community dialogue on Muslims in Canada and the world for promotion of peace, democracy, human rights for all people, on May 11 - 13 2006 in Vancouver. Gender, Race, Islam and the War on Terror was organized by the Simon Fraser University Department of Womens Studies (Woodward Chair) & Researchers and Academics of Colour for Equality/Equity (RACE). Webcast online at http://www.workingtv.com/gender-race-islam.html In Real Video, QuickTime and Windows Media formats. --------------------- "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." V in "V for Vendetta." http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From bounce at freeletters.net Fri Jun 23 22:10:50 2006 From: bounce at freeletters.net (Fountainhead Tanz Theatre/Black International Cinema/The Collegium - Forum & Television Program Berlin/Cultural Zephyr e.V.) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 05:10:50 +0100 (BST) Subject: [m2c] Fountainhead e-Letter, Berlin/Germany, June 2006 Message-ID: <29254927.1151122250377.JavaMail.root@p15190981.pureserver.info> FOUNTAINHEAD? TANZ THEATRE e ? LETTER, Berlin/Germany June 2006 __________________________________________________________________ FOUNTAINHEAD? TANZ THEATRE BLACK INTERNATIONAL CINEMA THE COLLEGIUM - FORUM & TELEVISION PROGRAM BERLIN CULTURAL ZEPHYR e.V. MISSION STATEMENT We are an international, intercultural community of persons engaged in achieving increasing understanding and cooperation between individuals and groups in support of democratic procedures and the elimination of violence, religious, ethnic and gender persecution, youth exploitation, homophobia and racial hatred through the process of art, education, culture and dialogue. Wir sind eine internationale, interkulturelle Gemeinschaft von Menschen mit dem Engagement f?r ein besseres Verst?ndnis und wachsende Kooperation zwischen Individuen und Gruppen, mit Unterst?tzung des demokratischen Prozesses und der Beseitigung von Gewalt, Verfolgung aufgrund religi?ser, ethnischer und geschlechtlicher Zugeh?rigkeit, Kindes- und Jugendmissbrauch, Homosexuellen-Feindlichkeit und von Rassenhass, durch die Mittel der Kunst, der Bildung, der Kultur und des Dialogs. Nous sommes une communaut? internationale et interculturelle de personnes engag?es ? promouvoir la compr?hension et la coop?ration croissantes entre les individus et les groupes, ? l?appui des outils d?mocratiques et ? travers l??limination de la violence, de la pers?cution religieuse, ethnique et sexuelle, de l?exploitation de la jeunesse, de l?homophobie et de la haine raciale par le processus de l?art, de l??ducation, de la culture et du dialogue. __________________________________________________________________ Table of Contents/Inhalt __________________________________________________________________ 1. XXI. BLACK INTERNATIONAL CINEMA 2006 FESTIVAL IMPRESSIONS, ST. LOUIS / NEW YORK CITY / BERLIN http://www.black-international-cinema.com/BIC06/HTML/bic06_frameset.htm __________________________________________________________________ 2. THE COLLEGIUM TELEVISION PROGRAM BERLIN SPECIAL EDITION / SPECIAL EDITION / SPECIAL EDITION SONDERAUSGABE / SONDERAUSGABE / SONDERAUSGABE "ODYSSEY - BERLIN/ST. LOUIS/NEW YORK CITY/BERLIN 2006" A DOCUMENTARY PRODUCTION JULY 20 AND 27, 2006 1-4 pm / 13-16 Uhr Offener Kanal Berlin __________________________________________________________________ 3. PART XLVII Grownupism! 1 Day, When I Grow Up! Erwachsensein! Eines Tages, Wenn Ich Erwachsen Werde! __________________________________________________________________ 4. Fountainhead? Tanz Theatre Berlin/Germany presents / pr?sentiert LADY SADIE Please, pass it on! In 3 acts Infancy ? Crash / Fr?he Kindheit - Katastrophe Crash ? Rehabilitation / Katastrophe - Rehabilitation Rehabilitation ? Please, pass it on! / Rehabilitation ? Bitte, sagen Sie es weiter! __________________________________________________________________ 5. THE COLLEGIUM TELEVISION PROGRAM BERLIN LIVE - LIVE - LIVE - LIVE - LIVE - LIVE - LIVE - LIVE - LIVE JULY 16, 2006 9-10 pm / 21-22 Uhr Offener Kanal Berlin __________________________________________________________________ http://members.aol.com/bicdance www.fountainhead-tanz-theatre.de www.black-international-cinema.com Please send replies to / Bitte senden Sie Antworten an bicdance at aol.com __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ 1. XXI. BLACK INTERNATIONAL CINEMA 2006 FESTIVAL IMPRESSIONS, ST. LOUIS / NEW YORK CITY / BERLIN http://www.black-international-cinema.com/BIC06/HTML/bic06_frameset.htm _________________________________________________________________ 2. THE COLLEGIUM TELEVISION PROGRAM BERLIN SPECIAL EDITION / SPECIAL EDITION / SPECIAL EDITION SONDERAUSGABE / SONDERAUSGABE / SONDERAUSGABE "ODYSSEY - BERLIN/ST. LOUIS/NEW YORK CITY/BERLIN 2006" A DOCUMENTARY PRODUCTION JULY 20 AND 27, 2006 1-4 pm / 13-16 Uhr Offener Kanal Berlin Fountainhead? Tanz Theatre in association with the Saint Louis Art Museum and Romare Bearden Foundation has produced and directed a documentary film entitled ?Odyssey ? Berlin/St. Louis/New York City/Berlin 2006?. The 3 ? hour documentary traces the path of the XXI. Black International Cinema Berlin 2006 from Berlin, Germany to St. Louis, Mo., New York City and returns to Berlin. Through interviews, photomontages and original music, the journey of the XXI. Black International Cinema Berlin 2006 is recorded and will be introduced on July 20 and 27, 1 ? 4 p.m. in Berlin via THE COLLEGIUM television program, special edition series, Open Channel Berlin. The film will be subsequently presented in St. Louis, New York City and other international cinema venues and film festivals. Fountainhead? Tanz Theatre in Verbindung mit dem Saint Louis Art Museum und der Romare Bearden Foundation produzierte und f?hrte die Regie f?r einen Dokumentarfilm mit dem Titel "Odyssey ? Berlin/St. Louis/New York City/Berlin 2006". Die 3 ?-st?ndige Dokumentation beschreibt den Weg des XXI. Black International Cinema Berlin 2006 von Berlin, Deutschland, nach St. Louis, Missouri, New York City und zur?ck nach Berlin. Die Reise des XXI. Black International Cinema Berlin 2006 wird anhand von Interviews, Fotomontagen und Originalmusik aufgezeigt und wird am 20. und 27. Juli jeweils von 13.00 ? 16.00 Uhr w?hrend der Sondersendungen des THE COLLEGIUM Television Program im Offenen Kanal Berlin vorgestellt. Der Film wird sp?ter in St. Louis, in New York City und anderen internationalen Kinos und Filmfestivals pr?sentiert. _________________________________________________________________ 3. PART XLVII Grownupism! 1 Day, When I Grow Up! I wuz sittin' an' stinkin' 'bout bein? ol? one day! One of my neighbors is gittin? pretty ol? an? kinda shaky! I meen, when I wuz little, she used to play with me all the time an? give me candy an? stuff. Now, she kin barely walk an? when she does, sumbody is holdin? her up! Man, that?s kinda scary sad! I feel guud an? strong like superman an? I?m never gonna git ol? an? creepy when I walk an? talk! Maybe she didn?t eat right when she wuz a kid or take her naps or sumthin?? There?s gotta be a guud explanation for all her shaky walk an? stuff? It?s like all the stuffin?s been taken outta her, like you empty the stuffin? from a turkey at Xmas time or sumthin? like that? Or maybe like sumbody let all the air outta a balloon an? it jes shrivels! This is sum weird stuff! So, stupid me, I asked the dragon-teecher ?bout shaky peeple an? how the shakes make the peeple look ol? an? drained an? stuff!? The dragon smiled an? sed, "Well, I understand what you?re describing, but unless a person is ill, the movement of her body may be due to old age and a gradual weakening of her internal and physical structure." Wow, the dragon-teecher reely knows howta explain things, but I still don?t see why the lady didn?t stop the gittin? ol? stuff, before it got outta hand an? caused her all this trubble!? So, like usual, the dragon-teecher jumped on this stuff an? prescriped "Homeworkitis" as a cure! Man, watta drag! I jes wanted sum explanations, not a whole ?cyclepedia! But, that?s wut I git for openin? my big mouth in the wrong place an? in fronta the wrong dragon! My pardnurs gave me the nerd look an? then I reely knew I had messed up ? big time. So, we gotta write sum stuff ?bout growin? ol?! O.K., I figure between papa, granma, mama an? the internet, I kin squeeze sumthin? soundin? kinda guud an? make the dragon-teecher happy ? which is not an easy thing to do! I figured I might as well start with sumbody ol? to begin with an? since granma is ol?, I asked her to tell me how she got that way? Grandma laughed an? sed, "Well, I didn?t really have any choice in the matter since I just kept on living." Man, I never thought of it that way! It?s a process of life son, if you look at people, animals, flowers, if they live long enough, eventually their energy and life force subside and they dwindle and eventually pass away to make room for the next generation of beings and plants and things! It?s a natural process and all of us do the best we can to make life better for ourselves, the people with us and people who will arrive to replace us! It?s nature?s way of renewal and hopefully, progress! So, it?s ok son, just take care of yourself and your family and everything else you can manage. Stay healthy, learn and be a contributor to all you can and everybody will be happy with you and you will be happy with yourself!" Wow! Then granma gave me a big hug an? kiss an? cuddled me for a while an? tol? me not to worry, because I wuz loved an? cared for an? protected an? that I wuld live a long, happy an? healthy life! All this gittin? ol? stuff made me feel like cryin? ?cause it seems so sad an? maybe, not fair, but granma sed, "it?s alright son, I love you an? you?re going to be just fine! Now please write a nice paper for your teacher and if you need my help, just let me know. Is that alright?" O.K. granma, I answered. Aktually, I figure a smart kid like me can git ?round all this gittin? ol? stuff! But in the meentime, even though I don?t feel to guud ?bout all this shaky stuff, tomorrow?s another day an? the dragon-teecher is waitin? for her paper! So, I?d better git busy, so the dragon doesn?t give me the shakes an? make me ol? sooner than I?m ready! Man, all these feelin?s ar confusin? an? unhappy stuff an? plus it?s makin? me sleepy ? So, I?ll scribble sumthin? for the "d-t" in the mornin?. That?ll fix her! G?nite I luv you G?nite Fountainhead? Tanz Theatre Copyright, June 2006 PART XLVII Erwachsensein! Eines Tages, wenn ich erwachsen werde! Ich war am Sitz'n und Stink'n dar?ba, eines Tages alt zu sein! Eine meiner Nachbern wird ziemlich alt und wacklig! Ich mein, als ich klein war, spielte sie imma die ganze Zeit mit mir und hat mir S??igkeiten gegeb'n und sowas. Jetz' kann sie kaum lauf'n, und wenn sie l?uft, st?tzt sie jemand! Mann, das is' zum F?rcht'n traurig! Ich f?hl mich gut und stark wie Supermann und ich werd nie alt werd'n und kriech'n, wenn ich red und geh! Vielleicht hat sie nich' das Richtige gegess'n, als sie 'n Kind war, oder ihre Nickerchen gemacht oder irgendwas? Da muss es 'ne gute Erkl?rung f?r ihren wackligen Gang und den ganzen Kram geb'n? Das is', als ob die ganze F?llung aus ihr rausgenomm' wurde, wie wenn du die F?llung aussem Truthahn nimmst an Weihnachten oder sowas ?hnliches wie das? Oder vielleicht, wie wenn jemand die ganze Luft aussem Ballon rausl?sst und der einfach schrumpft! Das is' 'n ganz unheimliches Zeug! Also, ich Bl?dijan hab die Drachenlehrerin ?ba wacklige Leute gefragt und warum das Wackeln die Menschen alt ausseh'n l?sst und ausgelaugt und sowas!? Der Drachen l?chelte und sagte: ?Nun, ich verstehe, was du da beschreibst, aber, es sei denn ein Mensch ist krank, die Bewegung ihres K?rpers k?nnte mit dem hohen Alter zu tun haben und einer allm?hlichen Schw?chung ihrer inneren und physischen Struktur.? Wow, die Drachenlehrerin wei? wirklich, wie man Dinge erkl?rt, aber ich vasteh imma noch nich', warum die Dame dieses ?lterwerd'nzeugs nich' gestoppt hat, bevor es zu viel wurde und ihr diesen ganzen ?rger einbrachte!? So, wie ?blich, warf sich die Drachenlehrerin auf diesen Kram und vaschrieb ?Hausaufgabenitis? als Heilmittel! Mann, was 'ne Qual! Ich wollte nur 'ne einfache Erkl?rung, nich' 'ne ganze 'Zyklopedie! Aber, das bekomm ich daf?r, dass ich mein' gro?en Mund ?ffne am falschen Platz vor dem falschen Drachen! Meine Kumpels gab'n mir den Trottelblick und dann wusste ich wirklich, dass ich Mist gebaut hatte ? riesen Mist. Also sollt'n wir was ?ba's ?lterwerd'n schreib'n! Okay, ich denk ma', zwischen Papa, Oma, Mama und dem Internet kann ich was rausquetschen, was irgendwie gut klingt und die Drachenlehrerin gl?cklich macht ? was keine leichte Sache is'! Ich ?balegte, ich k?nnte ebenso mit jemand beginn', der alt is', und da Oma alt is', fragte ich sie, wie sie das gemacht hat, dass sie so wurde? Oma lachte und sagte: ?Nun, ich hatte nicht wirklich eine Wahl in dieser Sache, da ich einfach weitergelebt habe.? Mann, von der Seite hab ich das noch nie geseh'n! ?Es ist ein Prozess des Lebens, mein Sohn. Wenn du dir die Menschen ansiehst, die Tiere, die Blumen, und sie leben lange genug, wird ihre Energie und Lebenskraft schlie?lich weniger und sie schwinden und vergehen schlie?lich, um Platz f?r die n?chste Generation der Menschen und Pflanzen und Dinge zu machen! Es ist ein nat?rlicher Prozess und wir alle tun das Beste, was wir k?nnen, um das Leben f?r uns besser zu machen, f?r die Menschen, die mit uns sind, und die Menschen, die kommen werden und unseren Platz einnehmen! Es ist der Weg der Natur zur Erneuerung und hoffentlich des Fortschritts! Also, es ist okay, mein Sohn, pass nur gut auf dich auf und deine Familie und alles andere, was du handhaben kannst. Bleib gesund, lerne und gib deinen Beitrag zu allem, was du kannst, und jeder wird gl?cklich mit dir sein und du wirst gl?cklich ?ber dich selbst sein!? Wow! Dann umarmte mich Oma ganz fest und gab mir einen Kuss und knuddelte mich f?r eine Weile und sagte mir, ich soll mir keine Sorgen mach'n, weil ich geliebt werd und umsorgt und besch?tzt und dass ich ein langes, gl?ckliches und gesundes Leben hab'n werd! Von all diesem Zeugs ?ba's ?lterwerd'n wurde mir zum Wein' zumute, weil es so traurig zu sein scheint und vielleicht nich' fair, aber Oma sagte: ?Es ist in Ordnung, mein Sohn, ich habe dich lieb und es wird f?r dich alles gut werden! Nun schreibe bitte einen sch?nen Aufsatz f?r deine Lehrerin, und wenn du meine Hilfe brauchst, lass es mich einfach wissen. Ist das in Ordnung?? Okay, Oma, antwortete ich. Eigentlich dachte ich, 'n kluges Kind wie ich, k?nnte um all dies ?lterwerd'nzeugs drumrum komm'! Aber in der Zwischenzeit, auch wenn ich mich bei all diesem Kram mit dem Wackeln nich zu gut f?hl, morgen is' auch noch 'n Tag und die Drachenlehrerin wartet auf ihr'n Aufsatz! Also, mach ich mich besser dran, damit mir der Drachen nich 'n Wackler verabreicht und mich fr?her alt macht, als meine Zeit da is'!! Mann, all diese Gef?hle sind vawirrend und ungl?cklicher Kram und noch dazu macht es mich m?de - So, ich schreib was f?r die ?D-L? am Morgen. Das wird sie bestech'n! 'Nacht Hab euch lieb 'Nacht Fountainhead? Tanz Theatre Copyright, June 2006 _________________________________________________________________ 4. ?LADY SADIE ? PLEASE, PASS IT ON!? Debut fall/winter 2006, U.S.A. PRODUCTION INFORMATION Fountainhead? Tanz Theatre Berlin/Germany presents / pr?sentiert LADY SADIE Please, pass it on! In 3 acts Infancy ? Crash / Fr?he Kindheit - Katastrophe Crash ? Rehabilitation / Katastrophe - Rehabilitation Rehabilitation ? Please, pass it on! / Rehabilitation ? Bitte, sagen Sie es weiter! An international Dance Theatre Konstruction and cooperation designed to raise awareness intellectually, emotionally and spiritually regarding the devastating effects of violence - internationally, nationally, domestically and personally. Eine internationale Tanztheater-Konstruktion und Kooperation, kreiert, um das Bewusstsein zu st?rken, intellektuell, emotional und spirituell, f?r die verheerenden Auswirkungen von Gewalt - international, national, h?uslich und pers?nlich. in association with / in Verbindung mit Sarah Wilcox, The University of Michigan Michael Rodemer, Associate Professor, New Genres The University of Michigan, School of Art and Design Concept, Production, Direction, Choreography, Berlin/Germany Prof. Donald Muldrow Griffith, co-founder/director Fountainhead? Tanz Theatre Black International Cinema Berlin The Collegium - Forum & Television Program Berlin in association with Cultural Zephyr e.V. Production Director, U.S.A. Michael Rodemer Artist/Script Sarah Wilcox Music B?la Bart?k Die 6 Streichquartette/Emerson String Quartet Script Editing Prof. Donald Muldrow Griffith Set Design Michael Rodemer Prof. Donald Muldrow Griffith Rehearsal Space Tanzfabrik, Berlin/Germany Production Staff Berlin Prof. Gayle McKinney Griffith, co-founder/director Angela Kramer, production co-ordinator Marion Kramer, public relations co-ordinator Fountainhead? Tanz Theatre Black International Cinema Berlin The Collegium - Forum & Television Program Berlin in association with Cultural Zephyr e.V. The production of ?Lady Sadie ? Please, pass it on!? in Berlin/Germany has been supported by Fountainhead? Tanz Theatre/Cultural Zephyr e.V., Berlin/Germany. Die Produktion von ?Lady Sadie ? Please, pass it on!? in Berlin/Deutschland wurde unterst?tzt von Fountainhead? Tanz Theatre/Cultural Zephyr e.V., Berlin/Deutschland. Fountainhead? Tanz Theatre/Cultural Zephyr e.V. June 2006 _________________________________________________________________ 5. THE COLLEGIUM TELEVISION PROGRAM BERLIN LIVE - LIVE - LIVE - LIVE - LIVE - LIVE - LIVE - LIVE - LIVE JULY 16, 2006 State of Affairs Guest: Peggy Piesche "Black European Studies in Transnational Perspective" 2nd International Interdisciplinary BEST Conference July 27 ? 30, 2006 Berlin, Germany 9-10 pm / 21-22 Uhr Offener Kanal Berlin _________________________________________________________________ THE COLLEGIUM FORUM & TELEVISION PROGRAM Berlin/ Magdeburg/Wolfsburg and other cosmopolitan cities und andere kosmopolitische St?dte produced & directed by/produziert und geleitet von Fountainhead? Tanz Theatre/Black International Cinema/ Cultural Zephyr e.V. BERLIN Every Sunday jeden Sonntag 9.00 - 10.00 pm 21.00 - 22.00 Uhr Offener Kanal Berlin Voltastr. 5 13355 Berlin-Wedding presenting / pr?sentiert wird Cinema / Discussion / Arts Calendar Filme / Diskussion / Kunstkalender for program information, please contact: Programminformationen bitte unter: 0049 (0)30-782 16 21 0049 (0)30-75 46 09 46 __________________________________________________________________ THE COLLEGIUM TELEVISION PROGRAM BERLIN LIVE - LIVE - LIVE - LIVE - LIVE - LIVE - LIVE - LIVE - LIVE THE COLLEGIUM 2006: AUGUST 20 SEPTEMBER 17 OCTOBER 15 NOVEMBER 19 DECEMBER 17 at 9.00 p.m. / 21.00 Uhr __________________________________________________________________ Mottoes: "I may not make it if I try, but I damn sure won?t if I don?t..." Oscar Brown Jr. "Mankind will either find a way or make one." C.P. Snow ?Whatever you do..., be cool!" Joseph Louis Turner ?Yes, I can...!? Sammy Davis Jr. ?Fountainhead?, June 2006 +++ +++ +++ Create your own newsletter with many great features! http://www.freeletters.net +++ +++ +++ null From sandinista at shaw.ca Sat Jun 24 02:28:50 2006 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 01:28:50 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Finland moves to criminalize purchase of sexual services Message-ID: Finland moves to criminalize purchase of sexual services Date: Wednesday, June 21, 2006 Source: Agence France-Presse DATELINE: HELSINKI, June 21 2006 The Finnish parliament on Wednesday voted to criminalize the purchase of sexual services in some cases, but stopped short of a full ban on the hiring of prostitutes. Paying for the services of a prostitute who is a victim of human trafficking or of pimping now carries a maximum penalty of six months in prison. It is estimated that 8,000 to 15,000 prostitutes work in Finland, a third of whom have been brought to the country by human traffickers or who are controlled by pimps. The law was adopted by consensus after a majority of parliamentarians refused to follow Sweden's example and criminalize all purchases of sexual services. A draft law banning the sale of sexual services was also rejected. Having sex with minors for money remains punishable by up to one year in prison. The new law puts the onus on police and magistrates to prove that clients were aware that the prostitute was forced to sell her services under threat. "It's a big question. The ministry of justice was doubtful on how this compromise will work in practise," acknowledged Janne Kanerva, an advisor to Justice Minister Leena Luhtanen. "You will have to show that there was no direct contact between the prostitute and the customer but that there was something or somebody between these two persons," Kanerva told AFP. Kanerva added that it was unlikely that any prison sentences would be handed down. "The possibility of using use prison in this case is only theoretical. But the fines will be raised," he said. ( Agence France-Presse -- 6/21/06 ) --------------------- http://newsroom.finland.fi/stt/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=12936&group=Politic s Finnish lawmakers pass law criminalising purchasing of sex 21.6.2006 at 11:05 Finland's Parliament on Wednesday enacted into a law a bill that will make the purchasing of sexual services a crime in circumstances involving procuring or trade in human beings. A proposal to reject the bill was voted down 158-15 with four MPs abstaining. Some of the opponents of the law preferred a blanket criminalisation of the purchasing of sex and a few wanted to criminalise the sale of sexual services too. Parliament approved the contents of the bill in a vote last week. /STT/ ? Copyright STT 2006 --------------------- "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." V in "V for Vendetta." http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Sat Jun 24 02:28:53 2006 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 01:28:53 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Vatican official criticizes promotion of prostitution for World Cup Message-ID: http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0603298.htm Vatican official criticizes promotion of prostitution for World Cup By John Thavis Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A Vatican official has joined a chorus of criticism against the promotion of prostitution during the World Cup in Germany. Prostitution is legal in Germany, and experts say an estimated 40,000 additional women will be engaged in prostitution during the soccer tournament. "Many of them are forced into this activity. They are doing it against their will, they are trafficked. This is a fundamental human rights violation," Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travelers, told Vatican Radio June 8. "Women have become market commodities, which can be bought. And they cost less than a ticket for a football match," the archbishop said. The World Cup is being held in 12 German cities June 9-July 9. The event is expected to attract 3 million sports fans. German newspapers have reported that wooden "sex huts," equipped with condoms and showers, have been erected for the World Cup in Dortmund and Cologne. A newly opened brothel in Berlin next to the World Cup stadium can accommodate 650 male clients. International nongovernmental organizations and church groups have said many of the additional women brought in as prostitutes will come from the poorer countries of Eastern Europe or from Europe's immigrant population. Archbishop Marchetto, whose council has campaigned against sex tourism for years, said that in this case German authorities have a special responsibility to curb the practice. A year ago, the archbishop said, the Vatican sponsored a meeting to examine the growing connection between prostitution and human trafficking. In a final declaration, participants said the church needs to defend these women and their rights and support them economically, in education and in formation. Already in Italy, more than 200 nuns are working with women who ended up in prostitution through trafficking, he said. Archbishop Marchetto said the church should also give more attention to the clients of prostitutes, examining their motives and educating boys and men in healthy human sexuality. As for those profiting through the sex industry and trafficking, Archbishop Marchetto said they should be prosecuted and severe financial penalties should be imposed on them. In a separate interview, Msgr. Aldo Giordano, secretary-general of the Council of European Bishops Conferences, said the prostitution promotion during the World Cup was a "scandal." "The churches want to challenge this with all their strength, because it is a real sign of decadence in Europe," he said. Msgr. Giordano said this type of exploitation was totally against the spirit of the World Cup. He said he hoped Europeans in general -- and especially women -- would strongly react against the marketing of prostitution during the tournament. END ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed. CNS ? 3211 Fourth St NE ? Washington DC 20017 ? 202.541.3250 --------------------- "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." V in "V for Vendetta." http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Sat Jun 24 02:28:54 2006 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 01:28:54 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Lack of Access to Reproductive Health Care a Leading Cause of Suffering Among African Women Message-ID: http://voanews.com/english/Africa/2006-06-19-voa34.cfm Lack of Access to Reproductive Health Care a Leading Cause of Suffering Among African Women By William Eagle 19 June 2006 listen to report with Yves Bergevin and Esperance Fundira Health officials with the UN Population Fund say African women may well experience more suffering than men because of health problems. Although malaria and tuberculosis are leading causes of death on the continent, they strike men and women more or less equally. But the biology of women leaves them open to a number of illnesses that do not strike men. For example, 250,000 African women die in childbirth every year. Among the other top illnesses to strike women are HIV/AIDS and cervical cancer. All of these diseases, say health officials, are exacerbated by malnutrition. Statistically, UN officials say the chances that a woman will die in childbirth in sub-Saharan Africa is 1 out 16, compared to 1 out of 2800 for women in the developed world. Behind the problem, they say, is the failure of adequate health care for women ? especially family planning and emergency obstetrics services. Yves Bergevin is a senior advisor in reproductive health for the Africa Division of the UN Population Fund, UNFPA in New York. He says many women die during obstructed labor from hemorrhaging and convulsions, and from infections after unsafe abortions. "We know what to do. We have experience from over 125 countries where this problem is being tackled extremely well and because we have so few conditions that lead to maternal mortality, we know what to do and the interventions are relatively low cost. We know how to deal with hemorrhaging at time of delivery, with infection and with convulsions. We know caesarian-sections will address obstructed labor and how to deliver strong family planning services. " "The challenge we have is that complications that lead to death when you deliver a baby cannot be predicted ahead of time. So, you have to be ready to deal not only with a normal birth but with complications that might occur without predictability. So, health centers that do deliveries need to be equipped to offer basic emergency obstetrics and have a referral system to a district hospital that can perform essentially basic surgery for c-sections, with adequate anesthesia and a good blood bank in case you need a blood transfusion." Bergevin says 75 countries have yet to make significant progress in reducing maternal mortality. Nearly half are in Africa. Malawi is an example. A colleague of Bergevin in the UNFPA, Esperance Fundira, is based there. She describes the situation in the country: "In Malawi, only two percent of health facilities can provide basic obstetric care. There is also a lack of skilled birth attendants: only 41 percent of births are assisted by skilled attendants in sub-Saharan Africa. In Malawi, it is not uncommon to hear stories of desperate pregnant women [whose deliveries] are being [done] by members of the cleaning staff in hospitals. There are no midwives, so whoever is there when the lady has to deliver tries to do something -- and usually the outcome is death for both the mother and the baby." The UNFPA officials say one common problem in countries with poor health care systems is fistula, or tears in the birth canal during obstructed labor. Feces and urine may leak through the openings, leading to pain and social ostracism because of the unpleasant odor. Officials say improved health care would allow quick access to midwives or health care professionals who could surgically remove the child before it damages the mother?s reproductive tract. Poor reproductive health services can also reduce the chances of obtaining a leading form of cancer in African women, cancer of the cervix. It is caused by the human Papilloma virus ? which is sexually transmitted. Women in Africa are falling behind men in other health matters as well. The UN health experts say young women are more likely today to be infected with the HIV virus, which causes AIDS. About a million women die of the disease every year in sub-Saharan Africa. Fundira says much of it has to do with the weak social power of women in Africa ? which makes it difficult to negotiate having sex with a man: "In Malawi, a recent study showed that 49 percent of women have had some kind of violence from their intimate partner The decision makers [in society] are men. Women?s subordinate roles are underpinned by cultural norms and beliefs depriving them of the power to make decisions regarding sexual matters and to negotiate safer sex. They are also exposed to sexual violence outside the home while fetching water, firewood and doing farm work. Schoolgirls are pressured to succumb to sexual advances of men to pay for schoolbooks and to meet personal expenses. [Some men believe having sex with an uninfected young girl will cure them of the disease]. I see in papers here that a woman that refuses sex with someone HIV positive sometimes gets (beaten or) killed. " Fundira says Malawi?s Ministry for Gender has developed a program to educate women and young girls about HIV and about violence against women. It?s also working to empower women by educating them on their property and inheritance rights. UNFPA officials also recommend the use of the A-B-C campaign of abstinence, being faithful to one?s partner, and condoms as means of curbing the chances of infection. They also recommend a stronger cooperation among AIDS prevention and treatment campaigns with reproductive health efforts. They say scaling up prevention and treatment programs would be more efficient if the already existing reproductive health networks were used. Women are more likely than men to suffer malnutrition, which makes it more difficult for them to fight off illness. "In many cultures the men eat first, then the children and [finally] the women. So that women are likely to want their children to have more food and they are left with the scraps. That is a risk of malnutrition, then you can get anemia from menstruation every month and then multiple pregnancies and deliveries, so the risk of anemia in women is much higher than in men, compounded by malnutrition. Many millions of African women are chronically anemic which puts them at risk of death if they get a hemorrhage at time of delivery. " Bergevin says in sub-Saharan Africa, the health of a woman is not only important to the development of the economy, but to the family. He says the death of a mother is likely to be more devastating to the survival of the family than the death of a man: "Say you are an 18 month old child and your mother has died giving birth to your sister You are very vulnerable, you were probably still breast fed and eating simple foods that children of a year or two of age eat. But the supplement of breast milk is not there; so, the likelihood of malnourishment is increased dramatically. Malnutrition is responsible for over half of deaths of children in Africa. The death of the mother is critical for the survival of the ones she leaves behind, especially the ones below the age of three. " At the World Summit last year, national leaders pledged to reduce maternal mortality by 75 percent by 2015, to meet one of the UN?s Millennium Development Goals. They also pledged to ensure universal access to reproductive health. Countries of the 53-member African Union have also committed themselves to drawing up national road maps for maternal and newborn health to ensure that every woman has a safe delivery and that her baby is healthy. The WHO estimates the effort will cost about half a billion dollars in 2006, and three billion in 2015 in Africa. --------------------- "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." V in "V for Vendetta." http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Sat Jun 24 02:28:51 2006 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 01:28:51 -0700 Subject: [m2c] State Violence and Gender Message-ID: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10438 State Violence and Gender by R. A?da Hern?ndez Castillo; Canadian Dimension; June 17, 2006 How can any honest woman in Mexico, regardless of her ideology, remain silent? May 3rd and 4th, 2004 will be remembered as some of the saddest and most violent days in the modern history of San Salvador Atenco, on the outskirts of the Mexico City megalopolis. This small town, home to 33 thousand people who still depend on peasant economy, witnessed a violent clash between 300 unarmed civilians, members of the Frente de Pueblos en la Defensa de la Tierra (Peoples Front for the Defense of the Land), and some 4000 policemen from the state and various corporations. The police put the demonstrators down and terrorized the whole community, raiding houses, breaking down doors and arresting without warrants 207 people, including children, women, and the elderly. At the end of the day, 20 people had been seriously injured and a minor was dead. What had started as a demonstration to support eight street vendors from the neighboring town of Texcoco became a violent clash which most of the media described as the "return to the rule of law" after the arbitrary actions of a "radical group." The image of a group of peasants from Atenco battering a fallen policeman was shown again and again to justify the State's use of violence. The loss of control and violence by a few were used to disqualify a whole movement and to characterize it as a destabilizing and dangerous force for the State and the population in general. The attack on the policeman should have been punished according to the law, and considering there were plenty of images of the event, it would have been possible to identify the attackers. Instead, state and federal authorities chose to unleash the full force and violence of the state on innocent people, many of whom don't even belong to the group the authorities aimed to disband. The testimonies of the men and women arrested on these two days, which are now beginning to emerge thanks to human rights organizations, speak of physical and sexual violence on a par with the worst days of the dictatorships in South America. But why use such a show of violence against a group of unarmed, poor peasants? Why use sexual violence against the women in the movement? Was it not against the state's own interests to issue such a repressive response, now that Mexico has been chosen as founding member of the United Nations' recently created Human Rights Council? Scholars who have studied the social effects of violence and terror have pointed at the difficulty of analyzing and "explaining" them from a scholarly point of view. Australian anthropologist Michael Taussig (Shamanism, Colonialism and the Wild Man,1987) refers to the effect of terror by saying that the stories of violence confronted him with an interpretation problem, until he realized that the problem of interpretation is essential for the reproduction of terror; it not only makes it very difficult to create an effective counter-discourse, but at the same time it empowers the terrifying aspects of death squadrons, disappearances and torture, because it causes demobilization and limits people's capacity to resist. Since terror depends so much on interpretation and sense, it ends up feeding on itself by destroying any evidence of sense and rationality. In the same way, the disproportionate violence with which those arrested at Atenco were treated has the double effect of demobilizing and inspiring skepticism about what happened, thus making it difficult to create a counter-discourse, break the silence in which our indignation has left us and shake off the indifference that has crept after some of the political prisoners were liberated. A Symbol of Resistance: Frente de Pueblos para la Defensa de la Tierra The representations that the news media has constructed around the Frente de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra show a movement of a violent and intolerant nature while at the same time minimizing the numbers of its adherents and their politics and discrediting their leaders. These representations bear little resemblance to the men and women I had the opportunity to meet this past April. They appeared a cheerful, supportive, and inclusive group, well organized and capable of complex political thought. I met them just a few weeks before the fateful clash, at La Ca?ada de los Sauces, in Cuernavaca, Morelos, in one of the most festive, socially inclusive resistance demonstrations I have ever attended. During the memorial festivities of Emiliano Zapata, I was among the supporters of the Otra Campa?a in Morelos state, the name given to the tour of Mexico by the Zapatistas (EZLN) during the Presidential campaign, awaiting the arrival of Sub-Comandante Marcos to the town of Tetelcingo. Suddenly it was announced that the meeting was moving to La Ca?ada de los Sauces, in the residential neighborhood of Tabachines, where police were about to force out a group of residents and environmental activists who had chained themselves to trees. They were protesting the construction of a road that would cross the area and required cutting down the ancient willow trees. The arrival of the Otra Campa?a at La Ca?ada forced out the police, the ambulances, and the bulldozers which were ready to bring down the trees and their guardians. A little while later, about 200 men and women peasants from San Salvador Atenco arrived, marching in order and keeping time with the metallic clatter of their machetes. They came in support of the people of La Ca?ada de los Sauces, just like they had in previous days supported the indigenous community of Cacahuatepec, Guerrero, who oppose the construction of the a dam that would expropriate their communal land, and the people of Cuernavaca who resisted the construction of a COSTCO store to protect the historical murals of the old Casino de la Selva, or the people of Texcoco who protested the construction of a Wall Mart across from the ancient pyramids of Teotihuacan. The peasants of Atenco supported the struggle of these communities and shared with them their experience and strategies. Their success in 2002, when they managed to stop the government building an international airport that would have expropriated five thousand hectares of farming land, has made them into a symbol of resistance against the blows of globalization. These local struggles share a search for alternative ways of development that are respectful of nature and of the historical heritage of communities. The success of the movement in Atenco was proof that it is possible to say NO to the neoliberal economic model which is indifferent to people's wellbeing and excludes the majority of them. This was the message that the Frente de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra brought to the residents of La Ca?ada in Cuernavaca, a message that encouraged them to continue resisting. In their speeches, they said that the struggle to defend the old trees of La Ca?ada was similar to the struggle of many indigenous and peasant peoples in Mexico. The words and songs they brought seemed to melt the barriers between social classes. The meeting became a great popular gathering. The housewives of La Ca?ada cooked and fed everyone, the workers of the Pascual Boing co-op handed out fruit drinks and the peasants from Atenco enlivened the evening singing corridos about their struggles. The women danced in pairs, clashing their machetes high above their heads in a slow, ritual dance reminiscent of religious dances in indigenous communities. These were strong, extroverted women who shouted out resistance slogans and wielded their machetes with the ease of those who use them in everyday tasks. I could not help thinking of the Zapatista women and of many other women who are fighting from the bottom of society to build a fairer life. I felt inundated by their political energy. I would never have guessed that a few weeks later I would see these same women beaten, bloodied, humiliated, silenced... the political energy I felt that evening in April was a danger the government aimed to eradicate. As an analyst of social movements, I was impressed by the organizational expertise the Frente de Pueblos possessed. I was awed by their ability to systematize the history of their struggle in songs, by the strength of the women, who seemed to play a central role in the movement, and by the obvious influence the group had over the young students who were at the meeting. Among the crowd, I had the opportunity to witness an informal "passing of the torch" ritual in which an elder from Atenco gave a young woman student from the University of Chapingo his machete. A group of young people crowded around, cheering and shouting slogans, while the man addressed an improvised speech to the girl, who received the machete in recognition of her solidarity with the peasant movement. I wonder now if that girl was among the women who were raped and abused in the jail of Santiaguito. Could it be that that was the punishment for taking on the torch? At the time I thought it would be a good idea to have one of my students analyze this experience. Perhaps that is also what the teachers at the National School of Anthropology and History thought. Two of their students are now facing criminal charges for being in Atenco on May 4th. That afternoon at La Ca?ada de los Sauces the police stayed away, and eventually the residents were able to negotiate with the government to save the willows. The political cost of upsetting a residential community or breaking through the home of a Public Attorney that lives in that neighborhood, would have been too high. But repression came later, in lands of poorer people, where it seems it is easier to silence complaints and break down a movement in the name of the rule of law. State Violence: Breaking Down the Movement My previous encounter with the group Frente de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra made me feel suspicious of the images of extreme violence that showed some people of Atenco beating on a policeman. Up to now, the media has failed to give the names or the histories of the attackers, and it is not that far-fetched to think that the movement could have been infiltrated by provocateurs that would then provide the cue to unleash a campaign of repression. It may also be that years of accumulated grief and struggle exploded in an incident of irrational violence for which the movement will have to pay a high price. I do not know what happened, but what is plain and what we have to say over and over again is that nothing justifies police violence, or the violation of the human rights of those taken into custody. The State's legislature had significant foresight when it approved in February 1994 the Law to Prevent and Punish Torture, which establishes that any public officer who inflicts "blows, mutilations, burns, physical or psychological pain, or who withholds food and water" from a person in custody is guilty of torture, as is "any public officer who instigates, compels, authorizes, orders or consents to the aforementioned. ...torture is considered a crime and this is not affected by exceptional situations, such as internal political instability, urgent investigations, or other circumstances. Neither can it be excused because it was carried out under superior orders." (See www.edomex.gob.mx/legistel/cnt/LeyEst). During the police raids in Atenco, houses were broken into and destroyed without search warrants, 207 people were taken into custody without arrest warrants, a minor was murdered, 20 people were severely injured--one of whom is still in a coma, (a 20 years undergraduate student of the National University (UNAM)). There were 23 sexual assaults on women, seven of which were rapes. The National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) has received 150 complaints from residents of Atenco. The authorities, whether municipal, state, or federal, have so far failed to accept responsibility for what happened, and President Vicente Fox has justified the use of violence by the police as "the means to bring peace to the people of this community in the midst of rising violence" (La Jornada May 13 2006). Of those arrested on May 3rd and 4th, 17 were freed, 144 were charged with damage to public property, a misdemeanor for which they can be released on bail, and 28, including the leader of the Frente de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra, Ignacio del Valle Medina, as well as his son, C?sar del Valle, have been formally indicted under charges of false imprisonment and damage to public property. While authorities use the law at their discretion against social leaders, those responsible for the violations to human rights in Atenco are still shamelessly speaking of rule of law. We need to take the government's discourse about using the full weight of the law in the case of Atenco and make it our own: we must demand the just punishment of government officials responsible for the abuses. --------------------- "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." V in "V for Vendetta." http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Sun Jun 25 03:17:05 2006 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 02:17:05 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Men and Feminism: Relationships and Differences by Amanda Goldrick-Jones (Part 1) Message-ID: Chapter 6 from "Gender, Race, and Nation: A Global perspective" by Vanaja Dhruvarajan and Jill Vickers. University of Toronto Press 2002 Men and Feminism: Relationships and Differences by Amanda Goldrick-Jones In its broadest sense, patriarchy encompasses a vast network of attitudes, behaviours, and institutional structures that enable men to exercise power and claim privileges. Yet patriarchy has never extended carte blanche privileges to 'all men' at the expense of 'all women.' The offspring of patriarchy - capitalism, racism, heterosexism, and the equation of masculinity with physical power and strength - can turn easily against their own fathers. Patriarchal thought has oppressed and continues to oppress women of all races and classes, but various constituencies of men have also suffered under 'the rule of the fa-thers': the enslaved, the poor, the disabled, men believing the wrong religion, men of the wrong ethnicity, and men with the wrong sexual orientation. If the overall goal of feminism is to critique and dismantle patriarchal networks, then it stands to reason that feminism can benefit men - even, in the long run, men who believe they would have to 'give up' power. Indeed, some individual men and men's groups worldwide believe strongly that feminism is advantageous to men, and further more that men have a great deal to offer when it comes to doing feminist work. Men have often chosen to adopt feminist values be cause women they love, admire, or work beside are themselves feminists; for these men, feminism is a means to enhance their personal and professional relationships with women. Yet as individuals and as members of groups, profeminist men are facing enormous challenges. Many profeminist groups that thrived in the 1970s and 1980s are buckling under the stress of balancing idealistic common goals with the fact that men's experiences of masculinity are profoundly different, and are mediated far more by race, class, physical ability, and sexuality than was first recognized. The internal conflicts within many profeminist organizations - and within many feminist ones - are formidable and are capable of frustrating even the most dedicated. Many profeminist activists have opted out of the organizational scene, and redirected their energies toward improving their relationships with their families and doing community work. As well, feminist women have sometimes questioned profeminist men's motives or actions. Most feminist women agree that men should critique hegemonic and oppressive notions of 'masculinity' and should do more than pay lip service to feminism (see especially hooks [1992a] and Steinem [1992]); still, men doing feminist work do not automatically earn the trust and support of feminist women. Profeminist men sometimes find themselves wrestling with the question of whether they are 'oppressors' within feminist communities, even while they are being marginalized by the hegemonic masculine culture for their feminist beliefs. Given all these real or potential obstacles, it is hardly surprising that the mass profeminist movement envisioned by idealists in the 1970s and early 1980s has failed to materialize; indeed, there is little indication that such a movement will arise. Yet men's engagement with feminism since the 1970s has resulted in some accomplishments: a growing critique of hegemonic masculinity, increased public awareness of men's responsibility to end domestic abuse and violence against women, and a greater recognition of how stereotyped images of manhood can damage both men and women. Profeminist men are more likely to see through what Canadian writer and White Ribbon Campaign co-founder Michael Kaufman calls the 'collective hallucination' of masculinity (1992: 17), though this clearer insight doesn't mean that profeminists struggle any less with the contrradictions of 'being a man ... [in] a strange world of power and pain' (37). In this chapter I discuss the accomplishments of profeminist men over the past thirty years, and the challenges facing them, and suggest some possible future directions for profeminist work. I begin by defining what feminism or 'profeminism' means to men engaged in this work. I then outline how the 'men's movement' - mainly in Britain, the United States, and Canada - grew out of feminism in the 1970s. After this I illustrate some ways in which profeminist men in these countries have, through their activist work, both jeopardized and strengthened relations between men and feminism. Then I outline some important conflicts arising among profeminist men themselves, mainly between white, middle-class profeminists and gay, working-class, and Black sympathizers who feel their experiences are being marginalized. In illustrating these conflicts, I am not simply trying to point out 'failures'; I am also trying to show how an awareness of differences has usefully, if traumatically, destabilized the totalizing notion of a unified 'men's movement.' Finally, I summarize the many challenges facing profeminists today, and suggest some future directions for profeminist work in this new millennium. WHY MEN SUPPORT FEMINISM Political Reasons There is no single totalizing definition or set of strategies for men who believe in feminism, any more than there is for feminist women. However, since about the late eighteenth century a minority of men have consistently and publicly endorsed feminist goals such as higher education for women, votes for women, equal pay and gender equality in workplaces, and the right to birth control and reproductive choice (Kimmel and Mosmiller, 1992; LeGates, 1996). More recently, pro-feminist men have also taken strong stances against rape and other forms of men's violence toward women. The American-based National Organization of Men Against Sexism - once North America's largest profeminist men's organization - outlined the following goals in its 1990 brochure: "We work to end crimes and injustices toward women such as domestic and sexual violence, attacks on choice and reproductive rights, sexual harassment, lack of parity, and the global feminization of poverty. We understand pro-feminism to mean challenging ourselves and other men on the ways in which we perpetuate, and benefit from, sexist behaviors. At the same time, we are celebrating the many ways in which men are becoming caring, strong, and non-abusive." The NOMAS statement combines an endorsement of feminist principles and a commitment to antipatriarchal activism with a male-positive, mutually supportive agenda. Similar ideals are encountered in the documents produced by a range of profeminist groups around the world, including the Canadian White Ribbon Campaign (WRC) against violence toward women, the New Zealand-based Men Opposing Racism and Sexism, and Australia's Men Against Sexual Assault (MASA). As well, these goals are implied in profeminist, promale magazines such as XY, published in Australia, and the British men's magazine Achilles Heel. Recent large-scale profeminist public activism ranges from the Ending Men's Violence 'Brotherpeace' marches in the United States during the 1980s; to the White Ribbon Campaign's partnerships with Canadian unions, businesses, and the YWCA to distribute White Ribbons nationally and to raise funds for antiviolence projects; to a gender awareness curriculum package for high schools produced several years ago by the Halifax-based Men for Change; to - in a slightly unusual move - MASA's anti-male violence fundraiser in the mid-1990s that sold Australian wine labelled with the organization's logo. Men who do feminist work generally understand that their goals reach beyond ensuring equal access to established economic, judicial, and political resources. Feminist women are critiquing patriarchal forms of economic and political power and showing how these structures maintain racism, classism, violence, and other forms of oppression; in a similar way, many profeminist men are examining how patriarchal power defines and perpetuates oppressive concepts of masculinity. Some of this work, especially where it explores how men of colour, gay men, and working-class men are victimized by power inequities, intersects with issues of race, sexuality, and class. Personal Reasons However, not all profeminist groups or individual men adopt overtly political strategies. In Britain, for example, a number of men who support feminism contend that individual therapeutic 'menswork' should precede political engagement. According to two counsellors at the Everyman Centre (now the Ahimsa Centre) in Devon, a facility that treats violent men and supports their partners, it isn't possible to transform gender relations unless a man has personally reflected on what it means to be a man and has addressed problems or inequities in his relationships with women (Bell, 1998; Wolf-Light, 1998). This task is especially challenging for heterosexual men, many of whom implicitly define masculinity in terms of aggression and/or homophobia. Personal menswork can also have political effects. By examining masculinities and relations between women and men in subversive ways, the British men's magazine Achilles Heel is encouraging radical dialogue between women and men on gender issues (Pratt, 1998). This can be seen as a political act. This link between the personal and the political is appropriate, given that men who support feminism often locate their initial motivation in the personal realm - they were, or are, involved personally or professionally with feminist women. Indeed, the first British men's group was formed, possibly as early as 1971, as 'a response to feminism. Women were developing, and as they fought to change their roles, some men felt pressure to change too ... There was liberation in the air and men wanted a part of that' (What Future for Men? 1990). In these early days of the profeminist movement, some men were galvanized by feminism's potential to transform gender roles. In the 1980s and 1990s, profeminist men were still inspired by relationships with women 'who defined themselves as feminist' (Pratt, 1998), or they found themselves working alongside feminist women in movements such as environmentalism. A few had been 'brought up in feminist households' (Romalis, 1993). A gay profeminist told me he has always felt much closer to women than to men; he prefers groups comprising women, and feels uncomfortable working only with men. Jack Layton (1993), a co-founder of the White Ribbon Campaign, believes that profeminist men working with feminist women need to 'seek the leadership of the women's movement' by exercising relational skills such as consultation and active listening. For many profeminist men, feminism is as much about enhancing their personal or professional relationships with the women in their lives as it is about transforming political and social institutions. Given that profeminist men are faced with helping to dismantle patriarchy - a system from which some profeminists materially benefit - it seems only logical that many would gain motivation from strong, positive relationships and open communication with feminist women. In this respect, feminist women can play active roles, not as 'mothers' or naysayers, but as facilitators and enablers for men wishing to educate themselves in feminist thought and do feminist work. As one member of the Achilles Heel editorial collective notes, doing feminist work as a man means 'really thinking about [women's] own gender identity and our own gender identity as men. Communication ... cross-communication, really ... the idea that we share a project' (Tuddenham, 1998). RELATIONSHIPS WITH FEMINIST WOMEN Women and men who support feminism can and do share important goals and engage in complementary projects. But there are some major differences in their motives and, it follows, in their strategies and forms of activism. Many women who come to feminism are motivated by personal experiences of being oppressed because of their sex; they gain energy to fight patriarchy both from their anger and from the solidarity of being with others who have had similar experiences. Yet even this solidarity is problematic; the myth of sisterhood, constructed by white middle-class feminists, has faced necessary challenges from women of colour and from working-class and other marginalized feminists, who would like white, middle-class women to articulate their privilege and the ways in which they themselves are raced as the first step toward dismantling these oppressive structures and attitudes. Profeminists are also motivated by anger over gender injustice and by the urge to redress that injustice, and their white middle-classness has been similarly challenged. But men encounter a unique conundrum: patriarchy is a male construct, so in order to dismantle it they must admit their own collusion and dismantle their own privileges. Taken to a logical end, this argument demands that profeminists effectively dismantle themselves as men (see especially Stoltenberg, 1989). Thus one of the greatest challenges profeminists face is how to deal with the guilt of being 'a male oppressor.' A similar problem of 'men as oppressors' underlies debates about how (if at all) women's studies should work with the still small academic field of men's studies. Men's studies researchers and teachers - a few of whom are women - argue that they are consciously studying men not as 'neutral,' default humans but rather as gendered beings who shape and are shaped by power relations in particular ways because they are men. However, some feminist critics believe that 'men's studies' is a redundancy, and more than a few are leery about the potential for men's studies to 'take over' feminism in the academy (Jardine and Smith, 1987; Hanmer, 1990; Canaan and Griffin, 1990). The tensions between women's and men's studies underscore the need for profeminists - within or outside men's studies - to articulate their position as 'oppressors' in patriarchy. The ways they do this, or fail to, are inseparable from their activism and from their success in forming productive relations with feminist groups. ANTISEXISM IN THE 1970s: INSPIRATION, GUILT, CONFLICT In Britain, several men's movements developed in the early 1970s, one of which was strongly antisexist and consisted of men whose female partners or friends were active in the women's liberation movement (Cooper, 1990: 6; Sheil, 1990). According to one chronicler of British profeminism, these men were initially 'pushed ... by their feminist colleagues [but] were unsure of their role in the feminist struggle and were thus indecisive about what action they could take' (Cooper, 1990: 6). These groups adopted models of consciousness raising (CR) similar to those in the women's movement, and attempted to integrate therapeutic and CR approaches with antisexist, often socialist discussions and conferences (6). Some of these men, including writer-theorists John Rowan and Victor Seidler, were concerned enough about the relationship between therapy and politics that they created the Red Therapy group, which stayed together from 1974 to 1977. According to Rowan, this group functioned as a 'leaderless therapy group' that also created 'a political critique of ... therapy, personal growth, counselling' (1987: 21). In Canada during the 1970s, profeminist activism was taking at least two major directions, one of them being a personal analysis of masculinity similar to the one undertaken by British men's groups. The sex role theory being explored at the time by activist-academics like Joseph Pleck (Pleck and Sawyer, 1974; Pleck, 1976) was a significant avenue of thought for Canadian men interested in analysing masculinity. Pleck was a keynote speaker at a men's conference held in 1975 at Ontario's University of Waterloo, at which men-only groups were encouraged to talk about oppressive aspects of the male sex role. Profeminists in Canada also adopted CR methods, and met as much to gain emotional support as to plan forms of activism (see Etkin, 1991: 36). Action against sexism - especially against men's violence toward women - was a second major direction for Canadian profeminists during this decade. Specific projects are difficult to trace, since Canadian men's groups tended to be small and localized in the 1970s. But Canadian therapist Ron Thorne-Finch notes that a number of profeminist-inspired treatment programs for violent men were being developed, among them a Winnipeg-based group called 'Evolve' (1992: 239). Thorne-Finch comments: 'While many of these counsellors would not have identified their actions as part of a movement of pro-feminist men, their theoretical approach and practical applications placed them firmly within the realm of pro-feminist masculinism - whether or not they were card-carrying members' (238-9). In the United States as well, the 1970s was a decade for men to take on what was then considered 'the interesting and exciting question of the male response to women's liberation' (Men's Liberation, 1971). To this end they formed groups, published radical newsletters, and organized conferences to support feminist activism and explore the implications of feminism for men. The sense of energy and the generally positive outlook for this work in the early 1970s is captured by a contributor to the newsletter "Brother: A Forum for Men Against Sexism," who wrote, 'I don't believe I have ever felt so affected by a movement or a social development before in my life' (Men's Liberation, 1971). Besides Brother, a number of other radical men's newsletters sprang up in the United States, many with explicit profeminist goals. For example, a newsletter published jointly by the Men's Awareness Network and the Chicago Men's Gathering was 'dedicated to eliminating sexism, supporting the women's movement, and changing men's roles' (Men's Awareness, 1976, p. i). In 1975 the first US Men and Masculinity conference discussed the formation of a national antisexist men's organization, whose principles would be based strongly on feminism. Clearly, the 'men's movement' was inspired by and heavily indebted to feminist theory and activism; some men were even a little envious of the excitement and joy women were experiencing. In both Britain and North America, a second movement was growing out of CR-inspired groups. This consisted of 'liberationist' men who preferred to focus on understanding masculinities, working toward self-improvement, and forging better relationships with other men. In Britain during the late 1970s, antisexist and liberationist groups initially tried to work together. But the simmering tensions between 'anti-sexist' and 'liberationist' men exploded in 1980 over a proposal to adopt a set of 'Ten Commitments' to feminism. To the antisexists, these Commitments represented an overt endorsement and support of the women's movement as well as a call for men to change themselves. Many of the men at the conference saw the commitments as an admission of male guilt - or, as John Rowan put it, as 'a giant super-ego sitting on my shoulders shouting in my ear' (Cooper, 1991: 9). The motion to adopt the Commitments was defeated. According to British profeminist writer Mick Cooper, after this incident the British antisexist/profeminist movement lost enthusiasm and clout, going into 'a steep decline' after 1982 (1991: 9-10) while the liberationist movement gained momentum. Nor were antisexist men's relations with feminist groups going well at this time. Cases in point were two men's projects - Cr?ches Against Sexism and Cash Against Sexism - which began in 1980 and quickly came into conflict with the women's movement over questions of funding. According to Cooper (1990), the men withdrew funds and volunteer childcare they had been willing to donate to a feminist conference when the women said they preferred to use paid childcare workers. 'This move infuriated many women who felt that the men were using the money to control the women's movement' (9). Stung by this criticism, both Cr?ches and Cash Against Sexism fell apart. It isn't clear who was blaming whom, but it is reasonable to suspect that a lack of open and respectful communications played a part here. It is also possible that the men were unwilling to recognize and find ways to work through the conundrum of being well-intentioned 'oppressors.' MEN BUILDING RELATIONS WITH FEMINISM The U.K.: Achilles Heel Since the 1980s, the co-editors of the British 'radical men's magazine' Achilles Heel have examined oppressive notions of masculinity and encouraged dialogue to improve relations between men and feminism. The current editorial collective of Achilles Heel sees the magazine as 'a forum for discussion of men and masculinity, and a reflection of the diverse and developing ways in which men are experiencing themselves today' (Editorial Collective, 1997, p. 3). The magazine includes articles about women's and feminist issues, especially as these intersect with 'menswork'; it also welcomes 'any contributions and comment from women' and refuses to print 'sexist, racist, or homophobic' material (3). A recent issue of Achilles Heel featured an article co-written by a woman and a man discussing practical ways that profeminist men can build trust and work productively with feminist women. Among other things, it recommended that men educate themselves about women's oppression, actively question how men oppress women, listen to women, and engage in coalition work with feminist women (Schacht and Ewing, 1997). Yet Achilles Heel is unwilling to locate itself entirely within feminism. It does not take an overtly 'political' position on feminist issues; indeed, it often publishes articles exploring other aspects of men's movements, such as Robert Bly's mythopoetics, that many North American feminists and profeminists would consider problematic. Yet as of 1999, Achilles Heel was the only extant profeminist print publication being distributed internationally that not only encouraged dialogue with feminists but also explored a range of perspectives on masculinity. Canada: The White Ribbon Campaign Informal histories of Canadian men's movements imply that the hey-day for Canadian profeminism was the 1980s and early 1990s (Etkin, 1991; Fisher, 1993; Thorne-Finch, 1992). During that time, profeminist conferences and forums took place regularly in Kingston, Ottawa, Toronto, and Montreal. Profeminist groups active during that time included the Manitoba Men's Network, Men for Women's Choice, Metro Men Against Violence (based in Toronto), Men's Network for Change (based in Kingston), and Halifax's Men for Change. According to Canadian profeminist Ken Fisher (in Thorne-Finch, 1992), in 1989 there were probably 200 men's groups, representing 5,000 men in Canada 'organizing to overhaul hegemonic masculinity' (242). The White Ribbon Campaign (WRC) is one of the few larger Canadian profeminist organizations to have survived the 1990s, in part because it has emphasized communication and coalition work with feminist groups. Started in 1991 as a male response to the massacre of fourteen young women in December 1989 at Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique, this national campaign against men's violence toward women has been described as a successful attempt to extend profeminist principles 'far beyond what the antisexist men's movement in the United States has been able to imagine possible' (Messner, 1997: 54). Though a number of profeminist groups around the world have worked actively to eliminate violence against women, the WRC is arguably unique in that it has tried to persuade large numbers of men at a national, highly public level to take action on a specific feminist issue - an issue that until the Montreal massacre had been somewhat marginalized in the Canadian public forum. Feminist Criticisms of the WRC In its first two or three years of operation, the WRC earned praise and criticism from feminists and profeminists alike. The criticisms focused mainly around the issue of accountability to feminist women's groups. In particular, critics asked whether these men were listening attentively enough to women's concerns, and whether their White Ribbon campaign was diverting attention and resources from women's own antiviolence initiatives. These concerns stemmed partly from the fact that in 1991 and 1992 the WRC timed its 'White Ribbon Week' to culminate on 6 December, the anniversary of the massacre, a day that many feminists had considered women's time to mourn and remember. Thus, there were concerns that men were appropriating women's 'space' and assuming for themselves the power to define 6 December as a day for women (Boulos, 1992; Cole, 1991; Jones, 1992a, 1992b). As well, some critics wondered whether the WRC's plan to blitz the country with ribbons was a form of empire building. No one knows how many men wore the White Ribbon in 1991 as a symbol of their repudiation of violence against women; estimates vary between '100,000' (Kaufman, 1991) and 'more than a million' (Landsberg, 1992: 16). Critics and even some WRC organizers worried that the ribbon could be interpreted as a popular, token gesture - an easy way out for men who weren't willing to take more concrete action against male violence (Kaufman, 1992; Crowe and Montgomery, 1992; Geigen-Miller, 1992). Nor were feminist women the only critics of the WRC. In 1992, Kingston's Men's Network for Change 'respectfully' declined to support future White Ribbon campaigns. The network was troubled by the possibility that the media attention resulting from the novelty of men getting involved in a feminist project could 'overpower consideration of the central issues (men's violence against women) in favour of the more newsworthy ... issue of "sensitive new age guys" and their token political gestures' (Jones, 1992b: 6). Strategic Responses to Feminist Criticisms The WRC prepared two kinds of responses to these criticisms. Beginning in 1993, the campaign rescheduled White Ribbon Week to late November. From 1992 to 1994, the campaign's 'Frequently Asked Questions' (FAQ) brochures stressed the importance of 'stepping back' from 6 December and treating it [as] a day for men to 'listen' to women rather than speak out. The WRC also produced an 'Organizer's Kit' emphasizing the same point for men wishing to begin a local White Ribbon drive: 'This is a day of intense pain for women and we feel it should be a day for men to step back and listen to the voices of women' ('How ...,' 1992: 12). To this day, the WRC still does not schedule large-scale men's events on 6 December. However, on each anniversary of the Montreal massacre, local WRC organizers do speak with news media about men's antiviolence activities, and men - some wearing the White Ribbons - routinely stand with women at 6 December memorials and vigils. The second major strategy has been to maintain structures of accountability to feminist women's groups. A formal liaison committee of women and men was set up in 1992, but this proved to be burdensome. The WRC now engages in coalition work and other informal means of contact with feminist and women's groups as circumstances demand (including, says one WRC co-founder, phoning, e-mailing, and chatting in supermarket aisles). According to Michael Kaufman and Jack Layton, co-founders of the WRC, opening lines of communication with feminist women has been a priority for the WRC from the beginning. As Michael Kaufman (1993) has noted, 'We make mistakes, but it's a constant process of learning, trying out things, and looking toward women.' It's noteworthy that Australia's Men Against Sexual Assault has a similar philosophy about the link between accountability and communication, and has invited feminist activist women to attend its meetings and workshops (Pease, 1999; Daphne, 1999). Indeed for profeminist groups worldwide, an integral part of maintaining good relations with feminism has involved balancing between two extremes: men striking out wholly on their own and possibly making major mistakes, and men relying so heavily on women's leadership that they must effectively ask permission to do anything. --------------------- "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." V in "V for Vendetta." http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Sun Jun 25 03:17:30 2006 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 02:17:30 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Men and Feminism: Relationships and Differences by Amanda Goldrick-Jones (Part 2) Message-ID: Chapter 6 from "Gender, Race, and Nation: A Global perspective" by Vanaja Dhruvarajan and Jill Vickers. University of Toronto Press 2002 Men and Feminism: Relationships and Differences by Amanda Goldrick-Jones (Continued) PROFEMINISM AND THE POLITICS OF INCLUSION Maintaining good relationships with feminist women is one major challenge for profeminist men. An equally serious challenge is working through differences in sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, and class. From the beginnings of men's movements in the 1970s, there was an awareness of and a professed sensitivity toward issues of sexuality and race. Yet the white, middle-class nature of profeminist (as well as other men's) organizations has often been a source of tension among activist men, and has given rise to serious concerns about whether profeminist organizations have fairly represented the spectrum of men and masculinities. Perspectives of the 'Gay Male' 'Gay liberation' profoundly influenced profeminism and antisexism in the 1970s. These influences have been well documented in the United States and Britain. Two cases from those countries are helpful in illustrating how different perspectives about sexuality can fragment profeminist groups. In Britain, gay men who 'had quite suddenly discovered their energy, their voice, their ability to fight back against the oppression which they felt they had for so long endured' (Sheil, 1990) looked toward Black liberation movements in the United States as their model. Though these men considered themselves antisexist, it is perhaps not surprising that many took a highly radical stance toward masculinity - one that called into question men's relationships with women. A piece in a magazine called "Brothers Against Sexism" took a 1974 national men's conference by storm. Titled 'Coming Out is the Only Way Forward,' the article argued: "If men are serious about being antisexist, then they must sacrifice the privileges they obtain from women and relate on a sexual level exclusively with men ... Only when men are prepared to risk their masculinity to the extent of becoming homosexual can a men's movement challenge sexism in the way gay liberation has." (in Cooper, 1991: 7) At the 1974 conference, conflict over this position was intense. According to Cooper, several gay men walked out after accusing their straight counterparts of homophobia (7). Cooper also notes that this event set off a round of self-criticism among antisexist men. As a result, there were no further profeminist conferences and publications until the late 1970s. But in Cooper's analysis, the gay men's criticisms were not far off target and revealed growing weaknesses in profeminism: 'The belief that in changing ourselves through consciousness-raising [men] were liberating women was delegitimized through an intense attack from an oppressed group' (7). In the United States, gay and straight men's groups showed some initial signs of working together. The first of the many yearly Men and Masculinity (M&M) conferences, held in 1975, included topics such as 'The Black Male Experience' and 'The Gay Male.' The following year's M&M conference ran into trouble for openly supporting gay issues. The conference was to be held at Penn State, but the university administration withdrew its support when it learned that gay-positive topics would be included in the program. In solidarity, the entire conference moved across the street to a Holiday Inn (Men, 1976). By 1978 the M&M Gay Task Force had assumed a high profile, with many gay issues discussed and a number of gay speakers and workshops featured. Among the resolutions passed at the conference was one promising to continue this pro-gay work at future conferences and to fight discrimination against gays. Yet well into the 1980s, critics continued to raise doubts about whether conferences, workshops, and profeminist activism in general were really supportive of gay issues. Another issue complicating gay men's participation in profeminist conferences and workshops is that these events are often appropriated by straight men as opportunities to work through problems that gays have already dealt with - topics such as 'physicality between men' and 'who does the washing up' (Flood and Dowsett, 1994: 26-7). Given these complications, perhaps it was only a matter of time before a major conflict arose in an American profeminist organization over the free expression of gay experience. One of the first such conflicts was powerful enough to bring NOMAS - which defined itself as both profeminist and gay-positive - to a point of crisis. The catalyst was an article written by one of NOMAS's founders, Jeff Beane, published in the profeminist magazine Changing Men in August 1992. The article outlined Beane's experiences as a gay male teen in the late 1950s and early 1960s and described a sexual encounter with a younger boy. In that same issue of Changing Men was a discreet ad for the North American Man-Boy Love Association, and another ad for an 'exotic' magazine (Parrish, 1992). The storm of criticism that followed in the wake of this issue called into question NOMAS's commitment to feminist principles. The NOMAS leadership - which had defended the controversial Changing Men issue - was accused of 'Old Boy Network tactics'(Parrish, 1992) and even of condoning pedophilia. The following issue of Changing Men published criticisms of Beane's article and an apology from the NOMAS executive. But in the eyes of many profeminists and feminists, the organization's credibility had been irreparably damaged. This conflict occurred in 1992, yet in some ways the tensions within NOMAS over differences in gay and straight perspectives were similar to those that had arisen almost twenty years earlier in Britain. In each case, the failure to resolve the tensions not only created organizational schisms but also severely compromised the ability of organization members to do solid activist work. There is still an urgent need for gay and straight profeminist men to come up with strategies for working with and through differences arising out of sexual orientation, but this is much easier said than done. WORKING THROUGH CLASSISM AND RACISM Profeminism and Class No less critical for profeminists is a better understanding of how sexism and masculinity intersect with class to shape economic systems. In Britain, Andrew Tolson (1977) and Victor Seidler (1991) have provided a socialist analysis of class and masculine power that has strongly influenced profeminist thought in that country since the 1970s. When Tolson observed men in the 1970s, he noted that 'working class masculinity is characterized ... by an immediate, aggressive style of behavior' (28) as compared with that of middle-class men. This aggression shapes relationships with other men as well as with women, and can be at odds with feminist goals of gender equity. For Tolson, there is a cause-and-effect relationship between a patriarchal working-class man's demand for absolute power in the home and the fact that the same working-class man is 'individually powerless, a mere calculation of the capitalist economy' (30). Almost twenty years later, an issue of Achilles Heel entitled 'Men and Work' revisited the complex issue of how men's work shapes gender and family relations. In Britain, professional and managerial men are starting to take advantage of job sharing and flexible hours in order, among other things, to 'meet some domestic responsibilities' (Collins and Walton, 1996: 28). But the authors point out that 'manual workers are still under-represented' in job-sharing schemes, 'perhaps because of lower salary levels' (28). Profeminism and Race In the United States, profeminist concerns about power differences among men have generally focused more on race than on class. In a March 1976 article in the Men's Awareness Network/Chicago Men's Gathering newsletter, the writer agreed with an earlier article's argument that the 'men's movement is mostly populated by men who "enjoy white skin privilege, class privilege, heterosexual privilege, and male privilege."' Though the writer counterargued that 'a movement has to start somewhere,' he also noted that the American men's movement needed more 'involvement of working class, ethnic/racial minority, and sexual minority men' (Smith, 1976). Though American men's groups of the 1970s were generally troubled about representation - and this question would continue to haunt national group organizers into the 1980s and 1990s - many profeminists also felt that 'a movement has to start somewhere.' One feminist woman who worked with the group that eventually formed the National Organization of Men in 1982 advised her male colleagues not to 'put [them]selves down' because they were members of a dominant group. In her view, white, middle-class feminists who were struggling with guilt over inclusivity needed to remember that 'being middle-class, white, male and feminist could be a tremendous impetus for deep change in this society ... If white, middle-class, men stand up and say we want change, feminist change, they cannot be interpreted as saying they want *in* to the system - they *are* in the system. It will be clear they're challenging the system' (Ballweg, 1982). For a time, white, middle-class profeminists in the United States seemed to be succeeding in their attempts at inclusivity. In 1983 the newly fledged National Organization of Men conducted an 'Open Forum' in New York City. Topics at the forum included gay politics and links to antisexist groups, Black men against sexism and racism, and pressures to be a Real Man. In 1984, NOM became the National Organization of Changing Men and mandated seventeen task groups that in theory would allow NOCM to be diverse and representative. These groups included 'Gay Rights,' 'Homophobia,' and 'Racism and Sex Role Issues of Minority Men.' It was anticipated that each task group would have 'considerable power and autonomy,' including the exclusive right to issue statements and initiate actions regarding its particular area (Shapiro, 1982). Commenting on these attempts at inclusivity, profeminist sociologist Michael Messner notes that some aspects of this structure represented a 'rare example' of diverse men working togther 'toward common goals' (1997: 101). But at the same time '[NOCM]1 remained an organization that was made up of predominantly white, professional-class men (and some women.) Although the organization "welcomed and sought Black men's participation ... over the year, few blacks participated"' (quoted in Messner, 1997: 101). Messner maintains that by the mid-1990s, antiracist work had become 'part of the political discourse of NOMAS' and that more men of colour were taking leadership roles in the organization (1997: 101). However, there are conflicting accounts about how successful NOMAS has been as an inclusive profeminist organization. One crisis point over issues of race was the organization's decision in 1991 to go ahead and hold the annual Men & Masculinity conference in Arizona after the Reverend Jesse Jackson and civil rights groups had called for a tourism boycott of Arizona. That state had rescinded the new national holiday in memory of Martin Luther King. In response to NOMAS's decision, noted radical profeminist John Stoltenberg (author of "Refusing to Be a Man") resigned his position as chair of the Ending Men's Violence task group (Stoltenberg, 1997). Similarly, another former NOMAS member saw NOMAS's decision as a sign of the organization's 'internal racism' and 'lack of commitment ... to combatting racism' (Parrish, 1992). NOMAS's decision to ignore the Arizona boycott was interpreted by many as confirmation that this mainly white organization wasn't prepared to represent or respect the views of Black men. In retrospect, it does seem questionable that an antisexist organization created mainly out of the experiences of white, middle-class men could even begin to address the multiple oppressions experienced by Black men. The challenge of eliminating sexism against Black women is complicated not only by what Manning Marable (1997) calls the distortions of racial stereotyping, but also by Black men's experiences of systemic socioeconomic and political discrimination. And there is no agreement among Black theorists about the current state of gender relations. Marable believes that Black women's and men's common struggle against racism 'transcends the barrier of gender, as Black women have tried to tell their men for generations' (447). However, Robert Staples (1997) warns that public schisms between Blacks over sexual relations, notably the 1991 Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings, have the 'potential for increasing tension and conflict between Black men and Black women' (191). In Canada, profeminist groups have not been as overtly outspoken or as badly fractured over issues of race. From the perspective of an American profeminist writing in 1976, Canada was managing better than the United States to achieve a 'balance' on issues of race and sexism (Smith, 1976). The official focus of many Canadian profeminist groups since the 1970s has been to end men's violence and encourage men to reconceptualize masculinity, and ending racism could be considered part of that agenda. For example, Halifax's Men for Change includes 'antiracist' in its self-definition, and on its website provides many links to antiracist men's organizations. Notably, however, these websites pertain to African-American, not African-Canadian, men's activism. Nor are First Nations issues visible in this landscape. Given the many disadvantages that First Nations men, as well as women, are struggling against (see especially Cassidy et al., 1998), it seems surprising that unlike their American and Australian counterparts, Canaadian profeminist men have paid relatively little attention to the matter of how perceptions of race can shape perceptions of masculinity. Postmillennial Profeminism Commentators and theorists examining the effects of feminism on men offer guardedly optimistic views, garnished with much caution, about whether men are truly changing. Segal (1990) argues that the past quarter-century or so of feminist thought and activism '*has* made an impact on men as well as women.' Indeed, men 'who occupy spaces where there is already greater equality between women and men,' such as universities and the caring professions, are now commonly showing 'support for feminist principles, as well as some level of practical sharing of housework and childcare' (xxvi-xxvii). Segal also notes the success of the White Ribbon Campaign in creating mass awareness among men about violence against women (xxvii). Even informally, day by day, it's observable that more Western men are sympathetic to feminism than they were a generation ago and that more men are changing in response to women's expectations. Butt overall, as Segal implies, 'collective anti-sexist initiatives by men' have had relatively little public impact in Britain and are unlikely to be an effective means of changing the social and political landscape. As Australian profeminist R.W. Connell puts it, 'No huge crowds of men have become feminists' (1995: 226). Clatterbaugh (1997) is pessimistic about the future of a large, politically based profeminist movement in the United States. He points to the troubles of NOMAS, the demise of the profeminist magazine Changing Men, and the demise or low circulation figures of smaller antisexist publications (both the Australian magazine XY and the British magazine Achilles Heel have at least temporarily ceased publication). According to Clatterbaugh, although profeminist activism and theory have contributed substantially to building men's studies as an academic area, 'success in academia is not necessarily a sign of success in the movement' (1997: 198). In fact, he argues, profeminism stands in danger of becoming 'a largely academic discipline, complete with esoteric methodologies, while its political activism fades from sight' (198). By the early to mid-1990s, NOMAS was in peril. But at the same time, hundreds of thousands of men were packing football stadiums to attend rallies organized by the right-wing Christian 'Promise Keepers,' and millions of Black men were joining the 'Million Man March' to Washington. Profeminism was never an enormously popular movement, even in its heyday, but in the 1970s the prospect of working with women to eliminate gender-based injustice and oppression did engage a number of men. Today, it seems that only small handfuls of men are still actively engaging political, antisexist feminism. Why are so few men willing to support feminism collectively and publicly? Besides the fact that maintaining non-profit organizations can be exhausting and dispiriting (many former activists have suffered from burn-out), it's extraordinarily difficult to navigate political tensions around not only racism and sexual orientation, but also male privilege and men's relations with feminism. In Clatterbaugh's view, profeminism in the United States has yet to address adequately two major conundrums: how men can face the challenge of helping women achieve equality if this means relinquishing or sharing power with women, and how men can radically change themselves and eradicate violence without learning to hate their own masculinity. The first of these prospects - relinquishing or sharing power - is distasteful or frightening. Movements like the Promise Keepers recognize as much; that group validates patriarchal interpretations of masculinity and does not demand that men fundamentally change their ways of thinking about power and gender relations. The second prospect - essentially, redefining masculinity - can be extremely difficult and painful. Robert Bly's mythopoetic conception of the 'deep masculine,' with its therapeutic emphasis on group work, tries to give men tools to redefine masculinity in positive and empowering ways. But the mythopoetic movement does not fundamentally question the oppressive power relations that helped shape 'mythological' concepts of masculinity in the first place. These scenarios suggest that men do want to change, but that perhaps rather than the traditional model of men mobilizing around a feminist political issue, profeminist men should consider how feminist principles might be brought to bear on existing men's groups or organizations. Connell (1995) contends that for men, organizations based structurally on feminist principles '*cannot* be the main form of counter-sexist politics among men, because the project of social justice in gender relations is directed *against* the interest they share. Broadly speaking, anti-sexist politics must be a source of disunity among men, not a source of solidarity' (236). Connell believes that political activists in the area of masculinity, instead of staying within 'pure gender politics,' (237), should form groups based on situations that potentially intersect with gender injustice. He notes how British theorizing on masculinity has benefited from exploring interrelations with class issues such as labour unions, working conditions, and the education of young men (237-8). Connell sees more promise in an 'alliance politics,' in which 'the project of social justice depends on the overlapping of interests between different groups (rather than mobilization of one group around its common interest)' (238). If profeminist organizations themselves are in peril, there are still many opportunities for men to build productive personal and working relationships with feminist women. Men can (and do) engage in partnership or coalition work with women, listen to and cooperate with experienced feminists, critique (and help other men critique) oppressive masculinities and promote 'male-positive' alternatives, and encourage boys and men to make gender equality part of their lives. Participating in small, local projects with specific goals - coaching boys' and girls' teams, producing films, speaking in schools, taking a women's studies course, promoting forms of gender justice in workplaces, making profeminist or feminist resources available to men on the Web, and (yes) cooking and doing the dishes - can provide some opportunities for men to transform oppressive gender relations. The mass profeminist movement is no longer as visible as it once was. It may not even be a viable way for most men to incorporate feminism into their lives. Yet as Gloria Steinem (1992) has said: 'Women want a men's movement. We are literally dying for it.' There is reason to believe that men are becoming increasingly aware of the impact of feminism in their lives; that some are questioning the enormous damage wrought by patriarchy; that not all men are resisting feminism; and indeed, that more men are thinking about and enacting feminist principles each day in myriad ways that are perhaps too small to see through a broad sociopolitical lens. NOTE 1. NOCM became NOMAS (the National Organization of Men Against Sexism in 1990; Messner uses this name in his discussion (1997) of the organization's activities before 1990. --------------------- "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." V in "V for Vendetta." http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From realmedicine at shaw.ca Mon Jun 26 20:35:30 2006 From: realmedicine at shaw.ca (Sonya McLeod) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 19:35:30 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Drug firms a danger to health Message-ID: Drug firms a danger to health - report International research exposes flaws in ?33bn marketing budget Sarah Boseley, health editor Monday June 26, 2006 The Guardian Drug companies are accused today of endangering public health through widescale marketing malpractices, ranging from covertly attempting to persuade consumers that they are ill to bribing doctors and misrepresenting the results of safety and efficacy tests on their products. In a report that charts the scale of illicit practices by drug companies in the UK and across Europe, Consumers International - the world federation of consumer organisations - says people are not being given facts about the medicines they take because the companies hide the marketing tactics on which they spend billions. "Irresponsible marketing practices form a serious, persistent and widespread problem among the entire pharmaceutical industry," says the report, which analyses the conduct of 20 of the biggest companies, two of which are British. It calls for tougher government controls and for the companies to put their house in order. Scandals such as the withdrawal of Vioxx, a drug to relieve pain and inflammation in arthritis, show that unethical drug promotion is a consumer concern, says the report. Merck withdrew the drug in September 2004, but allegedly knew it could increase the chances of heart attacks and strokes from 2000 and has been accused of manipulating study results to play down the risk. More than 6,000 lawsuits have been filed against the company in the United States by people who claim they suffered heart attacks as a result of the drug, or by their families. Despite regulatory action against drug companies, the malpractice continues, says CI. Many people in the UK may feel they are secure because they trust their doctors to tell them which drug to take, but CI says there is no room for complacency when drug companies spend twice as much on marketing as on research - $60bn last year (?33bn) - but do not publish information on their drug promotion practices. Of the 20 companies, only Bristol-Myers Squibb provides a marketing code of conduct to consumers. "One obvious area of concern is about how the promotion of drugs by the pharmaceutical companies to doctors can lead to irrational drug use," says Richard Lloyd, CI's director general. "There is a lot of evidence around of malpractice. This report has found that it is still going on and in a big way and it must be stopped." More than half the companies looked at were implicated in controversies regarding their relationships to healthcare professionals between 2001 and 2005, says the report. The British company AstraZeneca, for instance, has been criticised by regulatory bodies: it allegedly organised an event to promote its drug Crestor which included tickets for a musical, and provided flights and hotels for doctors to attend a conference on bipolar disorder on the French Riviera. AstraZeneca says all employees must now pass an exam on its code of conduct. GlaxoSmithKline, Britain's largest drug manufacturer, is under investigation by German and Italian authorities for alleged corruption of doctors - at least 1,600 in Germany and more than 4,000 in Italy, where the illegal gifts were said to amount to ?228m (?156m) from 1999 to 2002. GSK says it has since established marketing codes. New staff have to pass a test on the code of practice. The report points out that in 2004, 87 employees were dismissed or agreed to leave the company voluntarily as a result of breaches of the codes, and that sanctions such as written warnings were imposed in 109 cases. From tchimurenga at yahoo.com Tue Jun 27 00:56:25 2006 From: tchimurenga at yahoo.com (thandisizwe chimurenga) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 23:56:25 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [m2c] Ramona Africa, Betty Shabazz, Elaine Brown and more ... Message-ID: <20060627065625.58785.qmail@web33106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Some of Us Are Brave is back up and running on the internet at www.live365.com/stations/souab!!! We are soooo very sorry for the delay we really didn't mean to make some of ya'll's work week any harder than it had to be so now, you can do what it is that you do while listening to Black women's voices, views and experiences, and we promise not to take so long next time. No, really we promise. We've got some "new" old audio for you that is, we have some archived pieces from Sister Souljah, Dr. Betty Shabazz, bell hooks, Elaine Browne and others, and the initial pieces we started off with. Either way, we're more than positive that you will enjoy the offerings on Some of Us Are Brave. Don't forget to check the SOUAB Audio/Resource blog for background info on what's playing, who it is and where it came from. The Ida B. Wells Institute blog is going to be updated any minute now I can feel it ... No, really, I can. As always, if you didn't ask to be put on this list and you want off immediately, just reply with a "friendly" email asking to be taken off and you will be with a quick! If you received this at your work email address and you would like to switch to a different one, just drop us a "friendly" email telling us so and it shall be done. As for the rest of ya'll why not send a "friendly" email to your friends on our behalf? In the words of a customer service sign I saw a while back: If you like our product, tell others if you don't like it, tell us! Peace! Thandi for SOUAB -- Some of Us Are Brave: A BlackWomen's Radio Program www.live365.com/stations/souab http://souab.blogspot.com --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Get on board. You're invited to try the new Yahoo! Mail Beta. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 2159 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/margins-to-centre/attachments/20060626/b7004f0b/attachment.txt From sandinista at shaw.ca Thu Jun 29 01:03:53 2006 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 00:03:53 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Forced Prostitution Shadows World Cup Message-ID: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=33590 Forced Prostitution Shadows World Cup Jess Smee BERLIN, Jun 13 (IPS) - Among the millions of people converging on Germany for the World Cup, some are here against their will -- the women who have been trafficked to be forced into prostitution. Non-governmental organisations and human rights groups say more needs to be done about the tragic reality of the women, often from eastern Europe, who are lured by false promises of lucrative temporary work -- or abducted from their countries. As the World Cup gets into gear, NGOs have reported the first cases of women forced into the sex trade. "We have already received calls from victims," Lea Ackermann, head of the catholic charity Slowodi told IPS in a telephone interview. "Clinics have also put us in touch with women forced into prostitution who need help." On Monday, European Union Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini warned that trafficking was on the rise during the showcase competition. He urged tighter checks along Germany's borders to beef up recent controls along the frontier with Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. "There is this knock-on effect we have feared," Frattini told the European Parliament. Media reports have suggested that as many as 40,000 women will travel to Germany to work in the sex trade during the World Cup. Prostitutes associations and new brothels, including a plush five-million-euro bordello complex in Berlin, are predicting a bonanza tournament. It is unclear how many of the extra prostitutes are victims of people smugglers. Four hotline numbers are being run by separate NGOs during the competition in a bid to offer victims of the trade an escape route from traffickers who frighten women into captivity using violence and blackmail. Slowodi is running one such number, providing advice and support in six languages. Just a stone's throw from the Brandenberg gate in Berlin, hundreds of thousands of people are thronging the so-called "fan mile", a stretch of beer tents, pulsating music and big screens. Among the crowds, the German Women's Council has opened an information stand to boost awareness of human trafficking -- just one aspect of an umbrella campaign supported by international NGOs and the European Parliament. Victims of traffickers who manage to escape by calling the hotline numbers in Berlin are likely to be sent to shelters, such as those run by Ban-Ying, a Thai term for "House of Women".. Founded in 1988, Ban-Ying runs a shelter and a counselling service to tackle the practical and emotional consequences of trafficking. But having analysed the World Cup effect on human trafficking with the police, Nivedita Prasad, coordinator of the centre, refutes claims of a spurt in human trafficking linked to the sporting event. "There are rumours flying around but in reality we don't expect many more women to arrive at the shelter," she told IPS. "In the four-week competition, women will never make enough to pay their traffickers. Also, Germany will be crawling with police, making it more likely for the women -- and their traffickers -- to be caught." Officially some 1,000 women are trafficked to Germany every year, a figure Prasad says is in reality six times as high. Instead of focusing on the World Cup's effect on the sex industry, she says the media should highlight the plight of those entrapped by people smugglers -- a problem not restricted to sporting events. She describes a typical story from the Ban Ying shelter: A woman from Ukraine, a teacher by profession, needed to buy expensive medication for her son. Short of money, she borrowed from a neighbour in exchange for working for a few months as a babysitter in Germany. Once across the border she was forced into prostitution. Her captors used violence and blackmail to keep her in the sex trade, threatening her that photographs of her as a prostitute would be sent to her family if she tried to escape. "These women are stuck in Germany with no money and no language. If they escape from their captors the ordeal is not over. Those who testify against their traffickers are in danger of reprisals. If they don't testify, they are often re-trafficked when they return to their towns or villages as their history is known." In Germany, as in all other European countries except Italy, trafficked people are only allowed to stay in the country as long as they testify against their smugglers. "But some are so traumatized by their experiences that they are unable to testify as witnesses and therefore are sent straight home. Once back in their hometowns there is a big risk that they are caught again by the traffickers," Prasad said. Human rights organisation Amnesty International -- which is among those using the World Cup as a platform to publicise forced prostitution -- has urged the German authorities not to repatriate women who have been victims of human trafficking without first offering them medical, psychological and legal help. They argue that this help should not be conditional on cooperation in legal proceedings against traffickers. In the run-up to the international tournament, the United States, Sweden and Britain all called on Germany to do more to stamp out exploitation during the competition -- which is expected to attract more than three million visitors, mostly men. Congressman Christopher Smith, a republican and chairman of the human rights subcommittee, warned the World Cup host that it is creating a virtual partnership with brothel owners, pimps and traffickers. He criticised Germany, where prostitution has been legal since 2002, for creating special permits for street prostitution and so-called "performance boxes" - temporary wooden cabins in the outskirts of some cities where prostitutes can meet punters. Last Monday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the fight against trafficking "a great moral calling of our time." People smuggling is a massive global industry, worth some 11 billion euros annually, making it the third most lucrative illicit earner for organised crime after arms and drugs dealing, according to the United Nations. It is estimated that around one million people, mostly women, are trapped by people smugglers worldwide every year. (END/2006) --------------------- "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." V in "V for Vendetta." http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Thu Jun 29 01:03:55 2006 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 00:03:55 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Women Without Fear Message-ID: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10423 ZNet | Activism Women Without Fear by Subcomandante Marcos; June 12, 2006 Originally published in Spanish by the EZLN Translated by irlandesa *Women: Assembly Instructions? Words from the Sixth Committee of the EZLN for the public event "Women Without Fear. We Are All Atenco." May 22, 2006 May 22, 2006 Good evening. My name is Marcos, Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos. For those of you who are familiar with zapatismo, it might not be necessary to explain what I'm doing here, at an event of and for women. Of course you are not just women, but women who have decided to raise your voices in order to protest against the attacks the police have been making, and are making, on other women since May 3 and 4, 2006 in San Salvador Atenco, in the State of Mexico, in the Mexican Republic. You are, here, there and everywhere, women without fear. My name is Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, and I am, among other things, the spokesperson for the EZLN, a primarily indigenous organization which fights for democracy, liberty and justice for our country which is called Mexico. As spokesperson for the EZLN, those others take voice through my voice, those who comprise us, who give us face, word, heart. A collective voice. In that collective voice is the voice of zapatista women. And along with our voices and hearing are also our looking, our zapatista lights and shadows. I am called Marcos, and among the numerous personal flaws I bear, sometimes cynically and cockily, is that of being man, macho, male. As such I must bear, and often flaunt, a series of archetypes, clich?s, proofs. Not only in regard to me and my sex, but also and above all in reference to woman, the female gender. To those flaws which define me personally, someone might add the one we have as zapatistas, to wit, that of still not having lost the capacity for being astonished, for being amazed. As zapatistas, sometimes we approach other voices which we know to be different, strange, and yet similar and appropriate. Voices which astonish and amaze our ear with your light...and with your shadow. Voices, for example, of women. >From the collective which gives us face and name, journey and path, we go to great effort in choosing where to direct ear and heart. And so now we are choosing to hear the voice of women who have no fear. Can one listen to a light? And, if so, can one listen to a shadow? And who else chooses, as we are today, to lend ear - and with it, thought and heart - in order to listen to those voices? We choose. We choose to be here, to listen to and make echo for an injustice committed against women. We choose to be fearless in order to listen to those who were not afraid to speak. The brutality wielded by the bad Mexican governments in San Salvador Atenco on the 3rd and 4th of May, and which is still going on, to this very night, against the prisoners, especially the violence against women, is what summons us. And not only that. Those bad governments are trying to sow fear through their actions, and, no, what is happening now is that they are sowing indignation and anger. In a newspaper this morning, one of the individuals who, along with Vicente Fox and his cabinet, are priding themselves on "imposing the Rule of Law," Se?or Pe?a Nieto (alleged Governor of the State of Mexico), stated that what happened at Atenco had been planned. If this were so, then those who were beaten, illegally detained, sexually attacked, raped, humiliated, then they planned, among other things, to be women. We know, from the statements of those without fear who were detained, who are our compa?eras, that they were attacked as women, their women's bodies violated. And we also know from their words that the violence visited upon their bodies brought pleasure to the policemen. The woman's body taken violently, usurped, attacked in order to obtain pleasure. And the promise of that pleasure taken on those women's bodies was the lagniappe which the police received along with the mandate to "impose peace and order" in Atenco. Certainly according to the government they planned on having the body of a woman, and, they planned, with extreme depravity, that their bodies would be plunder for the "forces of law." Se?or Fox, the federal leader of "change" and of the "Rule of Law," clarified for us a few months ago that women are "two-legged washing machines" (partial disclaimer, revolving payment plans and go to the customer service department). And it so happens that up above those machines of pleasure and of work, which are the bodies of women, include assembly instructions which the dominant system assigns them. If a human being is born woman, she must travel throughout her life a path which has been built especially for her. Being a girl. Being an adolescent. Being a young woman. Being an adult. Being mature. Being old. And not just from menarche to menopause. Capitalism has discovered they can obtain objects of work and pleasure in infancy and in old age, and we have "Gobers Preciosos" and pedophile businessmen everywhere for the appropriation and administration of those objects. Women, they say above, should travel through life begging pardon and asking permission for being, and in order to be, women. And traveling a path full of barbed wire. A path which must be traveled by crawling, with head and heart against the ground. And, even so, despite following the assembly instructions, gathering scrapes, wounds, scars, blows, amputations, death. And seeking the one responsible for those sorrows in oneself, because condemnation is also included in the crime of being women. In the assembly instructions for the merchandise known as "Woman," it explains that the model should always have her head bowed. That her most productive position is on her knees. That the brain is optional, and its inclusion is often counterproductive. That her heart should be nourished with trivialities. That her spirit should be maintained by competition with others of her same gender in order to attract the buyer, that always unsatisfied customer who is the male. That her ignorance should be fed in order to guarantee better functioning. That the product is capable of self-maintenance and improvement (and there is a wide range of products for that, in addition to salons and metal and painting workshops). That she should not only learn to reduce her vocabulary to "yes" and "no," but, above all, she should learn when she should speak these words. There is a warranty included in the assembly instructions for the product called "Woman" that she will always have her head lowered. And that, if for some involuntary or premeditated manufacturing defect, one should lift her gaze, then the implacable scythe of Power will chop off the place of thought, and condemn her to walking as if being a woman were something for which one must ask forgiveness and for which one must ask permission. In order to comply with this warranty, there are governments who substitute the weapons and sex of their police officers for their lack of brain. And, in addition, these same governments have mental hospitals, jails and cemeteries for irreparably "broken" women. A bullet, a punch, a penis, prison bars, a judge, a government, in sum, a system, puts a sign on a woman who doesn't ask for forgiveness or permission which reads "Out of Service. Non-Recyclable Product." Women must ask permission in order to be a woman, and it is granted to her if she is so according to what is shown in the assembly instructions. Women should serve men, always following those instructions, in order to be absolved of the crime of being a woman. At home, in the fields, the street, the school, work, transportation, culture, art, entertainment, science, government. Twenty-four hours a day and 365 days a year. From when they are born until they die, women confront this assembly process. But there are women who confront it with rebellion. Women who, instead of asking permission, command their own existence. Women who, instead of begging pardon, demand justice. Because the assembly instructions say that women should be submissive and walk on their knees. And, nonetheless, some women are naughty and walk upright. There are women who tear up the assembly instructions and stand up on their feet. There are women without fear. They say that when a woman moves forward, no men move back. It depends, I say, from my machismo reloaded perspective - a mixture of Pedro Infante and Jos? Alfredo Jim?nez. It depends, for example, on whether the man is in front of the woman who is moving forward. My name is Marcos, I have the personal flaw of being man, macho, male. And the collective virtue of being what we are, we who are zapatistas. As such, I confess that I am astonished and amazed at seeing a woman raise herself up and seeing the assembly instructions shattering, torn into pieces. A woman standing up is so beautiful that it makes one shiver just to look at her. And that is what listening is, learning to look... Cheers to these women, to our imprisoned compa?eras and to those who are gathered here. Cheers for your having no fear. Cheers for the valor which you pass on to us, for the conviction you grant us that if we do nothing to change this system, we are all accomplices in it. >From the Other City of Mexico. Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos Mexico, May of 2006 PS WHICH ASKS: What punishment do those officials, leaders and police deserve who attacked the women, our compa?eras, like that? What punishment does the system deserve which has turned being a woman into a crime? If we are silent, if we look the other way, if we allow the police brutality in Atenco to go unpunished, who will be safe? Isn't the release of all the Atenco prisoners thus a matter of elemental justice? --------------------- "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." V in "V for Vendetta." http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Thu Jun 29 01:03:57 2006 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 00:03:57 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Women fly Palestinian flag on the pitch Message-ID: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/1172F4EE-6669-41EA-8C14-CC28DE83D2A1. htm Women fly Palestinian flag on the pitch By Rachel Shabi in Bethlehem Wednesday 14 June 2006, 17:47 Makka Time, 14:47 GMT They run around the pitch several times, do their warm-up exercises and settle into some earnest tackling, dribbling and shooting practice. It is a hard session; one of the first in a few months, but the girls are all grinning - clearly glad to be playing "the beautiful game". This is one half of the Palestinian women's football team, made up of players from local sides including Ram Allah, Gaza and Bethlehem, which has been playing in tournaments abroad. Their strip is in the colours of the Palestinian flag, and the Muslim players wear long sleeves, trousers and headscarves. Honey Thaljieh, 21, and the team captain, says: "It's great to raise our flag in the Arab league tournaments." In April, the team took part in a 10-day women's football tournament in Alexandria, Egypt. "It's great to raise our flag in the Arab league tournaments" Honey Thaljieh, team captain In February, the team was in Abu Dhabi for the first Arab women's football championship. Last September, the team played in Amman, Jordan, for the first West Asian women's football championships. Samar Araj Mousa, who manages the team and is the athletic director at Bethlehem University, says: "Always we lose, but sometimes we play as well as the other teams." Lack of opportunities Jackline Jazrawi, in the white jersey, plays in Abu Dhabi Mousa, who formed the team nearly three years ago, says that the players' talent and energy is hampered by a lack of training opportunities. "The West Asian championships were the first time we played on a proper pitch," she says. The team practice on a concrete pitch in Bethlehem or on a gravel one in nearby Bait Sahur. The nearest grass pitch is three hours away in Jericho. Some of the girls have knee and ankle injuries, the result of falling on to concrete rather than grass. Moreover, says Jackline Jazrawi, 20, a team member, it is even harder in winter when it rains. "This playing ground has a leaking roof, so we fall a lot from slipping in the puddles." Israeli checkpoints The national women's team rarely gets to train together because of the Israeli checkpoints. "When we went to Egypt, we met half the team there," says Jazrawi. "We only practised together two or three times before we played in the tournament." Honey Thaljieh, the team captain in action in Abu Dhabi Mousa also set up the Bethlehem side, but not without some raised eyebrows; there was a debate as to whether women should be playing, she says. But a survey of residents showed that 85% were in support. "The ones who were not happy were mostly from the Islamic quarter," says Mousa. "They said that football is a rough game for girls, or that the clothes are sexy, or that if women play it must be indoors and with a male coach." But the women from Bethlehem University and schools in the area leapt at the chance. Thaljieh, who graduated with a business administration degree this year, says: "It was my hobby when I was young and I played in the neighbourhood with my brothers. "Whenever I saw a football, I was immediately drawn to it." Football opens minds The Bethlehem players, who range in age from 11 to 22, train twice a week with additional fitness sessions run by Mousa at the university. "We have nowhere else to go and nowhere to put our energies," says Thaljieh. "In Bethlehem we are in a prison that is only open from above." "We have nowhere else to go and nowhere to put our energies" Honey Thaljieh The city is surrounded by Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks, with the separation barrier running along its northern side. The players also believe the game provides them with an opportunity to challenge traditional female roles. Jazrawi, a biology student at Bethlehem University, says: "The Arab world is very strict compared with other cultures. "We have to change it, and the change will start with the women. Through football we can make our minds more open, and our society too." --------------------- "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." V in "V for Vendetta." http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Thu Jun 29 01:03:57 2006 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 00:03:57 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Over 500 Reports of Sexual Assault among U.S. Troops Message-ID: ABC News Blotter - Jun 27, 2006 http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/06/over_500_report.html Over 500 Reports of Sexual Assault among U.S. Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan by Tom Shine and Maddy Sauer Over 500 cases of sexual assault have been reported among U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan since the summer of 2002, according to the executive director of the Miles Foundation, a nonprofit group that tracks sexual crimes in the military. "The combat theater is illustrative of the hostility towards women in the U.S. Armed Forces," according to Christine Hansen, the executive director of the foundation. Hansen is testifying this afternoon before the House Government Reform Committee. Hansen notes that survivors of sexual assault in the combat theater point to many issues that contribute to the hostile environment there for women in the military, including "lack of privacy to perform daily routines; insufficient lighting in and around the tents; isolation; existence of a sexually charged atmosphere; presence of pornography; and availability of condoms for male troops." Hansen also points out that the wide availability of alcohol has not helped. Alcohol has been involved in 70 to 75 percent of the reported cases. Services and advocate programs for the victims of sexual violence are also not getting the resources they need to operate effectively, says Hansen. "Victim advocates, dedicated to protecting victims' rights, have been denied resources, forced off the base and unfairly dismissed," according to Hansen. She adds that victims are not entitled to the same protections as civilians and that they are unable to seek confidential counseling without the fear that counselors may be forced to turn over their records. Sexual violence within the military has led to scandalous headlines, and the Department of Defense has attempted to address the issue via task forces, panels and more. Today's hearing focuses on whether or not the Department of Defense has addressed recommendations made by the Defense Task Force on Sexual Harassment and Violence at the military service academies. June 27, 2006 User Comments: Below you will find a copy of a statement for the congressional hearing that is being held today on sexual assault and rape in the military. Good Morning America called me yesterday about doing an interview with them for the show. However, they dumped on me just like the military did. Anyway, here is the written statement I submitted for the congressional hearing. It's only a small piece of what happened. Just because the perpetrator was sentenced it doesn't make it a success story because my mental and physical conditions is equally to blame not just on the offender but the military too. Here is my written statement: Deceitful and untrustworthy is how my colleagues and superiors described me for reporting a crime of sexual assault on 30 May 2002 and rape on 10 June 2002. I was only 10 days into my first duty station in Germany when the offender sexually assaulted me. 10 days after that the same offender raped me. "it's your fault", my command stated. "He done it because you look like his wife," as they laughed. "Why didn't you want to have sex with him when he is sooooooo... cute", laughing again. "Keep your mouth shut, there is too much red tape," the sergeant stated over and over again. That's only a few words that I was harrassed with during my time at my post. I never heard of so many horrific statements that could be made to one person or about one person. It took 7 days after the incidents that I was finally took to CID. After a number of attempts at reporting these crimes, a Sergeant finally took me serious and reported the crimes up the chain of command. I was immediately sent to fire my weapon. The next morning I had to take a physical fitness test when I wasn't even healed from the physical problems from the rape. After returning to the barracks, I found that the command moved the perpetrator into the same building in which I lived. When I asked about it, I was told he wasn't a dangerous man. Yet, three months prior to assaulting me he had an account of simple assult consumattd by battery and disorderly conduct. It took a Surgeon to get him removed from the building in which I resided. Next, the rapist, was placed to work in the gym-a place that he could've repeated another crime of rape, sodomy, indecent exposure, and indecent assault very easily. He definitely did not need to be placed in an area where women's bodies were more exposed than usual while working out. It also caused me to lose my privilege of working out because he worked in there. I had to face this offender on a daily basis for four months. Harrassment was from privates all the way up to Colonel's. When I learned about IG and what their careers were about, I turned to them for help. Not long after calling the IG, I was took into the First Sergeant's office and threatened and forced to say that I would never call IG again. All of my rights as a victim of sexual assault and rape were violated numerous times. Even after the trial and when I was finally moved back to the U.S., I was threatened with obstruction of justice and perjury if I didn't quit trying to find out the perpetrators status in prison and why his military lawyer was calling all the individuals that I was working with. I barely had enough strength to fight off the horrific events the command had put me through. I had to keep repeating the fact that I wanted to pursue charges against him. He confessed and should have been put into pre-trial confinement, however, he plead not guilty. One of the most disturbing acts was the fact that the legal team lost the preliminary hearing tape recorded testimony. I had to go through a second preliminary hearing in order to keep fighting to have him convicted. In the end, I came out strong during the trial. He was found guilty of rape, sodomy, indecent exposure, and indecent assault. My military lawyer ask that he be sentenced to 15 years. He did receive 15 years, forfeiture of all pay, loss of rank, and a bad-conduct discharge. With a bad-conduct discharge he has the opportunity to get his discharge upgraded. He should have definitely received a dishonorable discharge. Still, four years after the incidents (the sexual assault, rape, and revictimazation by the ARMY), I have to be in psychotherapy twice weekly. I also still have to see a psychiatrist once a month. I remain to have severe PTSD, major depressive episode, and self-mutilation. Why, you might ask-I see his face and hear his voice. However, I also see the faces and hear the voices of all of those who harrassed me. This is only a small portion of all the things I was put through because I reported a sexual assault and rape. It is only and only in your hands to protect other victims of crimes from being treated in such a horrific way that I was. For those who do not follow the 7 Army Core Values and make sure they protect the victims, should get a stiff punishment. It is your power to employee victim advocates who are trained well enough to help the victim out instead of push them out of the way. You must create safe places that can be provided to victims. It is your duty to make all necessary changes to protect and treat victims with respect. You need to create and find a safe place that a victim can receive therapy when needed. While going through therapy, it is important that it be made private to protect the victims' privacy. It shouldn't be known to the whole post that a victim is getting therapy, just like the way that I was put out there for everyone to know I was raped and going to therapy. It's not isolated incidents. Similar things are happening to the men and women who serve our country. They expect to be treated unfairly by an enemy, but not by someone wearing a U.S. military uniform, not their colleagues, nor their superiors. It will be a tremendous challenge for you to make necessary changes to protect our own men and women from our own military. Those who are wounded in war have to live with those wounds for the rest of their lives. We, too, have to live with the wounds from being raped. The incident never fades and all the revictimazation from our military doesn't fade away either. The only good memories I have of the military is basic training and advanced individudal training-the things that most service members hate. There are no words for the horror I encountered for the rest of the period I had to stay in the military. Even when serving in the military, I had to seek support from those working outside of the military. I had to be placed on Temporary Disabled Retired List because of the severity of the PTSD and depression. I currently receive a 100% rating from the Veteran Affairs because the PTSD, depression, and self-mutilation continue in my life. My life will forever be horrified by not only the perpetrator, but also the coleagues and superiors who I had to work with. It was nothing but pure revictamazation each day of my military career. I ask that you please make necessary adjustments to protect our military women and men from being punished for reporting crimes. Victims of sexual assault and rape should feel comfortable enough that they can report the assaults without feeling they will be punished for keeping their loyalty, duty, respect, selfless serivce, honor, integrity, and personal courage. It is in your hands to protect our own from our own. Education can be a part of this plan, but other measures need to be taken to ensure that victims safety is priority. Anyone who violates a victims rights should be punished to the fullest. You must make this happen. Protect our own military personnel. You are the power to upholding victims' rights. Susan N. Upchurch 803 Vance Street Paragould, AR 72450 (870) 335-2109 Posted by: Susan N. Upchurch | Jun 27, 2006 2:28:28 PM --------------------- "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." V in "V for Vendetta." http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre From sandinista at shaw.ca Fri Jun 30 15:38:31 2006 From: sandinista at shaw.ca (usman x) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 14:38:31 -0700 Subject: [m2c] Ramona Africa, Betty Shabazz, Elaine Brown and more ... In-Reply-To: <20060627065625.58785.qmail@web33106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Thanks alot for sharing this important radio site. Its nice cause people with young kids, like me, who cant read very much, can at least listen to stuff on the radio. The Julia Sudbury bit was awesome, her book "Global Lockdown: Race, Gender, and the Prison-Industrial Complex" sounds really good. I was also wondering, is it possible to get transcripts of any of the talks on the station in electronic format? u -----Original Message----- From: margins-to-centre-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu [mailto:margins-to-centre-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu]On Behalf Of thandisizwe chimurenga Sent: Monday, June 26, 2006 11:56 PM To: margins-to-centre at lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: [m2c] Ramona Africa, Betty Shabazz, Elaine Brown and more ... Some of Us Are Brave is back up and running on the internet at www.live365.com/stations/souab!!! We are soooo very sorry for the delay we really didn't mean to make some of ya'll's work week any harder than it had to be so now, you can do what it is that you do while listening to Black women's voices, views and experiences, and we promise not to take so long next time. No, really we promise. We've got some "new" old audio for you that is, we have some archived pieces from Sister Souljah, Dr. Betty Shabazz, bell hooks, Elaine Browne and others, and the initial pieces we started off with. Either way, we're more than positive that you will enjoy the offerings on Some of Us Are Brave. Don't forget to check the SOUAB Audio/Resource blog for background info on what's playing, who it is and where it came from.