TESTIMONIES

News update from WOZA
18th January 2010 - 6pm

Journalist released; two detained overnight

WOZA can confirm that one woman and one man, arrested earlier today after a peaceful protest to the Minister of Education, will spend the night in police custody at Harare Central Police Station. The woman, Thabita Taona, is a WOZA member. The man, Comfort Nyakura, was arrested after taking a photograph of the demonstration with the camera on his mobile phone. The third person arrested, journalist Andrison Manyere, was released earlier this afternoon with a caution. Lawyers from Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) are in attendance. It is unclear at this stage what the two will be charged with.

It is not the first time that WOZA members have been arrested for asking for a better education for their children. The last time WOZA protested peacefully at the Ministry of Education in February 2009, they were brutally beaten by riot police and five members arrested. Nor is it the first time that a bystander has been arrested for merely observing a WOZA demonstration.

As with the demonstration in Bulawayo last week, the peaceful protestors received great encouragement from bystanders, both along the route and outside the Ministry. In fact, it is believed that Ministry officials were on their way to join the demonstration when the riot police arrived. Even the soldiers outside the Ministry of Defence next door to the Ministry of Education were vocal in their encouragement to the demonstrators. As the group sang ‘tinoda dzidzo’ (we want education), bystanders were overheard congratulating the WOZA members for speaking out about this issue that is close to the heart of every Zimbabwean.

Israeli mother Addresses European Parliament

Dear Friends,

Dr. Nurit Peled-Elhanan is the mother of Smadar Elhanan, 13 years oldwhen killed by a suicide bomber in Jerusalem in September 1997. Belowis Nurit's speech made on International Women's Day in Strasbourg earlier this month. Please listen to the words of a bereaved mother, whose daughter fell victim to a vicious, indiscriminating terrorist attack. I wish her words will enter the hearts of all peace seekers in our troubled and divided world.

For better days,
Professor Avraham Oz
Department of Hebrew and Comparative Literature
University of Haifa
avitaloz @ research.haifa.ac.il


WOMEN
by Nurit Peled-Elhanan

Thank you for inviting me to this today. It is always an honour and a pleasure to be here, among you (at the European Parliament).

However, I must admit I believe you should have invited a Palestinian woman at my stead, because the women who suffer most from violence in my county are the Palestinian women. And I would like to dedicate my speech to Miriam R`aban and her husband Kamal, from Bet Lahiya in the Gaza strip, whose five small children were killed by Israeli soldiers while picking strawberries at the family`s strawberry field. No one will ever stand trial for this murder.

When I asked the people who invited me here why didn't they invite a Palestinian woman, the answer was that it would make the discussion too localized.

I don't know what is non-localized violence. Racism and discrimination may be theoretical concepts and universal phenomena but their impact is always local, and real. Pain is local, humiliation, sexual abuse, torture and death, are all very local, and so are the scars.

It is true, unfortunately, that the local violence inflicted on Palestinian women by the government of Israel and the Israeli army, has expanded around the globe, In fact, state violence and army violence, individual and collective violence, are the lot of Muslim
women today, not only in Palestine but wherever the enlightened western world is setting its big imperialistic foot. It is violence which is hardly ever addressed and which is half heartedly condoned by most people in Europe and in the USA. This is because the so-called free world is afraid of the Muslim womb. Great France of "la liberte égalite et la fraternite" is scared of little girls with head scarves. Great Jewish Israel is afraid of the Muslim womb which its ministers call a demographic threat.

Almighty America and Great Britain are infecting their respective citizens with blind fear of the Muslims, who are depicted as vile, primitive and blood-thirsty, apart from their being non-democratic, chauvinistic and mass producers of future terrorists. This in spite of the fact that the people who are destroying the world today are not Muslim. One of them is a devout Christian, one is Anglican and one is a non-devout Jew.

I have never experienced the suffering Palestinian women undergo every day, every hour, I don't know the kind of violence that turns a woman's life into constant hell. This daily physical and mental torture of women who are deprived of their basic human rights and needs of privacy and dignity, women whose homes are broken into at any moment of day and night, who are ordered at a gun-point to strip naked in front of strangers and their own children, whose houses are demolished, who are deprived of their livelihood and of any normal family life. This is not part of my personal ordeal.

But I am a victim of violence against women insofar as violence against children is actually violence against mothers. Palestinian, Iraqi, Afghan women are my sisters because we are all at the grip of the same unscrupulous criminals who call themselves leaders of the free enlightened world and in the name of this freedom and enlightenment rob us of our children.

Furthermore, Israeli, American, Italian and British mothers have been for the most part violently blinded and brainwashed to such a degree that they cannot realize their only sisters, their only allies in the world are the Muslim Palestinian, Iraqi or Afghani mothers, whose children are killed by our children or who blow themselves to pieces with our sons and daughters. They are all mind-infected by the same viruses engendered by politicians. And the viruses , though they may have various illustrious names--such as Democracy, Patriotism, God, Homeland--are all the same. They are all part of false and fake ideologies that are meant to enrich the rich and to empower the powerful.

We are all the victims of mental, psychological and cultural violence that turn us to one homogenic group of bereaved or potentially bereaved mothers. Western mothers who are taught to believe their uterus is a national asset just like they are taught to believe that the Muslim uterus is an international threat. They are educated not to cry out: `I gave him birth, I breast fed him, he is mine, and I will not let him be the one whose life is cheaper than oil, whose future is less worth than a piece of land.`

All of us are terrorized by mind-infecting education to believe all we can do is either pray for our sons to come back home or be proud of their dead bodies.

And all of us were brought up to bear all this silently, to contain our fear and frustration, to take Prozac for anxiety, but never hail Mama Courage in public. Never be real Jewish or Italian or Irish mothers.

I am a victim of state violence. My natural and civil rights as a mother have been violated and are violated because I have to fear the day my son would reach his 18th birthday and be taken away from me to be the game tool of criminals such as Sharon, Bush, Blair and their clan of blood-thirsty, oil-thirsty, land thirsty generals.

Living in the world I live in, in the state I live in, in the regime I live in, I don't dare to offer Muslim women any ideas how to change their lives. I don't want them to take off their scarves, or educate their children differently, and I will not urge them to constitute democracies in the image of Western democracies that despise them and their kind. I just want to ask them humbly to be my sisters, to express my admiration for their perseverance and for their courage to carry on, to have children and to maintain a dignified family life in spite of the impossible conditions my world in putting them in. I want to tell them we are all bonded by the same pain, we all the victims of the same sort of violence even though they suffer much more, for they are the ones who are mistreated by my government and its army, sponsored by my taxes.

Islam in itself, like Judaism in itself and Christianity in itself, is not a threat to me or to anyone. American imperialism is, European indifference and co-operation is and Israeli racism and its cruel regime of occupation is. It is racism, educational propaganda and inculcated xenophobia that convince Israeli soldiers to order Palestinian women at gun-point, to strip in front of their children for security reasons, it is the deepest disrespect for the other that allow American soldiers to rape Iraqi women, that give license to Israeli jailers to keep young women in inhuman conditions, without necessary hygienic aids, without electricity in the winter, without clean water or clean mattresses and to separate them from their breast-fed babies and toddlers. To bar their way to hospitals, to block their way to education, to confiscate their lands, to uproot their trees and prevent them from cultivating their fields.

I cannot completely understand Palestinian women or their suffering. I don't know how I would have survived such humiliation, such disrespect from the whole world. All I know is that the voice of mothers has been suffocated for too long in this war-stricken planet. Mothers` cry is not heard because mothers are not invited to international forums such as this one. This I know and it is very little. But it is enough for me to remember these women are my sisters, and that they deserve that I should cry for them, and fight for them. And when they lose their children in strawberry fields or on filthy roads by the checkpoints, when their children are shot on their way to school by Israeli children who were educated to believe that love and compassion are race and religion dependent, the only thing I can do is stand by them and their betrayed babies, and ask what Anna Akhmatova--another mother who lived in a regime of violence against women and children--asked:

Why does that streak o blood, rip the petal of your cheek?

THE HUMAN COST OF WAR: An exhibition of quilts and arpilleras.

Report by Ruth Davies

The number 3161 means little, but take 3161 torn pieces of red fabric and stitch them onto black fabric with the dates 1969 and 1994, and read the words: ”Each of the 3161 red pieces represents someone killed in the troubles” – then the tragedies of all those lives lost (including children’s lives, symbolised with a teddy on the red fabric) means so much more than a number.

Another quilt made in Northern Ireland during ‘the troubles’ includes a square made by Maureen Miller during our ‘Mothers for Peace’ days with the words ‘EQUALITY, SOLIDARITY, PEACE, JUSTICE’ on the sides.

One Irish woman is making quilts to illustrate poems written about war. The words are included on the quilt as well as the appliquéd figures and red poppies.

The Chilean arpilleras (fabric collages the size of pictures) use fabric from clothes worn by the ‘disappeared’ men, husbands of the women seen in the arpilleras, carrying leaflets campaigning against torture and other atrocities, carrying banners, lighting candles and demonstrating despite the police presence. One arpillera is cheerful: the reunion of a family returned from exile.
Women dancing may seem joyful, but these women dance alone with only a photograph of their missing partners. Stitching with other women is emotionally healing as well as a reminder of what has happened or is still happening in different parts of the world.

Spanish women have made arpilleras depicting the atrocities suffered during the Spanish Civil War and Franco’s dictatorship. The quilts reflect the sadness and hardships of life when only women were left to gather firewood and make a living. We see the trucks taking men away and soldiers breaking into houses with dead bodies lying on the roads. The women who witnessed this are old now, but they pass on their memories through these arpilleras.

One of the most impressive quilts (a felt wall hanging) shows 760 threads hanging over ruined buildings with red flames at the base. This reminds us of the Gaza offence ‘Operation Cast Lead’ when 760 people were killed by Israelis during two weeks up to 8 January 2009. 42% of the victims were women and children who had nowhere safe to go. It is ironic and rather macabre that the name of the military operation came from a poem ‘For Hanukkah'.

The quilts were displayed at St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, a centre established by the Movement for the Abolition of War (MAW).

At the Whitechapel Gallery was another exhibition, ‘The Nature of the Beast’ where a large round table was set in front of the tapestry of Picasso’s ‘Guernica’, on loan from the UN. It was here that I listened to a discussion about the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions chaired by Bruce Kent. In the afternoon women who had made quilts discussed past and present conflicts. Poems were read and Sue Gilmurray sang a song specially written:-

When the times are hard and the going's tough,
when you work all day and it’s not enough,
when there is no bread, and the children cry,
and the menfolk curse, and the women sigh,

CHORUS
then the women sew,
and their stitches speak,
of a spirit strong
though the body’s weak;
with a grip on love that they won’t let go,
see their fingers care
as the women sew.

When you live your life in the grip of fear
of the bomb and gun that are always near,
when they come at night to disturb your sleep,
when they take the men, and the women weep, (chorus)

When you live aware of a bloodstained past,
and it’s peaceful now, but it may not last,
when suspicions lurk, on which hatreds feed,
when the children doubt and the women plead, (chorus)

Yes, the women sew, and their stitches hold,
till the picture’s made and the story’s told,
with a grip on life that they won’t let go,
see their fingers heal as the women sew.
(Chorus)

For more information on quilt and arpillera exhibitions visit the digital archive on www.cain.ulst.ac.uk/quilts.

Ruth

BEDOUINS VS THE STATE OF ISRAEL
From Freedom to Fear

A report from Bette whom some of our members met in the USA

The once proud indigenous people of the desert known as the Bedouins are now the poorest of Israeli citizens and struggle for survival. Although they number almost 200,000, they are invisible both to the Israeli society and to those working to bring peace to the region. Tens of thousands live in what are called "unrecognized villages" that don't appear on the map. These communities don't get any services such as water and electricity and don't receive the benefits other Israeli citizens take for granted — such as health care, education and paved roads. The Bedouin, the minority of the Arab minority, are citizens of the State of Israel and many serve in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Juxtaposed between a romanticized past and an uncertain future, the people are currently living in desperate circumstances.

The Israeli government refers to them as the "Bedouin problem" and has created a Ministerial Committee for the Advancement of Bedouin Affairs. Its leadership says they want a "once-and-for-all" solution to this Bedouin problem. According to a recent report submitted to the Minister of Construction and Housing, the "problem" wouldn't exist if they (the Bedouins) would just re-settle in the government created housing. Those who currently live in the eight villages approved by the government are not much better off than those in illegal areas. They have the highest unemployment rate and lowest incomes. They are often exploited as cheap labour in the nearby petro chemical or sewage disposal plants or as labourers in the surrounding Jewish only settlements. Drug abuse and suicide, previously unheard of, are becoming problems within the Bedouin society. There is an urgency heard from all sides about solving this problem.

On my recent trip to the region I stayed with a Bedouin family in the village of Tel Sheva in the Negev Desert. Tel Sheva's population of 17,000 live in a hastily constructed village built in 1968 as a "model" to lure the people from their land. For centuries — the Bedouin lived in the Negev for more than 7,000 years — they were free to move about, graze their cattle and support their families with dignity. Today it is freedom that is longed for. The persistent structural and cultural violence towards these non-Jewish citizens of Israel cries out to be heard. The human rights violations of the people and the degradation of the environment need to be addressed —
urgently. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are among those who have expressed concern about the infringement of the population's civil and human rights.

At least 50,000 homes are considered illegal by the government and under demolition orders. When the structures are destroyed, the occupants are also fined for building without a permit. Of course, since they don't have permission to be on the land in the first place, permits for building aren't even an option. Even goat pens get demolition orders and fines are charged for grazing animals on "state-owned land". Thus, more than 50% of the Bedouin living in the Negev Desert region are caught in a "catch -22" with no way out and nowhere to go.

Water, a precious commodity in an arid land, is considered state property. Collecting it in cisterns — an ancient method of conserving water - is forbidden. Israeli bulldozers regularly destroy any evidence of water collection. The increased desertization of the region as well as the Israeli government's policies of restricting water to non-Jews is taking a huge toll on the land and the people. A culture that included a peaceful, pastoral and semi- nomadic lifestyle no longer exists. Instead the people live in fear and humility. A Bedouin poster proclaims, "Call no Bedouin happy until he is dead".

There is a positive piece to this story. BUSTAN www.bustan.org is an Israeli non-governmental organization that works to bring environmental justice to the land and human rights to the Bedouin people. The Jewish/Bedouin organization has earned its reputation for organizing and agitating on behalf of the Bedouins and the environmental degradation of their homeland. They have received support from foundations and organizations in the US and Europe and persist in their mission of bringing justice to the land and the people.

BUSTAN's "Negev Unplugged" tours take people to places they would not normally see and hear stories directly from the people. The "Children's Power Project", in conjunction with the solar energy company Interdan, provided the needed solar power for refrigeration of medicines for sick children. Last year a mosque was constructed with straw bales and other natural building materials in the village of Wadi al-Naam. Early in the morning of December 25th, 2008, it was demolished. The world watched the event on YouTube and read articles in various news outlets – thanks to the work of BUSTAN staff and volunteers.

Raed al-Mikawi, the executive director of BUSTAN, is a young Bedouin man well suited to a position that requires understanding the language and culture of all involved parties. His first seventeen years of life were lived in the old way with strong ties to the land his family called home for generations. Now he navigates through the several languages (Arabic, Hebrew and English) and technologies needed to promote BUSTAN's mission. The word bustan means a fruit bearing orchard in both Arabic and Hebrew. That is the vision of BUSTAN - a sustainable peace among Bedouins, Jews and the land of the Negev.

BUSTAN's current work is focused on the newly recognized village of Qasr el-Sir. It lies on the ancient spice route between Amman, Jordan and the port city of Gaza and provided refugee and hospitality for merchants and travellers. For many years the people of the village were locked in a battle with a government that wanted to move them to another place. They wanted to stay on their land and refused to move. Soon shacks were constructed without any plan or infrastructure and in the 1990's many buildings were demolished by Israeli bulldozers.

The people of Qasr el-Sir decided to gather their strength and organize. They staged protests and petitions of human rights violations and got the attention of the international community. They appealed to the court and, miraculously, won! Even though their village is now officially recognized by the government, there are still no services – such as water, sewer or paved roads - to the houses. Two middle schools and a small health center that has running water have been built. The community awaits the other promised services which they say are deserved. As Israeli citizens, they pay taxes and serve in the military.

In partnership with BUSTAN, several paid organizers and the village council are planning to build houses that take Bedouin culture into account. The houses will be built with an openness that resembles the large tents in which they once lived. Other cultural considerations include: facing east, using natural building materials and enough land for a garden and a few animals. A community centre is under design that is hoped will be a model for others to follow. It includes a meeting space for the generations to gather and a place for job training and empowerment of women.

BUSTAN staff and volunteers continue grass roots education and organizing. They negotiate with the government and protest violations. What seems to some like an insurmountable "Bedouin problem" is being deliberated worked on by hopeful Bedouin and Jewish activists. They welcome the support of the international community to bring peace with justice to the land and the people of the Negev.

From Mag in the U.S.A.

Thank you for your recent newsy W2W4P newsletter. It's stimulating to know about the far-reaching works of the Women. So much is being done by dedicated "workers in the field". The sisters here in Denver were active during the Democratic National Convention (DNC). Some of us helped to organize a series of discussions revolving around values that need to be reminded to and enforced upon the leaders of our country and the public in general. It will take a full-scale education program. The direction of the country must be turned around. The movement called "The People Call for Change" presented 3 panels, the Saturday before the Convention, the Monday and Wednesday of that week. The panelists were well chosen and inspiring. We can only hope that the work will continue. The web site for the group is www.PC4C.org, then click on Events and Cosponsors. Ken and I worked also with a group of college students who are determined to stop the war. We found them resourceful, energetic and dedicated to nonviolence. Their web site is still in tact, if you care to read what they're about. The name of the group is the Alliance for Real Democracy (ARD). www.ARD.wikispaces.com, then click on Documents, then ARD Mission and Principles...or anything else that looks interesting. The Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) were a strong group (most were in uniform) during the Convention that organized a long and powerful march that the police would not touch. We were all in awe. Well-known music groups with political messages were present Sunday through Thursday. Many, many events happened during the week:talks, nonviolence trainings, sign making,food from Food Not Bombs, games for the young, discussions, etc. For those who ventured to Denver in October of 2007, organizers and protesters during the Convention were among the women and men you met while here including those from Colorado Springs and from Boulder. They don't give up! And now Election 2008. Locals are working with United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ)in the weeks before November 4 in the Million Doors Project, knocking on doors with information to help people to vote. Others are organizing home gatherings to encouraging voting. Bilingual workers are aiding translations of information. Many are continuing to further the impeachment process. And, we still worry about fraud in the election. Thank you for keeping in touch. We spur each other on. Please keep us in your thoughts. Ken and I send you our warmest wishes. Love,Mag

Iran's Peace Museum by Scott Peterson

Space for Doves: A sculpture of the bird of peace is part of the new Tehran Peace Museum, which will open in City Park soon.

The museum aims to insert peace into a culture that glorifies martyrdom.
By Scott Peterson: Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the December 24, 2007 edition

TEHRAN, Iran - In the soil of an Islamic state long defined by war and martyrdom, some Iranians are planting a new seed of peace, by opening a museum that showcases the horrors of war.
In Iran, countless acres are dedicated to cemeteries for soldiers killed in the 1980s Iran-Iraq war. Endless tears of mourning and pride have fallen for loved ones lost in that "sacred defense." And numberless sermons and solemnities have turned martyrdom into the highest form of worship.
Tehran's Peace Museum, dedicated in June and set to open soon, aims to adjust a mindset that has prevailed since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
"The people of Iran always hear about the glories of war, when we were invaded, but they rarely hear of the devastation of war," says Shahriar Khateri, director of the museum. "It's not easy. People charge that you are damaging the morale of those who will stand against the enemy, when they see how bad war can be.
"This is a philosophical challenge, [to show] that this will not frighten people from defending their country, but show the horrible consequences of invading, of using force to solve problems," says Dr. Khateri, one of Iran's top experts on the impact of chemical weapons, who volunteered to fight at age 15. "A few officials still believe that peace is the same as surrender, because we are a country under permanent threat from enemies."
Finding the right balance is not easy in a nation that feels threatened by talk of "regime change" in Washington and the tens of thousands of American troops adjacent to its borders in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in the Persian Gulf.
Hard-line groups take issue with the very idea. But the Peace Museum's volunteers are hardly typical peaceniks. They are former soldiers who have been subjected to Iraqi chemical weapons attack, and many remain as committed as ever to the defense of their homeland.
They are building an interactive museum with workshops for children, students, and the public to learn about the suffering caused by war and chemical weapons. It will include a studio to record oral histories of Iran-Iraq war veterans – modeled on those made by survivors of the Hiroshima atomic bomb – and will exude an energy very unlike the reverential but dusty, glass-encased exhibits of the local Martyr's Museum.
The Peace Museum brought together the voices of Iranian "victims of warfare … to speak of the sinister ills of war," a brochure reads. Giving people details of "its depravity [and] the acute human costs" of war – including graphic images of chemical weapons victims – is "tantamount to educating them for peace."
Once a simple and largely unknown exhibit in the basement of the Society for Chemical Weapons Victims Support (of which Khateri is a director), the museum now has some high political backing. Tehran's Mayor Mohammed Baqr Qalibaf – a former presidential candidate who is positioning himself for a run again in 2009 – spoke last spring at the unveiling of the monument and the building being donated by the city for the museum.
Both occupy prime real estate. The monument, with its sculpture of a white dove mounted on a marble pedestal at the center of Tehran's large City Park, is literally across the street from City Hall, its message written in six languages. The new museum building stands on park grounds 100 yards away, its large new sign evidence of a planned full opening in coming months.
The museum and monument were inaugurated in June on the 20th anniversary of the Iraqi gassing of Sardasht, in western Iran, which left more than 100 dead, mostly civilians. For Iranians, Sardasht is a symbol of Iraq's extensive use of chemical weapons in the war against Iran, the first use since World War I.
"That terrible suffering gave us a new understanding of the cruelty of war, the terror of weapons of mass destruction, and the importance of peace," the inscription reads. "Until the day when all people on Earth can live in peace, we will continuously send messages of peace to the world…."
Even the opening ceremony broke new ground. "For the first time it was a celebration, instead of mourning; it was a new way of respecting," says Khateri. "There were a new kind of people, children drawing for peace, and no longer Revolutionary Guards shouting 'death to America' and stepping on flags."
Steve Fryburg, director of the Dayton Peace Museum in Ohio, has visited Iran twice to work with the Tehran Peace Museum. "The people of peace around the world, including the Middle East, far outnumber the violent," he says. "Yet it is the violent people and violent news that is given priority in media coverage. This only distorts people's perceptions of other countries and cultures, increases fear, and reduces the chances for peace."
"At such a critical time in our relations with Iran, it is very important for people not to get a distorted view about Iran and its people," says Mr. Fryburg. "And with the rhetoric from Washington always concentrating on the Axis of Evil line, [there should be focus] on some of the positive things that are happening in the Middle East and in Iran."
The idea for the museum emerged in 2005, when Khateri was in Ypres, Belgium, at a conference marking the 90th anniversary of the first modern use of chemical weapons. He met the coordinator of the global peace museum network, who gave strong encouragement.
While many nations honor sacrifices made in war – Arlington National Cemetery is but one example in the West – many issues of setting up a peace museum here are specific to Iran. For Khateri, it had to start with his own epiphany more than a decade ago, when he was part of a group collecting remains of soldiers from mine-laced front lines near Iraq.
"Dozens of my close friends were killed in the war and hundreds were wounded, so I really respect their cause," says Khateri, who fought for three years. "[I]t was very important for me to discover the roots of the Iran-Iraq war. Why was my older brother killed? Why was my city Kermanshah almost destroyed by Iraqi missiles?"
During the war, Iranians were told that they were soldiers of God, fighting Iraqi infidels. Copies of the Koran found in captured trenches had been planted, Khateri recalls being told, to give the impression that Iraqis were believers.
In fact, the Sunni Arab Iraqis were believers. And when Khateri's group returned remains of Iraqi soldiers to their families at the border, there were other unexpected similarities that made his heart turn against war and toward peace.
"They call them 'family of martyrs,' just as we do," says Khateri. "It was really shocking psychologically to see those mothers, just like Iranian mothers, crying with photos in their hands, candles, and Korans."
Deep respect now drives his effort with the museum, despite right-wing critics. "I am happy with the ideological challenge, because it is a sign of growing democracy," says Khateri. "We have a chance to challenge officials on what was a red line."