janvier 2008 – Page 2 – World People's Blog

Geum-Soon Yoon – South Korea

also called: Yoon, Keum-Soon

Linked with Via Campesina.org, International Peasant Movement,
with Ha-Joon Chang, South Korea & England, with Heisoo Shin, South Korea, and with Sook-Im Kim, South Korea.

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

One of the founders of the Korea Women Farmers Association KWFA, Geum-Soon Yoon has helped to place women and farmers in the forefront of her country’s reunification movement. Educated as an environmental engineer, Geum-Soon worked within the farmers’ movement to improve the lives of the poor farmers. As vice-president of KWFA, she was instrumental in making the historic first reunification conference between North and South Korean farmers a success. Geum-Soon is a sharp critic of globalization policies that negatively affect farmers’ rights and the environment.

She says: « Most women neither possess land nor have the right of joint possession. They are excluded from education and training, buying machinery, financial support. Only their husbands have these rights ».

Geum-Soon Yoon, also called: Yoon, Keum-Soon – South Korea

She works for Reunification Solidarity; for the Korea Women Farmers Association KWFA: also named on Wiser Earth, address: Korea Women Farmers Association KWFA, Sambo Building 303, Yanjae-Dong, 247-4, Seocho-ku, Seoul, Korea 137 130; and for Via Campasina. (See also: Members of La Via Campesina).

She writes: She told she was extremely happy when she picked up green peppers which was going to be her own name product. Changes in the farming area encourage her to work pleasedly. When the plants got desease or when the products were sold at a very cheap price, she had a broken heart. Nevertheless, the heart-breaking incident reversed a courage to her. She asked other women farmers to put her own name as a producer, but it caused to a couple-quarreling in such a conservative agricultural society. Even the women farmers’ meeting was often blocked by their husbands. Generally speaking, the main female farmers’ issue to be solved is a welfare thing. However, the most important problem raised by Yoon, Keum-soon is that women should be regarded as major farmers. Of course, the welfare issue is also important. Because of lack of child-care facilities, children are ignored and mothers are easily tired by double day works. Most of female farmers suffer in a poor health condition … (full text).

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Bahman Nirumand – Iran & Germany

Linked with Shirin Neshat – Iran & USA, with Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in IRAN CASMII, with The Lost Children of the Revolution, and with The American Muslim TAM.

Born in 1936 in Teheran, Bahman Nirumand studied German Studies, Philosophy und Iranian Studies in Munich, Tübingen and Berlin. In 1960 he received his PhD on the basis of a dissertation on Brecht. After his studies, he returned to Iran, and worked as a Lecturer for Comparative Literature at the University of Teheran, and also as a writer and journalist. He soon came into conflict with the Shah-Regime and fled the country in 1965 in order to escape his imminent arrest … (full text).

Bahman Nirumand (* 18. September 1936 in Teheran) ist ein iranischer und deutscher Publizist und Autor (wikipedia.de).

He writes: « The more the regime manages to mobilize the masses for its foreign policy aims, the easier it is to increase pressure within the country. The nuclear conflict, the threat of sanctions by the USA and the EU in an attempt to force Iran to forego its internationally given right to the enrichment of uranium – a right that has in the meantime be elevated to a matter of national honor, along with the general demonization of Iran by the West and similar developments, give the radical Islamists just the ammunition they need to bring the masses into line in terms of ideology, religion and nationalism and to demand their solidarity with their country. This is the context in which Ahmadinejad’s invective against Israel and denial of the Holocaust must be seen ». (full text).

Bahman Nirumand – Iran & Germany

Media Darlings of the Unenlightened Masses.

Bahman Nirumand calls on the West to take a closer look at Iran: « There are also moderate forces at work within the government. Even conservatives reject President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s confrontational policies. The signs of Tehran’s adopting a softer tone which could be observed over the past few weeks throw light on a power struggle that has become increasingly fierce since Ahmadinejad made his radical statements. It’s thanks to the moderate forces within the government that Tehran described Russia’s offer to produce nuclear fuel in Russia as ‘positive’ and as a ‘possible way out of the crisis’, and that just last Monday an Iranian delegation tried to prevent Europe from making ‘rash decisions’. The question now is which faction within the Iranian parliament will win the battle. The answer depends to no small extent on the West’s response. Threats, sanctions or a military attack will only serve to strengthen the radicals’ position and silence the voices which today rise in opposition to Ahmadinejad’s policies. (euro topics).

Bahman Nirumand, born in 1936 in Tehran, is an Iranian-German writer. (The following article appeared in Taz in german). Here the english translation by Yoshie Furuhashi, on 17 November 2007.

The Danger of War Grows: The Scenario Reminiscent of the Iraq War (texts on this site are in english AND in german). (critical montages, Nov. 17, 2007).

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Maria José Rosado Nunes /Sister Zeca – Brazil

Linked with Religious Ideology and Social Control: Abortion and the Catholic Church., and with PLANetWIRE.org.

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

Maria José Rosado Nunes (1945) was the first Brazilian nun to publicly criticize the sexist attitudes of the Catholic church’s progressive wing. In the beginning of the 1980s, she contested left-wing religious authorities who “used to fight against poverty and for social justice, but not against the prohibition of women’s right to become priests and not for women’s sexual and reproductive rights.” After leaving the church, she founded in Brazil an organization called Católicas pelo Direito de Decidir (Catholics for the Right to Decide).

She says: « Mass is an offense against women since a man, to celebrate it, has to be apart from them. It constantly shows women as Eve, the one who brought disgrace, sin ».

Maria José Rosado Nunes /Sister Zeca – Brazil

She works for Católicas pelo Direito de Decidir CDD /Catholics for the Right to Decide (named in the Letter to President Hu Jintao, and on Popline.org).

She says also: « For me, Beijing was deeply moving. I experienced that meeting as a singular historic moment. Thousands of women from all over the world, gathered in a distant Asian country—distant at least relative to Brazil, where I come from. The variety of colors, faces, languages, ways of dressing and behaving—Should we hug? Should we kiss? Should we put our hands together as if in prayer and bow our heads? Countless ways of greeting one another. We were different. Even in our ways of thinking and expressing our ideas and dreams about feminism ». (full text).

Prostitutes of Barra do Mendes, a city in the hinterland of Bahia, used to live on Palha Street. To go from her house to the school where she would give classes, the newly arrived nun Maria José Rosado Nunes had two options: walking down that street or going all the way round the church square. The advice was pretty obvious: take the longer way.

Sister Zeca, as she was known, took a decision upon which she has based her life and that made her, years later, leave the Church: saying “no” to any kind of discrimination against women: Zeca made friends among the women of Palha Street.

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Jeanne M. Gacoreke – Burundi

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

Jeanne Gacoreke (49) is a teacher in Bujumbura. She helps orphans and widows of war and sexually abused women, fights poverty and reintegrates refugees within the country and those from abroad. In her Maison d’écoute, victims of war and sexual violence receive physical and psychological help and legal advice. Thanks to her initiative, the local radio has been presenting women’s personal stories about rape, thereby raising the public awareness on their plight. Jeanne is trained in psycho-pedagogy, peaceful conflict resolution and modern communication technology.

She says: « My dream is slowly becoming reality. At last rape victims are finding a way out of shame and silence. They are speaking up ».

Sorry, I can not find any photo of Jeanne M. Gacoreke, Burundi in the internet (see also my comment ‘Brave women without photos‘).

She works for Union des Groupements et Association pour la Promotion de la Femme (named on Urgent Action Fund, scroll down).

Her village, a poor quarter on the outskirts of Bujumbura, has been destroyed four times in the last ten years. Each time the village has been rebuilt. Twice she had to take a bank loan to rebuild her own house. After the fourth attack, she remained in exile in order to spare her children the sight of dead bodies. But she helped the women of the village to rebuild their homes and eventually returned.

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Lihua Xie – China

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

Xie Lihua was born in 1951 in Chanyi County, Shandong Province. In 1969, she served in the military before she began to move towards a career as a journalist and development worker. In 1985, she became editor and reporter for China Women’s Daily and, eight years later, its deputy editor-in-chief. The same year, she founded China’s first magazine for rural women, Rural Women Know All. Alongside, she developed a series of programs for rural women that included literacy courses, micro financing and reproductive health.

She says: « I hope for the day when the whole nation will be mobilized to support the survival and development of rural women and they will no longer be on the margins ».

Lihua Xie – China

She works for the (All-) China’s Women’s Federation, the China daily and Chinese women on DANWEI, and the Rural Women Know All magazine (on informa wolrd).

Even before she turned forty, the fabric of Xie Lihua’s life was woven with words. During her eight years at China Women’s Daily, she rose through the ranks from reporter to editor, to department director, to editorial board member, to deputy editor-in-chief. After forty, Rural Women Know All seeped into her veins. She worked on this magazine day and night, as if obsessed.

In the summer of 1992, Xie Lihua visited her hometown in Shandong where she had lived until the age of five. She felt a renewed sense of connection with her “roots” and she said, “In my adulthood, I have become one of Beijing’s residents, but the moment I set foot on the soil of my hometown, I hear the rich village sounds and taste our local food, I truly feel that my roots are still deep in the earth of the village”.

China remains an agricultural nation and 70 per cent of its women live in rural areas. After fourteen years of military life and eight years in the media, Xie Lihua came to the sudden realization that she did not understand her country or her countrywomen. Therefore, at a time when everyone was fighting to join the wave of commercialism and partner with the corporate world, Xie opened herself a door to the villages.

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John Perkins – USA

Linked with Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and with Dream Change DC. Also linked with John Perkins of 3rd November 2006 on this blog.

John Perkins (b. 28 January 1945 in Hanover, New Hampshire) is an activist and author. His best known book is Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, an insider’s account of the exploitation or neo-colonization of Third World countries by what Perkins portrays as a cabal of corporations, banks, and the United States government. His 2007 book, The Secret History of the American Empire, makes further claims about the negative impact of global corporations on the economies and ecologies of poor countries, as well as offering suggestions for making corporations behave more like good citizens … (full text).

He says: « When you look at the world we humans have created you may conclude that it was created by sleeping people, because awake, aware, conscious people would manifest a very different world. We have entered one of the most important periods in human history…We have the opportunity to lift ourselves to new levels of consciousness » … (full text).

Listen his video: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, 53.34 min, June 21, 2007.

Look at his own website.

John Perkins – USA

He is the Founder of DREAM CHANGE.

Listen his video: John Perkins – America’s Secret Empire, 5.30 min, August 13, 2007.

He says: « Basically what we were trained to do and what our job is to do is to build up the American empire. To bring—to create situations where as many resources as possible flow into this country, to our corporations, and our government, and in fact we’ve been very successful. We’ve built the largest empire in the history of the world. It’s been done over the last 50 years since World War II with very little military might, actually. It’s only in rare instances like Iraq where the military comes in as a last resort. This empire, unlike any other in the history of the world, has been built primarily through economic manipulation, through cheating, through fraud, through seducing people into our way of life, through the economic hit men. I was very much a part of that » … (full interview text).

John Perkins spent three decades as an Economic Hit Man, business executive, author, and lecturer. He lived and worked in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and North America. Then he made a decision: he would use these experiences to make the planet a better place for his daughter’s generation. Today he teaches about the importance of rising to higher levels of consciousness, to waking up – in both spiritual and physical realms – and is a champion for environmental and social causes. He has lectured at universities on four continents, including Harvard, Wharton, and Princeton. (full text).

Self-Described Economic Hit Man John Perkins: “We Have Created the World’s First Truly Global Empire”.

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Pilirani Semu-Banda – Malawi

Linked with The Gender and Media Project, with Daughters for loan under fire, … , and also linked with Malawi PeaceWomen already on our blog: with Irene Chaluluka, with Helen Munthali, and with Madam Felister Chinthunzi.

Pilirani Semu-Banda is a journalist contracted by the USAID as Media Specialist for Casals and Associates in Malawi. As a freelancer, Pilirani has won both local and international awards, including the Africa Education Journalism Award. She has also been voted Malawi’s best female journalist twice. (altvoices).

Visit her blog.

A short video-statement about Pilirani Semu-Banda, by USAID to Africa, 0.39 min, 20 Nov 2007.

Malawi: ‘Foreign Traders Are Taking Our Jobs‘, by Pilirani Semu-Banda, December 20, 2007.

Pilirani Semu-Banda – Malawi

Modern Day Slavery in Malawi Persists in the Name of Culture.

As one of the major tobacco exporters in the world, Malawi derives up to 70 percent of its foreign exchange earnings from tobacco, accounting for five percent of the world’s total exports and two percent of the world’s total production. Tea is the second major foreign exchange earner after tobacco, contributing a nine percent share to the country’s total exports. This little country in southern Africa, 20th in population out of the 54 countries and island kingdoms that make up Africa, ranks only after Kenya, which has almost three times the population, as the second largest producer and exporter of tea in Africa; it is 12th on the world list … (full text).

The Cost of the US Elections on Africa.

She writes: In Nkombanyama, a village in Malawi’s northern district of Chitipa, a 14-year-old girl was saved by a traditional chief as she was about to be married off to a successful farmer. Sadly, her father was using her as currency to settle a debt with the farmer.

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Harry B. Coonce – USA

Linked with the Mathematics Genealogy Project, and with Family Tree for Mathematic Scholars.

Retired Minnesota State University-Mankato mathematics professor Harry B. Coonce has proven once again that nature abhors a vacuum. Four years ago, he started a small project that has blossomed into a massive online effort to list all the world’s mathematicians. His reason for starting the Genealogy Project for Mathematicians? The information wasn’t available anywhere else … (full text).

A Labor of Love: the Mathemiatics Genealogy Project.

The Project in the UK: Notes.

the Project on wikipedia.

Sorry, I found no photo of Harry B. Coonce in the internet.

He has created the Mathematics Genealogy Project of thed NDSU North Dakota State University.

(To access their feature – as participant of the project – you have to login with your ACM Web Account and, if you fullfill their requirements*, click on ‘this link’ of the project).

* to full fill their requirements, Dr. Coonce requests that the following information be sent to him (by mail) for any Ph.D. mathematician not currently included in the list (or for whom there is an incomplete or inaccurate entry):

The complete name of the degree recipient;
The name of the university that awarded the doctorate;
The year in which the degree was awarded;
The complete title of the dissertation;
The complete name(s) of the advisor(s).

(full text).

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Siin-Do Song – Japan & Korea

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

Telling the story of her experience as a sex slave, Siin-Do Song (born 1923) is paving the way for thousands of women to pursue justice. Siin-Do was one of the « comfort women » to the Japanese military during World War II. Following the war, Siin-Do faced harsh racial and ethnic discrimination as a Korean living in Japan. Using her own name in a culture that forbids talking of such things, Siin-Do filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government asking for an apology and compensation. Her quest for justice is a protest against both sexual violence during the war and racism after it.

« Siin-Do Song’s actions make us realize that the impunity of crimes of violence against women in war should be ended » says Yuko Sugiyama

Sorry, their is no photo for Siin-Do Song, Japan & Korea

She works for VAWW-NET Japan.

The tragedy of Siin-Do’s victimization began when she was a young girl, growing up in Korea at a time when her country was under Japanese rule. At age 16, Siin-Do ran away from an arranged marriage on the day of her wedding, and was approached by a Korean woman who told her she could make money if she went to the battlefield of « her nation » (Japan). In 1938, Siin-Do was taken to China, which had just been invaded by Japan. There, she was forced to serve for years as a « comfort woman » in a « comfort station, » which meant servicing hundreds of soldiers who would wait in line for their few minutes of rape. When Japan surrendered in 1945, Siin-Do fled China, leaving behind children born in the brothel.

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Shirin Neshat – Iran & USA

Shirin Neshat doesn’t quite know where to call home. The 43-year-old artist was born and raised in Iran but moved to the U.S. after high school to study art. When the Islamic Revolution overtook her homeland in 1979, Neshat was exiled and couldn’t return until 11 years later – and the country she went home to bore little resemblance to the one she left … (time.com).

She says: « For a long time I resisted that word, exile. I feel like when you say “exile” it implies a state that is not voluntary like when you leave your country. At the time I made that statement -that was quite a few years ago – I had been traveling to Iran, and I was really proud that I had made the effort to go there. It’s within the last few years that the notion of exile has really started to sink in for me. Every time I tried to go back, there were all these blocks that prevented me. I started, for the first time, to really feel this frustration. Before, it had always been a matter of choice. I made the decision. This time I realized I didn’t have the choice, and I felt really angry and frustrated. Then I said, “Well you know something? I am an artist in exile.” I decided that maybe once I accepted that, other doors would open in my mind in terms of the way I situate myself, in terms of my work, my psychology ». (BelieverMag).

She was also impressed with the museum’s commitment to show the works of artists who have not been seen in the region, including Shirin Neshat, Pipilotti Rist and Bill Viola … (full text, Jan. 9, 2008).

Shirin Neshat – Iran & USA

Listen the video: The Noam Chomsky / Shirin Neshat / Death Penalty panel, 56.40 min., 09.06.2006 on charlierose.com.

This will be the first time that the subject will be offered as an extensive one-day course and for many art lovers in Dubai, some of the artists to be discussed will be familiar thanks to having exhibited in the city and across the region. These include Farhad Moshiri, Shirin Neshat, Walid Raad, Rabab El-Nemr and Paul Guiragossian. (full text, Jan. 7, 2008).

Universes in Universe.org.

Solo show reviews include: Gert & Uwe Tobias, Mariko Mori, Carlos Amorales, Mary Heilmann, Slater Bradley, Ian Kiaer, Duncan Marquiss, Luisa Lambri, Charlotte Posenenske, Joanne Tatham & Tom O’ Sullivan, Mathieu Mercier, Mark Leckey, Job Kolewijn, Ian Tweedy, Konstantin Kakanias, Enrico Morsiani, Gino De Dominicis, Yael Bartana, Jordan Wolfson, Lorenzo Scotto di Luzio, Shirin Neshat, Jean-Luc Moulène, Sean Snyder, Teresa Margolles, Noriko Yamaguchi. (full text, Jan. 7, 2008).

An Unveiling.

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