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April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

Afghanistan

“Freedom and Democracy Can’t be Donated”

08/02/2009 by Debra

Title from RAWA’s website. “RAWA believes that freedom and democracy can’t be donated; it is the duty of the people of a country to fight and achieve these values.”

Both the US and Canada have stated among that high among their purpose for being in Afghanistan is to win freedom for the women there. The Feminist Majority Foundation in the States supports this. However, RAWA an organization of women who risk their very lives to fight for women’s rights, and who being women in the country in question would know best what they need, are very much against further war action.

Waging war does not lead to the liberation of women anywhere. Women always disproportionately suffer the effects of war, and to think that women’s rights can be won with bullets and bloodshed is a position dangerous in its naïveté. The Feminist Majority should know this instinctively.

Here are the facts: After the invasion, Americans received reports that newly liberated women had cast off their burquas and gone back to work. Those reports were mythmaking and propaganda. Aside from a small number of women in Kabul, life for Afghan women since the fall of the Taliban has remained the same or become much worse.

Under the Taliban, women were confined to their homes. They were not allowed to work or attend school. They were poor and without rights. They had no access to clean water or medical care, and they were forced into marriages, often as children.

Today, women in the vast majority of Afghanistan live in precisely the same conditions, with one notable difference: they are surrounded by war. The conflict outside their doorsteps endangers their lives and those of their families. It does not bring them rights in the household or in public, and it confines them even further to the prison of their own homes. Military escalation is just going to bring more tragedy to the women of Afghanistan.

Source

As feminists we know that war hurts women the most and that any thought of it being for the betterment of women is usually at best naive [witness the treatment of women in Nicaragua]. So while it saddens and sickens us to see the way women are being abused and denied their humanity, we must not make the mistake of thinking that bringing war and more violence is going to make things any better. Instead of telling the women of Afghanistan what they need, instead of worsening their living conditions and killing their friends, neighbours and children, why don’t we ask them what they need?

See also:
The Huffington Post
RAWA-Let’s rise against the war crimes of US and its fundamentalist lackeys!
RAWA – ‘US air-raid kills over 100 civilians in Farah’ – Warning Graphic Reality of War

Filed Under: feminism Tagged With: Afghanistan, feminism, RAWA, war

Notes from Away

04/26/2009 by Debra

Well ok I haven’t really been away just so immersed in web design it feels like I’ve been away.

Catching up it seems Harper is still hell bent on being an accessory to war crimes and in giving Canada a reputation as the only country who welcomes the torture of it’s own.

Canada’s Supreme Court has ruled that the discredited Guantanamo military tribunal process under George Bush “constituted a clear violation of fundamental human rights.” Indeed, that’s what the United States Supreme Court found.

U.S. President Barack Obama wants Guantanamo shut down.

And last week Mr. Justice James O’Reilly of Federal Court issued a strong and welcome ruling ordering Ottawa to seek Khadr’s return.

[snip]

Harper’s stonewall response has been to shrug off the order and ponder an appeal.

THE STAR

Harper having previously and continuing to side with war criminals should be grounds for his immediate dismissal as PM.

Locally and ironically commencing during Earth Week, the Tim Horton’s on the corner was torn down to be rebuilt as a drive through. Because if there is one this area needs more of it is cars and the pollution of idling cars. No longer having any indoor seating the new design will not cater to pedestrians in any way thereby making the sidewalks and corners even more treacherous.

The collapse of capitalism is creating some interesting fallout as workers are being asked to scale back wages and benefits while CEOs continue to rake it in, taxpayers money is being given to corporations while taxpayers are being told there is no money to save their pensions or allow them to collect the money they paid into IE or strengthen existing social programs let alone create new ones. Apparently as long as socialism comes from the bottom up it isn’t so bad after all.

Add to this the fact that Ontario women are being fired for becoming pregnant.

What’s especially stunning, they say, is how brazen some bosses are, almost 50 years after Ontario enacted the Human Rights Code to prevent such discrimination.

“We actually have an e-mail from one employer saying, `Sorry, but with your little bundle, I don’t think we’ll be able to (re)hire you. We want a permanent solution,'” says Consuelo Rubio, manager of client services for Ontario’s Human Rights Legal Support Centre, an independent agency funded by the province to provide free legal services to people experiencing discrimination.

The firings are in all sectors: “It’s happening to women in senior positions and women in minimum-wage jobs,” says Katherine Laird, executive director of the centre, who says she hasn’t seen this level of discrimination through two previous recessions and 30 years in the human rights field.

THE SPEC
Hey here’s a great opportunity for the anti choice gang. They can have an adopt a pregnant fired worker campaign and make up the money these women are losing. Michael Coern is still an idiot. Coren supports the troops by denigrating the work of our female soldiers, at least the young attractive ones, presumably the rest are on their own.

Does it ever occur to Coren that in most places in the world women are just as involved in the wars as the soldiers male or female, but they have the added disadvantage of having no weaponry?

Coren says “So Canada sacrifices another victim on the altar of equality.” His piece shows that he and the Sun are willing to sacrifice decency and journalistic integrity on the alter of sensationalism and sexist insensibility.

The viral nature of the Susan Boyle video brought to the fore the nasty realization that many have incorporated the attitude that starvation diets, boob jobs and make equal talent. So an average looking woman has an outstanding talent and the world is taken aback. What a sad commentary on the world.

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: Afghanistan, Coren, Harper, khadr, Politics, Susan Boyle, war crimes

Say Goodbye to Democracy!

02/28/2008 by Debra

{with apologies to Country Joe and the Fish}

Come on all of you Liberal wo/men
Uncle Harper needs your help again
he’s got himself in a terrible jam
way down yonder in Afghanistan so
put down your prinicpals, buck up and vote
Cause now the Cons get to gloat

And it’s one, two, three, What’s the opposition for?
Don’t ask me I don’t give damn, send more troops to Afghanistan

And it’s five, six, seven, no more parliment debates
ain’t no time to wonder why, whoopee democracy’s gonna die

Come on SoCons, let’s move fast
your big chance has come at last
Illegal abortion and gay sex too
kill SWC no one to stop you
and you know that glory can only be won when we’ve
blown ’em all to kingdom come

And it’s one, two, three, What’s the opposition for?
Don’t ask me I don’t give damn, send more troops to Afghanistan

And it’s five, six, seven, no more parliment debates
ain’t no time to wonder why, whoopee democracy is gonna die

Come on Oil Companies don’t be shy
Liberals are gonna support your guy!
Step right up and pollute the land
No one is gonna slap your hand
Open up the oil sands

And it’s one, two, three, What’s the opposition for?
Don’t ask me I don’t give damn, send more troops to Afghanistan

And it’s five, six, seven, no more parliment debates
ain’t no time to wonder why, whoopee democracy is gonna die

Come on Voters throughout Canada
Send more Liberals to Ottawa
No longer matters how you vote
Now we’re all in the same boat
We’re ruled by one party
Say goodbye to democracy!

And it’s one, two, three, What’s the opposition for?
Don’t ask me I don’t give damn, send more troops to Afghanistan

And it’s five, six, seven, no more parliment debates
ain’t no time to wonder why, whoopee democracy is gonna die

Filed Under: Politics, voting Tagged With: Afghanistan, Canada, features, Harper, Liberal, opposition, Ottawa, slideshow, SoCons

Harper is not a leader

02/06/2008 by Debra

But he is a whiner and a bully.

Support us on Afghanistan or we’ll call an election. Support this bill or we’ll call an election.

Call me dear leader or I’ll call an election.

A leader doesn’t need to bully, threaten and carry on. A bully though…

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson told the Senate committee on legal affairs that it should pass the bill in February. If that doesn’t happen, he said he would tell Prime Minister Stephen Harper that the bill is a confidence measure and let him deal with it appropriately.

“We say to Liberal senators, and we say to (Liberal Leader) Stephane Dion, tell your Liberal colleagues to push this through,” said Day.

Day called on the public to contact senators to push the bill through.

But senators counter that they don’t understand the government’s rush all of a sudden. They said they are constitutionally required to consider the bill fully and they won’t be strong-armed into speeding up their decision to fit a government-imposed schedule.

Manitoba Senator Sharon Carstairs told Mike Duffy Live that the Tory government is trying to bully the Senate.

“Unfortunately, for Mr. Harper, senators can’t be bullied,” she said.

“We want to hear from the public … particularly on two issues. I am very concerned about the impact of this (bill) on Aboriginal people. Reverse onus bail conditions, for example.”

Reverse onus would require people accused of violent crimes to state why they should receive bail, rather than put the onus on prosecutors to prove why the accused should be kept in jail.

“We do have Charter rights and one of them is to be silent, but you can’t be silent if you have to, in fact, prove reverse onus,” said Carstairs.

CTV

Filed Under: Canada, Harper, Politics Tagged With: Afghanistan, bully, confidence, CTV, stephen harper, whiner

Message to Dion

01/29/2008 by Debra

Don’t follow the lights!

harperg.gif

OTTAWA–Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Canada will extend its mission in Afghanistan beyond 2009 only if NATO is able to find an additional 1,000 soldiers to fight with the Canadians in Kandahar – and he reached out to Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion for his support.

Reacting to the report by former Liberal foreign affairs minister John Manley on the future of the Afghan mission, Harper also said he would work to secure transport helicopters and unmanned surveillance craft, or he would end the combat mission when the current commitment wraps up in February 2009.

Harper said he spoke to Dion on Sunday and will talk to him again in a few days.

Filed Under: Harper, Politics Tagged With: Afghanistan, Canada, Dion, john manley, stephen harper

Omar Khadr

01/07/2008 by Debra

Two stories in The Star today about Omar Khadr.

One on a video tape that was released to the press, despite not having been allowed to be aired in court. Oops wonder how that happened?

The lawyer for detained Canadian terror suspect Omar Khadr accused the U.S. government yesterday of abusing the legal process after CBS News broadcast for the first time a controversial video recording which allegedly shows his client manufacturing explosive devices.

“I think it’s outrageous that this tape has been released without the approval of the court,” lawyer Dennis Edney said in Edmonton.

Long seen as a key piece of evidence against Khadr in the eyes of the prosecution, Edney believes the U.S. government leaked the video after stalled proceedings prevented it from being shown in court.

The courtroom airing of the 12-minute tape, which allegedly shows a 15-year-old Khadr planting land mines and assembling bomb timers, was delayed during a hearing Nov. 8. The recording was broadcast Sunday on the CBS newsmagazine show 60 Minutes.

[Read more…] about Omar Khadr

Filed Under: america, Canada, Politics, war Tagged With: Afghanistan, aid, Canada, children, democracy, Harper, human rights, The Star

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