Iraqi women

The woman on the left is Fatima who is the General Secretary of Iraqi Women Rising at one of the public meetings in Toronto. I am now in Montreal after two meetings in Toronto and one in Ottawa. This week end we will do a panel at the Alternatives Journee d'etudes just outside of Montreal.

Its been a great trip for Fatima and Shameron and Massar their translator. For Massar it is the first time out of the Middle East and for the two women it's the first time since the 1970's so it is as Massar says, the trip of a life time.

For me it's been an amazing experience. In many ways Iraq is the opposite of Bolivia. It's a place that was very progressive in the 1950's and as Fatima says it has been under occupation for decades first by Saddam Hussein who according to them, militarized the entire society and created a dictatorship where you could not achieve anything in the society unless you were a member of the Baath Party. Both women were tortured by what they call the X regime and lost loved ones, Fatima, her husband. Now they are occupied by the Americans who have destroyed or allowed to be destroyed everything that had been built in the society.

To illustrate what the Americans are up to in Iraq Shamerin tells the story that the Americans have allowed everything to be destroyed and looted including museums and important antiquities and the only thing they have protected is the Ministry of Oil

Iraqi Women

Back home now and haven't posted in a while. I've been working with two women who are here in Canada from Baghdad. I met them last spring in Jordan and was tremendously impressed with them. They will be giving public talks in Toronto and Ottawa this week In Ottawa, they will be at the Ottawa Public Library at 6:30 pm on Wednesday Aug 23 and then they will be doing a panel at the Alternatives Journee d'etudes http://www.alternatives.ca/rubrique280.html?lang=en

This is the first time they have been out of Iraq since the 70's. One of them is seeing her brother here in Toronto for the first time in fifteen years. It is incredibly moving and sad at the same time. I guess this is my summer for realizing in so many ways how privileged we are living here in Canada and how easily we lose track of how most of the rest of the world has to live because of the wealth we have accumulated. I think the last time this reality was so stark for me was in the 60's. When I got back from Bolivia I stopped buying anything. My friend Aparna says that happens to her everytime she comes back after visiting her home in India. It doesn't last long. Today I broke my consumer boycott. It was a great sale.

Anti-war movement

I am back and yesterday I went to a demo in Toronto against the Israeli attacks on Lebanon. The demonstration was about 2,000 people. Given the horror of the Israeli aggression, I would have expected it to be much bigger. I understand that alot of people are confused about the situation in the Middle East and fall prey to the concerns that any criticism of Israel is anti-semitism and that somehow Israel is justified in an agression that would be universally condemned if it were commited by any other state but still.

I couldn't help but feel that part of the problem is the anti-war movement itself. When you are trying to moblize to stop a war, the most important thing is the unite the broadest number of people possible. In this case, the slogan should have been Israel out of Lebanon, or an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. Instead there were any number of slogans and alot of support for Hezbollah and Hamas. I believe that Hamas is the legitimate elected government of Palestine and they should be recognized and treated as such but i don't support them. They are Islamists, that is fundamentalist Muslims and I don't support any fundamentalist religious group especially in politics. There were also supporters of Hezbollah and the Iranian President. I understand the support for Hezbollah as they are actually fighting back against the Israeli agression but such support should not be central to the demonstration It should be clear that the basis of the demo is broader. The suggestion by several speakers was that the left should get it together and realize that the people of the region support Hamas and Hezbollah and therefore we should too. I believe this is wrong politically and not the way to build an anti-war movement. I think there is an urgent need for a discussion on these issues.

I couldn't help but notice much fewer Jewish identified activists at the demo yesterday than in previous demonstrations protesting Israeli policies in the Middle East. It is my view that some of the progessive Jewish groups are getting narrower instead of broader too. Instead of reaching out to those in the Jewish community who are uncomfortable with Israel's aggressive tactics but who support the state of Israel in general, these groups seem to be making anti-Zionism a basis of unity. Now I have opposed Zionism since I was about 22 and traveled to Israel. I believe that Zionism was a trap for the Jews and that in essence it has meant that the Jewish people choose the side of the oppressor rather than uniting with other oppressed people in the world. But anti=Zionsim is no basis of unity of you are trying to get a small but significant voice in the Jewish community in Canada to speak out against the policies of the Israeli government. There are lots of left of centre Zionists who might be convinced to speak out against this kind of aggression but they will never support a position that opposes the ideological basis of the state of Israel. George Gallaway's speech to a huge rally in London, which as been circulated on the net, says clearly that the unity of the demonstration is for an immediate ceasefire but within that he is going to say what he thinks and he supports Hezbollah.

Anyway I left the demo feeling pretty discouraged. The good news is that last week-end there were 15,000 people protesting Israel's aggression last week end in Montreal.

Security

I thought this photo was a good way to say goodbye to Bolivia. It's a typical street scene in La Paz.

I am home at last. Wound up taking an American Airlines flight to Miami and got stuck in the crazy security crackdown. I hate to give up my toothpaste and a little bottle of alcohol I bought in the duty free for my brother. Didn't find out til I was back in Toronto why suddenly toothpaste was a lethal weapon. The flight attendants were besides themselves. How can they work without carry on. When you think of all the real things that are killing us or that will kill us that we should be scared about like global warming, the military aggression of the US and Israel, cars, cigarettes, AIDS, it seems insane to me to worry about being blown out of the sky but there it is.

rabble piece on Bolivia

rabble.ca just posted another piece I wrote on Bolivia, this one more directed to the left

You can find it here http://www.rabble.ca/news_full_story.shtml?x=51699

Feedback on either article is most welcome.

Photos of La Marcha del Peublo last Sunday

Star Article

The Star article is finally published. It{s on the comments page and here it is online http://tinyurl.com/ghv2r

As for me I am stuck in lima. My flight from Santa Cruz was two hours late, quite an accomplishment given that it should be an hour flight and I missed my Air Canada flight and there are no seats on the next few flights so I am fighting the good fight to try and get home. Wish me luck

Constituent assembly opens

The Constituent Assembly opened yesterday. The new President of the CA is Sylvia Lazarte. She was a leader of the cocaleros like Evo and she gave a barn burner of a speech calling on the whole country to support equality for women. She said that men are making progress in Bolivia but not women. I was mistaken yesterday about the number of women in the Constituent Assembly. It is actually about 80 out of 233, which is better than our Parliament but women still are quite behind her and seems like Sylvia is going to use her position to push quite hard for women´s equality.

The picture is of one of the many delegations of indigenous people marching in La Marcha del Pueblo at the opening of the Constituent Assembly

Women and the Constituent Assembly

Sorry for the dark pic but it will give you an idea of the diversity of women attending the Constituent Assembly. The woman in the front right has her baby in an allyu. This is how all the indigenous women carry their babies and everything else. The ones they use now are factory made but you can buy beautiful hand weaved allyus everywhere.

This was the first women´s event I´ve been to and it was wonderful. Mostly it was a cultural evening to share the different songs and dances from across Bolivia. It was really very moving. There were a couple of speeches and the issues seem to be representation of women and violence against women. I had a peak into a pre meeting of elected Assembly members and was struck by the small number of women. Even though the President of the Assembly is a woman, there couldn´t be more than 20 percent women if that. But women are organizing and Evo mentions women´s equality in every speech and it usually gets a big applause so here´s hoping.

Markets

This is a shot of the market in Cochabamba. It is deceptively quiet here. Usually it is crazy busy. Markets are common in pretty well every city. Cochabamba has one of the biggest. In addition to fresh fruit and veggies you see here, there are artisan´s markets, fresh meat, shoes, second hand cloths and even a witches market at least in La Paz and Cochabamba. You tell the witch what the problem is and she provides you with the proper herb or icon to solve it.

There are local markets too. What we would call the informal economy is everywhere here but it is just what people do to make a living, buying and selling goods and services.

Didn´t take me camera with me yesterday cause I was rushing around getting press credentials for the Consituent Assembly but I´ll try and get some shots of Sucre up tomorrow.

This is a photo I took of Evo Morales in his office holding a soccer shirt someone gave him in front of a picture of Che made out of coca leaves. I was holding it til the Toronto Star printed my piece but it looks like the Middle East crisis is holding it off even longer. Stories of misery and crisis always trump stories of hope.

This is the room where Evo meets the media.

I am in Sucre now for the opening of the Constituent Assembly on Sunday. I am on my own now without a translator. My Spanish comprehension is pretty good but I need more practice speaking so this should be good.

I spent one day in Santa Cruz the heart of the opposition to Evo so naturally I am hearing more criticism. The main one is that Evo still acts like a trade union leader even though he is President. For example, at the rally on agrarian revolution he said that the Parliament might have to close if they don´t pass the draft law expropriating unproductive land. The right wing media is having a field day accusing him of authoritarianism and his press secretary is saying he didn´t really mean it. Politics, Bolivia style.

Rally for Agrarian Revolution

Yesterday I went to what they call here a concentration or what I would call a rally for the agrarian revolution. There were well over 25,000 campesinos who waited hours for Evo and his ministers to show. They were driving tractors from Cochabambo to Ucurana because part of the reform is to give tractors to campesinos who mostly farm by hand. The BBC had someone there and they got a shot of Evo in the tractor . The media crush was just too much for me http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5241032.stm

The event was supposed to be the announcement of the agrarian revolution because it was the anniversary of the first agrarian reform in 1952 which gave land to the peasants but ignored their collective culture and gave individual tiny parcels of land but allowed big concentrations of land to private owners in Santa Cruz. That´s why they are calling this a revolution. The law is being held up by the Senate where the MAS is not in a majority. Evo said if Parliament doesn´t pass this law, which is essential for the ¨change we need in Bolivia" what good is the Parliament. There are increasing suggestions that where Parliament tries to stop the MAS agenda, they will use the Constituent Assembly. Tomorrow I am off to Sucre for Sunday´s opening of the Constituent Assembly.

Miners Wives

Yesterday I spoke with Domitila Barrios De Chugara. You may of heard of her book ¨"Let me Speak" http://www.akpress.org/2006/items/letmespeak. She and some friends formed a group of miners wives in 1961. It was the first women´s group in Bolivia. They organized at first to support the miners struggle. When rapant inflation hit in the 70s, they realized that just shopping for food was taking 70 percent of their income so they started a protest and won a reduction in food costs. They went on to a variety of fights around education and other issues. She is most famous for starting a hunger strike against the dictator Banzer that spread across Bolivia and ultimately brought down the government.

She is delighted with the advances women are making in Bolivia today and is a strong supporter of the MAS but don´t call her a feminist. Her experience of feminism was at the UN conference on Women in Mexico in 1975 when western feminists tried to make her understand that it was men who were the enemy, she says. They tried to divide us, she explains. Despite the fact that the men gave them a really hard time at the beginning, they always knew that their battle was side by side with the miners against the government and the bosses.

Too bad she didn´t meet any socialist feminists from the West in those days.

The photo is in Oruro honouring the miners.