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.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
International Women's Day
This poster lists the women's agenda in Australia. The poster is a re-make of one of the Soviet posters designed by Rodchenko.
The Northern Territories (NT) Intervention
The Northern Territory National Emergency Response (also referred to as "the intervention") is a package of changes to welfare provision, law enforcement, land tenure and other measures, introduced by the Australian federal government under John Howard in 2007, nominally to address claims of rampant child sexual abuse and neglect in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities. Operation Outreach, the intervention's main logistical operation conducted by a force of 600 soldiers and detachments from the ADF (including NORFORCE) concluded October 21, 2008.
The package was the Federal government's response to the Territory government's publication of Little Children are Sacred, but implemented almost none of the report's recommendations. The response has been criticised, but also received bipartisan parliamentary support. The current Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has and continues to support the response, though he did make some adjustments to its implementation.
The measures of the response which have attracted most criticism comprise the exemption from the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, the compulsory acquisition of an unspecified number of prescribed communities (Measure 5) and the partial abolition of the permit system (Measure 10). These have been interpreted as undermining important principles and parameters established as part of the legal recognition of indigenous land rights in Australia. More generally, a lack of consultation with Aboriginal community leaders is often cited by critics of the response, alongside the fact that the action addresses very few of the specific recommendations contained in the Little Children are Sacred Report, while introducing many measures not suggested in the Report.
Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation have responded:
"ANTaR disagrees with the former Federal Government that breaching the Racial Discrimination Act is necessary to protect children. In particular, we are concerned that this has led to mistrust, division and increased intolerance towards Aboriginal people that are barriers to protecting Aboriginal children from abuse."
The Northern Territories (NT) Intervention
The Northern Territory National Emergency Response (also referred to as "the intervention") is a package of changes to welfare provision, law enforcement, land tenure and other measures, introduced by the Australian federal government under John Howard in 2007, nominally to address claims of rampant child sexual abuse and neglect in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities. Operation Outreach, the intervention's main logistical operation conducted by a force of 600 soldiers and detachments from the ADF (including NORFORCE) concluded October 21, 2008.
The package was the Federal government's response to the Territory government's publication of Little Children are Sacred, but implemented almost none of the report's recommendations. The response has been criticised, but also received bipartisan parliamentary support. The current Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has and continues to support the response, though he did make some adjustments to its implementation.
The measures of the response which have attracted most criticism comprise the exemption from the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, the compulsory acquisition of an unspecified number of prescribed communities (Measure 5) and the partial abolition of the permit system (Measure 10). These have been interpreted as undermining important principles and parameters established as part of the legal recognition of indigenous land rights in Australia. More generally, a lack of consultation with Aboriginal community leaders is often cited by critics of the response, alongside the fact that the action addresses very few of the specific recommendations contained in the Little Children are Sacred Report, while introducing many measures not suggested in the Report.
Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation have responded:
"ANTaR disagrees with the former Federal Government that breaching the Racial Discrimination Act is necessary to protect children. In particular, we are concerned that this has led to mistrust, division and increased intolerance towards Aboriginal people that are barriers to protecting Aboriginal children from abuse."
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Coal Fired Power Shut Down
March 3rd, 2009
Yesterday thousands of people came together to offer an unprecedented example of mass protest and civil disobedience for the climate. More than 2500 activists, many willing to risk arrest, successfully blockaded all five entrances to the Capitol Power Plant for more than four hours.
As impressive as that is, this action wasn’t just about this one coal-fired powerplant. The scale and the commitment of the participants was the biggest example yet of the kind of public support necessary to solve the climate crisis. We aren’t going to stop global warming by just changing lightbulbs and driving hybrid cars. The only real solution is to come together and demand unprecedented change through unprecedented action.
And that’s exactly what happened yesterday.
Yesterday thousands of people came together to offer an unprecedented example of mass protest and civil disobedience for the climate. More than 2500 activists, many willing to risk arrest, successfully blockaded all five entrances to the Capitol Power Plant for more than four hours.
As impressive as that is, this action wasn’t just about this one coal-fired powerplant. The scale and the commitment of the participants was the biggest example yet of the kind of public support necessary to solve the climate crisis. We aren’t going to stop global warming by just changing lightbulbs and driving hybrid cars. The only real solution is to come together and demand unprecedented change through unprecedented action.
And that’s exactly what happened yesterday.
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