Nishikant Waghmare – India

Updated correctly November 11, 2009:

CONDOLENCE ON DEMISE OF NISHIKANT WAGHMARE, published on Ambedkar Times.com, Letters, (scroll far down until TRIBUTE TO NISHIKANT WAGHMARE): Editor, Ambedkartimes.com, September 12, 2008, with condolences letters.

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Linked with Vision India – Together We Can, and with A Vision for 21st Century. Added end of September 2007: and linked with the Goi Peace Foundation, with Airline Ambassadors.org, with the World Peace Prayer Society, and with Nancy Rivard – USA.

He is a determined self-made man, who had chosen to become his own path finder on the road to success and fame. This is the story of the poor boy from the village called Khed (Satara) M.S. India, Who had the pride and pragmatism to make good his Dreams … (full long BIO-text).

He says: ”RACIST MEDIA is worst than the South African Apartheid, who as a matter of convenience put lid on dalit issues–atrocities and their rallies, particularly blacking out the Dhamma Pravartan News, when news rooms of BBC is giving the widespread news. It is disgrace to take a birth and call an Indian Dalit. Politicians are impotent as well »! (full text).

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Nishikant Waghmare – India

He works for the Goi Peace Foundation, Japan, for the World Peace Prayer Society, also as Government Officer, and for the Airline Ambassadors.org.

He says also: « World Peace Starts from ‘You’. With all the fighting, wars and terrorist attacks, is world peace still possible in our lifetime? The answer is ‘yes’ and ‘no’. It is ‘yes’ if most people in this world say ‘yes’ to peace and ‘no’ to war, hatred and discrimination, and view differences of other people with compassion and empathy. The answer is ‘no’ if you think world peace is the sole responsibility of world leaders, governments, peace activists, or anyone but you. World peace can begin only from within—within the hearts of individuals. Anyone can contribute to world peace by making peace with himself through meditation and thereby developing compassion even toward people who have mistreated him. We can spread peace and joy to others and forgive people who have wronged us only if we have enough peace and joy in our hearts », April 8, 2007. (southasiamedia.net).

Read these texts by Nishikant Waghmare:

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Eric Hobsbawm – England

Linked with A question of faith, and with Old order changeth.

Eric John Ernest Hobsbawm CH (born June 9, 1917 in Alexandria, Egypt) is a British Marxist historian and author. Hobsbawm was a long-standing member of the now defunct Communist Party of Great Britain and the associated Communist Party Historians Group. He is president of Birkbeck, University of London.

One of Hobsbawm’s interests is the development of traditions. His work is a study of their construction in the context of the nation state. He argues that many traditions are invented by national elites to justify the existence and importance of their respective nation states. (full text).

He says:

  • about History: ‘History is being invented in vast quantities … it’s more important to have historians, especially sceptical historians than ever before.’
  • about Communism: ‘I was a loyal Communist Party member for two decades before 1956 and therefore silent about a number of things about which it’s reasonable not to be silent.’
  • avout Blair: ‘Labour Prime Ministers who glory in trying to be warlords – subordinate warlords particularly – certainly stick in my gullet.’ (Guardian).

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Eric Hobsbawm – England

He says also: « I look back in amazement rather than regret, that not only I but humanity have made it through the past hundred-odd years ». (full text).

Google Scholar – All articles.

Man of the extreme century: Eric Hobsbawm is one of Britain’s greatest historians .The events of the twentieth century are as much components of his life as subjects of his books. In this wide-ranging conversation with Tristram Hunt, one of Britain ‘s new generation of historians, he reveals how he continues to believe in a spirit of progress as the surest route for happiness. (full text).

His weekly comments on the Guardian.

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Index August 2007

Natalya Berezhnaya – Russian Federation

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

She says: « A world without women’s participation in decision-making processes at all levels has no future ».

She says also: « I have particularly fond memories of a conference of the Hague Appeal for Peace (HAP), which took place in May 1999. This big meeting of civil society organizations advocated the rejection of war as a tool of solving international and national conflicts. What was so special about this event?

Firstly, it celebrated the 100th anniversary of the First Hague Peace Conference, which was held in 1899 on the initiative of the Russian Tsar Nikolay II. And all of us – the members of the Russian delegation of about 150 people from different NGOs and regions of Russia – were proud of having such a vivid tradition of peace in the history of our country.

Secondly, we met with the HAP president and well-known peace activist Cora Weiss. We had already met this fascinating and charismatic woman-leader at previous peace meetings in Moscow, New-York, and Copenhagen. Her enthusiasm and hope that we can change the world and make it a better place always proves contagious ».

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Natalya Berezhnaya – Russian Federation

She works for Ravenstvo i mir–ARM (Equality and Peace),
for Zhenschiny Moskvy (Women of Moscow),
and for the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom WILPF.

Dr. Natalya Berezhnaya was just twelve years old when she and her family were evacuated from Stalingrad to the small town of Krasny Kut during World II. Everyone was suffering from hunger. One day, her mother, whom she describes as a very kind and gentle person, gave a captured German soldier a piece of bread. Some women, who were witnessing this, exclaimed angrily: « They kill our husbands and sons! » Yet they were silenced and shamed when her mother replied calmly: « But they are also somebody’s husbands and children ».

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Meihua Jin – China

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

She says: « Women should have the same rights as men. I teach the Koran to illiterate women, and I hope they will keep an open mind, and learn to think ».

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Meihua Jin – China

She works for ther Wunan Mosque, Wuzhong city, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

Jin Meihua was born in 1964. She was able to complete only her primary school education. Her family was too poor to support her to go to high school, even though she got a good result. She was very disappointed at this injustice and kept asking why it was so. This power of questioning became the driving force behind her desire to be a learner and a teacher.

Jin got married when she was only eighteen. She has two daughters and one son. Jin worked very hard to be a responsible wife and mother. She did farm work, took care of the children, cooked meals and washed clothes. Yet, she found that women and men were not equal in reality, although women’s rights were laid down in the Chinese Constitution. The traditional patriarchal concepts still operated in daily life. For example, her husband required her to stay at home and to give up any plan for further studies, but Jin firmly made up her mind: “I want to learn and women should have the same rights as men.”

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Lesley Ann Foster – South Africa

Linked with The Masimanyane Women’s Support Centre.

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

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Lesley Ann Foster – South Africa

She works for the Masimanyane Women’s Support Centre.
Anu Pillay, Ashoka Representative, says about her: « I admire her for her perseverance and her capacity to keep this issue in the mainstream, in a society where too often women fall through the cracks”.

Lesley Ann Foster was born and raised in East London, in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. She attended state-operated schools which, under the apartheid structure, were under-funded and academically inferior to those attended by privileged white students. Lesley began her career as a salesperson and design consultant for a firm in Cape Town. While doing marketing in another commercial firm, she pioneered the tele-sales concept, for which she received an award of excellence in 1990. She also earned national recognition as « Most Improved Sales Person of the Year » in 1991.

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Keith McHenry – USA

Linked with C.T. Butler – USA, with THE FOOD NOT BOMBS MOVEMENT, and with Helping the Homeless – The Right To Food.

He is currently focusing his attention on building the Food Not Bombs movement, resisting domestic surveillance and political repression in the United States while working with his partner Jill Rounds on their organic garden and working on local community projects. He enjoys swimming, riding his mountain bike, hiking, camping and cross country skiing. His main passion is painting, drawing, graphic design and illustration. He has been showing his art in galleries. He lives with his partner Jill Rounds and three happy dogs in their ger (yurt) in the mountains outside Taos, New Mexico. Keith is attending Prescott College majoring in art and social justice. His is studing nonviolent social change, social movements, democracy, globalization, painting and drawing. You can see his art and learn more about Keith on the website below. He also works with Jill helping her make handmade tiles and soapdishes in Ojala Studios. Jill is also an artist and has worked with textiles, natural dyes, clay and she paints in watercolor and mixed media. Keith and Jill also help their friends pay down their mortgages in as little as half the time so they can be free to do the things they enjoy. (Full text).

Watch these videos: in Nigeria, 12 min, on liveleak.com Aug. 19; and on YouTube Aug. 17, 2007.
Listen to different audios with Keith on KRZAnews. (Homepage).

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Keith McHenry – USA

He works for THE FOOD NOT BOMBS MOVEMENT.

The book: Food Not Bombs (Paperback): by Keith McHenry (Author), C. T. Butler (Author) « Taking personal responsibility and doing something about the problems of our society can be both empowering and intimidating … ».

He says in an interview:

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C.T. Lawrence Butler – USA

Linked with Keith McHenry – USA, with THE FOOD NOT BOMBS MOVEMENT, and with Helping the Homeless – The Right To Food.

Currently, C.T. lives in Takoma Park, Maryland with his friends who are creating a Green intentional community. He is a father, an author, a political activist, a pro-feminist, a nonviolence trainer, and a vegetarian chef. He is active in the National Organization of Men Against Sexism, The Greens (USA), the War Resisters League, the New England Nonviolence Trainers Network, ACT UP/Maine, the Casco Bay Greens, and the Maine War Tax Resistance Resource Center. He was co-editor of The Dove, a newsletter on war tax resistance in Maine. He is writing his third book, A Food Not Bombs Cookbook. (See on foot not bombs.net).

Read the book: ‘Food not Bombs‘, ISBN: 1884365213.

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C.T. Lawrence Butler – USA

He works for THE FOOD NOT BOMBS MOVEMENT.

C.T. Butler moved to Boston in 1976 with a theatre troupe he had helped form in his hometown of Newark, Delaware. Their first production was a children’s play called Tales of Old Mother Goose. Over the next three years, C.T. managed and produced seven additional productions, most notably Sylvia Plath and The Marlowe Show.

In 1979, he joined an affinity group at the urging of an actor friend and participated in two major occupation attempts of Seabrook Nuclear Power Station organized by the Coalition for Direct Action at Seabrook, a spin-off of the Clamshell Alliance. These actions introduced C.T. to two concepts – nonviolent direct action and consensus decision making – which changed his life. Over the past decade, C.T. has pursued his exploration of these two disciplines by becoming a war tax resister and participating in numerous social change/political action groups.

In 1980, C.T. and a group of friends formed the Food Not Bombs collective in Cambridge. This collective spent the first few years engaged in political action, food recovery, feeding the hungry, and experiments in community. In 1984, the food recovery and distribution part of Food Not Bombs became an official agency of the City of Cambridge. Later, C.T. was acknowledged for his work in Cambridge by being appointed to the Commission on Peace Education and Nuclear Disarmament of the City.

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Montserrat Sampere Martín – Spain

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

She says: « I dream of a world where we do not have plans for equality, because equality already exists, a world where each individual has rights, just for the sake of being born. I dream of a world where one is not judged by his or her sexual orientation, race or nationality ».

She says also: “You notice this reality that envelops you and one day you get up angry, seeing that, as a woman, you do not get same access to resources, your salary is smaller and you are relegated to the traditional role of housewife. At school nobody mentions women, there are no role models for women, and those that exist are usually transformed into stepmothers, fairies or witches, or we are saved by men, the so-called ‘real’ heroes”.

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Montserrat Sampere Martín – Spain

She works for the San Fermín Project Association.

And she says: “For a woman who is mistreated or for an unemployed immigrant the best kind of help comes from someone nearby, having a coffee with them and discussing calmly, rather than meeting with them in an office in front of a computer”.

In the global village there are thousands of examples of quiet work, like that accomplished by Montserrat Sampere. In the marginal neighborhood of San Fermín, she carries out her work in an effort romote equality and change her local environment.

In the slums of Madrid, there are strikes, a lack of public services, drugs and domestic violence.

The social friction is palpable and the members of the community are often marginalized and sent off into institutional oblivion.

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Svetlana Slapsak – Slovenia

Linked with The Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis ISH.

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

She says: « The death penalty is a precondition for war in any country ».

She writes: « I came to stay as Fellow-in-Residence at NIAS for five months, and was then granted another semester in January. This made it possible for me to complete more work than originally planned and presented in my application. As one of the editors on the project of rewriting comparative histories of literary cultures in Central and Eastern Europe (section Figural Nodes), I was able to commission and edit a total of 22 studies and to write my own contributions to this and to the other three sections. During the first five months, I edited a collection of articles in the Anthropology of the Ancient Worlds, translated from French. On the initiative of the Dean of ISH (Ljubljana), the initially planned introduction grew into a book on the impact of historical anthropology on Ancient studies, its problems, history and reception in the region. The book was published in April 2000 … (full text).

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Svetlana Slapsak – Slovenia

She works for the Ljubljana Graduate School of Humanities: in english, and in slovenscina.
and for the ‘Balkan Women Against War’ (not found on the net).

Born in Belgrade on 18 January 1948, Svetlana Slapsak received her MA and PhD degrees in historical linguistics and classical studies at the University of Belgrade. Her political activism began during the 1968 student movement and she was subjected to beatings, police harassment. Her passport was confiscated for eight years.

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