Chahla Beski-Chafiq – Iran & France

Linked with our presentation of … the role of islam in politics ….

Also linked with Ibn Warraq – another Muslim with a Fatwa, of Akbar Ganji – Iran, of Mehdi Mozaffari – Iran & Denmark, of Mehdi Khanbaba-Tehrani – Europe & Iran, of Wafa Sultan – Syria & USA, of Ayaan Hirsi Ali – Somalia & Netherlands, of Taslima Nasreen – Bangladesh, on of many other couragieous women and men, to be found on this or any other blog by the links there.

Chahla BESKI-CHAFIQ, sociologue, éxilée politique d’origine iranienne et sociologue de formation, elle est responsable de formation

Stella Cornelius – Australia

Linked with our presentations of The Sydney Peace Foundation, of the Conflict Resolution Network, and of the Australian Centre for Peace & Conflict Studies.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed fort the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

She says: « How many are needed to make a world of peace, justice, and human rights? Just one more, you! Strength comes from kindness and concern for future generations, not from waging war and military might. »

Stella Cornelius (left) – Australia.

On 4 September 2000 former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, presented Dr Stella Cornelius, founder of the Conflict Resolution Network, and Faith Bandler, campaigner for indigenous rights in Australia, with certificates for their dedication and achievements in conflict resolution and education. The Sydney Peace Foundation was proud to have such an honoured guest. (Read more on this link of the Sydney Peace Foundation).

She works for the Conflict Resolution Network (CRN); for the United Nations Association of Australia (UNAA); and for the Australian Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Queensland.

Born in 1919, Australian Stella Cornelius has devoted a lifetime to peace, conflict resolution, and social justice issues. Her unique contribution to global peace has been to make access to conflict resolution training widely available. These skills are now used in workplaces, universities, schools, community organizations, and by individuals. For her lifelong community and peace work, Stella was awarded the Order of the British Empire (1979), Order of Australia (1987), and an honorary Doctor of Letters (1999). She is acknowledged as a Peace Messenger of the United Nations.

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Eva Hoffmann – USA-Canada-Poland

Linked with our presentation of Boycott against civil conduct.

She said (excerpt): … the sense of geographical topsy-turviness was the most concrete expression of displacement. Of course when I was growing up in Poland, I thought that Poland was the very center of the world, as we all do when we grow up in a place. And that the world existed in relation to it. All of a sudden, I was in Vancouver, and Canada, North America, was the center of the world and Poland was on the periphery and very far away. And that of course, corresponded, [was] a kind of objective correlative, the most concrete symbol of the many cultural displacements that went along with it, the many sorts of cultural values that changed as I went from Poland to Canada. Our cultural values, both on the largest and on the smallest scale in the sense of, say, political outlook or world view or the social set-up; too, notions of human intimacy or beauty or the distances at which we stand from each other, etc., etc. … every cultural value sort of did a flip or sort of moved … (Read more on this page of berkeley interview).

Eva Hoffmann – USA-Canada-Poland

« It is only through the efforts of imagination and memory that the shadows can be made to speak, » writes Eva Hoffman. Her memoir, LOST IN TRANSLATION follows her journey from Cold War Poland to Canada, and later, Texas, as she grapples with language, identity, and alienation. In her more recent books, SHETL and AFTER SUCH KNOWLEDGE, she examines life before and after the Holocaust, and the complexities of remembrance. A former editor for the NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, Hoffman currently teaches at MIT. (Read on Films42.com).

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Paddy Walker – Cook Islands

Linked with our presentations of PPSEAWA International, and of Comments by Padddy Walker.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed fort the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Paddy Walker’s passion has always been to generate new ideas about peace so that people can become peace builders of a « world fit for children. »

She says:

Paddy Walker – Cook Islands

She works for the Pan-Pacific and South East Asia Women’s Association (PPSEAWA).

Paddy Walker (87) has been driven all her life by a passion to achieve lasting peace in the world around her. She founded Pacifica (1974) to help Pacific Islander immigrants adjust to life in New Zealand. It was her initiative to develop the PPSEAWA Peace Gardens that have been established in Malaysia, Singapore, Samoa, and the Cook Islands; Fiji’s Peace Garden is now being developed. Paddy works tirelessly with youths. Her vision is to generate new ideas about peace.

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Oronto Douglas – Nigeria

Linked with our publications of Nigeria’s Oil and the population, and with Environemental Rights Action ERA – Nigeria, and
SEEN – Sustainble Energy & Economic Network. Also with The World Bank’s Recipe for Climate Disaster.

He says (excerpt):  » … So we need to discuss, and in discussion, the issues we have raised must be analyzed. We have called [for] and we are demanding resource control. When we talk about resource control, we mean that we want to be in control of the air that we breathe. We don’t want to breathe polluted air. We want to be in control of the forests and the land, where the wildlife and the rain forest bring forth life. We want to protect the waters. We don’t want those waters polluted; they are our vital resources. Oil and gas are temporary resources that could evaporate, that could go away over a given period. It is not a key issue, say, over a thousand years. Because we are going to be there for many more years than that! We have been there for more than 10,000, 20,000 years, as human memory can remember, and there is a possibility that we will remain there for more thousands and thousands of years. But oil is very temporary. When it’s finished, it is finished. But the people, the land, the environment, will remain. The challenge is: what is going to be left to be integrated? An impoverished land that after 2,000 years cannot be healed, or what? These are our legitimate worries. We are calling for resource control by our people » … (Read all on this page of Berkely interview of 2001).

Oronto Douglas – Nigeria

He is a human rights attorney and environmental activist. He is Deputy Director of the Environmental Rights Action Group in Nigeria.

Read the text on ERA of May 02, 2006.

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Amsatou Sow Sidibé – Senegal

Linked with our presentation of the Fondation pour l’innovation politique, and RAFET – Senegal, and also Finding the Law: Islamic Law.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed fort the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Goes with ‘Assuming Authority‘.

She says: « Nothing lasting can be built without peace. »

Amsatou Sow Sidibé – Senegal

She works for the ‘Réseau Africain pour la Promotion de la Femme Travailleuse’ RAFET.

First/d’abord: Amsatou Sow Sidibe, professeur à l’Université de Dakar et membre correspondant de la Fondation pour l’innovation politique, revient sur les récents débats sur l’immigration en France et leur perception en Afrique subsaharienne / about immigration, listen to her video-interview – in french / interview en français. Téléchargez la vidéo (format mp4).

Amsatou Amsatou Sow Sidibé (52) has a doctorate in law and political science from the Université Paris II. She is a full professor and holds the Chair of Private Law at the Université Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD) in Dakar; she also heads the university’s Institute for Human Rights and Peace.

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Jessica García – Honduras

Linked with our presentations of The Garifunda Community – Honduras, and with Garífuna Community Leader in Honduras Threatened with Death.

An Afro-descendent community leader in Honduras, Jessica Garcia, was forced at gunpoint to sign a document surrendering land and rights to a powerful real estate company. After refusing to accept a bribe to endorse the document, a representative of the company threatened to kill Ms. Garcia, the leader of the San Juan Tela Patronato, which represents the interests of the San Juan Garifuna community, and to murder her children.

.JD800740 rogné redim 25p.JPG

Sorry, I can not find any photo of Jessica García, Honduras (see also my comment ‘Brave women without photos‘).

This incident is only the most recent in a series of mounting threats and violent attacks faced by the Garifuna community and their leaders over the last several years. Powerful business interests, who seek to benefit from developing Garifuna territory into major tourism projects, engage in intimidation and violence, with virtual impunity. (Read more on action.humanrightsfirst.org).

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english links:

rights action.org; and Brandeis panel and HR;

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spanish links:

article on conexihon.com, and homepage of conexihon.com;

this case on UNHCR;

Prensa indigena.org;

rds.hn;

RESOLUCIÓN DE LA CORTE INTERAMERICANA DE DERECHOS HUMANOS DE 21 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2005; and same also on cortheidh.org.

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“Rosenthal quiere quedarse con todo Nuevo San Juan” (Marzo 2006):

Defender sus tierras hasta con sangre es la decisión de los pobladores de la aldea garífuna de San Juan, quienes argumentan que no están invadiendo nada porque los terrenos son suyos.

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Rosalina Tuyuc Velásquez – Guatemala

Linked with our presentation of Conavigua, the ‘Coordinadora Nacional de Viudas de Guatemala’. And linked with our Humanitarian Text: ‘Linking Gender, Food Security and the Environment‘.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed fort the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

She says: «  »In order to guarantee the achievement of food security, it is necessary to combat the current disparities, since there are a lot of people who get sick or die because they eat a lot, and on the other hand there are millions who die because they do not have enough food. » (see FAO.org, 2002).

She says also: “My place will always be at the side of the widows, the women who carry the weight of racism on their shoulders.”

Rosalina Tuyuc Velásquez – Guatemala

She works for Conavigua, Coordinadora Nacional de Viudas de Guatemala.

Rosalina Tuyuc Velásquez (49) belongs to the Maya-Kaqchikel ethnic group. Orphan, wife, mother and widow, displaced and persecuted. She fights so that the Guatemalan State will admit its responsibility for the arrest, disappearance and death of thousands of Guatemalan people. She tries to overcome her terror and embraces life. She demands justice, dreams of peace, respect towards women, the well being of the indigenous people.Rosalina Tuyuc Velásquez is « a woman of maize, oak and fire. A member of the Maya-Kaqchikel ethnic group, she speaks Spanish and Kiché. She belongs to a religious agricultural family. She lives with the spirituality of the Mayans “thanks to the wisdom of the elders”.

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Howard Zinn – USA

Linked with our presentations of ‘ Lié aussi avec notre présdentation en français d’attac france. And also with another Communication is possible.  Added Jan. 26, 2008: He is a better world heroe.

He says: (Excerpt of an interview, 2001): …  » … Historians must not be sweet. But optimistic … well, yes, a cautious optimism. Cautious in the sense that I’m not positive that things are going to go well. The future is indeterminate. But after all, the future depends on what we do now. If we are pessimistic now, we are doomed in the future. If we give up at this point then we know nothing good is going to happen. If we act on the assumption that there’s a chance that something good may happen, then we have a possibility. Not a certainty, but a possibility. So I believe it’s useful, it’s pragmatic to be optimistic. But not only that, not simply an act of faith, but also because there is historical evidence for the fact that when people act, persist, get together, organize, they bring about changes. There haven’t been enough changes. So you can look at that and say, not enough. True. But the fact that some changes have been made. The fact that labor, by struggling, won the eight-hour day. The fact that blacks in the South did away with the signs of segregation. The fact that women changed the consciousness of this country about sexual equality. Even though those are only beginnings, that historical experience suggests reason to think it is possible that other things may change … « . (Read the whole very long interview on berkeley.edu).

Howard Zinn – USA

Kate Daniels interviews Howard Zinn, author of « Original Zinn: Conversations on History and Politics, » on « Sunday Morning Magazine », July 09, 2006, at 5:30 a.m., on (US) KRWM-FM (106.9). (See on Radio: 60s rock powerhouse KJR-AM.

Howard Zinn (born August 24, 1922) is an American historian and political scientist. His philosophy incorporates ideas from Marxism, anarchism, socialism, and social democracy. Since the 1960s, he has been an important figure in the Civil Rights and anti-war movements in the United States. Author of 20 books, including the popular A People’s History of the United States, Zinn is Professor Emeritus in the Political Science Department at Boston University. For 50 years, he has campaigned against the killing of civilians in time of war. (Read more, and the rest of his biography, on wikipedia).

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Aïssata Kane – Mauritania

Linked with our NGO presentations of ‘L’APEM – Mauritanie‘, and of ‘A.D.D.F.E. – Mauritanie‘, and also of ‘AIFF / APEM – Mauritanie‘. And also linked with our presentation of the Humanitarian Text ‘Mauritania: Low HIV prevalence, widespread AIDS stigma‘, and with Economy of Mauritania.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed fort the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Goes with ‘Assuming Authority‘.

She says: « Old age should not hinder women from helping to build their country, rather it should be seen as an asset because of all the experience that comes with it. »

Aïssata Kane – Mauritania

She works for the ‘Association pour la Protection de l’Environnement en Mauritanie (APEM)‘, and for the ‘Association Mauritanienne pour la Protection de l’Enfant et de la Femme‘, and also for the ‘Association Internationale des Femmes Francophones’.

Read some texts out of different Google Groups: Mauritania gets to grips with Aids education (March 2005); again about AIDS (February 2006); also on ‘les inégalités entre les sexes‘ (Juin 2005); and ‘sommet interréligieux sur la paix en Afrique‘ (Avril 2006); and also ‘APPEL POUR LE CHANGEMENT EN MAURITANIE‘ (Juin 2005).

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