Auteur/autrice : Heidi Barathieu-Brun

Virginia/Ginny Shrivastava – India

Linked with ASHTA SANSTHAN.

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

She says: ”It is a long way from Canada to working at the Indian grassroots with tendu patta (tobacco leaf) collectors and widows, and clashing with the authorities – but Ginny is finally home ».

Nobel Peace Prize nominee in Kingston to receive 2005 Queen’s Alumni Achievement Award, November 01, 2005, Kingston, ON – The Queen’s University Alumni Association recognized the outstanding accomplishments of Dr. Virginia (Ginny) Shrivastava Arts’63 by presenting her with the 2005 Alumni Achievement Award at a special ceremony in Kingston held at the University Club at Queen’s. Friends, family, and faculty and classmates from her Queen’s days were also on hand to celebrate this moment. (Read all on Queen’s University).

Read: Widow’s Stories, Kamal Patik age 40, A Leader in the Association of Strong Women Alone, Rajasthan, is the widow of the late Kailash Patik. (Read her story on widows rights).

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Virginia/Ginny Shrivastava – India

She works for ASHTA SANSTHAN, for the Association of Strong Women Alone ASWA (named on GlobalHRs.org), and for the Budget Analysis Rajasthan Center BARC.

Virginia/Ginny Shrivastava, born Dobson, was born in Canada on 9 August 1942, the day Gandhi started the “Quit India Movement” to throw all foreigners out of India. She has been working with women in Rajasthan since 1970. The main driving force behind the Association of Strong Women Alone, a registered society of low-income single women, Ginny has focused on building the leadership capabilities of grassroots women. Also actively involved with tribal groups, Ginny mobilized them to pressure the government to give them minimum wages for collecting tendu patta (tobacco leaves), and helped them form a Tendu Patta Cooperative.

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Hazel Henderson – England & USA

Linked with The Politics of Money, and with Good Governance and Participatory Development.

She is Author, Independent Futurist, Worldwide syndicated columnist, she advocates for and consults on equitable ecologically sustainable human development and socially responsible business and investment. She act in over thirty countries. In 1996 she co-created the Country Futures Indicators as an alternative to Gross Domestic Product. She is born 1933 in Bristol, England.

Read: The Nobel Prize that isn’t.

She says: ”Women know how much time, love and effort goes into raising a child. When war arises, all that is reduced to nothing … this is why women’s active participation in conflict resolution is of great importance … We have the power to alter our destiny … If we can recognize that change and uncertainty are basic principles, we can greet the future and the transformation we are undergoing with the understanding that we do not know enough to be pessimistic ».

Read: Iraq, the Dollar and the Euro.

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Hazel Henderson – England & USA

She says also: « It doesn’t take a genius to pump up the GNP [of a developing country] by burning down rainforests, using slave labor and social repression to keep things in place. GNP values, for example bombs and bullets, since they are things that are produced for money (It) does not value the environment. It values salaries paid to teachers, but it does not value what people know – how educated they are. It places no value on `human capital,’ meaning people. It does not even place a value on the public infrastructure ».

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George Monbiot – England

Linked with World Changing.com, and with Other Economies are Possible!

Read: Get ready for more future shock.

George Monbiot is the author of the best selling books The Age of Consent: a manifesto for a new world order and Captive State: the corporate takeover of Britain; as well as the investigative travel books Poisoned Arrows, Amazon Watershed and No Man’s Land. He writes a weekly column for the Guardian newspaper…
… He is currently visiting professor of planning at Oxford Brookes University. In 1995 Nelson Mandela presented him with a United Nations Global 500 Award for outstanding environmental achievement. He has also won the Lloyds National Screenwriting Prize for his screenplay The Norwegian, a Sony Award for radio production, the Sir Peter Kent Award and the OneWorld National Press Award. (See his blog Monbiot.com).

Read this commentary (pull down the page to find it): In War On Terror, America Embraces The Very Evils It Claims To Confront.

George Monbiot (born January 27, 1963) is a leftwing journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist in the United Kingdom who writes a weekly column for The Guardian newspaper. (wikipedia).

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George Monbiot – England

He says: « For me, perhaps the best way, potentially, is to develop the perspective put forward by Paulo Friere in The Pedagogy of the Oppressed (http://www.marxists.org/subject/education/freire/pedagogy/index.htm), where the popular educators are themselves educated by the population. On the one hand, you help them to develop a perspective, an understanding of their own oppression, where power lies and what the problems are, and then as they advance that understanding they transmit their perspectives upwards, through the social levels, to the intellectuals ». (Weekly-Al-Ahram)

Read: January 4, 2007, Breaking News About Exxon Funding Lies.

Read: Their beliefs are bonkers, but they are at the heart of power.

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Victoria Curzon-Price – Switzerland

Linked with Complaint on Swiss Taxes, and with Economic Growth and Unequal Wealth Distribution.

She defends a neo-liberal economy, with a state giving all freedom to markets, with low taxes and with the protection of privat possession for economic owners.

Current functions: she is
President of the Mont Pelerin Society (since 2004);
Professor of economics at the University of Geneva, Switzerland (since 1992), (and on wikipedia;
Professor at the Graduate Institute of European Studies, Economics Section (since 1984);
Academic director and president of the board of directors of the Institut Constant de Rebecque (since 2005), (and on wikipedia.
She is also in the Advisory Board of the Free Society Institute, as in the Advisory Board of the Institute of Economic Affairs iea.

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Victoria Curzon-Price – Switzerland

Listen to her audio at the Prague Conference on Political Economy, April 2006.
Pull down to ‘Economics of Development’ and click on the audio item.

She writes: ”A defence of inequalities based on property rights takes the debate onto an entirely different level. Thus for Locke the right to material property is only one aspect (but an inherent and inseparable aspect) of individual property rights which encompass the right of possession over one’s own body, one’s right to freedom of thought and conscience, and the right to the fruits of one’s own efforts. Interference by others with any one of these freedoms is a violation of property rights in the broadest sense and is felt to be deeply unjust. Conversely, I have no right to interfere in other people’s property rights. According to Locke, this rule makes for social harmony.

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Azra Hasanbegovic – Bosnia and Herzegovina

Linked with the Association “ŽENA BIH”, Mostar, with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hopes Betrayed, and with Trafficking Women and Children.

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

She says: « Everyone has duties to the community in which a free and integral development of one’s personality is possible ».

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Azra Hasanbegovic – Bosnia and Herzegovina

She works for Žena Bosnia and Herzegovina/Žena BiH.

Since the beginning of the armed conflict in Mostar in April 1992, Azra Hasanbegovic helped organize small groups that assisted people most badly struck by the war. She initiated the women’s association Žena BiH, whose main mission is to struggle for women’s right to work. She also established the Agency for Free Legal Aid and Services and an SOS hotline. At the same time, she worked on documentation of the suffering of Mostar and Prozor women and submitted a detailed report to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.Since the beginning of the armed conflict in Mostar in April 1992, Azra Hasanbegovic endeavored to establish a life, “a bit close to normal,” in a city suffering from chaos.

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Erika Lesser – USA

Linked with Slow Food USA.

Erika Lesser is the Executive Director of Slow Food USA, based in New York City. Slow Food is a global movement dedicated to the preservation of traditional food culture. In this two-part series Erika Lesser, Director of Slow Food USA, compares slow food with fast food culture. Whereas the latter tastes the same anywhere in the world, slow food celebrates diverse local food flavours and taste. Slow Food means knowing where food comes from and what the true costs of production are. It is also about food security – understanding that a varied food supply is a safe one.(Listen to her three speaches of 4.42, 4.49 and 4.09 minutes, recorded on Big-Picture on April 2005).

She says: « The point is to provide consumers with viable local alternatives and a pleasant environment to learn about them. You know, Isn’t this delicious, don’t you want to know more? On a gastronomic level but also on a social and economic level, it gives you the opportunity to support a local business ».

She says also: « Our mission has evolved over the years, beginning with the ideals of old-school gastronomy (long lunches, good wine) in the late 1980’s, to a new concept of « eco-gastronomy » (biodiversity and pleasure on the plate) in the 1990’s and « good, clean and fair food » (a system-wide approach, incorporating politics, social justice, environmentalism and a new definition of quality) in the new millennium. Our members run the gamut, from home cooks, gardeners, winemakers, journalists, farmers, and chefs to environmentalists, back-to-the-landers, educators, artists, politicians, liberals and conservatives alike ».

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Erika Lesser – USA

She works for Slow Food USA, based in New York City.

New York, NY – Slow Food USA is pleased to name Erika Lesser as its new Executive Director, effective June 1st. Erika returns to the National Office in New York City with over four years of experience with Slow Food, including three years working for Slow Food USA’s National Office beginning at its founding in March 2000, and the past year working to open the new University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy.

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Maninha Xukuru-Kariri – Brazil (1966 – 2006)

Linked with Indigenous representatives campaign in Europe, with The Forum for the Defense of Indigenous Rights APOINME, with The World Rainforest Movement WRM, and with Aracruz Celulose and the World Cup: propaganda and deforestation.

See also: Alert against the Green Desert Movement, and Table of indigenous organisations of Brazil.

Maninha Xukuru-Kariri died on 11th octobre 2006 in the state OF Alagoas. She was experiencing respiratory problems, had a heart failure and was not treated quickly enough in the hospital of that city.

She was one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

She said: “Society tries to deny indigenous origin. They took our land, our language and our beliefs. Today, we know who we are, what are our rights and the status we wish to occupy in the history”.

« Nós vivemos no estado do Alagoas, temos várias comunidades e vivemos da agricultura, … etc etc. Nossa área é de 10.000 metros e temos 1000 habitantes. Aqui você vai encontrar muitas histórias sobre nossas aldeias, participe, envie seus comentários ».

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Maninha Xukuru-Kariri – Brazil (1966 – 2006)

She works for the Articulação dos Povos e Organizações Indígenas do Nordeste, Minas Gerais e Espírito Santo APOINME.

During the first days of 2005, an indigenous baby died of malnutrition. Less than a month later, in another indigenous settlement, a little girl was unable to reach age four. She also had nothing to eat. In two decades, Maninha Xukuru (born 1966) has challenged latifundiary land owners, politicians, unlawful land possessors and citizens in general. Her battle: to win back the land of her people, the Xukuru-Kariri. Her goal: to ensure the effectiveness of indigenous rights.

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Index December 2006

Paula Clermont Péan – Haiti

Linked with Haiti and its problems, and with Pyepoudre Cultural Centre.

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

She says: “I want to create a place to dream, to open up the windows to the future, to nourish hope and spread the wings of regeneration”.

And: “From my point of view, one of the crucial threats to peace is the inability to think and to react against disagreements and failures, because that can make us fall into the temptation of despair and anger. In order to build a world in peace, and above all, to maintain this peace, we have to measure the nature of this state. I believe that each person, each one of us in our own field of action, can contribute to peace by promoting the necessary spiritual state, especially by promoting the principles of empathy, of active solidarity, of justice and equality“.

She says also: “I would like to take peace by its roots, bury it with my bare hands, water it with rain water, see its stem shooting up and its grains passing through thousands of other hands, see its leaves growing, and its white flowers singing and smiling to the world”.

Book: Le chant de Miraya, Paula Clermont-Péan.

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Paula Clermont Péan – Haiti

She works for the Pyepoudre Cultural Center.
Actress, theater director, writer, professor of literature and theater, Paula Clermont Péan is the director of the Pyepoudre Cultural Center. It is a center for animation, training courses and public readings, founded by Paula, in Puerto Príncipe, in 1989. She was educated in France and in the United States. After returning to her home country, Haiti, she dedicated her work towards the promotion of popular culture and to the building of a network for the association of young people, affiliated to the Worldwide Federation of the Associations, Centers and Clubs of Unesco.Paula Clermont Péan has done things that anyone would consider personal successes.

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Thierry Meyssan – France

He says: … « The third thing that has not been clarified in any way was the issue of the fire in one of the buildings adjacent to the White House on September 11. We are used to seeing the famous picture of the White House and a large park. But right next to the White House there is a large building, which is rarely shown because it is very ugly, and it is related to the 1930s. It is called the Eisenhower Building. All the U.S. presidential services are located in that building. This building was completely destroyed by fire, but no explanation was given. Why has nothing been said about the third Manhattan tower and about the building adjacent to the White House? It’s very simple. They did not have any plane that could serve as a pretext. It could not be said that some plane crashed here, and that this was the handiwork of Islamists from overseas. Therefore, since there was no plane, no explanation could be given. So it is presented as if nothing happened » … (memri.org).

He says also: « We see that what America says officially is not only incomplete but also falsified. If we examine some details carefully – particularly details pertaining to the Pentagon – we will realize many things » … ( memri.org).

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Thierry Meyssan – France

Thierry Meyssan is a French journalist and political activist. Thierry Meyssan was born in a traditionalist Catholic family. He is the author of investigations into the extreme right wing (particularly about the National Front Militias, which are the object of a parliamentary investigation and caused a separation of the extreme right wing party), as well as into the Catholic Church (Opus Dei, for example), and the discrimination of homosexuality, among others. Thierry is best known for his controversial book 9/11: The Big Lie, in which he challenged the official account of events of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

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