Sunday, December 27, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
Grace Paley Quote Shirt from Code Pink!
From Code Pink:
Even after all the disappointments of this year, the items on the list and our own strength and persistence give me immense hope in the possibilities to come as we greet the New Year. As visionary activist and writer Grace Paley said, "The ONLY recognizable feature of HOPE is ACTION" - so ACT today and support CODEPINK with a donation and get your Grace Paley t-shirt, designed by Phillip Niemeyer in our store!
For the tank top version:
https://codepink.myshopify.com/products/hope-grace-paley-tank-top
Or for a long sleeve version
https://codepink.myshopify.com/products/hope-grace-paley-3-4-sleeve
Or for a regular classic tee:
https://codepink.myshopify.com/products/hope-grace-paley-tee
Even after all the disappointments of this year, the items on the list and our own strength and persistence give me immense hope in the possibilities to come as we greet the New Year. As visionary activist and writer Grace Paley said, "The ONLY recognizable feature of HOPE is ACTION" - so ACT today and support CODEPINK with a donation and get your Grace Paley t-shirt, designed by Phillip Niemeyer in our store!
For the tank top version:
https://codepink.myshopify.com/products/hope-grace-paley-tank-topOr for a long sleeve version
https://codepink.myshopify.com/products/hope-grace-paley-3-4-sleeveOr for a regular classic tee:
https://codepink.myshopify.com/products/hope-grace-paley-tee
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Speaking Truth to Power: Grace Paley
This is a recording of the event held at Barnard College in celebration of Grace Paley's birthfay.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Grace Paley Celebration at Barnard! TODAY
Grace Paley: Speaking Truth to Power
with Yvette Christiansë, Ynestra King, Nancy Kricorian, and Amy Swerdlow
A Panel Discussion: Friday, 12/11, 6:30 PM
James Room, 4th Floor Barnard Hall, Barnard College, 3009 Broadway, NYC
On Grace Paley's birthday, we present a conversation exploring how imagination, truthtelling, and courageous action flow out of Paley's life and work. A prolific writer, Paley's fiction highlights them everyday struggles of women, what she calls "a history of everyday life." In addition to her writing, Paley was also a committed activist, passionate about numerous issues, including women's rights, the Vietnam War, nuclear non-proliferation, and most recently, the war in Iraq. Her death in 2007 was a great loss, but her work continues to inspire.
Speakers, coming from a range of generations, will include politically engaged writers, artists, and activists in such causes as immigration rights, housing, human rights, gay and lesbian issues, foreclosure actions, anti-militarism and other important struggles. The speakers have all drawn inspiration from Paley's work and life and demonstrate various affinities to the amazing woman, artist and thinker who described herself as a "combative pacifist and cooperative anarchist."
Speakers will include:
Lucila Silva, a member of The Center for Immigrant Families Collective--The Center for Immigrant Families (CIF) is an inter-generational, collectively-run organization of low-income immigrant women of color
and community members in Manhattan Valley. CIF’s mission is to address the inter-connected challenges facing our communities by linking our personal/psychological well-being, health, and development to sustained organizing that transforms the root causes of the injustices we confront and their multi-layered impact on our lives and communities.
Yvette Christiansë, a poet, novelist and scholar, teaches African American, African and African Diasporic literatures at Fordham University. Her novel Unconfessed was a finalist in the 2007 Hemingway/PEN Prize and shortlisted for the 2008 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Her first book of poems Castaway (1999), was
nominated for the 2001 PEN International Prize and her latest book of poetry, Imprendehora was published in South Africa by Kwela Books/Snail Press in 2009.
Ynestra King, ecofeminist activist and educator, is the author of Ecofeminism: The Reenchantment of Nature (Boston: Beacon Press, 1991); and editor of Dangerous Intersections: Feminist Perspectives on
Population, Environment, and Development with Jael Miriam Silliman; and Rocking the Ship of State : Toward a Feminist Peace Politics with Adrienne Harris. Her classes in Ecofeminism at the Institute for Social Ecology in the late 70's were among the first in the country.
Nancy Kricorian is a New York-based writer and activist. Author of the novels Zabelle and Dreams of Bread and Fire, her poetry has been published in PARNASSUS, MISSISSIPPI REVIEW and ARARAT. She is
currently dividing her time between writing her third novel and working as the New York City coordinator for CODEPINK WOMEN FOR PEACE, a women-initiated grassroots peace & social movement known for its use of direct action and street theater.
Amy Swerdlow is Professor Emerita, Sarah Lawrence College where she directed the MA Program in Women's History and the Women's Studies Program. Swerdlow is a co-founding member of Women Strike for Peace and author of Women Strike for Peace: Traditional Motherhood and Radical Politics in the 1960s and numerous articles on radical reform movements from the abolitionists in the 19th century to the peace movements of the late 20th century.
contact:
Lucy Trainor
Program Manager
Barnard Center for Research on Women
p (212) 854-2067
f (212) 854-8294
http://www.barnard.edu/bcrw
with Yvette Christiansë, Ynestra King, Nancy Kricorian, and Amy Swerdlow
A Panel Discussion: Friday, 12/11, 6:30 PM
James Room, 4th Floor Barnard Hall, Barnard College, 3009 Broadway, NYC
On Grace Paley's birthday, we present a conversation exploring how imagination, truthtelling, and courageous action flow out of Paley's life and work. A prolific writer, Paley's fiction highlights them everyday struggles of women, what she calls "a history of everyday life." In addition to her writing, Paley was also a committed activist, passionate about numerous issues, including women's rights, the Vietnam War, nuclear non-proliferation, and most recently, the war in Iraq. Her death in 2007 was a great loss, but her work continues to inspire.
Speakers, coming from a range of generations, will include politically engaged writers, artists, and activists in such causes as immigration rights, housing, human rights, gay and lesbian issues, foreclosure actions, anti-militarism and other important struggles. The speakers have all drawn inspiration from Paley's work and life and demonstrate various affinities to the amazing woman, artist and thinker who described herself as a "combative pacifist and cooperative anarchist."
Speakers will include:
Lucila Silva, a member of The Center for Immigrant Families Collective--The Center for Immigrant Families (CIF) is an inter-generational, collectively-run organization of low-income immigrant women of color
and community members in Manhattan Valley. CIF’s mission is to address the inter-connected challenges facing our communities by linking our personal/psychological well-being, health, and development to sustained organizing that transforms the root causes of the injustices we confront and their multi-layered impact on our lives and communities.
Yvette Christiansë, a poet, novelist and scholar, teaches African American, African and African Diasporic literatures at Fordham University. Her novel Unconfessed was a finalist in the 2007 Hemingway/PEN Prize and shortlisted for the 2008 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Her first book of poems Castaway (1999), was
nominated for the 2001 PEN International Prize and her latest book of poetry, Imprendehora was published in South Africa by Kwela Books/Snail Press in 2009.
Ynestra King, ecofeminist activist and educator, is the author of Ecofeminism: The Reenchantment of Nature (Boston: Beacon Press, 1991); and editor of Dangerous Intersections: Feminist Perspectives on
Population, Environment, and Development with Jael Miriam Silliman; and Rocking the Ship of State : Toward a Feminist Peace Politics with Adrienne Harris. Her classes in Ecofeminism at the Institute for Social Ecology in the late 70's were among the first in the country.
Nancy Kricorian is a New York-based writer and activist. Author of the novels Zabelle and Dreams of Bread and Fire, her poetry has been published in PARNASSUS, MISSISSIPPI REVIEW and ARARAT. She is
currently dividing her time between writing her third novel and working as the New York City coordinator for CODEPINK WOMEN FOR PEACE, a women-initiated grassroots peace & social movement known for its use of direct action and street theater.
Amy Swerdlow is Professor Emerita, Sarah Lawrence College where she directed the MA Program in Women's History and the Women's Studies Program. Swerdlow is a co-founding member of Women Strike for Peace and author of Women Strike for Peace: Traditional Motherhood and Radical Politics in the 1960s and numerous articles on radical reform movements from the abolitionists in the 19th century to the peace movements of the late 20th century.
contact:
Lucy Trainor
Program Manager
Barnard Center for Research on Women
p (212) 854-2067
f (212) 854-8294
http://www.barnard.edu/bcrw
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Celebration of Grace's Birthday in Boston
REMEMBERING GRACE PALEY: DECEMBER 2009
Thursday, 10 December 2009 7-9PM
Friends Meeting House, 5 Longfellow Park (off Brattle Street), Cambridge, MA
With the holiday season fast approaching the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences will once again celebrate the life and work of writer and activist Grace Paley. The Grace Paley Tribute Reading, which will be held at Friends Meeting at Cambridge on Thursday, December 10th, 7-9 pm, will feature local activists reading from Grace’s work.
This year we are pleased to welcome students from UMass Boston who received special recognition through the 2009 Grace Paley Award for their community involvement. They are Son-ca Lam, Stephanie Fail and Heather Turner. Joining them will be Bob Nicols, Nora Paley, Bob Glassman, Bob Zevin, Trudi Cohen, Tom Goodkind, Michael Ansara, Wayne Smith, Barbara Lewis and many other activists, teachers and community organizers.
A potluck reception will follow the reading – please let us know if you’d like to contribute! You can email us at joinercenter@umb.edu. Copies of Grace’s books will be available at the reception.
The Joiner Center is also pleased to announce Tru Grace: Holiday Memoirs, a special production of Grace Paley’s short story “The Loudest Voice” by the Underground Railway Theater. Adapted by Wes Savick of Suffolk University’s Theatre Department, the play premieres on Thursday, November 19th and runs through Sunday, December 27th along with Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory.” These whimsical tales will be playing at Central Square Theater. For reservations check
www.centralsquaretheater.org, or by call the box office at 866-811-4111.
The Underground Railway Theater would also like to extend an invitation the Joiner Center community to participate in the sharing of anecdotes and/or the reading of a piece by Grace on December 6th, directly after the 2 pm matinee, when they will be hosting a celebration of Grace's life
Thursday, 10 December 2009 7-9PM
Friends Meeting House, 5 Longfellow Park (off Brattle Street), Cambridge, MA
With the holiday season fast approaching the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences will once again celebrate the life and work of writer and activist Grace Paley. The Grace Paley Tribute Reading, which will be held at Friends Meeting at Cambridge on Thursday, December 10th, 7-9 pm, will feature local activists reading from Grace’s work.
This year we are pleased to welcome students from UMass Boston who received special recognition through the 2009 Grace Paley Award for their community involvement. They are Son-ca Lam, Stephanie Fail and Heather Turner. Joining them will be Bob Nicols, Nora Paley, Bob Glassman, Bob Zevin, Trudi Cohen, Tom Goodkind, Michael Ansara, Wayne Smith, Barbara Lewis and many other activists, teachers and community organizers.
A potluck reception will follow the reading – please let us know if you’d like to contribute! You can email us at joinercenter@umb.edu. Copies of Grace’s books will be available at the reception.
The Joiner Center is also pleased to announce Tru Grace: Holiday Memoirs, a special production of Grace Paley’s short story “The Loudest Voice” by the Underground Railway Theater. Adapted by Wes Savick of Suffolk University’s Theatre Department, the play premieres on Thursday, November 19th and runs through Sunday, December 27th along with Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory.” These whimsical tales will be playing at Central Square Theater. For reservations check
www.centralsquaretheater.org, or by call the box office at 866-811-4111.
The Underground Railway Theater would also like to extend an invitation the Joiner Center community to participate in the sharing of anecdotes and/or the reading of a piece by Grace on December 6th, directly after the 2 pm matinee, when they will be hosting a celebration of Grace's life
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Aminetu Haidar: In Spite of Everything. Saharawi on Hunger Strike
by ATENEA AVECEDO
Aminetu Haidar was arrested at the El Aaiun Airport (former capital of Western Sahara, a country under Moroccan military occupation since 1975) because in filling out the corresponding entry form she wrote "Western Sahara" as her country of origin instead of "Morocco". The Moroccan authorities confiscated her passport and forced her aboard another aircraft bound to Lanzarote, Canary Islands, Spain). The Spanish authorities refuse to let her fly back to El Aaiun, where her children are, because she does not have the necessary papers. What might seem a mere red tape issue reveals, on one hand, the toughening of Moroccan policies against Saharawi human rights activists -being Saharawi and refusing to assume one's nationality as Moroccan is considered high treason by the Moroccan regime- and, on the other, the complicity between the Spanish and the Moroccan States. Aminetu Haidar initiated a hunger strike on 15 November as a protest against her current status.
Our senses, habituated to a never innocent violence – normalized through lingering media bombardment – only react when the scandalous aspect of news reaches the border between reality and fiction. Once in a while, almost always later than sooner, the violence that mercilessly strikes women appears in mass media headlines: women retained in Serbian rape camps, young working women slaughtered in Ciudad Juárez, women murdered by either romantic or sexual partners. Less frequently, a specific face repeats itself on the television screens and a name struggles to conquer a corner of our memory. Today such a face belongs to Saharawi activist Aminetu Haidar, a peaceful defender of human rights and international humanitarian rights whose case began to filter out through tiny snippets of information and now expands like a pool of uncontainable blood.
Aminetu – a former detainee in Moroccan secret jails, where she “disappeared” for years – has the willpower that we usually find in those who have lived and suffered enough to thoroughly know both the strength and fragility of the human spirit. The old and vile complicity between the governments of Spain and Morocco, a complicity that impedes Aminetu’s return to Western Sahara, her motherland – under military occupation since 1975 – and that has forced her to start a hunger strike against it, is the same that historically marks all perverse pacts signed to the detriment of people everywhere. Now it is the turn of the Saharawi people, affected for 34 years now by such complicity and surely even more as a former Spanish colony whose national identity was modified and resources exploited until the commercial alliances were consolidated that today define the inexcusable continuance of a shameful conflict.
Now, while Spanish government officials turn a deaf ear to a hunger strike in its second week, it’s useless to give an account of Spain’s violations of Aminetu’s demand to return to El Aaiun. Better to unmask the lie which is being repeated a thousand times to make it into a truth. But even more useful is to point out that what is happening in Aminetu’s case unveils the still concealed factual ins and outs of a political system that claims to be democratic and mistakenly acknowledges: 1) that democracy is simply dictatorship’s antonym, and 2) that societies are satisfied with periodic elections and spaces where they can shout their dissatisfaction even if nothing changes in the real world. Is this the harbor to which the globally celebrated “Spanish transition” has arrived after those very same 34 years? Or is it that the transition process is unfinished and one of its steps consists of a combination of handwashing and complicity with the current occupying power in its former colony?
A democratic government is based upon popular expression at the polls and assumes the commitment to represent the interests of majorities while listening to minorities, but it also acknowledges that democracy is a social construction process that involves the decision of not riding roughshod over the rights of other people beyond its borders. As well, it also consists on keeping a retrospective view motivated by the learning and amending of any errors in its own history. The Spanish government’s attitude in Western Sahara adds to so many other aspects of its foreign policy, that make evident an embarrassing desire to continue looking down on the South with contempt and neo-colonial thirst, both in Africa and Latin America.
In the face of such a devastating scene, people of Spanish descent who, coming from the most human solidarity transcend what they learned in their childhood textbooks full of omissions, set an example and remind us that people and government are not the same thing. In our countries, on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, it is disappointing to see rebellious societies with servile governments that don’t know how or don’t want to abandon their role as mental and economic colonizers.
This is Aminetu’s scene of resistance. Those who have experienced the horror of torture affirm that the only refuge against its cruelty is the mind, a place that people feel to be their own, a place where the repressor cannot enter, the haven that saves one from madness. On the other hand, in the black night of the prison without walls that is forced exile or life under military occupation, the body can become the last resource to call for justice. A woman appropriates her body and transforms it into a vehicle of transgression and denunciation. That gesture, both real and symbolic, not only means to appropriate her own life (we don’t get the accounts wrong: in these circumstances her latent death will continue being the responsibility of both the Spanish and Moroccan governments and of international indifference), but above all, to appropriate her own body, a body that has already been disappeared, forced, beaten and forcefully transformed into an instrument of terror at the hands of her torturer occupant.
Our world, still patriarchal, insists on seeing women as part of the collective property of men who are the holders of a people’s identity. For that reason, invaders vent their anger by raping women as an act to tarnish the masculine pride of a nation. Even the left has not been able to cast off the idea of women as either public property (“to protect our mujeres”) or private property, acquired through the sexual act (“I introduce you to my mujer”)*. Aminetu knows that in spite of everything, she only belongs to herself, as we all do, and from that conscience she has been partner, friend and fighter. Indefatigable survivor and owner of herself, she grabs what is within reach of all human beings demanding the observance of a right: the right to her mind, her body and her unredeemed heart.
I will never understand mankind’s ease in cyclically losing with complete indifference its most valuable and gifted people, the very same ones who could rescue it from its miseries. I hope it doesn't happen again this time.
*Spanish for women/woman.
English translation by Manuel Talens, edited by Machetera. Atenea Acevedo, Manuel Talens and Machetera are members of Tlaxcala, the international network of translators for linguistic diversity. This translation may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the source, author, translator and editor are cited.
For more information on the Saharawi struggle and Aminetu Haidar's hunger strike, check out the show aired by Democracy Now on 1 December 2009.
source: http://www.tlaxcala.es/detail_artistes.asp?lg=es&reference=374
Friday, December 4, 2009
Grace Paley Celebration at Barnard!
Grace Paley: Speaking Truth to Power
with Yvette Christiansë, Ynestra King, Nancy Kricorian, and Amy Swerdlow
A Panel Discussion: Friday, 12/11, 6:30 PM
James Room, 4th Floor Barnard Hall, Barnard College, 3009 Broadway, NYC
On Grace Paley's birthday, we present a conversation exploring how imagination, truthtelling, and courageous action flow out of Paley's life and work. A prolific writer, Paley's fiction highlights them everyday struggles of women, what she calls "a history of everyday life." In addition to her writing, Paley was also a committed activist, passionate about numerous issues, including women's rights, the Vietnam War, nuclear non-proliferation, and most recently, the war in Iraq. Her death in 2007 was a great loss, but her work continues to inspire.
Speakers, coming from a range of generations, will include politically engaged writers, artists, and activists in such causes as immigration rights, housing, human rights, gay and lesbian issues, foreclosure actions, anti-militarism and other important struggles. The speakers have all drawn inspiration from Paley's work and life and demonstrate various affinities to the amazing woman, artist and thinker who described herself as a "combative pacifist and cooperative anarchist."
Speakers will include:
Lucila Silva, a member of The Center for Immigrant Families Collective--The Center for Immigrant Families (CIF) is an inter-generational, collectively-run organization of low-income immigrant women of color
and community members in Manhattan Valley. CIF’s mission is to address the inter-connected challenges facing our communities by linking our personal/psychological well-being, health, and development to sustained organizing that transforms the root causes of the injustices we confront and their multi-layered impact on our lives and communities.
Yvette Christiansë, a poet, novelist and scholar, teaches African American, African and African Diasporic literatures at Fordham University. Her novel Unconfessed was a finalist in the 2007 Hemingway/PEN Prize and shortlisted for the 2008 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Her first book of poems Castaway (1999), was
nominated for the 2001 PEN International Prize and her latest book of poetry, Imprendehora was published in South Africa by Kwela Books/Snail Press in 2009.
Ynestra King, ecofeminist activist and educator, is the author of Ecofeminism: The Reenchantment of Nature (Boston: Beacon Press, 1991); and editor of Dangerous Intersections: Feminist Perspectives on
Population, Environment, and Development with Jael Miriam Silliman; and Rocking the Ship of State : Toward a Feminist Peace Politics with Adrienne Harris. Her classes in Ecofeminism at the Institute for Social Ecology in the late 70's were among the first in the country.
Nancy Kricorian is a New York-based writer and activist. Author of the novels Zabelle and Dreams of Bread and Fire, her poetry has been published in PARNASSUS, MISSISSIPPI REVIEW and ARARAT. She is
currently dividing her time between writing her third novel and working as the New York City coordinator for CODEPINK WOMEN FOR PEACE, a women-initiated grassroots peace & social movement known for its use of direct action and street theater.
Amy Swerdlow is Professor Emerita, Sarah Lawrence College where she directed the MA Program in Women's History and the Women's Studies Program. Swerdlow is a co-founding member of Women Strike for Peace and author of Women Strike for Peace: Traditional Motherhood and Radical Politics in the 1960s and numerous articles on radical reform movements from the abolitionists in the 19th century to the peace movements of the late 20th century.
contact:
Lucy Trainor
Program Manager
Barnard Center for Research on Women
p (212) 854-2067
f (212) 854-8294
http://www.barnard.edu/bcrw
with Yvette Christiansë, Ynestra King, Nancy Kricorian, and Amy Swerdlow
A Panel Discussion: Friday, 12/11, 6:30 PM
James Room, 4th Floor Barnard Hall, Barnard College, 3009 Broadway, NYC
On Grace Paley's birthday, we present a conversation exploring how imagination, truthtelling, and courageous action flow out of Paley's life and work. A prolific writer, Paley's fiction highlights them everyday struggles of women, what she calls "a history of everyday life." In addition to her writing, Paley was also a committed activist, passionate about numerous issues, including women's rights, the Vietnam War, nuclear non-proliferation, and most recently, the war in Iraq. Her death in 2007 was a great loss, but her work continues to inspire.
Speakers, coming from a range of generations, will include politically engaged writers, artists, and activists in such causes as immigration rights, housing, human rights, gay and lesbian issues, foreclosure actions, anti-militarism and other important struggles. The speakers have all drawn inspiration from Paley's work and life and demonstrate various affinities to the amazing woman, artist and thinker who described herself as a "combative pacifist and cooperative anarchist."
Speakers will include:
Lucila Silva, a member of The Center for Immigrant Families Collective--The Center for Immigrant Families (CIF) is an inter-generational, collectively-run organization of low-income immigrant women of color
and community members in Manhattan Valley. CIF’s mission is to address the inter-connected challenges facing our communities by linking our personal/psychological well-being, health, and development to sustained organizing that transforms the root causes of the injustices we confront and their multi-layered impact on our lives and communities.
Yvette Christiansë, a poet, novelist and scholar, teaches African American, African and African Diasporic literatures at Fordham University. Her novel Unconfessed was a finalist in the 2007 Hemingway/PEN Prize and shortlisted for the 2008 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Her first book of poems Castaway (1999), was
nominated for the 2001 PEN International Prize and her latest book of poetry, Imprendehora was published in South Africa by Kwela Books/Snail Press in 2009.
Ynestra King, ecofeminist activist and educator, is the author of Ecofeminism: The Reenchantment of Nature (Boston: Beacon Press, 1991); and editor of Dangerous Intersections: Feminist Perspectives on
Population, Environment, and Development with Jael Miriam Silliman; and Rocking the Ship of State : Toward a Feminist Peace Politics with Adrienne Harris. Her classes in Ecofeminism at the Institute for Social Ecology in the late 70's were among the first in the country.
Nancy Kricorian is a New York-based writer and activist. Author of the novels Zabelle and Dreams of Bread and Fire, her poetry has been published in PARNASSUS, MISSISSIPPI REVIEW and ARARAT. She is
currently dividing her time between writing her third novel and working as the New York City coordinator for CODEPINK WOMEN FOR PEACE, a women-initiated grassroots peace & social movement known for its use of direct action and street theater.
Amy Swerdlow is Professor Emerita, Sarah Lawrence College where she directed the MA Program in Women's History and the Women's Studies Program. Swerdlow is a co-founding member of Women Strike for Peace and author of Women Strike for Peace: Traditional Motherhood and Radical Politics in the 1960s and numerous articles on radical reform movements from the abolitionists in the 19th century to the peace movements of the late 20th century.
contact:
Lucy Trainor
Program Manager
Barnard Center for Research on Women
p (212) 854-2067
f (212) 854-8294
http://www.barnard.edu/bcrw
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Blog Visitors from Around the World
Sitemeter reports this blog has been visited last week by people from:
New Zealand; Jakarta, Indonesia; Capetown, South Africa; Yeman; Flensburg, Germany; Nmes, France; Panama; Lombardy, Italy; Dronten, Netherlands; Halifax, Nova Scotia; London; and many places in the US: Winter Park, FL; Chicago; LA; NY; Little Rock, AR; Denton Texas, etc.
New Zealand; Jakarta, Indonesia; Capetown, South Africa; Yeman; Flensburg, Germany; Nmes, France; Panama; Lombardy, Italy; Dronten, Netherlands; Halifax, Nova Scotia; London; and many places in the US: Winter Park, FL; Chicago; LA; NY; Little Rock, AR; Denton Texas, etc.
Remembering Grace Paley in Boston
With the holiday season fast approaching the Joiner Center will once again celebrate the life and work of writer and activist Grace Paley. The Grace Paley Birthday Reading, which will be held at Friends Meeting at Cambridge on Thursday, December 10th, 7-9 pm, will feature local activists reading from Grace’s work. This year we are pleased to welcome students from UMass Boston who received special recognition through the 2009 Grace Paley Award for their community involvement. They are Son-ca Lam, Stephanie Fail and Heather Turner. Joining them will be Bob Nicols, Bob Glassman, Bob Zevon, Tom Goodkind, Michael Ansara, Wayne Smith, Michael Romanyshyn, and many other activists, teachers and community organizers.
This is a video of the Center's Grace Paley celebration in December, 2008:
At the Joiner Center this year there will be a potluck reception following the reading – please let us know if you’d like to contribute! You can email us at joinercenter@umb.edu. Copies of Grace’s books will be available at the reception.
This year the Joiner Center welcomes MFA graduate students Crystal Koe and Molly McGuire to our program staff. They will be working with Cat Parnell on the Grace Paley Tribute and the Grace Paley Award. Both Molly and Crystal bring extensive experience and good spirits to the center. We at the Joiner look forward to working with Crystal and Molly, and we hope you will welcome them when you meet them at the Grace Paley Tribute Reading in December.
The Joiner Center is also pleased to announce Tru Grace: Holiday Memoirs, a special production of Grace Paley’s short story “The Loudest Voice” by the Underground Railway Theater. Adapted by Wes Savick of Suffolk University’s Theatre Department, the play premieres on Thursday, November 19th and runs through Sunday, December 27th along with Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory.” These whimsical tales will be playing at Central Square Theater.
The Underground Railway Theater is offering the Joiner Center community discounted tickets ($17.50, regularly $35) to the production. To take advantage of this offer quote the discount code TRUGRACE either online at
www.centralsquaretheater.org, or by calling the box office at 866-811-4111.
The Underground Railway Theater would also like to extend an invitation the Joiner Center community to participate in the sharing of anecdotes and/or the reading of a piece by Grace on December 6th, directly after the 2 pm matinee, when they will be hosting a celebration of Grace's life.
This is a video of the Center's Grace Paley celebration in December, 2008:
At the Joiner Center this year there will be a potluck reception following the reading – please let us know if you’d like to contribute! You can email us at joinercenter@umb.edu. Copies of Grace’s books will be available at the reception.
This year the Joiner Center welcomes MFA graduate students Crystal Koe and Molly McGuire to our program staff. They will be working with Cat Parnell on the Grace Paley Tribute and the Grace Paley Award. Both Molly and Crystal bring extensive experience and good spirits to the center. We at the Joiner look forward to working with Crystal and Molly, and we hope you will welcome them when you meet them at the Grace Paley Tribute Reading in December.
The Joiner Center is also pleased to announce Tru Grace: Holiday Memoirs, a special production of Grace Paley’s short story “The Loudest Voice” by the Underground Railway Theater. Adapted by Wes Savick of Suffolk University’s Theatre Department, the play premieres on Thursday, November 19th and runs through Sunday, December 27th along with Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory.” These whimsical tales will be playing at Central Square Theater.
The Underground Railway Theater is offering the Joiner Center community discounted tickets ($17.50, regularly $35) to the production. To take advantage of this offer quote the discount code TRUGRACE either online at
www.centralsquaretheater.org, or by calling the box office at 866-811-4111.
The Underground Railway Theater would also like to extend an invitation the Joiner Center community to participate in the sharing of anecdotes and/or the reading of a piece by Grace on December 6th, directly after the 2 pm matinee, when they will be hosting a celebration of Grace's life.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Veto of domestic partners funeral bill sparks protest at R.I. State House
PROVIDENCE — About 150 protesters lit candles in the dark Thursday night and followed a black casket up the walk to the State House steps.
Six pallbearers placed the coffin on the white marble steps, a seventh placed a wreath of white roses upon it, and Joe Roch, 29, of Providence turned to address the somber crowd.
“We’re gathered here tonight out of a mutual sense of anger and frustration at Governor Carcieri’s recent veto of the domestic partners funeral bill” Roch said. He drew applause when he referred to comedian Stephen Colbert’s “shaming” Carcieri on national television. Although Carcieri killed the bill, Roch said, “Tonight we present you not with the mangled, defeated corpse of a dream deferred, but with a greater hunger for progress and equality for every man and woman in Rhode Island.”
Lt. Gov. Elizabeth H. Roberts told those attending the protests that “almost every single member of the House and Senate supported the legislation,” called the governor’s veto “a cruel act” and promised the next session of the General Assembly would overturn the veto. The bill would have added domestic partners to the list of people who can legally make arrangements for a deceased person’s funeral. In his veto message Nov. 10, Carcieri said the decision should be put on the ballot for the voters to decide.
dnaylor@projo.com
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Palestinians Breach Separation Fence
From Haaretz, November 9, 2009:
Activists breached a hole in the West Bank wall for the second time in less than a week on Monday in a demonstration to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Their faces masked, the activists tethered a 2-meter wide section of the cement barrier to a truck which then pulled it over. The crowd of around 50, which had gathered at a section of the barrier near an Israeli checkpoint at Qalandiya, cheered as the 6-meter high section fell. Israeli soldiers fired tear gas at the crowd, some of whom threw stones over the wall. Several demonstrators passed through the gap they had created, hoisting a Palestinian flag and setting ablaze tires on the other side.
On Friday, during a demonstration in the West Bank city of Na’alin, where activists and Palestinians gather every Friday to protest the route of the fence, masked Palestinian youths breached a section of the wall that runs through the village, while Israeli border guards fired tear gas and a foul-smelling spray from behind the high concrete barrier. Protesters levered open a space under one the pre-cast panels and used a hydraulic car-jack to topple it out of position. “No matter how tall, all walls fall,” read one banner pasted onto the structure by Palestinian youths assisted by Israeli activists, who say the wall on Palestinian land and through Palestinian communities is simply a land grab by Israel.
The panels of the walls in Israel’s separation barrier are cast in the same inverted T-shape as the wall constructed through Berlin by communist East Germany. Israel began building its barrier of fences and walls at the height of the Palestinian uprising that began in 2000 and it now runs along most of the West Bank border, at many points encroaching into West Bank territory.
It says it was built to prevent suicide bombers entering Israel and has largely succeeded in doing so. Palestinians see it as an attempt to seize land on which they aim to establish an independent state. “Today we commemorate 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall,” said Abdullah Abu Rahma, leader of the People’s Campaign to Fight the Wall. “This is the first step in a series of activities we will be holding in the coming days to express our firm attachment to our land and our rejection of this wall.”
In a non-binding decision in 2004, the International Court of Justice said the barrier was illegal and should be taken own because it crossed occupied territory.
Israeli leaders have said the barrier is a temporary obstacle that could be removed once a peace agreement with the Palestinians is signed.
Masked activists used a lorry to tear down a cement block of the wall [AFP]
From Al Jazeera:
Abdullah Abu Rahma, leader of the People's Campaign to Fight the Wall, said: "Today we commemorate 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. "This is the beginning of the activities, which we do, to express our hold on our land, and our refusal to this wall - the wall of torture, the wall of humiliation."
Activists have vowed to hold a week of protests in the Palestinian territories and around the world, including a campaign calling for the release of all anti-wall activists currently imprisoned. Last Friday, Palestinian youths almost toppled a segment of wall using a hydraulic car-jack in the West Bank village of Nilin. Protests against the wall have become a regular event in Nilin and in the nearby village of Bilin, where Palestinian, international and Israeli activists are commonly confronted by tear gas and rubber bullets fired by Israeli troops.
Israel began building its barrier, consisting of fences and walls, in 2002, citing security reasons. The wall is up to 8m high in places, twice the height of the former Berlin wall. Palestinian sources anticipate that it may be more than 750km-long when construction is finished, more than four times the length of the Berlin wall.
Palestinians say the route of the wall has been set in such a way that it grabs land that could have been included in a future Palestinian state. The International Court of Justice, in a non-binding decision in 2004, said the Israeli-built barrier was illegal and should be taken down because it crossed into occupied territory. A report by Stop the Wall, a Palestinian coalition of NGOs opposed to the wall, said that in 2007 alone, Israel demolished more than 160 houses and appropriated more than 3sq km of land in the Palestinian West Bank in its construction of the wall.
Grace Paley Peace Ornament Found on Web
The Grace Paley Permanent Peace Crane Origami Ornament
Grace Paley, an American Poet, Writer and Civic Activist, born December 11, 1922 died August 22, 2007.
Her most important and multiple times published work is "The Little Disturbances of Man"
Having spent several years as a typist and housewife, Paley turned her attention back to writing in the mid 1950s. After a number of rejections, Paley published her first collection, "The Little Disturbances of Man" (1959) with Doubleday. The collection features eleven stories of New York life, several of which have since been widely anthologized, particularly "Goodbye and Good Luck" and "The Used-Boy Raisers." RIP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Paley
*****************************************************
Permanent origami peace crane ornaments by Nancy McNally;
http://www.nancymcnally.net
Monday, November 9, 2009
Celebrate Grace on December 11 at Barnard!
Grace Paley:Speaking Truth to Power
Ujju Agarawal, Yvette Christiansë, Ynestra King, Nancy Kricorian, and Amy Swerdlow
A Panel Discussion:
Friday, 12/11, 6:30 PM
James Room, 4th Floor Barnard Hall
Barnard College,
3009 Broadway
NYC
On Grace Paley's birthday, we present a conversation exploring how imagination, truthtelling, and courageous action flow out of Paley's life and work. A prolific writer, Paley's fiction highlights the everyday struggles of women, what she calls "a history of everyday life." In addition to her writing, Paley was also a committed activist, passionate about numerous issues, including women's rights, the Vietnam War, nuclear non-proliferation, and most recently, the war in Iraq. Her death in 2007 was a great loss, but her work continues to inspire. Speakers, coming from a range of generations, will include politically engaged writers, artists, and activists in such causes as immigration rights, housing, human rights, gay and lesbian issues, foreclosure actions, anti-militarism and other important struggles. The speakers have all drawn inspiration from Paley's work and life and demonstrate various affinities to the amazing woman, artist and thinker who described herself as a "combative pacifist and cooperative anarchist."
Speakers will include: Ujju Agarawal, member of the Center for Immigrant Families Collective; Yvette Christiansë, poet and novelist; Ynestra King, ecofeminist activist and educator, and editor of Dangerous Intersections: Feminist Perspectives on Population, Environment, and Development; Nancy Kricorian, New York-based writer and activist, author of Zabelle and Dreams of Bread and Fire, and coordinator of the New York City chapter of CODEPINK Women for Peace; and Amy Swerdlow, founding member of Women Strike for Peace and author of Women Strike for Peace: Traditional Motherhood and Radical Politics in the 1960s.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Massachusetts Review publishes Grace Paley issue
The Massachusetts Review is continuing its 50th birthday celebration with a special issue honoring the late Grace Paley.
An activist, poet and award-winning master of the short story, Paley died in 2007. She is best known for two story collections: The Little Disturbances of Man (1959) and Enormous Changes at the Last Minute (1974). In recent years she was a frequent participant in the campus' Juniper Summer Writing Institute. Guest-edited by Dara Wier, Chris Bachelder, Noy Holland and Lisa Olstein, the issue includes manuscript pages, photos, previously unpublished interviews, previously uncollected fiction and essays and many remembrances of the iconic iconoclast Paley was and is.
Among the contributors are Grace Paley, Nora Paley, Lisa Olstein, Noy Holland, Jules Chametzky, Mark Doty, Chris Bachelder, Padget Powell, Terry Gross, Naomi Nye, John J. Clayton, Matthew Zapruder, Gillian Conoley, Faye S. Wolfe and Gordon Lish.
Massachusetts Review is available in Amherst at Hastings, Amherst Books and Food for Thought Books, and in Northampton at Broadside Bookshop. Copies may also be obtained from the MR office in South College, 413 545-2689.
An activist, poet and award-winning master of the short story, Paley died in 2007. She is best known for two story collections: The Little Disturbances of Man (1959) and Enormous Changes at the Last Minute (1974). In recent years she was a frequent participant in the campus' Juniper Summer Writing Institute. Guest-edited by Dara Wier, Chris Bachelder, Noy Holland and Lisa Olstein, the issue includes manuscript pages, photos, previously unpublished interviews, previously uncollected fiction and essays and many remembrances of the iconic iconoclast Paley was and is.
Among the contributors are Grace Paley, Nora Paley, Lisa Olstein, Noy Holland, Jules Chametzky, Mark Doty, Chris Bachelder, Padget Powell, Terry Gross, Naomi Nye, John J. Clayton, Matthew Zapruder, Gillian Conoley, Faye S. Wolfe and Gordon Lish.
Massachusetts Review is available in Amherst at Hastings, Amherst Books and Food for Thought Books, and in Northampton at Broadside Bookshop. Copies may also be obtained from the MR office in South College, 413 545-2689.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
CELEBRATE GRACE'S BIRTHDAY
GRACE'S BIRTHDAY AT BARNARD
On Grace Paley’s birthday, we present a conversation exploring how imagination, truth-telling, and courageous action flow out of Paley’s life and work. A prolific writer, Paley’s fiction highlights the everyday struggles of women, what she calls “a history of everyday life.” In addition to her writing, Paley was also a committed activist, passionate about numerous issues, including women’s rights, the Vietnam War, nuclear non-proliferation, and most recently, the war in Iraq. Her death in 2007 was a great loss, but her work continues to inspire. Speakers, coming from a range of generations, will include politically engaged writers, artists, and activists in such causes as immigration rights, housing, human rights, gay and lesbian issues, foreclosure actions, anti-militarism and other important struggles. The speakers have all drawn inspiration from Paley’s work and life and demonstrate various affinities to the amazing woman, artist and thinker who described herself as a “combative pacifist and cooperative anarchist.” Speakers will include: Ujju Agarawal, member of the Center for Immigrant Families Collective; Yvette Christianse, poet and novelist; Ynestra King, ecofeminist activist and educator, and editor of Dangerous Intersections: Feminist Perspectives on Population, Environment, and Development; Nancy Kricorian, New York-based writer and activist,
author of Zabelle and Dreams of Bread and Fire, and coordinator of the New York City chapter of CODEPINK Women for Peace; and Amy Swerdlow, founding member of Women Strike for Peace and author of Women Strike for Peace: Traditional Motherhood and Radical Politics in the 1960s.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Obama's Greeter Wears Grace's Quote!
From Jodie Evans, via Huffington Post
Last week, a long-term CODEPINK supporter phoned to invite me to dinner with Obama. She said, "You went to a war zone to learn what the women of Afghanistan want to say to Obama -- I want to make sure he gets the message." She told me she spent $30,000 for two tickets to Obama's DNC fundraiser in San Francisco, and would gift one to me. After waiting for eight years to speak with the president of the United States about the wrongful invasion of Afghanistan, I jumped at the opportunity.
To prepare, I spent a few days transcribing conversations from our Afghanistan trip. I also reached out to the CODEPINK community to join the petition that Afghan members of Parliament, human rights activists and NGO leaders we met in Kabul signed:
President Obama: We, the women of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and the United States, implore you to refrain from sending more United States military forces to Afghanistan. We encourage you to work quickly for a political solution in Afghanistan that will lead to a reconciliation process in which women will fully participate and to a withdrawal of foreign military forces. Sending more military forces will only increase the violence and will do further harm to women and children. Instead, these funds should be redirected to improving the health, education and welfare of the Afghan people.
I wasn't sure that I would actually get into the dinner and we were careful to make the package very user and security friendly. It was filled with photos, quotes, thousands of signatures, a copy of Rethink Afghanistan and our 25-minute interview with Afghan MP Dr. Roshanak Wardak from Wardak Province, who is adamant that the U.S. should not send new troops and rather, must leave.
The front of my CODEPINK t-shirt read, "The most recognizable feature of HOPE is ACTION" (a quote from Grace Paley) and the back was stenciled with "End the Afghan Quagmire." This made getting in a bit difficult but our supporter continued to wave the $30,000 receipt as our ticket in. We arrived a few hours before Obama and were able to think through all the potential obstacles to being in the photo line and taking our own footage of the moment. This also gave us the opportunity to deliver the same packet of photos, quotes and signatures to Nancy Pelosi who was generous in her receipt of the message from the women.
The DNC staff was nervous and came over to make sure I knew I couldn't hand anything to the president, asked us to remove our CODEPINK buttons, and I couldn't take photos because there was an official photographer. Luckily the supporter who invited me to join her had a Flip cam to capture the meeting, and we uploaded it to a news truck immediately afterwards. The staff circled us until the last moment and we were pretty surrounded when it came time for me to move forward. I took strength from remembering that outside the hotel was basically surrounded by Bay Area activists clamoring for peace and justice
Expecting less than the minute I was warned I would have, I was in a hurry to say a lot and make that minute count. When it was my turn to meet with President Obama, I began by telling him I had just returned from Afghanistan and had brought back messages from the Afghan women who said they didn't want more troops. I passed along their message that the U.S. is supporting corruption and greed in Karzai: we would be more effective by changing how we operate in Afghanistan rather than adding more soldiers. I handed him the signatures from Americans through our online and paper petitions and from the women in Afghanistan and he told me to pass them on to his staff, which I did. But he did see the pile of signatures, marking the first time since the war began that we have been able to hand-deliver a peace petition to the president. After handing off the packet, I turned to him and said, "The women really want to be at the negotiating table." He responded with what about MY Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and we have a woman ambassador (whose name he failed to recall). I stopped him and said, "No -- the women of Afghanistan." His response was a revelatory, "Oh..." He then gave me a fatherly pat as he told me, "I am not going to be able to fix Afghanistan quickly," and I responded, " You won't be able to fix it at all. Only they can."
Our conversation, however brief, confirmed my fears about the insularity of the discussion about Afghanistan. When you are there, in the midst of everything, seeing the impact of our occupation and listening to the citizens brimming with ideas on fixing their war-ravaged country, you realize it is painfully clear to the people of Afghanistan that their ideas are falling on deaf ears. They are not part of the debate about the future of their country, and, heartbreakingly, they pay the price. So many of the Afghan women and men we met with asked me, incredulously, "Aren't you upset that your taxes have gone to nothing? That we are worse off than before?" The waste, corruption, greed, ineptitude, and our attempts to end violence with violence are deep wounds that Afghans and their country will continue to be forced to bear for decades to come.
One thing I learned from Obama is that he is making the decision about troops, and he is trying to learn as much as he can, and is going to take some time in making this VERY important decision. So, now is the time we who KNOW that more troops is WRONG to speak out, to deliver the message in the media, to the White House and in the streets. If one of the points of decision making is 'how will the voters respond?' he needs to know we won't be happy, nor will history.
Contact Obama today at http://www.codepinkalert.org/afghanistan for more info.
Follow Jodie Evans on Twitter: www.twitter.com/codepinkalert
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jodie-evans/delivering-a-message-to-o_b_326666.html
Last week, a long-term CODEPINK supporter phoned to invite me to dinner with Obama. She said, "You went to a war zone to learn what the women of Afghanistan want to say to Obama -- I want to make sure he gets the message." She told me she spent $30,000 for two tickets to Obama's DNC fundraiser in San Francisco, and would gift one to me. After waiting for eight years to speak with the president of the United States about the wrongful invasion of Afghanistan, I jumped at the opportunity.
To prepare, I spent a few days transcribing conversations from our Afghanistan trip. I also reached out to the CODEPINK community to join the petition that Afghan members of Parliament, human rights activists and NGO leaders we met in Kabul signed:
President Obama: We, the women of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and the United States, implore you to refrain from sending more United States military forces to Afghanistan. We encourage you to work quickly for a political solution in Afghanistan that will lead to a reconciliation process in which women will fully participate and to a withdrawal of foreign military forces. Sending more military forces will only increase the violence and will do further harm to women and children. Instead, these funds should be redirected to improving the health, education and welfare of the Afghan people.
I wasn't sure that I would actually get into the dinner and we were careful to make the package very user and security friendly. It was filled with photos, quotes, thousands of signatures, a copy of Rethink Afghanistan and our 25-minute interview with Afghan MP Dr. Roshanak Wardak from Wardak Province, who is adamant that the U.S. should not send new troops and rather, must leave.
The front of my CODEPINK t-shirt read, "The most recognizable feature of HOPE is ACTION" (a quote from Grace Paley) and the back was stenciled with "End the Afghan Quagmire." This made getting in a bit difficult but our supporter continued to wave the $30,000 receipt as our ticket in. We arrived a few hours before Obama and were able to think through all the potential obstacles to being in the photo line and taking our own footage of the moment. This also gave us the opportunity to deliver the same packet of photos, quotes and signatures to Nancy Pelosi who was generous in her receipt of the message from the women.
The DNC staff was nervous and came over to make sure I knew I couldn't hand anything to the president, asked us to remove our CODEPINK buttons, and I couldn't take photos because there was an official photographer. Luckily the supporter who invited me to join her had a Flip cam to capture the meeting, and we uploaded it to a news truck immediately afterwards. The staff circled us until the last moment and we were pretty surrounded when it came time for me to move forward. I took strength from remembering that outside the hotel was basically surrounded by Bay Area activists clamoring for peace and justice
Expecting less than the minute I was warned I would have, I was in a hurry to say a lot and make that minute count. When it was my turn to meet with President Obama, I began by telling him I had just returned from Afghanistan and had brought back messages from the Afghan women who said they didn't want more troops. I passed along their message that the U.S. is supporting corruption and greed in Karzai: we would be more effective by changing how we operate in Afghanistan rather than adding more soldiers. I handed him the signatures from Americans through our online and paper petitions and from the women in Afghanistan and he told me to pass them on to his staff, which I did. But he did see the pile of signatures, marking the first time since the war began that we have been able to hand-deliver a peace petition to the president. After handing off the packet, I turned to him and said, "The women really want to be at the negotiating table." He responded with what about MY Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and we have a woman ambassador (whose name he failed to recall). I stopped him and said, "No -- the women of Afghanistan." His response was a revelatory, "Oh..." He then gave me a fatherly pat as he told me, "I am not going to be able to fix Afghanistan quickly," and I responded, " You won't be able to fix it at all. Only they can."
Our conversation, however brief, confirmed my fears about the insularity of the discussion about Afghanistan. When you are there, in the midst of everything, seeing the impact of our occupation and listening to the citizens brimming with ideas on fixing their war-ravaged country, you realize it is painfully clear to the people of Afghanistan that their ideas are falling on deaf ears. They are not part of the debate about the future of their country, and, heartbreakingly, they pay the price. So many of the Afghan women and men we met with asked me, incredulously, "Aren't you upset that your taxes have gone to nothing? That we are worse off than before?" The waste, corruption, greed, ineptitude, and our attempts to end violence with violence are deep wounds that Afghans and their country will continue to be forced to bear for decades to come.
One thing I learned from Obama is that he is making the decision about troops, and he is trying to learn as much as he can, and is going to take some time in making this VERY important decision. So, now is the time we who KNOW that more troops is WRONG to speak out, to deliver the message in the media, to the White House and in the streets. If one of the points of decision making is 'how will the voters respond?' he needs to know we won't be happy, nor will history.
Contact Obama today at http://www.codepinkalert.org/afghanistan for more info.
Follow Jodie Evans on Twitter: www.twitter.com/codepinkalert
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jodie-evans/delivering-a-message-to-o_b_326666.html
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
G20 Protest in Pittsburgh
The police have been using pepper spray, sound weapons and tear gar against protesters at the G20 summit.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Protests in Bil'in
Adeeb Abu Rahme, a leading Palestinian non-violent peace activist was arrested in the weekly Bil’in demonstration against the Apartheid Wall (see the video, Adeeb is the protester in the orange shirt with the mega-phone). The Israeli military is charging Adeeb with “incitement to violence,” a charge that could bring a serious jail term. This charge is the culmination of a new attempt to “break” the non-violent resistance in Palestine by targeting the leaders of the non-violent protests.
Adeeb is currently in detention and will be taken in front of a military judge on Thursday, 16 July 2009. The military prosecutor intends to request for Adeeb to remain in detention until the end of the proceedings against him. This could mean months or a year in military prison for Adeeb, who is the sole provider for his family of 9 children, wife and mother.
In the past five years, many attempts have been made by the to break the spirit of the Bil’in protests. Every new commander in Bil’in has promised to break the resistance, using new weapons and increasing the level of violence against unarmed demonstrators. But the spirit and resilience of Bil’in residents and their supporters cannot be broken; every Friday they continue to march and chant against the theft of Palestinian land and the systemic violence of the Occupation.
In the past month, Israeli forces have attacked Bil’in and other villages with renewed vigor, raiding homes in the early hours of the morning to seize suspected demonstrators. Mostly children under the age of 18, they are interrogated and pressured to ‘confess’ that they throw stones at the instructions of the village leaders. The truth remains that village leaders discourage stone throwing and recognize that it is used as a tool by the Occupation to falsely accuse the demonstrations of instigating violence. The Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements requested the presence of Israeli and international solidarity activists to document and discourage the night raids.
Anyone of the thousands who have marched with Adeeb can testify that despite provocation and serious attacks on his person, he has never responded violently. Attempts to criminalize the leadership of non-violent protests where curbed in the past with the help of an outpouring of support from people committed to justice from all over the world. We need you now to testify to Adeeb’s commitment to non-violence and to hold the Israeli military accountable for trying to destroy the resistance.
Please email your letter to palestinesolidarity@gmail.com
SAMPLE LETTER:
To whom it may concern,
I was disturbed to learn that Mr. Adeeb Abu Rahme, a leader in his village and participant in the non-violent demonstrations that take place in Bil’in every Friday, was arrested for peacefully demonstrating against Israel’s separation fence on July 10th, 2009 and is still being held in prison. Over the past five years Mr. Rahme and the leaders in Bil’in village have displayed an unshakable commitment to non-violence and dignified action.
Mr. Rahme in particular is well known for his commitment to the struggle for peace through non-violent means and for his willingness to work in partnership with Israelis. He is a respected member of the community. I am impressed with his honesty and commitment to non-violence. My understanding of Israeli law is that the right to demonstrate peacefully is protected. Mr. Rahme should be commended and not punished for his efforts.
I hope and trust that Mr. Rahme will be allowed to return to his family, including his 9 children, wife and mother for whom he is the sole supporter, and community without further delay and that his name be cleared of all accusations.
Sincerely,
Adeeb is currently in detention and will be taken in front of a military judge on Thursday, 16 July 2009. The military prosecutor intends to request for Adeeb to remain in detention until the end of the proceedings against him. This could mean months or a year in military prison for Adeeb, who is the sole provider for his family of 9 children, wife and mother.
In the past five years, many attempts have been made by the to break the spirit of the Bil’in protests. Every new commander in Bil’in has promised to break the resistance, using new weapons and increasing the level of violence against unarmed demonstrators. But the spirit and resilience of Bil’in residents and their supporters cannot be broken; every Friday they continue to march and chant against the theft of Palestinian land and the systemic violence of the Occupation.
In the past month, Israeli forces have attacked Bil’in and other villages with renewed vigor, raiding homes in the early hours of the morning to seize suspected demonstrators. Mostly children under the age of 18, they are interrogated and pressured to ‘confess’ that they throw stones at the instructions of the village leaders. The truth remains that village leaders discourage stone throwing and recognize that it is used as a tool by the Occupation to falsely accuse the demonstrations of instigating violence. The Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements requested the presence of Israeli and international solidarity activists to document and discourage the night raids.
Anyone of the thousands who have marched with Adeeb can testify that despite provocation and serious attacks on his person, he has never responded violently. Attempts to criminalize the leadership of non-violent protests where curbed in the past with the help of an outpouring of support from people committed to justice from all over the world. We need you now to testify to Adeeb’s commitment to non-violence and to hold the Israeli military accountable for trying to destroy the resistance.
Please email your letter to palestinesolidarity@gmail.com
SAMPLE LETTER:
To whom it may concern,
I was disturbed to learn that Mr. Adeeb Abu Rahme, a leader in his village and participant in the non-violent demonstrations that take place in Bil’in every Friday, was arrested for peacefully demonstrating against Israel’s separation fence on July 10th, 2009 and is still being held in prison. Over the past five years Mr. Rahme and the leaders in Bil’in village have displayed an unshakable commitment to non-violence and dignified action.
Mr. Rahme in particular is well known for his commitment to the struggle for peace through non-violent means and for his willingness to work in partnership with Israelis. He is a respected member of the community. I am impressed with his honesty and commitment to non-violence. My understanding of Israeli law is that the right to demonstrate peacefully is protected. Mr. Rahme should be commended and not punished for his efforts.
I hope and trust that Mr. Rahme will be allowed to return to his family, including his 9 children, wife and mother for whom he is the sole supporter, and community without further delay and that his name be cleared of all accusations.
Sincerely,
Sunday, June 21, 2009
All My Habits Are Bad: Interview from 1998
BY A.M. HOMES | Grace Paley is the sagacious elf of American letters; her spirit, both in person and in her work, is a magically contagious amalgam of compassion and incredible honesty. In three volumes of short stories, she's chronicled the lives of her now-infamous characters -- mostly women, often leftists, Jewish and living in New York City -- as they struggle with marriages, friendships, political beliefs and motherhood. In 1994, her "Collected Stories" won the National Book Award, and this year Farrar Straus and Giroux published her first collection of nonfiction, "Just as I Thought."
Paley's style is inimitable, combining the political and the personal into fictions stunning for their clarity, precision and brave optimism -- always wry, smart and packed with good advice and a profound understanding of the complexities of the heart. Now 75 and "an old Jewish American writer lady," Paley divides her time between New York and Vermont, where she lives with her husband, landscape architect and writer Robert Nichols. We spoke as Paley was preparing for a trip to Vietnam: "I'm going to bring my life around in a circle in some way and see what's happening now -- it's been 30 years." Paley's activism these days has shifted from marching on Washington and passing out leaflets in Washington Square Park to giving talks: "Because I am older ... part of my political work, really, is to tell how it is and how it was."
What do you think a writer's job is?
I don't think every writer has the same job. It depends where you are in history. If you're Charles Dickens, your job is to really tell people, give 'em the news about parts of their society that they don't know about or see. In general, I think -- it's what a writer does naturally -- you write.
Do writers have a moral obligation?
Oh, I think all human beings do. So if all human beings have it, then writers have some, too. I mean, why should they get off the hook? Whatever your calling is, whether it's as a plumber or an artist, you have to make sure there's a little more justice in the world when you leave it than when you found it. Most writers do that naturally, see that more lives are illuminated, try to understand what is not understood and see what hasn't been seen.
Is it easier to tell the truth in fiction than in nonfiction?
In nonfiction you're striving insanely for accuracy, and in fiction there's no way of knowing if you're accurate or not, since you're making it up. So, in that sense, it's easier. When you write a nonfiction piece -- which I have on occasion -- I really feel the terrible obligation for that accuracy, because of the people involved. I don't feel I have to be that accurate in storytelling. I mean, I have no people to be accurate against.
Does your writing voice change when you're writing fiction or nonfiction?
I think it's pretty much the same. I have this nonfiction book coming out, and some of it is things that are real reports. I went to Vietnam in '69, and I just tried to tell everything I saw. So that's one way of doing it, a journalistic way. And there are some other things, where I've tried to figure out what really happened, or what it's all about -- and those are more essay-like. I hate the word "essay," because I can't imagine writing an essay. It seems like such a deliberate aesthetic act, and I'm not -- I don't seem to be like that.
How do you know when something should be a story, or a poem, or something else?
Sometimes when I start there's a strong language feeling. I don't know for two or three sentences. But by the third line, or third sentence -- it might take me that long to know whether it's gonna be a poem or a story. If the narrative sense predominates by that point -- it's really shoving to get out -- then it's a story.
And what would make it nonfiction?
Well, if we make it a poem, it would be that I was still trying to figure out what was gonna happen next, so that's not a narrative event. But, as far as the thing being an essay, or an article -- I think I always know what I'm doing. I mean, I know that's what I'm writing.
I was hoping you could talk a bit about your writing voice, which is so distinctive.
Voice is very important to me. It may not be so important to others, but until I was able to get that voice -- which I may have had in ordinary speech as a young person, but I didn't get in prose or poetry, even, until my mid-30s, late 30s -- I couldn't really write. I don't even know how people can write if they don't find their voice, their language. It's a mystery to me. But one of the ways I did do it was, I began to write in different voices -- I didn't use my own voice. So a lot of my early stories -- which really were the first stories I wrote -- were really writing from some guy's point of view. I mean, maybe the second story I wrote was from some guy's point of view, and the first one was from an older man's. And then from a young kid's. So I tried, and using those voices I think I was saying: I don't know how it works. But I was able to really speak in my own voice and develop my own voice.
You once said that writing the truth was to remove all lies.
Well, to me, revision is that -- you get closer and closer to what you really mean to say. Because I don't know how you're working now, Amy, but for me, even to this day, every one of my first drafts is still terrible. They haven't improved over the years, somehow. I really have to go through and take stuff out.
I remember you saying you wrote a book every 10 years; are you a very slow writer or were there always so many other things going on?
There really is a lot going on -- raising children, political activities, teaching -- and it's also that I never developed good habits. My husband, Bob, always says, "Grace doesn't have a single habit." I do have habits [laughs]. It's just all my habits are bad.
How did you learn to write?
I didn't -- I just wrote poetry. I wrote poems as a kid, and I read a lot. That's how I learned to write. And I listened a lot, too. I read a lot, and I listened a lot.
Did you keep a journal?
I don't keep a journal, but I do write on pads. And I have a book that I write in, sometimes five days in a row and sometimes once a month. But that's not a journal, really. I don't know if it is or isn't.
Do women write different kinds of stories than men?
There's a lot more domestic conversation, if you want to call it that -- or personal. Women are -- most women are easier about being personal with one another than most men. They tell each other more, and they have a lot of common problems. One of the things is -- I've never really said this -- but one of the things that has interested me is that women have bought books by men since forever, and they began to realize that it was not about them, right? But they continue, with great interest, because it's like reading about another country. Now, men have never returned the courtesy.
In a lot of your stories, the women go for long walks and talk -- do you still go for long walks?
Not so much. We live on a hill. I walk down, but then I have to walk back up.
Where are your political energies focused now?
In a funny way, they're more generalized. Because I am older, and because I do go around and speak -- more than I did when I was young -- part of my political work, really, is to tell how it is and how it was. I go to a school to talk about literature, and somebody says to me, "I hear you're a political person. What do you think about --?" So I find myself talking about the arms trade, which is a great horror to me. Right now I almost think of that more than a lot of other things. What we're doing is putting guns into the hands of people who will eventually shoot us. And the money made from it, and the outrageousness of it, and selling stuff to people who should be spending the money on other things -- those are things that really concern me a lot.
Are there specific projects that you're working on in that part of your life?
Just doing some writing about it. All my old-lady friends are in New York. Those are people with whom, if something hit us, we would just get together and act on it. There's a limited amount of direct action that I do now. Right now what I'm doing is really giving witness to my life.
I'm curious to hear where you think the women's movement is these days.
The women's movement? It's been pretty successful, in a lot of ways. And I think that a backlash has to happen because a lot of people were made unhappy by the women's movement, mostly men, and it's put them in a bad mood. And also some women. You know, there's a lot of self-made women that really hate the idea that there was a movement that helped them get ahead. In that group of saddened males, if I can put it that way, and proud women -- that whole mixture -- there has to be a reaction, right? Something good has happened, or something has happened, and you have to have a reaction to it. It's a dialectic.
It has to happen that they're gonna get mad at you, just as, naturally, there's gonna be a backlash on abortion. The thing to do is to see it as a backlash on sexual life. Abortion is a very small part of it, although it's very important. But what this really is about is the sexual life of women, and the establishment -- the institutions, like the Church -- they're not gonna take the absence of their power lightly. They want to get back their power over our sexual lives, more than anything else. And once we recognize that, people would feel less defeated, and they would be able to spring forward again. So I think the main thing is for older people to talk to the young ... and I include you now in older people. I guess the point I want to make is that my obligation, and yours -- and Nora's, my daughter, is to show the youth how far they've come. And they have. What, a girl of 18 isn't way ahead of anybody at 18, 20 years ago? There's just no question about it. And what girl of 18 would like to go back? By saying, "I'm not a feminist," if that's what they want to say, then that means they're willing to go back.
I found an old interview where you described yourself as somewhat of a combative pacifist and a cooperative anarchist. How would you describe yourself now?
Well, probably pretty much the same, you know? I still have those strong feelings, but I also have strong feelings for the importance of people working together and the importance of different levels of government. And, at the same time, you know, I am a pacifist, but I am somewhat combative. I shouldn't say "but," because most pacifists are "and combative."
I always thought of you as the perfect feminist -- you enjoy the company of women, and yet you also really enjoy the company of men.
Yeah, sure. But the fact that I was a feminist made some men angry at me, to this day. And the fact that I like men made some women angry at me. You're who you are.
Do you think of yourself as an experimental writer?
I think most writers that are serious are experimental. They all have to figure out new forms every time they write. Bob and I were just talking about this. He was saying, "Goddammit, with this book I forgot how to write." And I said, "Then you forget that we've both said to each other, whenever we start a new piece: 'How come I thought I could write? How am I gonna do this? How am I gonna write this fucking story?'"
What makes a story for you?
What makes a story? Well, you have to have movement, right? Some people call it plot. Plot is movement that is extremely deliberate. So I would say that I'm for movement, but I'm not for terribly deliberate movement. And at some point, you come to the end of what you have to say. There's pleasure, also, and play. Something different makes every story. Sometimes you like tying up the knot. Sometimes you like to leave it wide open, for people to imagine and to do what they want with it.
As women get older, they seem to gain a kind of freedom; do you feel freer?
Well, they do. You do feel freer. I don't know about writing. I think one's freest almost at the beginning, when you really don't give a shit. And you have to watch that freedom and keep it. You must keep it. You can lose it. You have to keep not giving a shit. But, on the other hand, in ordinary life you're freer in talking up, saying what you think. You're freer in who you talk to. The only thing you're not freer in is yelling at your children. You have to stop at a certain point. Like when they're 35.
Any thoughts on aging? What do you think about it?
My general feeling is that, if you're healthy and you have enough money to live decently -- if not flagrantly -- getting older is OK. I mean, I don't mind it at all. What I mind, of course, is that my time is getting short, that I won't see my youngest grandchild grow up -- those things that you're gonna miss. I remember my father feeling like that. I have a poem about it -- he knew he wasn't gonna see the end of the Vietnam War. He said: "Goddammit, I'll never know how they got out." There's a lot you won't know. And there's sadness because your friends are dying. And with the terrible things in the world, with the idea that you're gonna leave the world maybe worse than you found it -- I don't like that feeling at all.
But if your health is good, and you have a habit of looking at each day as a whole day -- unless you drop dead at noon or something -- then every day you live something interesting. It's interesting because you either meet a new tree or if you're in the city, you meet a new person. Or something happens. The sun shifts on the mountain -- very beautiful things happen.
SALON | Oct. 26, 1998
Paley's style is inimitable, combining the political and the personal into fictions stunning for their clarity, precision and brave optimism -- always wry, smart and packed with good advice and a profound understanding of the complexities of the heart. Now 75 and "an old Jewish American writer lady," Paley divides her time between New York and Vermont, where she lives with her husband, landscape architect and writer Robert Nichols. We spoke as Paley was preparing for a trip to Vietnam: "I'm going to bring my life around in a circle in some way and see what's happening now -- it's been 30 years." Paley's activism these days has shifted from marching on Washington and passing out leaflets in Washington Square Park to giving talks: "Because I am older ... part of my political work, really, is to tell how it is and how it was."
What do you think a writer's job is?
I don't think every writer has the same job. It depends where you are in history. If you're Charles Dickens, your job is to really tell people, give 'em the news about parts of their society that they don't know about or see. In general, I think -- it's what a writer does naturally -- you write.
Do writers have a moral obligation?
Oh, I think all human beings do. So if all human beings have it, then writers have some, too. I mean, why should they get off the hook? Whatever your calling is, whether it's as a plumber or an artist, you have to make sure there's a little more justice in the world when you leave it than when you found it. Most writers do that naturally, see that more lives are illuminated, try to understand what is not understood and see what hasn't been seen.
Is it easier to tell the truth in fiction than in nonfiction?
In nonfiction you're striving insanely for accuracy, and in fiction there's no way of knowing if you're accurate or not, since you're making it up. So, in that sense, it's easier. When you write a nonfiction piece -- which I have on occasion -- I really feel the terrible obligation for that accuracy, because of the people involved. I don't feel I have to be that accurate in storytelling. I mean, I have no people to be accurate against.
Does your writing voice change when you're writing fiction or nonfiction?
I think it's pretty much the same. I have this nonfiction book coming out, and some of it is things that are real reports. I went to Vietnam in '69, and I just tried to tell everything I saw. So that's one way of doing it, a journalistic way. And there are some other things, where I've tried to figure out what really happened, or what it's all about -- and those are more essay-like. I hate the word "essay," because I can't imagine writing an essay. It seems like such a deliberate aesthetic act, and I'm not -- I don't seem to be like that.
How do you know when something should be a story, or a poem, or something else?
Sometimes when I start there's a strong language feeling. I don't know for two or three sentences. But by the third line, or third sentence -- it might take me that long to know whether it's gonna be a poem or a story. If the narrative sense predominates by that point -- it's really shoving to get out -- then it's a story.
And what would make it nonfiction?
Well, if we make it a poem, it would be that I was still trying to figure out what was gonna happen next, so that's not a narrative event. But, as far as the thing being an essay, or an article -- I think I always know what I'm doing. I mean, I know that's what I'm writing.
I was hoping you could talk a bit about your writing voice, which is so distinctive.
Voice is very important to me. It may not be so important to others, but until I was able to get that voice -- which I may have had in ordinary speech as a young person, but I didn't get in prose or poetry, even, until my mid-30s, late 30s -- I couldn't really write. I don't even know how people can write if they don't find their voice, their language. It's a mystery to me. But one of the ways I did do it was, I began to write in different voices -- I didn't use my own voice. So a lot of my early stories -- which really were the first stories I wrote -- were really writing from some guy's point of view. I mean, maybe the second story I wrote was from some guy's point of view, and the first one was from an older man's. And then from a young kid's. So I tried, and using those voices I think I was saying: I don't know how it works. But I was able to really speak in my own voice and develop my own voice.
You once said that writing the truth was to remove all lies.
Well, to me, revision is that -- you get closer and closer to what you really mean to say. Because I don't know how you're working now, Amy, but for me, even to this day, every one of my first drafts is still terrible. They haven't improved over the years, somehow. I really have to go through and take stuff out.
I remember you saying you wrote a book every 10 years; are you a very slow writer or were there always so many other things going on?
There really is a lot going on -- raising children, political activities, teaching -- and it's also that I never developed good habits. My husband, Bob, always says, "Grace doesn't have a single habit." I do have habits [laughs]. It's just all my habits are bad.
How did you learn to write?
I didn't -- I just wrote poetry. I wrote poems as a kid, and I read a lot. That's how I learned to write. And I listened a lot, too. I read a lot, and I listened a lot.
Did you keep a journal?
I don't keep a journal, but I do write on pads. And I have a book that I write in, sometimes five days in a row and sometimes once a month. But that's not a journal, really. I don't know if it is or isn't.
Do women write different kinds of stories than men?
There's a lot more domestic conversation, if you want to call it that -- or personal. Women are -- most women are easier about being personal with one another than most men. They tell each other more, and they have a lot of common problems. One of the things is -- I've never really said this -- but one of the things that has interested me is that women have bought books by men since forever, and they began to realize that it was not about them, right? But they continue, with great interest, because it's like reading about another country. Now, men have never returned the courtesy.
In a lot of your stories, the women go for long walks and talk -- do you still go for long walks?
Not so much. We live on a hill. I walk down, but then I have to walk back up.
Where are your political energies focused now?
In a funny way, they're more generalized. Because I am older, and because I do go around and speak -- more than I did when I was young -- part of my political work, really, is to tell how it is and how it was. I go to a school to talk about literature, and somebody says to me, "I hear you're a political person. What do you think about --?" So I find myself talking about the arms trade, which is a great horror to me. Right now I almost think of that more than a lot of other things. What we're doing is putting guns into the hands of people who will eventually shoot us. And the money made from it, and the outrageousness of it, and selling stuff to people who should be spending the money on other things -- those are things that really concern me a lot.
Are there specific projects that you're working on in that part of your life?
Just doing some writing about it. All my old-lady friends are in New York. Those are people with whom, if something hit us, we would just get together and act on it. There's a limited amount of direct action that I do now. Right now what I'm doing is really giving witness to my life.
I'm curious to hear where you think the women's movement is these days.
The women's movement? It's been pretty successful, in a lot of ways. And I think that a backlash has to happen because a lot of people were made unhappy by the women's movement, mostly men, and it's put them in a bad mood. And also some women. You know, there's a lot of self-made women that really hate the idea that there was a movement that helped them get ahead. In that group of saddened males, if I can put it that way, and proud women -- that whole mixture -- there has to be a reaction, right? Something good has happened, or something has happened, and you have to have a reaction to it. It's a dialectic.
It has to happen that they're gonna get mad at you, just as, naturally, there's gonna be a backlash on abortion. The thing to do is to see it as a backlash on sexual life. Abortion is a very small part of it, although it's very important. But what this really is about is the sexual life of women, and the establishment -- the institutions, like the Church -- they're not gonna take the absence of their power lightly. They want to get back their power over our sexual lives, more than anything else. And once we recognize that, people would feel less defeated, and they would be able to spring forward again. So I think the main thing is for older people to talk to the young ... and I include you now in older people. I guess the point I want to make is that my obligation, and yours -- and Nora's, my daughter, is to show the youth how far they've come. And they have. What, a girl of 18 isn't way ahead of anybody at 18, 20 years ago? There's just no question about it. And what girl of 18 would like to go back? By saying, "I'm not a feminist," if that's what they want to say, then that means they're willing to go back.
I found an old interview where you described yourself as somewhat of a combative pacifist and a cooperative anarchist. How would you describe yourself now?
Well, probably pretty much the same, you know? I still have those strong feelings, but I also have strong feelings for the importance of people working together and the importance of different levels of government. And, at the same time, you know, I am a pacifist, but I am somewhat combative. I shouldn't say "but," because most pacifists are "and combative."
I always thought of you as the perfect feminist -- you enjoy the company of women, and yet you also really enjoy the company of men.
Yeah, sure. But the fact that I was a feminist made some men angry at me, to this day. And the fact that I like men made some women angry at me. You're who you are.
Do you think of yourself as an experimental writer?
I think most writers that are serious are experimental. They all have to figure out new forms every time they write. Bob and I were just talking about this. He was saying, "Goddammit, with this book I forgot how to write." And I said, "Then you forget that we've both said to each other, whenever we start a new piece: 'How come I thought I could write? How am I gonna do this? How am I gonna write this fucking story?'"
What makes a story for you?
What makes a story? Well, you have to have movement, right? Some people call it plot. Plot is movement that is extremely deliberate. So I would say that I'm for movement, but I'm not for terribly deliberate movement. And at some point, you come to the end of what you have to say. There's pleasure, also, and play. Something different makes every story. Sometimes you like tying up the knot. Sometimes you like to leave it wide open, for people to imagine and to do what they want with it.
As women get older, they seem to gain a kind of freedom; do you feel freer?
Well, they do. You do feel freer. I don't know about writing. I think one's freest almost at the beginning, when you really don't give a shit. And you have to watch that freedom and keep it. You must keep it. You can lose it. You have to keep not giving a shit. But, on the other hand, in ordinary life you're freer in talking up, saying what you think. You're freer in who you talk to. The only thing you're not freer in is yelling at your children. You have to stop at a certain point. Like when they're 35.
Any thoughts on aging? What do you think about it?
My general feeling is that, if you're healthy and you have enough money to live decently -- if not flagrantly -- getting older is OK. I mean, I don't mind it at all. What I mind, of course, is that my time is getting short, that I won't see my youngest grandchild grow up -- those things that you're gonna miss. I remember my father feeling like that. I have a poem about it -- he knew he wasn't gonna see the end of the Vietnam War. He said: "Goddammit, I'll never know how they got out." There's a lot you won't know. And there's sadness because your friends are dying. And with the terrible things in the world, with the idea that you're gonna leave the world maybe worse than you found it -- I don't like that feeling at all.
But if your health is good, and you have a habit of looking at each day as a whole day -- unless you drop dead at noon or something -- then every day you live something interesting. It's interesting because you either meet a new tree or if you're in the city, you meet a new person. Or something happens. The sun shifts on the mountain -- very beautiful things happen.
SALON | Oct. 26, 1998
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Gender Festival in Kenya
Posted June 7, 2009
by L. Muthoni Wany
Kenya’s first ever Gender Festival took place over three days last week.
Inspired by the now biennial Tanzanian Gender Festival, it brought together several hundred community-based women’s organisations from across the country, together with national women’s organisations and networks. The Festival focused on what people and organisations fighting for women’s rights have been doing and could do better, particularly in light of what happened to us all last year.
As Patricia Nyaundi of the Federation of Women Lawyers-Kenya pointed out at the start: “Kenya is a country that is ailing... that needs healing.”
Betty Murungi, formerly of the Urgent Action Fund-Africa, pointed to the fact that what such organisations did here during the crisis was, in fact, not unique to Kenya — similar work was done by organisations in Asia (Sri Lanka), Europe (the Balkans) and Africa. Such organisations are generally flexible in their approach, and multidisciplinary.
Betty Murungi
They tend to focus on non-violent resistance to conflict, documentation of women’s experiences of conflict and service provision to address the most glaring human rights violations undergone during conflict and the displacement conflict engenders.
They then, when transitional justice mechanisms are taking off, focus on political participation as well as electoral, legal and political reform.
Murungi said the challenge for Kenya’s transitional justice mechanisms is twofold. First, acknowledging that women are not just victims/survivors of conflict, that some of us also “have blood on our hands.”
And second, while the Kenyan women’s movement pursues justice for what happened, we must be alert to the normalised and structuralised violence against women that existed before last year. We must not seek merely to restore the status quo.
MEN’S ROLES TOO WERE EXPLORED. Dr Willy Mutunga of the Ford Foundation spoke to the need for men to change their own notions of masculinity and thus change society.
His suggestion was that sharing in reproductive labour still predominantly assigned to women — cooking, cleaning, parenting — was one way to address the crisis of masculinity.
The fact is that many men, of all classes, are no longer able to engage in productive labour capable of maintaining men’s traditional roles as protectors and providers.
He also spoke to the growing backlash against the Kenyan women’s movement — as evidenced by the emergence of organisations like Maendeleo ya Wanaume, whose recent purported research into the extent of violence committed by women against men failed to note that the figures are simply not comparable with the extent (and acceptance) of violence against women.
Usu Mallya of the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme spoke of how violations of women’s human rights were intrinsically linked to systems of exclusion — patriarchy and neo-liberalism in particular, as well as the general crisis of leadership and governance across the continent. She spoke also of the role of the state in service provision and human rights promotion. What did the Gender Festival achieve? Well, it at least pointed to the potential for overcoming the divisions and fractures that have always existed in the Kenyan women’s movement — ethnic, generational, religious or rural/urban.
The necessity of doing so is evidenced by the hullabaloo created by the emergence of the G10 and its call for a sex boycott.
Their original demands for action on agreements reached by the mediation process may have been lost in the uproar, but they did manage, if inadvertently, to demonstrate the extent to which Kenyan women’s right to choose whether, when and how to have sex, including within a marriage are still violently resisted in many quarters.
If the Gender Festival provided a movement-building forum in which other kinds of hullabaloo can be created, that could only be a good thing. Hongera Kenyan women.
L. Muthoni Wanyeki is executive director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
15 May – Support Korean conscientious objectors: War Resisters' International Appeal
Yongsuk Lee: Without question, were I to face call-up again, I would again object to military service. However, at the same time, I don't ever want to be put into prison again."At the time of writing this appeal, more than 450 conscientious objectors are serving prison sentences of usually 18 months in South Korea. Since 1939 more than 15,000 conscientious objectors have been to prison in the country, which up still does not recognise the right to conscientious objection.
A South Korean Conscientious Objection movement was not formed until 2000, but since then it has worked in close cooperation with War Resisters' International. This has included visits to Korea by WRI staff and activists, providing training or participating in conferences. Korea Solidarity for Conscientious Objection (KSCO), WRI's Korean partner, as well as participating regularly in WRI events, has twice sent members to work as volunteers in the international office. Also in 2005, KSCO organised WRI's annual seminar and council in Seoul.
War Resisters' International has also assisted the Korean movement in achieving some major successes:
a reduction of the usual punishment from three years to 18 months. Under the present legal situation, this is the minimum punishment which will lead to a discharge from the military, and therefore avoid a new call-up;
conscientious objectors are no longer tried by military courts, but by civilian courts;
a ground breaking decision of the United Nations Human Rights Committee on the right to conscientious objection to military service, clearly stating that not to provide for conscientious objection is a violation of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion;
a recommendation of the South Korean National Human Rights Commission to recognise the right to conscientious objection;
Eun-gook held a press conference and declared his conscientious objection, on 19 Feb 2009. Photo : World Without WarThe documentation: Documentation on conscientious objection in South Korea, available for download
In 2007, the Ministry of Defence of South Korea even announced that it would introduce the right to conscientious objection and a substitute service. However, with the change of government in 2008 this announcement is today no longer being honoured.
For 15 May 2009 – International Conscientious Objectors' Day – War Resisters' International therefore decided to bring the situation in South Korea to international attention, and to increase the pressure on the Korean government to recognise the right to conscientious objection.
We ask you to support our efforts to support conscientious objectors. Please considering writing a letter protesting at South Korea's failure to recognise conscientious objection to:.
President Lee Myung-bak, 1 Cheongwadae-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea, email: foreign@president.go.kr
(Andreas Speck)
Conscientious Objection Campaigning Worker atWar Resisters International Web Page
Koreans Protest Against US Beef, June 2008
Friday, May 1, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Grace Paley Award Winner
The William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences is pleased to announce that Sơn ca Lâm is recipient of the 2009 Grace Paley Award. Honorable Mention has been awarded to Stephanie Fail and Heather Turner.
The Joiner Center received an overwhelming number of qualified nominees for this award; it's clear that students at UMass Boston are hard at work in the fields of social and political activism. We want to thank the students and faculty who nominated the applicants; our task was bittersweet. We applaud Sơn ca Lâm, Stephanie Fail, and Heather Turner for their work and advocacy; it is an honor to recognize these outstanding individuals.
For the past three years, Sơn ca Lâm has served as a core member of Asian American Studies Outreach (AASO), the student-initiated, student-run arm of the Asian American Studies Program at UMass Boston. She was instrumental in the drafting of Nine Issues of Concern, which framed an agenda of priority issues for Asian and Asian American students. Sơn ca also co-organized all aspects of the 2008 Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Activities on campus. Sơn ca performed at numerous cultural events on and off campus, including The Vagina Monologues. Her academic commitment is outstanding; she is pursuing a double major in Environmental Studies and Comparative Ethnic Studies. Combining her academic skills and her community commitments to full effect, Sơn ca used her GIS mapping skills to plot a profile of Vietnamese nail salons in Boston; similarly, she made use of her academic environmental justice expertise to highlight illegal landfills and dumpsites in the East Vietnamese community in New Orleans. Sơn ca Lâm is due to graduate this year.
Stephanie Fail writes op-eds for The Mass Media, the UMass Boston student newspaper. Her columns have covered a wide range of topics, including politics, the T, racism, history, and the need for students to play an active role in social and political affairs. Her work with the Student Antiwar Coalition has included the development of a website, event planning and outreach through journalism. Stephanie and her colleagues at the Student Antiwar Coalition brought the embedded international journalist, Dahr Jamail, to UMass Boston. This event raised student awareness about the war and its consequences.
Heather Turner has put in many hours as an activist, focusing on the needs of the mentally ill and women at risk. Her grassroots activism includes protesting white supremacist activities, leafleting (addressing issues such as the war on terror, the Patriot Act, and other issues concerning individual privacy and freedom), organizing a group of young people to attend the Democratic National Convention, and counseling and assisting at shelters throughout Boston and Cambridge. A member of the UMass Boston Philososphy Club, Heather is currently involved in fundraising for a conference on the Rwandan Genocide.
A reception honoring Sơn ca Lâm, Stephanie Fail, and Heather Turner will be held at the Harbor Gallery in McCormack Hall on Wednesday, April 15th at noon. This event will be preceded by a reading given by writer and activist Carolyn Forché at eleven o'clock. For details or disability-related accommodations, please contact the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences at (617) 287-5850.
The Joiner Center received an overwhelming number of qualified nominees for this award; it's clear that students at UMass Boston are hard at work in the fields of social and political activism. We want to thank the students and faculty who nominated the applicants; our task was bittersweet. We applaud Sơn ca Lâm, Stephanie Fail, and Heather Turner for their work and advocacy; it is an honor to recognize these outstanding individuals.
For the past three years, Sơn ca Lâm has served as a core member of Asian American Studies Outreach (AASO), the student-initiated, student-run arm of the Asian American Studies Program at UMass Boston. She was instrumental in the drafting of Nine Issues of Concern, which framed an agenda of priority issues for Asian and Asian American students. Sơn ca also co-organized all aspects of the 2008 Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Activities on campus. Sơn ca performed at numerous cultural events on and off campus, including The Vagina Monologues. Her academic commitment is outstanding; she is pursuing a double major in Environmental Studies and Comparative Ethnic Studies. Combining her academic skills and her community commitments to full effect, Sơn ca used her GIS mapping skills to plot a profile of Vietnamese nail salons in Boston; similarly, she made use of her academic environmental justice expertise to highlight illegal landfills and dumpsites in the East Vietnamese community in New Orleans. Sơn ca Lâm is due to graduate this year.
Stephanie Fail writes op-eds for The Mass Media, the UMass Boston student newspaper. Her columns have covered a wide range of topics, including politics, the T, racism, history, and the need for students to play an active role in social and political affairs. Her work with the Student Antiwar Coalition has included the development of a website, event planning and outreach through journalism. Stephanie and her colleagues at the Student Antiwar Coalition brought the embedded international journalist, Dahr Jamail, to UMass Boston. This event raised student awareness about the war and its consequences.
Heather Turner has put in many hours as an activist, focusing on the needs of the mentally ill and women at risk. Her grassroots activism includes protesting white supremacist activities, leafleting (addressing issues such as the war on terror, the Patriot Act, and other issues concerning individual privacy and freedom), organizing a group of young people to attend the Democratic National Convention, and counseling and assisting at shelters throughout Boston and Cambridge. A member of the UMass Boston Philososphy Club, Heather is currently involved in fundraising for a conference on the Rwandan Genocide.
A reception honoring Sơn ca Lâm, Stephanie Fail, and Heather Turner will be held at the Harbor Gallery in McCormack Hall on Wednesday, April 15th at noon. This event will be preceded by a reading given by writer and activist Carolyn Forché at eleven o'clock. For details or disability-related accommodations, please contact the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences at (617) 287-5850.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Passover for Peace and Justice
Philadelphia, PA April 7-8, 2009—This year for the Jewish holiday of Passover, many Philadelphia Jews and their allies will gather at the Israeli Consulate for an 18 hour vigil to remember suffering and commemorate struggles for liberation from ancient Egypt to modern-day Israel-Palestine.This event, “From Deir Yassin* to Gaza,” begins at 4:00 PM on April 7th and continues through 10:00 am April 8th. The event takes place outside of the Israeli Consulate, 1880 JFK Blvd. in Center City Philadelphia. While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once again fails to address Palestinian sovereignty, the organization sponsoring the event, Philadelphia Jews for a Just Peace (PJJP), gathers together for immediate action. PJJP calls for all people of conscience to stand together in mourning of Palestinians who died in Deir Yassin, for an end to the occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, and demands an end to the siege of Gaza, and the right of return to Palestinian refugees.
Participants will include individuals, rabbis, community leaders, and groups within the Jewish, Arab-American, Muslim, Christian, Quaker, secular, student, and local Philadelphia peace communities. Rabbi Linda Holtzman of Congregation Mishkan Shalom will lead kaddish, the Jewish mourning prayer, for those killed at Deir Yassin.
Refugees Fleeing Deir Yassin in April, 1948The event highlights Imam Dawud Assad, a survivor of the Deir Yassin Massacre who lives in New Jersey as a grandfather and advocate for social justice. Mr. Assad will share his story during the Deir Yassin Memorial taking place 6:00-8:00 PM on April 7th.
The 18 hour vigil holds a packed schedule of events, opening at 4:00 PM with political street theater as a prelude to a Deir Yassin Memorial from 6:00-8:00 PM. A Passover Ritual of Memory and Repentance will be followed by an all-night Teach-In on TOPICS including boycott, divestment, and sanctions. The event will conclude with a protest against the siege on Gaza at 8:30 AM the following morning.
*Deir Yassin was a Palestinian village destroyed by 3 Zionist militias in 1948 in which more than 100 men, women and children were massacred. Word of the massacres spread through Palestine and many residents fled. Within a year of the massacre, Deir Yassin, which had been emptied of Palestinians, was re-populated with Jewish immigrants, and its name was removed from the map. During the war of 1948 that ended in the establishment of the state of Israel, over 530 Palestinian villages were destroyed. Deir Yassin has become emblematic for Israeli violence against the Palestinian people.
Thomas Hurndall, who took this photo was shot by an Israeli soldier.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1358.shtml
Thomas "Tom" Hurndall (29 November 1981 – 13 January 2004) was a British photography student, a volunteer for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), and an activist against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. On 11 April 2003, he was shot in the head in the Gaza Strip by an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) sniper, Taysir Hayb. Hurndall was left in a coma and died nine months later.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Man Confronts Police London April 1, 2009
This video was shot by Leonardo Vilchis of the Union de Vecinos, from Los Angeles, CA Please contact him for use.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
A Walk in March
by Grace Paley May 28, 2007
This hill
crossed with broken pines and maples
lumpy with the burial mounds of
uprooted hemlocks (hurricane
of ’38) out of their
rotting hearts generations rise
trying once more to become
the forest
just beyond them
tall enough to be called trees
in their youth like aspen a bouquet
of young beech is gathered
they still wear last summer’s leaves
the lightest brown almost translucent
how their stubbornness has decorated
the winter woods
on this narrow path ice tries
to keep the black undecaying oak leaves
in its crackling grip it’s become
too hard to walk at last a
sunny patch oh! i’m in water
to my ankles APRIL
...........
Saturday, March 21, 2009
March BEYOND the Pentagon to the Arms Makers
It's the 6th anniversary of the Iraq War. The March 21 ended in front of the VA corporate offices of General Dynamics and KBR-and a whole pile of Virginia State Police in full riot gear. Two provocateurs dressed as Black Bloc members were spotted behind police lines, as was a light armored vehicle.
While the mainstream press reported only "hundreds" of protesters, China's Xinhua News Agency reported that 170 cardboard coffins draped with US, Iraq, and other flags were carried. For less than 1,000 protesters, at least one in 10 would have had to be coffin bearers, so with coffin bearers nowhere near that high a percentsage, yet the number of coffins at 170, the total turnout must be higher.
The march that nominally went to the Pentagon went right by the Pentagon-to go after war contractors. It was in front of a building containing Boeing and a "contractor" or mercenary firm specializing in electronics that the APOC blockade of the march occurred. This blockade forced the march to stay on this target longer and approach it more closely (on the sidewalk).
The final stopping point was well beyond the Pentagon, at the Crystal City office plaza containing a big office tower labeled "General Dynamics." The offices of Kellog-Brown-Root(KBR) a former subsidiary of Halliburton, were at the very end of the stopping point area.
An armored vehicle stood guard.
Riot cops menaced the protesters to such a degree that the very Black Bloc that had earlier participated in the APOC blockade had to turn around and deploy forward to protect those bearing the flag draped coffins from all those riot cops!
A tiny counterprotest threatens Jane Fonda with LYNCHING!
These photos and words are from http://dc.indymedia.org/ one of the best of the US indymedia sites.
While the mainstream press reported only "hundreds" of protesters, China's Xinhua News Agency reported that 170 cardboard coffins draped with US, Iraq, and other flags were carried. For less than 1,000 protesters, at least one in 10 would have had to be coffin bearers, so with coffin bearers nowhere near that high a percentsage, yet the number of coffins at 170, the total turnout must be higher.
The march that nominally went to the Pentagon went right by the Pentagon-to go after war contractors. It was in front of a building containing Boeing and a "contractor" or mercenary firm specializing in electronics that the APOC blockade of the march occurred. This blockade forced the march to stay on this target longer and approach it more closely (on the sidewalk).
The final stopping point was well beyond the Pentagon, at the Crystal City office plaza containing a big office tower labeled "General Dynamics." The offices of Kellog-Brown-Root(KBR) a former subsidiary of Halliburton, were at the very end of the stopping point area.
An armored vehicle stood guard.Riot cops menaced the protesters to such a degree that the very Black Bloc that had earlier participated in the APOC blockade had to turn around and deploy forward to protect those bearing the flag draped coffins from all those riot cops!
A tiny counterprotest threatens Jane Fonda with LYNCHING!These photos and words are from http://dc.indymedia.org/ one of the best of the US indymedia sites.
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