Mois : novembre 2007

Index November 2007

Rohini Hensman – Sri Lanka

Linked with Playing Lions and Tigers, and with NATIONALISM AND THE LEFT IN SRI LANKA.

Rohini Hensman is a researcher and writer active in the women’s liberation, trade union, human rights and anti-war movements in India and Sri Lanka. She has written extensively on all these issues, and is currently working on a book on globalization and labour in India. (full text).

Sri Lankan Rohini Hensman lives in India where she is a writer and anti-war activist promoting women’s, labor, and human rights. Her book of fiction, Playing Lions and Tigers, follows the intertwined lives of fourteen characters from different parts of Sri Lanka, different social classes, different ethnic and religious communities, all confronting the challenges of their country’s post-colonial conditions: poverty and religious conflict. Inhabiting the lives of her characters, Rohini looks at the personal dramas of peaceful citizens turned into violent enemies by the manipulations of authoritarian and criminal government. (black oak books, scroll down).

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Sorry, I can’t find any photo of Rohini Hensman, Sri Lanka

Read: A Last Chance For Peace in Sri Lanka, 21 January 2005.

She writes also: ‘If the Bush administration has decided to attack Iran militarily, is there any power on earth that can stop it if the people of the US are unable or unwilling to do so? The argument below is that if the USA’s ability to undertake imperial conquests depends on its obvious military supremacy, this in turn is ultimately based on the use of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. It is the dominance of the dollar that underpins US financial dominance as a whole as well as the apparently limitless spending power that allows it to keep hundreds of thousands of troops stationed all over the world’. (full text, 19th November 2007).

Her publications: on Dissident Voices; on; on ; on .

The OPEC Summit in Riyadh over the weekend of 17-18 November was the scene of a political debate that is not normally associated with the oil-producing cartel. The meeting was dominated by a discussion of the falling value of the US dollar, the currency in which the oil exports of most OPEC countries is denominated. ‘The dollar is in free fall, everyone should be worried about it,’ according to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez; ‘The fall of the dollar is not the fall of the dollar, it’s the fall of the American empire’. ‘They get our oil and give us a worthless piece of paper,’ added Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. ‘The dollar has no economic value.’ However Saudi officials rejected the suggestion that the meeting discuss ending the practice of pricing crude in dollars, and emphasised the purely economic agenda of OPEC. It is undeniable that Chavez and Ahmedinejad have a political axe to grind, and that is not hard to understand: both have been the target of US attempts at ‘regime change’; Iran is in addition facing threats of military attack by the US. But is the Saudi claim that its agenda is purely economic plausible? The currencies of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – were pegged to the dollar in January 2003, but this peg has increasingly come under pressure as the dollar has declined. The corresponding devaluation of their own currencies has led to rapid inflation in GCC countries, while at the same time devaluing their foreign exchange reserves. (full text, Nov. 21, 2007).

A GLOBAL SATYAGRAHA AGAINST IMPERIALISM, Oct 6, 2007.

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Konstantin Simonov – Russian Federation

Konstantin Simonov (Russian: Константин Михайлович Симонов; 28 November [O.S. 15 November] 1915 in Petrograd – August 28, 1979 in Moscow) was a Soviet/Russian author. His full name was Konstantin (born Kirill) Mikhailovich Simonov. He was a well-known war poet who wrote a popular poem called « Wait for me », about a soldier in the war asking his beloved to wait for his return. The poem was addressed to his wife, the actress Valentina Serova. It was immensely popular at the time and remains one of the best-known poems in the Russian language. Simonov wrote many more poems to Valentina, subsequently included in the collection With you and without you. (full text).

Oldpoetry.com.

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Konstantin Simonov – Russian Federation

Born in 1915 into a military family Konstantin Simonov studied at the Literary Institute in Moscow and began his career as a poet. From the very start Simonov established himself as a poet writing about wars. He is the author of historical poems called « Suvorov » and « Battle on a Frozen Lake » about the heroism of Russian people and poems about international brigades that came to the rescue of Spanish Republicans. As a journalist, Simonov travels to the battle fields during a military conflict with the Japanese army. And as a war correspondent, he writes notes in verse and reports. The idea of a looming big war is central in his poems, his play « A guy from our city », after which one of the best post-war films was made. (full text).

He is named on the following Blogs: on Carmen Ezgeta; on blog.hr; on kaleidoskop; on rebelde Cuba; on Simonov.co.uk.

Newspaper clips with Simonov’s poems were found in the pockets of those killed in action. Soldiers often got the poems in letters from home and read them before going into battle. Like volunteers, the poems made their way into the army ranks: “It seemed to us in those days, the wartime writer and Hero of the Soviet Union Vladimir Karpov says, that we all knew Simonov personally – such was the extent to which his verse found a response in our hearts, such was his knowledge of the front life. That’s why his poems for us were inseparable from our Motherland, our home and family. In his works the deep patriotic feelings of the day found expression in simple, soothing words. In fact, that was what we were fighting for”. (full text).

War Songs, Poems and Journalism.

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Ana Maria Machado – Brazil

Linked with THE EUROPEAN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATION EERA.

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

Ana Maria Machado is a Brazilian journalist, writer, and professor born in Rio de Janeiro on December 24, 1941. She has her lifetime achievement, by the Brazilian Academy of Letters. (wikipedia).

She says: « My thirst for justice is what defines me. Peace is a harmonious coexistence between those who are different, in a world where social justice is guaranteed and individual liberty is respected ».

Find her website in portuguese.

Com mais de 100 livros publicados, no Brasil e em mais de 17 países, somando quase catorze milhões de exemplares vendidos, a escritora Ana Maria Machado sabe como ninguém conquistar o leitor de todas as idades. Entre os prêmios ganhos ao longo de 33 anos de carreira, merecem destaque os seguintes: Américas; APCA; APPLE, Instituto Jean Piaget (Suíça); Casa de Las Américas (Cuba); Jabuti; e muitos outros. Em 2000, Ana recebeu a medalha Hans Christian Andersen, considerada o Nobel da literatura infantil mundial. Em 2001, a Academia Brasileira de Letras lhe deu o maior prêmio literário nacional, o Machado de Assis, pelo conjunto da obra. (full text).

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Ana Maria Machado – Brazil

Her blog.

She says also: « It’s difficult for me to say who might have influenced me. I know I was an avid reader and still am. From North America, my first passion was Mark Twain. I remember asking my father for a book that would make me live through the story from within, very intimately with the characters. So, he bought me The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and that became an instant passion. Then came Huckleberry Finn, which has been the book I’ve read the most times. Eventually I read all his other books. Later, at age nineteen, I discovered John Dos Passos, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and Hemingway. From these last two I’ve read all they have written many times over. It was pure passion, especially Hemingway, whom I consider one of that very select group of writers who have thoroughly mastered their craft. He is a writer I would like to emulate someday; his ability to give voice to the land, whether in Pamplona, the Gulf of Mexico, or Africa, is truly astonishing. He is so humble amid nature, and his quietness allows nature to speak for itself in his works. Faulkner, on the other hand, speaks more directly to me as an individual. He overwhelms me and never ceases to impress me with his sensitivity and the way he is able to express the ineffable ». (full text).

She works for the Academia Brasileira de Letras, (see also on wikipedia).

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Adam Engel – USA

Linked with Gallipoli for Dummies, and with Strike the Root STR.

(First: trying to disambiguate different persons with the same name, maybe I ignored texts belonging to the here proposed Adam Engel.)

He says: « Leftism/Progressivism/Socialism are never the easy way out, otherwise they’d be more popular. If you’re a beginner, though you can start on the GUI right away, it might take you some time to learn how to work the finer points of the operating system. But the price of the extra effort is not only ‘computer freedom’, but a greater knowledge of your rights in the general marketplace. Also, if instead of paying for upgrades etc. as slaves to Mac/Windows MUST do, Linux users can hire programmers to build/rebuild/fix their system. Suddenly, the idea of small businesspeople called on to do programming, networking and various other jobs ultimately makes GNU/Linux much more viable economically, when looking at the big picture, than MAC/Windows with their ‘exclusive’ contracts and ‘forced’ upgrades. Also: hardware. Notice how all this new Windows ‘gaming’ software requires faster, more powerful computers. More more more bigger bigger bigger faster faster faster. Well, if all you want or need to do is run a word-processor, a web browser and a mail program, possibly some graphics and sound plug-ins, etc., you can get by on an ‘old’ (more than 5 years) machine without too much trouble. Everything is customizable with GNU/Linux. As in every other aspect of life, stay away from for-profit, anti-creative corporatism. Whether we’re talking computers or ‘global warming’, it’s people versus profit, we versus ‘it’, ‘life versus death’. (full interview text).

Read: Business Week Ranks the Best Places for Graduates to Launch Careers, by Adam Engel, November 1, 2007.

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Adam Engel – USA

Adam Engel has published poetry, fiction and essays in such magazines and periodicals on Counter Punch, Dissident Voice, Online Journal, Strike-the-Root, LewRockwell.com, and others, like: The New York Art Review, The Concord Journal, The Middlesex News, Accent, The Littleton Review, Ark, Smart Shoes, The Beacon, Literal Latte, Artemis, The Lummox Journal, Fearless, POESY, The Half Moon Review, Art:Mag, Chronogram, Gnome, and more. Adam Engel’s first book of poetry, Oil and Water, was published by Maximum Capacity Press in 2001, his novel, Topiary by Dandelion Books in the Spring of 2005. He has worked as a journalist, screenwriter, executive speechwriter, systems administrator, and editorial consultant, and has taught writing at New York University, Touro College and the Gotham Writer’s Workshop in New York City. (tldp).

Read: Les Miserable and the Hackers from Hell, Cyber Momma and the Outlaw Cowboys, by ADAM ENGEL, January 4, 2003.

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Teclaire Ntomp – Cameroon

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

She says: « The universal protection of fundamental needs of both men and women and the enforcement of human dignity – this is my motto ».

Ntomp Teclaire learned as a pastor’s daughter about the value of respecting and sharing with others in order to create true social harmony. A teacher by profession, she lived in different regions where she dealt with different people. She discovered that poverty and ignorance transforms people into egoists, partisans and creates low esteem. She thus ended her teaching career to focus on educating the Bogso community to improve their living conditions through their local potential. To achieve that she uses an organized work process that integrate solidarity and mutual assistance.

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Sorry, I can’t find any photo of Teclaire Ntomp, Cameroon, in the internet (see also my comment ‘Brave women without photos‘).

She works for their Community Based self help Association.

Village populations have mobilized over the past 13 years through a community association set up by Ntomp Teclaire. She has contributed to the well-being of fellow Cameroonians by providing training on sanitation, education, agriculture and nutrition. Projects are then developed, based on simple, indigenous techniques that provide income to self-help groups.

The long lasting change her work established with her community-based organization is local food production. The sales and consumption of the food have contributed to improving the social well being of the stakeholders of the projects. The international exposure and marketing of the products through several trade shows has lifted the image of Cameroon and created a demand for the food.

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Alexandra (Alex) Gater – Australia

Linked with Articles for Indigenous Peoples on our blogs.
She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

As an Indigenous Australian, Alex Gater has been waging battles against discrimination all her life. The first one began at birth: as a member of the Aboriginal minority living in White Australia, she was disadvantaged from the start. Racism was a concept she experienced first-hand growing up on Cherbourg Aboriginal Mission, an Indigenous community in rural Queensland.

She says: « I dream of the day when my people will be acknowledged, accepted, and not judged by the color of their skin ».

She says also: “I see homeless youth wandering the streets of Brisbane and ask myself: Why are they here? Why did they have to leave home so young? I see the sick and the dying in hospital and ask: Why are our life expectancies 15 – 20 years lower than those of White Australians? Why are our infant mortality rates so much higher? We are all part of God’s family, we are all created in his image – why do Indigenous people have to fight so hard for equality, for recognition”?

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Alexandra (Alex) Gater – Australia

She works for the Anglican Church of Queensland,
and for the Murri Magistrate Court.

By the time she was 13 and economic hardship ended her formal education, Alex had developed a real understanding of the injustices facing Australia’s Aboriginals, not just in her home state but right across the country. She made an important decision. She would devote her life to fighting such an unjust system.

Several years ago, after a career spent working in the ministry of the Anglican Church of Queensland, Alex Gater decided she wanted to become a priest. Her request was flatly refused by the archdiocese. It was the start of what would be a long and very difficult battle but she took on the Anglican Church, and won.

In 2003, after months of heated debate which culminated in her speaking out at the church’s national Synod conference, Alex became the first Aboriginal woman to be ordained within the Anglican Church of Queensland.

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Guilan Wang – China

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

She says: « The villagers trust me a lot and let me completely fulfill myself in the lecture room. In the village school I teach the children everything I have learned. This makes me fulfill the values of life ».

Wang recognizes her achievement in teaching: “the villagers trust me a lot, and let me fully fulfil myself in the lecture room. In this village school, I teach language, mathematics, music and physical education. I teach the children eveything I have learned. This makes me fulfil the values of life”.

And she says: “I do not regret at all. I might miss an important chance, but I have obtained two valuable things: one, I met my husband who brings me happiness. I would rather say that I have found my true love, the only true love in my life. … Two, in the process of developing my career, I have met sincere rural people who treat like family. I cannot forget that whenever I do home visits or arrange parents’ meeting, I am completely impressed by their generosity and hospitality”.

She says also:

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Guilan Wang – China

She works for the Kindergarten of Huangling County, Yan’an City, Shaanxi Province

Wang Guilan was born in 1949. Shortly after graduating from Beijing Normal College, she went to Yan’an, the cradle of the Chinese Communist Revolution, along with 28,000 educated youths. It was 1968. Since the Cultural Revolution started in 1966, 15 million educated youths voluntarily or involuntarily went to the countryside throughout China. Most of them were inspired by the grand idea of serving the poorest, and they dispersed into the remote and barren regions.

At the very beginning, Wang planned to stay in the remote yellow earth of Shaanxi Province for several years. But she did not expect that this period would stretch to thirty years as it has done. More than a hundred educated youths, including Wang, were to stay in Yijun County. Wang gradually got accustomed to the local living pattern, and then she found her own place in teaching.

Her major area of study was mathematics, but she taught the rural children every subject. Until now, Wang has taught more than 3000 students, and most of them became the backbone of the local community.

Wang taught the rural children not only how to read and write, but also how to be independent and responsible persons. Most of her students lived far away from school, so they had to stay at school overnight. Wang always reminded them: “you come here, and you should learn to be an independent person. Do everything by yourself. Don’t depend on your parents.” Evey night, Wang went several times to see if the students were all right.

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María Eugenia Aguilar Castro – El Salvador

Linked with Rescate Ancestral Indígena Salvadoreño RAIS, and with Articles for Indigenous Peoples on our blogs.

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

She says: « Under a strange empire, the martyrdoms amassed, and destroyed; perplexed, lost, their memory denied, alone » (an Apu Inka Apawllkaman–Quechua poetry).

She helps young Salvadoran people apply native knowledge and skills to modern business, instilling pride in indigenous culture and preserving community ties. (ashoka).

She says also: “To learn the language of our ancestors helped me to understand what was hidden in this earth. It awakened my consciousness even more and I understood what I had to do and whom I had to serve. I cleaned my home and my body. In the evenings I wrote down my impressions in a kind of diary. Indigenous themes were my main concern”.

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María Eugenia Aguilar Castro – El Salvador

She works for the Rescate Ancestral Indígena Salvadoreño RAIS.

And she says: “All my life I will remember that dawn when the old men came down from the mountainside bringing us the sacred wrappers. They prepared a bonfire for each one of us and gave us our respective sacred wrappers. When my turn came, my grandfather guide told me that from that moment on I was a Mayan priestess. I felt the transfer of all his ancient wisdom and the enormous responsibility that it meant. It is a level of commitment and service towards my people. I have committed my own life to this and I must be conscious of everything I do because I am a guardian of that ancestral wisdom”

María Eugenia Aguilar was born 1948. As a small girl she was introduced to the ancestral world through an indigenous nanny who spoke the Quiché language. She transmitted to her a profound love for life and nature. This was María Eugenia’s first contact with her original culture.

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Mandisi Majavu – South Africa

Linked with London Project for a Participatory Society LPPS, with Life After Colonialism, with Woes of privatisation in South Africa, with ‘War of Position’, Anti-Capitalist Attrition as a Revolutionary Strategy for Non-Revolutionary Times, and with Articles for Indigenous Peoples on our blogs.

Mandisi Majavu is a writer and activist based in South Africa. His writing has appeared in a number of South African publications. Internationally, his writing has appeared in reputable websites like Z Magazin. He is busy working on his Master Degree.

He writes: The history and the present life of the San, indigenous people of the southern Africa, is a sad story of a people who after surviving genocide at the hands of other African ethnic groups and European colonialists had to endure slavery and oppression, while in the process losing their land, language, culture, and traditional way of life. (full text).

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Mandisi Majavu – South Africa

Mandisi Majavu, a cultural critic, has written widely on African affairs. He is fascinated by post-colonial discourse, anarchism and has a penchant for psychology, particularly black psychology. He is staff member at fahamu, the network for social justice. (full text).

He writes also: The silent takeover of the continent (Africa) by South African businesses is way too advanced, make no mistakes. According to the State Of The Nation: South Africa 2003 – 2004 (7), available documents show South African businesses running the national railroad in Cameroon, the national electricity company in Tanzania, and managing the airports located in or near seven African capitals. They have controlling shares in Telecom Lesotho and are the leading providers of cellphone services in Nigeria, Uganda, Swaziland, Tanzania, Rwanda and Cameroon.South African companies are also managing power plants in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mali; building roads and bridges in Malawi and Mozambique, and a gas pipeline between offshore Mozambique and South Africa. They control banks, breweries, supermarkets and hotels throughout the continent and provide TV programming to over half of all Africa’s states … (full text).

His review of the book Remembering the Future of Radical Activism, August 22, 2007.

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