Please Join an International Network for Peace. We Are Surrounded by Images of War and Violence. |
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| Women in Black Around the World | |
Speech on International Women`s Day at the European Parliament, in a debate about violence against women I don't know what is non-localized violence. Racism and discrimination may be theoretical concepts and universal phenomena but their impact is always local, and real. Pain is local, humiliation, sexual abuse, torture and death, are all very local, and so are the scars. It is true unfortunately, that the local violence inflicted on Palestinian women by the government of Israel and the Israeli army, has expanded around the globe, In fact state violence and army violence, individual and collective violence, are the lot of Muslim women today, not only in Palestine but wherever the enlightened western world is setting its big imperialistic foot. It is violence which is hardly ever addressed and which is halfheartedly condoned by most people in Europe and in the USA. This is because the so-called free world is afraid of the Muslim womb. And The viruses , though they may have various illustrious names such as Democracy. Patriotism. God. Homeland, are all the same.They are all part of false and fake ideologies that are meant to enrich the rich and to empower the powerful. We are all the victims of mental, psychological and cultural violence that turn us to one homogenic group of bereaved or potentially bereaved mothers. Western mothers who are taught to believe their uterus is a national asset just like they are taught to believe that the Muslim uterus is an international threat. They are educated not to cry out: `I gave him birth, I breast fed him, he is mine, and I will not let him be the one whose life is cheaper than oil, whose future is less worth than a piece of land.` All of us are terrorized by mind-infecting education to believe all we can do is either pray for our sons to come back home or be proud of their dead bodies. And all of us were brought up to bear all this silently, to contain our fear and frustration, to take
prozac for anxiety, but never hail Mama Courage in public. Never be real Jewish or Italian or Irish mothers. American imperialism is, European indifference and co-operation is and Israeli racist and cruel regime of occupation is. It is racism, educational propaganda and inculcated xenophobia that convince Israeli soldiers to order Palestinian women at gun-point to strip in front of their children for security reasons, it is the deepest disrespect for the other that allow American soldiers to rape Iraqi women, that give license to Israeli jailers to keep young women in inhuman conditions, without necessary hygienic aids, without electricity in the winter, without clean water or clean mattresses and to separate them from their breast-fed babies and toddlers. To bar their way to hospitals, to block their way to education, to confiscate their lands, to uproot their trees and prevent them from cultivating their fields. I cannot completely understand Palestinian women or their suffering. I don't know how I would have survived such humiliation, such disrespect from the whole world. All I know is that the voice of mothers has been suffocated for too long in this war-stricken planet. Mothers` cry is not heard because mothers are not invited to international forums such as this one. This I know and it is very little. But it is enough for me to remember these women are my sisters, and that they deserve that I should cry for them, and fight for them. And when they lose their children in strawberry fields or in on filthy roads by the checkpoints , when their children are shot on their way to school by Israeli children who were educated to believe that love and compassion are race and religion dependent, the only thing I can do is stand by them and their betrayed babies, and ask what Anna Akhmatova, another mother who lived in a regime of violence against women and children, had asked: Jennifer Bing-Canar International Conference of Women in Black Beste, Liefste, The following is a poem written by Noriko, a Japanese WIB, who stood in Canberra, Australia with local WIB between the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars. Women In Black/Australian women/In black clothes are/Standing quietly/Holding white boards in front of them. In the centre of Canberra’s City Walk/Protesting against war and violence/Without saying anything/They are standing quietly. I asked/“Is today the first day?”/Silly question. Since the United States bombed Afghanistan/They have stood there every Friday/For six months to date! How fitting, black clothes have become for our world today!/From the back of a building/We can constantly listen to the murmur of never ending death/And/When women in black clothes and black shoes/Stand in a circle facing passers by/Strange nervous circle, born in a city. People’s eyes staring at the unusual./They stop to read my board/”Women in black Vigils....Peace with Justice”/Women smile sympathetically at me./A man asks me/”What part of the world do you come from?”/”Japan” replying to him/”I remember Japanese women with whom/I walked and sat together.” Starting with seven Israeli women/Joined by Palestinian women/These women in black clothes on Friday/Spread to Israel, Belgrade.../Europe, Asia, Africa, America/and Australia. Plane tree brown leaves fall slightly/With the chilly beginning of winter we feel very cold./Women built Peace column with their bodies/Expressing something very important/Quietly. Translated by Joan Munro and Noriko Shiba, from “Upside-Down Stairs by Noriko Shiba. INTERNATIONAL WIB CONFERENCE IN JERUSALEM, AUGUST 2005 If you have never been to Jerusalem/Palestine this would be a great way to network, meet with an international group of peace makers, learn first hand about the problems faced by Israelis and Palestinians on the road to peace, demonstrate our opposition to the continued occupation and support peace initiatives.
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