Archive
Celebrities for Palestine – Alice Walker Stands Tall Against Israel Apartheid State
Posted On June 20, 2012 on Akashma Online News
On February 9, 1944, in the small farming community of Eatonton, GA, Willie Lee and Minnie Grant gave birth to their eighth and final child, a girl, they named Alice. Little did her parents know that their youngest daughter would become one of the most prolific, controversial and respected African-American novelists of the later-half of the 20th Century. But the potential in Willie Lee and Minnie Grant’s baby may not have been recognized early on by others living in their farming community. Alice would have to overcome a number of difficulties in her lifetime that would profoundly influence the way she pictured herself and the world around her and would later help shape her views as a writer.
Poet, Writer and Activist Alice Walker makes her position clear on BDS and Cultural Boycott Against Israel Apartheid State. She does not give her permission to Israeli Publisher House to publish “The Color Purple” , even thought that it was published in Hebrew Language before , Now She adds her voice to the BDS Campaign, her Moral Standing it is stronger than her Ego as an Author
“The Color Purple,” which won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, was adapted into a movie in 1985 directed by the American filmmaker Steven Spielberg.
She born in the State of Georgia, one of the more racist states of the US, that fact could have contributed to her formation as a writer, “The Color Purple” Book explore the situation of the blacks in the South, the exploitation of the black woman by the black males and the white society.
Alice Walker has lived the injustice of being black in a white ruled society, she grew up with the sores of racism and even being lived the Racist American Period and survived it, she does not show any signs of hate against this White Society, on the contrary if you read her books, and you hear her experiences that she kindly shares on her interviews, you notice her beautiful soul, how she thanks God for the transformation of our society and sees some of the changes, she reveals herself as a revolutionary mind offering to us with her writing the thought process that keeps evolving, and we can say now, that some blocks of our society are civilized in their ideas and their behavior
She has visited many places that have suffered injustices like Post Apartheid South Africa and knows of the terrible life the Afrikaans had it, and because she knows thru her own experiences the real story, she adds her voice to the people of Palestine, which sufferings are very similar to the blacks of the south where she grew up, or the South Africans of the Apartheid Era.
She has the courage to stand tall against Israel Bully of the Middle East, she was part of the Gaza Flotilla last year, unfortunately Israel Political pressure made the voyage impossible to reach Palestinians Waters, but the awareness keeps sparking out, and sees Hope for a Non Violent transition to peace.
I bow to this amazing lady that puts her name to use for a good cause without minding the professional risk.
“Alice Walker! She has absolutely nothing to gain in terms of ego, popularity, power, or Money. Her stance comes from her heart, conscience, compassion, and genuine concern for justice.” Professor Gail Baker
“Walker’s use of Celie’s own voice, however underdeveloped, allows Walker to tell the history of black women in the rural South in a sympathetic and realistic way. Unlike a historian’s perspective, which can be antiseptic and overly analytical, Celie’s letters offer a powerful first-person account of the institutions of racism and sexism. Celie’s simple narrative brings us into her isolated world with language that reveals both pain and detached numbness: “My momma dead. She die screaming and cussing. She scream at me. She cuss at me.”
Like her voice, Celie’s faith is prominent but underdeveloped. Celie relies heavily on God as her listener and source of strength, but she sometimes blurs the distinction between God’s authority and that of Alphonso. She confesses that God, rather than Alphonso, killed her baby, and she never makes any association between the injustice she experiences in her life and the ability of God to overturn or prevent this injustice.”
The Color Purple, 1982
Letter from Alice Walker to Publishers at Yediot Books
Published Originally on PACBI
June 9, 2012
Dear Publishers at Yediot Books,
Thank you so much for wishing to publish my novel THE COLOR PURPLE. It isn’t possible for me to permit this at this time for the following reason: As you may know, last Fall in South Africa The Russell Tribunal on Palestine met and determined that Israel is guilty of apartheid and persecution of the Palestinian people, both inside Israel and also in the Occupied Territories. The testimony we heard, both from Israelis and Palestinians (I was a jurist) was devastating. I grew up under American apartheid and this was far worse. Indeed, many South Africans who attended, including Desmond Tutu, felt the Israeli version of these crimes is worse even than what they suffered under the white supremacist regimes that dominated South Africa for so long.
It is my hope that the non-violent BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement, of which I am part, will have enough of an impact on Israeli civilian society to change the situation.
In that regard, I offer an earlier example of THE COLOR PURPLE’s engagement in the world-wide effort to rid humanity of its self-destructive habit of dehumanizing whole populations. When the film of The Color Purple was finished, and all of us who made it decided we loved it, Steven Spielberg, the director, was faced with the decision of whether it should be permitted to travel to and be offered to the South African public. I lobbied against this idea because, as with Israel today, there was a civil society movement of BDS aimed at changing South Africa’s apartheid policies and, in fact, transforming the government.
It was not a particularly difficult position to hold on my part: I believe deeply in non-violent methods of social change though they sometimes seem to take forever, but I did regret not being able to share our movie, immediately, with (for instance) Winnie and Nelson Mandela and their children, and also with the widow and children of the brutally murdered, while in police custody, Steven Biko, the visionary journalist and defender of African integrity and freedom.
We decided to wait. How happy we all were when the apartheid regime was dismantled and Nelson Mandela became the first president of color of South Africa.
Only then did we send our beautiful movie! And to this day, when I am in South Africa, I can hold my head high and nothing obstructs the love that flows between me and the people of that country.
Which is to say, I would so like knowing my books are read by the people of your country, especially by the young, and by the brave Israeli activists (Jewish and Palestinian) for justice and peace I have had the joy of working beside. I am hopeful that one day, maybe soon, this may happen. But now is not the time.
We must continue to work on the issue, and to wait.
In faith that a just future can be fashioned from small acts,
Alice Walker
“Whereas international institutions and governments fail to take action in support of justice and equality for the Palestinian people, the Russell Tribunal will raise awareness about the urgency of holding Israel accountable for its violations of international law,”
“This tribunal will serve as an effective tool with which to educate a wider public about the nature of Israel’s system of oppression of Palestinians and will help to mobilise support for popular resistance and the BDS movement,” Juma Juma – Representative of the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC)
Alice Walker
Alice Walker in Berkeley, California, April 1983. Walker uses a variety of narrative forms and levels of diction to create vivid, memorable, and larger-than-life characters.
Walker’s novels include :
THE THIRD LIFE OF GRANGE COPELAND (1970),
Set in Georgia between 1920 and 1960, Alice Walker‘s first novel The Third Life of Grange Copeland describes the economic oppression African-Americans suffered under the share-cropping system and its tragic effects on black families and the black community. Walker asks to what degree blacks themselves have been accomplishes in their victimization by the white power structure, which destroys their dignity and dreams. She also explores the intersection of racism and sexism in the oppression of African American families, depicting black men who vent their anger and frustration, not on the whites who exploit them, but on their wives and children. The two main male characters, Grange and Brownfield Copeland, both try to prove their manliness through methods endorsed by white patriarchy: through assertions of power over women in the form of sexual conquests and wife abuse.
MERIDIAN (1976),
The Difficulty of Idealism
Meridian is energized by a younger generation coming into its full power and raising its voice in dissent against the institutional racism that prevailed through the 1960s. Through occasionally violent protests and demonstrations, Meridian and other activists attempt to institute change and alter perceptions. Idealistic as they are, they ultimately find various degrees of satisfaction with the goals and ideals of the civil rights movement. Meridian feels that she will always stand on the fringes of the movement since she is unprepared to take her dissent to a radical, if not murderous, level. Lynne struggles with adapting and applying her own idealism to meaningful change in the lives of southern blacks. Truman eventually sours to the movement, having lost sight of its intentions in his self-absorption. In the end, Meridian realizes the fatuousness of dying or killing for the movement, concluding that the battle is won in small ways, such as getting blacks registered to vote and improving the lives of people victimized by the unchecked expression of racism.
THE TEMPLE OF MY FAMILIAR (1989),
POSSESSING THE SECRET OF JOY (1992),
BY THE LIGHT OF MY FATHER’S SMILE (1998),
NOW IS THE TIME TO OPEN YOUR HEART (2004),
OVERCOMING SPEECHLESSNESS (2012).
Her poetry is collected in ONCE: POEMS (1968),
REVOLUTIONARY PETUNIAS & OTHER POEMS (1973),
ABSOLUTE TRUST IN THE GOODNESS OF THE EARTH:
NEW POEMS (2003).
Some of her short fiction has been published in:
IN LOVE & TROUBLE: STORIES OF BLACK WOMEN (1973).
She became a major figure in feminism — which she called “womanism” — through such writings as IN SEARCH OF OUR MOTHERS’ GARDENS: WOMANIST PROSE (1983) and LIVING BY THE WORD (1988). These collections of essays, speeches, and letters focus on Walker’s experiences as a black woman in America, and on racial and class inequality.
How Alice Walker become Palestinian Activist: In her interview with Amy Goodman in Democracy Now she explains how the lost of her sister and the story of a woman in Palestine that lost everything and everyone in her family made her be more out spoken about the Palestinian Issue.
ALICE WALKER: Well, I was actually mourning the death of my own sister, and I thought that, oh, she was, you know, much older, and she was sick, and she died, and we’d had a horrible five or six years before she died. And so I thought, you know, when she dies, I won’t be devastated. And I was completely devastated. It was so painful.
And I was out trying to deal with my own devastation, when I learned about a woman in Palestine, during the bombing, who had been — who had lost five of her daughters, and she herself was unconscious. And it just instantly connected me to her. I felt, what will this be like? Who will tell her? Who will tell this woman when she wakes up that “your five daughters are dead”?
And so I felt that I had to go and present myself to this situation and to be attentive to it in a way that I had started being many years before, except that at the time I was married to and then related to, in many ways, to a Jewish person who always said, well, if you see the Palestinian side, almost anything, you know, positive about the Palestinian side, then it means that you are anti-Semitic. And so, this was so shocking to me that it silenced me for a while. I mean, I said a few things, I wrote a few things. But I felt that I had left something undone. And I realize at this point in my life, and years earlier, actually, that there are things in life that call to us, and they’re ours to do. And this was one of the things that was mine to finish.
And so I went to Gaza, and I met with women who had lost everything, and their children, their houses. You know, I sat on the rubble, even though there was the phosphorus powder, because it was just overwhelming to see the injury and the damage that had been done to these people by the Israeli government. And I knew that it was my responsibility as a writer and as a human being to witness this and to write about it. I mean, why else was I — why else am I a writer? You know, why else do I have a conscience? I think that all people who feel that there is injustice in the world anywhere should learn as much of it as they can bear. That is our duty.
“I speak a little about this American history, but it isn’t history that these women know.” These are the women, the Palestinian women, I’m with. “They’re too young. They’ve never been taught it. It feels irrelevant. Following their example of speaking of their families, I talk about my Southern parents’ teachings during our experience of America’s apartheid years, when white people owned and controlled all the resources and the land, in addition to the political, legal, and military apparatus, and used their power to intimidate black people in the most barbaric and merciless ways. These whites who tormented us daily were like Israelis who have cut down millions of trees planted by Arab Palestinians, stolen Palestinian water, even topsoil. Forcing Palestinians to use separate roads from those they use themselves, they have bulldozed innumerable villages, houses, mosques, and in their place built settlements for strangers who have no connection whatsoever with Palestine: settlers who have been the most rabidly anti-Palestinian of all, attacking the children, the women, everyone, old and young alike, viciously.”
AMY GOODMAN: Alice, I wanted to go back to March 2009 -—
ALICE WALKER: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: — when you were in Gaza, to a video of you there.
ALICE WALKER: It’s shocking beyond anything I have ever experienced. And it’s actually so horrible that it’s basically unbelievable, even though I’m standing here and I’ve been walking here and I’ve been looking at things here. It still feels like, you know, you could never convince anyone that this is actually what is happening and what has happened to these people and what the Israeli government has done. It will be a very difficult thing for anyone to actually believe in, so it’s totally important that people come to visit and to see for themselves, because the world community, that cares about peace and cares about truth and cares about justice, will have to find a way to deal with this. We cannot let this go as if it’s just OK, especially those of us in the United States who pay for this. You know, I have come here, in part, to see what I’m buying with my tax money.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Alice Walker in 2009, interviewed by my colleague here at Democracy Now!, Anjali Kamat. When you look back at you walking through the rubble of Gaza, your thoughts?
ALICE WALKER: My thought is that I am so glad I was there. I am so glad that I managed to gather myself and present myself to this situation, because it is my responsibility, you know, as a person, as an elder, as someone who cares about the planet, who really wants us all to thrive, you know, or just survive. This is a very thorny issue, and it takes all of us looking at it as carefully as we can to help solve it. It’s not that it’s impossible to solve. But what will help a lot is the insistence by all of us on fairness and on people actually understanding what they’re looking at.
AMY GOODMAN: You say that the Middle East solution is beyond the two-state solution, and you also talk about restorative justice.
ALICE WALKER: Yes, I do, because I believe in restorative justice. I think we could use that here. I mean, I don’t feel great about the past leaders here not being brought to trial, actually, you know. But if we can’t have trial, we could at least have council. I mean, but to let people, any people, just go, after they’ve murdered lots of people and destroyed a lot, is not right. It destroys trust. So — what was the rest of the question?
AMY GOODMAN: And you believe in a one-state solution.
ALICE WALKER: Oh, the one-state solution. Yes, I do. I mean, when I think about my tax money, and I think about, well, you know, given that I’ve already given, and we as a country have given over a trillion dollars to Israel in the last — since, I don’t know, ‘48 or something, but a lot of money that we could have used here, where would I be happiest to see, you know, my money spent? Well, I would be happy seeing my money spent for all the people who live in Palestine. And that means that, you know, the Palestinians who are forced out of their houses, forced off of their land, should come back and share the land, all of it, including the settlements. You know, if I am going to be asked to help pay for settlements, I would like to be, you know, permitted to say who gets to live in them. And I would like the women and children, the Palestinian women and children that I saw, I would like to say — take them by hand and say, “You know what? Look at this. We built this for you. You’re home now.”
The following link contain Alice Walker entire interview with Amy Goodman from Democracy now
http://www.democracynow.org/embed/story/2010/4/13/alice_walker_on_overcoming_speechlessness_a
Drones
Drones should be ruled illegal war gadgets.
They are not conventional weapons, and violate the rules of war set on the Geneva Convention treaties and the rules of engagement of war.
The loss of innocent civilian lives specially woman, children and elderly people should not be considered collateral damage.
They are war crimes.
At the Museum of Tolerance Intolerance Flourishes
Posted on June 17, 2012 by Akashma Online News
by MacKenzie Paine
Dear Mr. Brenner Debunking Zionists Lies
Posted on June 17, 2012 by Akashma Online News
| MacKenzie Paine |
April 11, 2001
|
|
|
|
Dear Mr. Brenner,
My two sons were working outside the other day, helping a neighbor in his yard. It was cold and blustery so one of my sons had tied a scarf around his face and had his parka hood up, so all one could see were his eyes. Another neighbor passed by and jokingly told him that he looked like a terrorist. The neighbor meant Arab, of course, but for most Americans the two terms have now become melded into one — thanks to Zionist propaganda. The same Zionist media pressure has caused the same distortion of the realities of historical revisionist works. Mention historical revisionists and Americans think of Nazis. Terrorists and Nazis — labels that strike fear and loathing in the hearts of millions.
You have posted to this list a message which discredits and maligns historical revisionists without providing a single verifiable detail or pointing out any error of fact published by a revisionist scholar, thereby unwittingly promoting the same Zionist propaganda. Once and for all, dear sir, historical revisionists in general and the Institute for Historical Review in particular, are not “Nazi-nutsies.” After all, neo-Nazis are the ones who espouse censorship and it’s the revisionists who are being censored. Revisionists are specialists in their respective scientific and scholarly fields and their works HAVE been reviewed by their peers, much to the dismay of Zionists around the world. Just as the only political defense for genocide against the Palestinians must be supported by terrorist propaganda, the only defense of the holocaust story must be supported by censoring, libeling, maligning, persecuting, prosecuting and even assassinating historical revisionists. If their works do not, as you say, rise above the level of “whale sh_t,” why are the Zionists so busy trying to keep world opinion from exploring the ocean floor? Surely the King of Jordan, the Prime Minister of Lebanon, the United States Congress, international ambassadors and sovereign governments need not be pressured into preventing the world’s intellectuals from mucking around in “whale sh_t.” These same intellectuals wouldn’t be defying their own governments for such a worthless enterprise.
As the Jordanian Writers Association pointed out in their statement On the Cancellation of the Conference on Zionism and Historical Revisionism, forty-five million people died during WWII. You accuse the revisionists of attempting to “hijack” the Palestinian revolution, when in fact the Zionists have hijacked an entire world war, have put Jewish suffering at front and center and have done so without physical evidence, historical proof or allowance of discussion of either or both. They have shaped a world war into the finest Zionist weapon of mass brainwashing, resulting in the collective guilt of hundreds of millions of Americans and Europeans who feel the need to support Israel at all cost. In today’s world the holocaust serves only the Zionists. Making it into a Sacred Cow with no room for discussion or debate can serve only Zionist interests.
You mention the need for some to develop “fantasy solutions to real problems.” Here I couldn’t agree with you more. While the Allies needed to be able to justify the mass destruction and wholesale slaughter of German and Japanese civilians to their citizens, it became necessary to promote the fantasy that the Nazis had been even more despicable than the British, US and Soviet military forces. Allow me to quote the first eyewitness account of Auschwitz after its liberation by the Red Army. The article “The Factory of Death at Auschwitz” was written by Boris Polevoi and published in Pravda on February 2, 1945. It contains the following quote:
“Last year, when the Red Army revealed to the world the terrible and abominable secrets of Majdanek, the Germans in Auschwitz began to wipe out the traces of their crimes. They leveled the mounds of the so-called “old” graves in the Eastern part of the camp, tore up and destroyed the traces of the electric conveyor belt, on which hundreds of people were simultaneously electrocuted, their bodies falling onto the slow moving conveyor belt which carried them to the top of the blast furnace where they fell in, were completely burned, their bones converted to meal in the rolling mills, and then sent to the surrounding fields. In retreat were taken the special transportable apparatuses for killing children. The stationary gas chambers in the eastern part of the camp were restructured, even little turrets and other architectural embellishments were added so that they would look like innocent garages.”
This little bit of fantasy suggests quite clearly that upon first inspection of Auschwitz there was no homicidal weapon, there was no evidence that anyone was gassed and there were no mass graves. Neither the “weapon” nor the “scene of the crime” were thoroughly and knowledgeably investigated until historical revisionists visited the site — and found nothing to support Zionist claims of mass murder with any weapon. There was, and still remains, only wild rumor and vicious wartime propaganda. It has only been through the due diligence and sacrifice of historical revisionists that most of these fantasies have been brought to light. At the Nuremberg Trials German officers and German civilians were tortured, assassinated, falsely imprisoned, denied defense witnesses or cross examination of prosecution witnesses, and some were executed based on accusations of the following: Killing Jews with portable brain-bashing machines, by electrocution, steaming, roasting, burning and gassing, by having them climb trees and then having the tree cut down, gassing children in “gas vans,” etc., etc., etc. As for the Nazi gassings, according to affidavits produced in court, this was carried out in gas chambers and shower rooms with both diesel exhaust and Zyklon-B. If you are curious enough to read the other fanciful undocumented, unsupported claims they are all in the Court records of the Nuremberg Trials.
Please, dear sir, do not dissuade anyone who abhors Zionism and racism from researching for themselves the works of historical revisionists. They do not deny the holocaust — they define it — using scientific evidence, proven facts, demographic data, the latest technology and sound reason. Historical revisionists could free the Palestinians. By providing the proof that Jewish suffering was real, but not unique, during WWII they might induce the Western world to rise up and denounce Zionism in all its horrific glory. Mr. Brenner, you need to cast your nets much closer to the surface, where the light still penetrates, and you will find the truth about historical revisionists.
I look forward to your reply, should you be so inclined.
Kind regards,
MacKenzie Paine
A Tale Of A Rape A Death Sentence
Posted on June 6, 2012 by Akashma Online News
Rape is a very difficult and complex Issue
Rapists do not belong to any social status, religious denomination, nationality or race group, we e find them every where, the difference in the numbers are in the reported cases, as most of the statistics are compiled from court cases denominated as rapes.
Only Some countries publish their Data on Rape cases so it is difficult to know the real numbers to make the statistics by countries.
For western societies where rape it is openly discussed in forums and some chapters of the Penal Code is dedicated to punish sexual harassment, domestic violence and rape victims violators, the numbers showing in statistics are alarmingly high. We have very strict laws to punish sexual predators, and even with all the protection in place, women are still victims of rapes and domestic violence.
In the more complicated issues of domestic violence and systematic rape of women with their husbands, or domestic partners it is very difficult to find the exact numbers other than isolated cases heard in courts of domestic violence cases, where the rape is exposed. Most of the cases that are known thru shelter for abused women stories are kept confidentially for the women protection, but at the same time most of these cases are not prosecuted for fear to reprisals from part of the male violator.
According to some psychologists that have studied the behavior of Rapists and his/her victims, they conclude that Rape is a violent crime that is motivated by power, not by sex, but I think there are both types; power abuse to show superiority and sexual behavior to satisfy mental states.
Usually women are afraid to report their husbands, the fear from their husbands it is bigger than their desire to be free from the abuse. Even with all the protection guarantee for women against rape and domestic violence the numbers are growing in the US and elsewhere in the world.
Some women are hesitant to report their husbands and put them in jail, they do not want see themselves without economical support, a lot women prefer the mental and physical abuse and rape instead to navigate in life working or asking for public welfare.
The cases we heard off in the media are known only because the victims are brave enough to report the predators, being husband, family or strangers, but it is not the case in conservative societies where religious tabus invite and condone the abuse.
In some countries where are majority Muslim, they treat rape victims in different way that in western countries. In remote Muslims places where tribal government is still the law, male members of a rape victim’s family will prefer to treat rape victims as guilty persons instead of going to the shame of presenting their cases in the tribal council, they will do what it is called honor killings, off course this practice is less and less used for fear to prosecution, but the rape victims still are forced to be silenced in shame or fear.
Sexual issues are still considered tabus in many communities, even in the United States that we consider ourselves “Modern Society”, we the parents still need to sign consent for our children to be taught subjects about sexually and Aids related issues.
This article is not to engage in religious arguments,or to hurt sensitivities, but to expose the perpetrators and the cultural bound that exhibit some countries when the issue of rape is addressed.
The Rapist that use physical superiority to get control of the victims which it is the most common type of rape, but also there are many cases where mental abuse it is used to exercise control on the victims, like in the case of domestic partners and husbands rape and domestic violence cases.
The following story developed in front of the cameras of journalist in March 26, 2011 in the five-star Rixos Hotel in Tripoli exposed a common practice from part of the authorities to subjugate and humiliate women as a way to punish the male family members.
Al-Obaidi is the woman who pushed her way, weeping, into the five-star Rixos Hotel in Tripoli last weekend. That’s where the Libyan regime keeps international journalists penned up under the supervision of government “minders.” The minders try to ensure the journalists see only those things that may assist the regime’s propaganda efforts.
Bruises are seen on the face of Iman al-Obaidi as she cries at the Rixos Hotel in Tripoli on March 26. Zohra Bensemra/Reuters
(Not that I blame the journalists, having been penned up and minded myself on more than one occasion. You do what you can do to be where you have to be.)
Anyway.
Al-Obaidi confronted journalists eating their breakfasts with a pretty harrowing story. She said she had been detained by a gang of “militiamen” earlier in the day and gang-raped.
Why? Almost certainly because she’s from Benghazi, the rebel-held city in eastern Libya/
So intent was al-Obaidi on convincing reporters of her story that she lifted up her black robe, which goes against the grain of nearly any woman in Arab society, and displayed the trauma inflicted on her thigh. There were also, reporters at the scene wrote, marks on her face, and on her wrists and ankles, indicating she’d been tied up.
“They defecated on me,” she told the reporters who scrambled with cameras and notebooks. “They urinated on me. They violated my honor.”
Rape rarely reported in Arab world
In places like Libya, Syria, or, until recently, Egypt or Iraq, a public act like al-Obaidi’s is not just incredibly courageous but near-suicidal, which is why rape is almost never reported in the Arab world, even though it is routinely used as a punishment by security forces.
Even in less repressive countries like Jordan, the rape itself is often less hurtful than what can come next. There is a case a young woman in Amman who had the misfortune of being raped by an uncle.
When her family found out about it, the stain on their honor was so unbearable that they locked the door, turned the music up loud, drew the curtains and shot her. When she had the nerve to recover in hospital, she was sold off to an old man who was willing to lend his name to the bastard child who resulted from the rape. All the girl had to do was agree to a life of indentured servitude scrubbing her saviour’s floors. She was rescued by a group of women’s advocates.
In Libya these days, you can add the viciousness of the regime’s enforcers to the day-to-day misogyny Arab women face.
According to reporters on the scene, al-Obaidi was instantly set upon by waitresses in the restaurant, who grabbed knives and attacked her. One threw a coat over her head to shut her up. And these were the women who responded. The male “minders” from the government just grabbed al-Obaidi and began dragging her away.
Al-Obaidi reacts as she is grabbed by a Libyan official, left, preventing members of the foreign media from reaching her. As reporters gathered to hear her story, security guards grabbed al-Obaidi, bundled her into a car and drove her away. Several journalists were beaten during the scuffle. Zohra Bensemra/Reuters
Journalists who tried to protect her were beaten. One “minder” pulled a gun. Another one smashed the camera of a CNN cameraman who’d filmed the scene.
But, finally, the international press had a real story, and the damage control began, in the ham-fisted, dull-witted manner that only officials of regimes like the one in Tripoli can manage.
Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim immediately announced that al-Obaidi was drunk and mentally deranged.
Subsequently, when reporters insisted on speaking with her again, Ibrahim announced she may not have been deranged and drunk after all and assured the media her allegations were being investigated. Indeed, four men had been questioned, he declared. Al-Obaidi, he said, was safely back in the bosom of her family.
Except her family told reporters their daughter remained locked up. Her mother said the regime had told her that if her daughter would just change her story, there would be a reward of cash and new accommodations for the family.
Her mother not only said her daughter stands by her story, she dispensed with the family-honour nonsense. She declared her pride at her daughter’s courage and denounced Gadhafi and his thugs as “dogs.”
Now, the regime has changed its story again. Ibrahim now claims that al-Obaidi is a prostitute, a “sharmuta,” to use the nasty Arabic invective. Further, the men she accused of raping her are now so offended at this slight to their dignity that they’ve filed a lawsuit against their victim.
And, of course, they will win, if Gadhafi’s regime lasts long enough for it to get to court, even though al-Obaidi is, according to her mother, a lawyer. She will be punished further.
Story rings true
Now, a word: Beyond a certain point, reporters cannot do normal due diligence on al-Obaidi’s story. It may, indeed, be that she will turn out to be crazy. As noted, you’d almost have to be to challenge a regime.
But her family confirms her account. To anyone who has worked in an Arab country, it has the ring of truth. I have watched Arab policemen brutalize a helpless woman.
Plus, al-Obaidi took the extraordinary step of publicly acknowledging rape in an Arab society. And most importantly, the regime has tried to shut her up. So, I’m just going to go ahead here and give her the benefit of the doubt.
Women hold a picture of al-Obaidi during a protest in Benghazi, Libya, on March 27. Women’s groups abroad have not been so quick to take up her cause. Suhaib Salem/Reuters
But here’s my question. The reporters whom she confronted are clearly outraged. Libyan women, at least in Benghazi, are outraged and protesting. So, where is all the outrage here in the West?
As far as I can tell, there has been no comment from organizations such as the U.S. National Organization for Women, despite the eyewitness dispatches from Tripoli. Shouldn’t Iman al-Obaidi be a symbol of something?
I can only hope it’s not a matter of opposition to U.S. militarism trumping support for women victimized in the Arab world.
I know, I know: the West intervenes selectively against tyrants, and yes, America and its allies have supported some pretty disgusting sociopaths over the years, and sure, there’s hypocrisy everywhere.
Heaven knows what has become of al-Obaidi. But if she survives, and there is justice, she should be sitting next to the first lady next February.
Saudi rape victim gets 90 lashes
–RIYADH: A Saudi court has sentenced a gang rape victim to 90 lashes of the whip because she was alone in a car with a man to whom she was not married. The sentence was passed at the end of a trial in which the Al Qateef high criminal court convicted four Saudis convicted of the rape, sentencing them to prison terms and a total of 2,230 lashes.
Rape Culture in France – Rape has been recognized as a crime in France since 1980 (you can get up to 15 years in prison). The legal definition is as follows: “Any sexual penetration (otherwise it’s categorized as assault and not as rape) imposed upon another person through violence, constraint, threat, or surprise, is a rape.”
Canada Rape Culture – In Canada, there have been discussions as to whether or not we live in a “rape culture”. Although difficult to define, this term refers to a society in which sexual assaults are ignored, legitimized, or blamed on the victim. Proponents of the existence of a rape culture claim that factors such as the clothes the victim was wearing, how much she had to drink, the relationship she had with the perpetrator and whether or not she appeared interested in sex, become the main focus of rape cases.
Mass Rape, Rape as a Weapon of War, and Women in War Zones – Rape is a form of gender-based violence against women. The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women stated in its General Recommendation No. 19 that gender-based violence is a form of discrimination which the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) requires its states parties to eliminate in all its forms. …
Marital Rape: New Research and Directions – Raquel Kennedy Bergen With contributions from Elizabeth Barnhill
Rape in marriage is a serious and prevalent form of violence against women. While the legal definition varies within the United States, marital rape can be defined as any unwanted intercourse or penetration (vaginal, anal, or oral) obtained by force, threat of force, or when the wife is unable to consent (Bergen, 1996; Pagelow, 1992; Russell, 1990). Most studies of marital rape have included couples who are legally married, separated, divorced, or cohabiting with the understanding that the dynamics of sexual violence in a long-term cohabiting relationship are similar to those of a married couple (Mahoney & Williams, 1998). While no published studies of marital rape could be located which included cohabiting gay and lesbian couples, there is a slowly growing body of literature that addresses sexual violence in same sex relationships (see Girshick, 2002).
Global Social Dissease Child Abuse
Posted on June 06, 2012 by Akashma Online News
Originally posted on Metropolis Japan Magazine
Thanks to increased government involvement and greater public exposure, child abuse is gradually emerging from the shadows. But Japan’s youngest citizens remain vulnerable to violence at the hands of those who care for them. Tama Miyake reports.
 |
Kenji* bears the scars of a battle lost years before. The 5-year-old has been burned and beaten, held underwater, and singled out as the youngest boy in a family of five children. He is emotionally troubled, panics easily, and is still afraid to take a bath. But this little boy is one of the lucky ones.
Kenji has spent the past three years living with his two sisters in a residential care center run by the prefectural government in northern Saitama. Today, he gets regular counseling, a hot meal at the end of every day, and the affectionate attention of a troop of care workers.
Kenji is a survivor, a battle-hardened victim of what is now being recognized as one of Japan’s greatest social ills: child abuse. His mother is in jail; his father is out of the picture. His grandparents want nothing to do with them, and one of his older siblings is dead. Care workers suspect that child died from abuse inflicted by the parents, but no evidence was ever uncovered.
Yet for all the hardship Kenji has faced in his short life, his is just one story of out of thousands. In the last fiscal year alone, consultation centers around the country received 25,000 reports of suspected child abuse, an increase of nearly 25 percent over the previous year and testimony to what experts say is a breakdown in the traditional family unit, a rise in the number of single and young parents, and the growing tendency toward isolation from friends, family and the community at large.
 |
Despite efforts by the government and volunteer organizations to halt the cycle of violence, many Japanese children never live to see the inside of a care center. Earlier this month, a 3-year-old boy was beaten to death by his father and a 14-month-old boy starved to death under his mother’s care, adding to the more than 60 children who have already died of abuse since the enactment in November 2000 of the Child Abuse Prevention Law.
As more and more children become victims, the Japanese government is finding itself increasingly involved in issues long considered private, and struggling to protect the very people who represent its future. But with the country’s care centers bursting at the seams and resources stretched ever thinner, the question remains: Is it enough to save them?
Warning signs
Here, as in most developed countries, child abuse encompasses physical, sexual and psychological abuse, as well as neglect. And in keeping with most other countries, it’s the mothers who are most often the perpetrators of abuse. But there are several factors that make the situation in Japan far different, and at times far more troubling, than the rest of the world.
According to reports issued by the Health, Welfare and Labor Ministry, the number of suspected abuse cases reported to consultation centers around the country in fiscal 2000 reached 18,804, a rise of 60 percent over the previous year and a 17-fold increase over 10 years earlier. The actual number of cases is believed to be much higher, with the ministry’s release last month of a research study showing an estimate of 35,000 for that year.
The startling increase was attributed in part to the enactment of the prevention law, which obliges doctors, teachers and child welfare officers to report suspected abuse to the consultation centers, and a new system of counting all reported cases rather than only those in which action was taken. But it was also a reminder that, like the bruises and burns that mark so many of its victims, child abuse had become a problem Japan could no longer ignore.
Indeed, the number of cases and the fact that 85 percent of abusers reported in 2000 were the victims’ parents—with mothers making up 60 percent—highlighted the precarious state of the Japanese family, which many say faces unprecedented strain.
“The family is a very stressful unit when you stop and think about it,” says Yuko Kawanishi, a sociologist and professor at Temple University. “And there’s really no period in human history that only the mother and the nuclear family were raising the children.”
 |
With the tendency of Japanese husbands to focus on climbing the corporate ladder and the nation’s rapid development post-WWII, the past 40-50 years have seen the burden of child rearing fall ever more heavily on the mother. “The husband is always busy, he’s almost married to the company. So more and more, the wife gets isolated,” explains Kawanishi, who notes that just one generation ago Japanese families shared child rearing responsibilities among extended relatives and close neighbors.
It’s this growing isolation combined with the immense pressure that many Japanese mothers feel to raise well-behaved, well-groomed and well-adjusted children that experts say can make for a deadly combination. “Typically they are excessively serious about rearing their children and strict about teaching manners so their kids can behave in front of other people,” says Yasuko Takahashi, a clinical psychologist and counselor to abusive mothers in Saitama, of the women she sees in her group therapy sessions. “They believe they are doing it for their children’s sake.”
Another factor adding to the strain felt by many Japanese parents is the increasing lack of communication with the outside world. “I think a lot of it has to do with urbanization,” says Kawanishi. “Nowadays, it’s basically like living with a bunch of strangers. I’ve never even talked to my neighbors. And the worst is this apartment-complex life; it’s not helping lonely mothers at all.”
Isolation, whether in the form of separation from concerned relatives and friends, or in the secluded apartments of high-rise Japanese cities, is in fact a prime factor in most cases of abuse.
 |
|
Child abuse expert Dr. Eli Newberger cites the issues surrounding discipline and punishment as among the most confused in childcare
|
“Most severe cases of abuse, in virtually every instance, were in homes where there were no lines of connection to family or professional support,” notes Dr. Eli Newberger, a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School with 32 years of experience dealing with abuse as founder of the Child Protection Team at Children’s Hospital in Boston.
The past few decades have seen the rise of another trend relatively new to the Japanese family dynamic: dekichatta kekkon (shotgun marriages). “Most shotgun marriages are among very young people,” says Kawanishi, who attributes this to a loosening of sexual practices and a lack of birth control options. “So we’ve seen this kind of polarization between sexually educated women who are waiting longer and longer on the one hand and on the other hand this very different group of very young, uneducated women who are getting pregnant very early.”
Lacking much life experience outside their own homes, these young parents also have the potential to join another group that’s at high risk of becoming abusers: single parents. Forced to support themselves and their children in a depressed economy, Japan’s single parents have been identified by the government as needing particular support.
“Since single parenthood is one of the causes of child abuse, people should extend a helping hand to single-parent families,” says Mr Ohta, head of the children’s consultation division at the health ministry.
Breaking the chain
Having established child abuse as a rapidly growing social problem, the Japanese government is now charged with finding ways to stop it. In addition to the recently enacted prevention law, which allows it to challenge custody rights by banning abusive parents from having contact with their children, the federal government has strengthened support services by allotting subsidies to municipalities, distributing manuals on detection and treatment of abuse to childcare workers and police officers, and conducting studies on the handling of abuse cases.
“We must work on manuals designed to respond to cases, and as far as deaths are concerned, quick discovery is necessary, so the involvement of police and other related authorities is necessary,” says Ohta. “Comprehensive involvement is necessary, as has been carried out until now.”
 |
But those on the front lines say these efforts are far from enough. “Right now the governmental eye goes more to the older generation and their care,” says Chizuko Yaita, the sole therapist at the residential care center housing Kenji and his sisters. “I know you can’t compare, but they have to realize that kids are also very important for Japan’s future.”
Yaita has been counseling abused children for the past two years at a center housing 80 children from 3 to 18 years old. But the US-trained therapist says the salary the government offers is so low she can only afford to work at the center three days a week. Meanwhile, the care workers who deal with the children on a daily basis are stretched to the limit.
“The hardware is getting better, but the software is not enough,” Yaita says, noting that almost every care center has had to turn children away because they’re already full. “We need more care workers for the situation to get better. Sometimes it’s impossible to do even the simple things because they don’t have enough time or hands.”
According to a survey conducted by the health ministry, many prefectures and large cities have only one child consultation center, the first point of contact for intervention in abuse cases. Even more troubling, most workers at these centers receive only one or two days of training. With local governments controlling these centers as well as elementary schools and day-care facilities, the level of protection for young Japanese can vary widely from city to city and prefecture to prefecture.
Volunteer organizations have made efforts to fill in where government support runs out, staffing emergency hotlines for children and parents, offering local childcare services, and reaching out to isolated families. But old habits can be hard to break, particularly in Japan, where psychological care is still in its relative infancy.
“The word counseling scares people,” says the psychologist Takahashi, adding that it has taken her a year to establish a level of trust with the mothers she counsels. “There has to be some kind of unique cultural adaptation of counseling.”
According to Yaita, the concept of counseling was only introduced to most residential care centers two years ago, when the government made funding available to hire therapists. But with budgets still stretched, most care centers cannot afford more than two therapists for up to 80 residents. Perhaps more worrisome, outside of volunteer groups and the efforts of concerned care workers, there is no established system to counsel the abusers.
“The parents are the problem, right?” says Yaita. “This is very bad; because of a lack of number of care workers, they don’t have time for [the parents]. In the States, those parents must do something, like group therapy, but we don’t have those regulations.”
Adding to this is the fact that while there are strong grassroots efforts as well as newly enacted laws, including one obliging medical workers to look for signs of child abuse at mandatory health checks for children aged 18 months to 3 years, there are no penalties for not reporting suspected abuse. The handling of child abuse in the courts is also relatively new, with convicted offenders receiving widely varying jail terms—or, as was the case with a Fukui Prefecture couple convicted of causing the death of their 11-month-old daughter early this month, suspended sentences.
Therefore, as the country struggles to come to grips with abuse and all its elements, it appears unlikely to most that the situation will improve anytime soon. “Judging from the past,” says Ohta, “it does not look like cases will decrease this year or next.”
To learn more about child abuse, report a suspected case, or get involved in its prevention, contact any of the following organizations.
Main child consultation center in Tokyo
Report a suspected case, talk to counselors, and receive information from the local government. Tel: (03) 3208-1121. In case of emergency, call police at 03-3212-2111 (English) or 110 (Japanese).
Center for Child Abuse Prevention
Call the hotline, learn about prevention, and volunteer for events and other services. Tel: 03-5374-2990 (Japanese).
Child Research Net
Read articles on all aspects of child development, share ideas, and attend conferences.
www.childresearch.net
Tokyo English Life-Line
Talk to counselors, receive support, and volunteer as a counselor.
Tel: 03-5774-0992.
The Truth From Inside Out
Posted on June 04, 2012 by Akashma Online News
The Inside Out Truth.
If you have been long time Peace Activist you know that the Truth it is impossible to prove because that truth “It is”. On the other hand lies are continuously being “Proven” in the News, Radio, Movies, Magazines, Books, and Social Networks and the people is easily mislead to believe what it is in “Vogue” – the Propaganda Machine it is a tool of war but also, it works the other way around if we know how to attack it, how to debunk it, how to untangle every lie that surface.
It is not an easy task, but remember humanity has been fighting the “evil doers”. More than 2300 years ago wise men and their followers were already in this task.
In the Trial and Death of Socrates, in his dialogue with Euthyphro you can elucidate how the Elite it is always trying to protect themselves from wise people, that can make the others understand their reality and perhaps revolt against the arbitrary rules and the Rulers.
“Euthyphro: I understand Socrates. It is because you say that you always have a divine guide. So he (Meletious) is prosecuting you for introducing religious reforms; and he is going into court to arouse prejudice against you, knowing that the multitude are easily prejudiced about such matters. Why, they laugh even at me, as if I were out of my mind, when I talk about divine things in the assembly and tell them what is going to happen; and yet I have never foretold anything which has not come true. But they are resentful of all people like us. We must not worry about them; we must meet them Boldly
Socrates: My Dear Euthyphro, their ridicule is not very serious matter. The Athenians, it seems to me, may think a man to be clever without paying him much attention, so long as they do not think that he teaches his wisdom to others. But as soon as they think that he makes other people clever, they get angry, whether it be from resentment, as you say, or for some other reason.”
As you can see religious card was already being used to people subjugate people’ ideas and their ability to perform freely in society. And using ridicule and dishonest arguments was the way that the Elite have been controlling society.
“In most moral disputes it’s impossible to declare a line between those who willfully deceive and those who chronically fail to understand. It’s hard to say who is an intentional Zionist mole and who simply remains confused- but such moral distinctions and judgments are not our business. Those who don’t operate by ordinary logic and courtesy are, no offense to them, simply out of place in political discussions, just as they would be in a corporate boardroom. My first belief is in the spirit of truth itself; less rational, less courteous approaches are not ok on behalf of a good cause; they can only harm it. The only Good Cause is kind reason itself. If Zionism is the main current political problem, it’s only because it incorporates and orchestrates the largest accumulation of deceptions and dodges, bringing them to bear on Palestine and banking. That mass of evil includes, at one pole of the spectrum, the internal moral deceptions and dodges required to pull triggers and fire rockets at innocent people. At the other end of the spectrum are those who repetitiously – almost innocently – fail to understand the need to stop Zionism. I have watched for long time. I have seen that most discussion dissipate into endless finicky nonsense. We know that the Zionist are spending quite a few millions of dollars to train internet Zionist. It’s safe to say that very small percentage of that training is the old kind – teaching the standard lies – all of which are easily debunked nowadays and (more important) overruled by an elementary rejection of racism. Surely, the bulk of the training is toward posting as anti-Zionists or newly-interested people, yet endlessly failing to be satisfied with crystal-clear and repeated explanations- creating a false impression of complexity, wasting our time, and exploiting and dishonoring the sincerity found in genuine activists for peace and human equality”. Dave Kersting
Clean Energy and It’s Dangerous Waste
Executives join business students on Mideast trip
When Qamar Ahmed embarks on a trip to Israel and Jordan as part of an Edwards School of Business course, he will also be on a personal journey of discovery.
“My great-grandfather has a mosque named after him in (Haifa) Israel and I just got confirmation we will be visiting that mosque,” said Ahmed, who is originally from Pakistan.
“That will be really meaningful for me because no one from my close or extended family has ever visited the mosque, so I’ll be the first.”
Ahmed is one of 16 students accepted for the Mining & Entrepreneurship in Israel and Jordan course — a 10-day tour (May 2-12) where students will cover an array of topics, including conducting international business, opportunities and entrepreneurship in the Middle East and Saskatchewan’s role in global-food security.
They will be visiting educational, industrial, environmental and cultural sites across Israel and Jordan.
“The goal of the trip is to look at the business side of Israel and see the success they have in terms of the culture they have created … how such a small country has made itself such a big player within international technology market as well as natural resources, which is potash,” Ahmed said.
Edwards Dean Daphne Taras said the three-credit course helps give a more global focus to the undergraduate curriculum.
“We should be going to a country or countries in which there is a substantial synergy between the trip and our own interests,” Taras said.
Potashcorp. has come on board as a major sponsor of the trip, and the students will visit two companies they have a stake in — Israel Chemicals Ltd. (14 per cent) and Arab Potash Company (28 per cent).
Taras said a unique part of the trip is having business leaders accompany the group.
Potashcorp’s CFO Wayne Brownlee will be with the group for the first week of the tour as will Lionel Labelle, president and CEO of Saskatchewan Trade and Export Partnership (STEP), along with other business leaders.
Kate Simpson, a third-year marketing student, said seeing how different cultures address entrepreneurship will be educational. “I come from a family of entrepreneurs. It’s in my blood so I’m really excited to explore the entrepreneurship in the Middle East,” Simpson said. “Im looking forward to visiting the startup companies as well as experiencing the culture and visiting the historical landmarks and sites.”
Ahmed agreed looking at issues from another viewpoint will be invaluable. “To get that first-hand perspective from someone else will be pretty interesting.”
Other highlights of the tour include visiting Better Place, a leading global provider of electric-car networks, business around the Dead Sea and students and professors at the University of Jordan and business school in Israel.
“Every minute on the trip will be a teachable moment,” said Taras.
Once they return home the students will write a paper. They will also give a presentation on a topic they have chosen while on the trip.
Kate Simpson
Qamar Ahmed
Akashma Online News 