we women warriors part 1

[the_future_modernes]

USA

2005 The Housewife theory of History

ON THE WEST COAST OF MADAGASCAR, there’s a tribe called the Sakalava, who are theoretically monarchists, loyal to a line of male kings. Their loyalty, however, is to dead rather than living kings, and the wishes of the dead kings are made known through spirit mediums who are, according to David Graeber in his wonderful Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, “usually elderly women of common descent.” Which is to say that, officially, the Sakalava are governed by elite men, but ordinary elderly women are the literal voices of authority.

I’m not sure we’re much different. We are governed mostly by elite men, quite a lot of them seemingly dead, and everything in our culture encourages us to regard these rulers not just as the central but the sole source of power. But history is changed again and again by people who are supposedly powerless, including the women veiled by the dismissive moniker housewife.MORE

Reflections from Detroit: Reflections On An Opening: Disability Justice and Creating Collective Access in Detroit

This summer, Detroit was an opening for me. And not just because it was the first time that there was a Disability Justice track at the Allied Media Conference (AMC) or because of any workshop or plenary I attended. Detroit was an opening for me because I got to spend over a week creating collective access with a group of twenty-three disabled folks and our non-disabled comrades. I got to spend eight days getting a glimpse into a different world and experiencing a kind of interdependency that let me loosen my shoulders; that let me breathe.
MORE

Sins Invalid: An Unshamed Claim to Beauty in the Face of Invisibility

Sins Invalid is a performance project that incubates and celebrates artists with disabilities, centralizing artists of color and queer and gender-variant artists as communities who have been historically marginalized. Sins Invalid celebrates the power of embodiment & sexuality, stripping taboos off sexuality and disability to offer a vision of beauty that includes all bodies and communities.MORE

2010: Domestic Workers Organize for Workers Bill of Rights; MUA 20th Anniversary in San Francisco, May 27th

Domestic workers are organizing in San Francisco, New York, and around the world to establish a bill of rights that acknowledges the value of their labor and pushes for economic justice and freedom from physical and sexual violence, exposure to toxics, dehumanizing treatment, and other dangers found in the workplace.
Domestic Workers United (DWU) in New York, an organization of Caribbean, Latina and African nannies, housekeepers, and elderly caregivers, is working to pass the New York Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. They writeMORE

CANADA


PDF - Immigrant Women Organizing for Change:Integration and Community Development
by Immigrant Women in the Maritimes

DisAbled Women Network: DAWN ONTARIO Herstory



AUSTRALIA
March 21, 2011 Australia: Lake Tyers Women Holding Blockade Against the Government

For the past two weeks, Indigenous women from the community of Lake Tyers, in East Gippsland, Victoria, have been holding a blockade against the state government's self-imposed rule over their community.

The blockade officially went up on March 8, International Women's Day, in an effort to stop the government-appointed administrator (a consultant from the UK private company, Deloitte) and his staff from gaining entry to the community.
For the past six years, Lake Tyers has been governed by a policy similar to the Northern Territory Intervention; a policy that, the Women say, is an insult to Elders and their own rights and aspirations as Indigenous Peoples.
"We are sick of the Northern Territory style intervention imposed on us. Our elders who fought for the land (so that Aboriginal people could have a home to call our own) to be handed back in 1970 as free hold title to the Aboriginal people after a long struggle," said the Women of Lake Tyers Aboriginal Trust, in a statement issued March 8.MORE

BOLIVIA


Jan 2011 Bolivia: People with Disabilities Demanding Rights and Payment

On Monday, shots rang out in the air. Chants followed. The intersection of Heroinas and Ayacuchu, Cochabamba's central thoroughfare, was completely shut down by a circle of people—many in wheelchairs, with walkers or crutches—demanding rights for people with disabilities. Their central demand was for a bono, or a monetary form of social security, paid as a monthly stipend.

"Many countries have a bono. Bolivia is one of the few countries who has nothing," said Juana Illianez, standing strong on her walker while blocking traffic on Ayacucho. "A year ago, Evo promised a bono, housing support, and job training. But where is it?" Juana, along with over 100 more members of the Association of Fraudis Perdis, traveled from San Carlos to participate in the mobilization.

...

In addition to hundreds of adults with disabilities, there was also substantial participation from mothers who are caretakers of children with disabilities. Celia Mirasola Calle Sanchez is one of those women, and like many others she is a single mother. "His father left because he is special," she said, as she pointed to her 8-year-old son who she identified as being autistic. "My whole family has turned their back on us. We have no home right now, I can't take him to school, I sell lottery tickets in the market to make money, but it is not enough." A Program of Housing for People with Disabilities has been announced by the Morales government, but it has yet to be realized in any tangible sense.

Ms. Calle Sanchez ran off to grab a hold of her 8-year-old, with her other arm cradling a toddler, and then she turned back, "Discrimination, that's the problem," she said with a sigh, "that is why we are here." Her words were echoed by many other single mothers.MORE

COLOMBIA


We Women Warriors

  Five years in the making, We Women Warriors is an independent documentary that follows the lives of three indigenous women in Colombia as they strive to nonviolently defend their peoples autonomy in a climate of constant military violence:
Doris Puchana, is a young mother who governs a vulnerable Awá population that traditionally grows coca leaves. Ludis Rodriguez, is a spunky Kankuamo widow who is framed and captured on false charges of rebellion. Flor Ilva Trochez, is the first female Nasa governor of Jambaló, who leads a pacific movement to dismantle police barracks that endanger civilians by placing them in the line of fire.MORE

NEW ZEALAND



Maori Women's Welfare League

Today the Māori Women’s Welfare League is well-known throughout New Zealand. The political and social reasons for its development can be traced back to the 1930’s when the rapid movement of Māori from rural districts into the cities was accompanied by a mass of problems including issues around housing, health, finance and racism. Urbanisation highlighted the need for a national body working in the interests of Māori welfare.

In 1945 the Māori Social and Economic Advancement Act led to the employment of Māori welfare officers who worked with Tribal Committees throughout the country to identify the needs of Māori. Te Rangiātaahua Royal, a senior welfare officer at this time, recognised the need to consult more effectively with Māori women as the Tribal Committees were largely a male domain. Welfare officers working under Royal organised groups of women around the country to consider the health and welfare needs of their communities. They facilitated the formation of League branches around New Zealand and the National Māori Women’s Welfare League (Te Rōpū Wāhine Māori Toko I te Ora) was born.
MORE

2007 New Zealand’s Maori Women’s Welfare League: Working Toward Women’s Rights in Saving Maori Culture

The 1945 Maori Social and Economic Advancement Act was the catalyst for the Maori Women’s Welfare League. Maori welfare officers, primarily male, recognized the need for women’s input into male Tribal Committees. In 1951, the Maori Women’s Welfare League was formed in Wellington, with 90 female delegates. A national forum for Maori women to voice their input was formed with its stated objective, “To promote fellowship and understanding between Maori and European women and to cooperate with other women’s organizations, Departments of State, and local bodies for the furtherance of these objects.”

For the first time, Maori women were able to represent themselves in the New Zealand government. Their coming together created empowerment for women and support through networking, strategizing, and taking leadership roles for their people. MORE

TUNISIA EGYPT YEMEN


Arab Women: The powers that be

Saida Sadouni does not conform to the typical image of an Arab revolutionary. But this 77-year-old camped out in the bitter Tunisian cold for more than two weeks in front of the prime minister's headquarters, leading the historic Kasbah picket that succeeded in forcing Mohamed Ghannouchi's interim government out of office.

"I have resisted French occupation. I have resisted the dictatorships of Bourguiba and Ben Ali. I will not rest until our revolution meets its goals," she told the thousands of fellow protesters who joined her. She is today widely hailed as the mother of Tunisia's revolution, a living record of her country's modern history and its struggle for emancipation.
MORE

BANGLADESH & INDIA


Grameen vs Bangladesh

Second, many of those now discounting Sheikh Hasina's credentials are guilty of inflating those of Yunus. Consider the frequent refrain that Yunus is the "pioneer" of the microfinance movement.

In fact, the true pioneer of microfinance is a remarkable woman from Ahmedabad, India (where Mahatma Gandhi had his ashram), Ela Bhatt, a follower of Gandhi who established SEWA (Self-Employed Women's Association) as a bank in April 1974, two years before Yunus founded his Grameen Bank Project in Jobra, Bangladesh.

Throughout its existence, SEWA has been regulated by India's central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, staying strictly within the law and seeking no special dispensations.

Unlike the Grameen Bank, it has received no foreign money (such as the grant of $100 million from Norway, the handling of which led to the initial charges of malfeasance against Yunus), and it has distributed dividends of 9-12% annually each year since its founding.

Yunus is suspected of covering up losses at Grameen with huge sums of money from abroad, whereas SEWA has demonstrated that poor, self-employed women can own and run a financial body in a self-sustained fashion without external largess.MORE

Q&A: Ela Bhatt on SEWA, Harvard Award

In 1971, a group of women working as porters in Ahmedabad’s cloth market came to share their grievances about housing and wages with the women’s wing of the Textile Labor Association union founded by Mahatma Gandhi and Anasuya Sarabhai, (sister of Ambalal Sarabhai, a leading millowner in Ahmedabad, she fought for the rights of the weavers and had approached the Mahatma to look into their cause and form a union).
Lawyer Ela Bhatt, the head of the wing, approached newspapers on the women workers’ behalf and helped them campaign for higher wages from cloth merchants. The following year, Ms. Bhatt and the cloth porters decided to form their own union, the Self-Employed Women’s Association, with the textile association. By 1981, it is said that the ideological differences started creeping between the textile association and the women’s association and they reached its peak during the anti-reservation riots, following which the women’s association emerged as a separate entity. It now has about 1.3 million members.MORE

Survivors of Mumbai Bombings Trained to Recover

VIENNA, Austria (WOMENSENEWS)--A group of women in Mumbai, India, are about to get their first lessons in computer skills and English next month.

That might sound like a limited, practical development, but the organizers behind the workshops have something larger in mind: developing a global female power base to reject the fear of violent extremism and to help people recover from it.

"The global destabilization of life is one of the biggest challenges of our time and each terror attack makes it obvious that conventional methods can no longer curb terrorism in the long run," Edit Schlaffer, an Austrian social scientist, said in a recent interview in her office here. Schlaffer is a Women's eNews 21 Leader 2010.MORE

Dalit Women Organize Against Caste, Gender Discrimination

Since the mid-1990s, Dalit women’s groups and platforms have expressed three concerns: impact of state policies, patriarchal bias of Dalit movements, and upper-caste/middle-class leadership of the women’s movement. Since then concerted efforts have been made to highlight these through common actions and other forms of engagement. These have led to wider alliances not only at the national level but also internationally, with other marginalised sections and communities facing specific forms of discrimination. This approach has also led to the inclusion of caste discrimination in various United Nations conventions to which national governments, such as India’s, are signatory and hence need to respond with time-bound reports, action plans and mechanisms.MORE

Vandana Shiva: Environmentalist and founder of Diverse Women for Diversity

When Shiva, 58, and women villagers wrapped their arms around trees to prevent them being felled by commercial loggers, the name "tree hugger" was born. Since then Shiva's influence on the global environmental movement has grown. Fascinated by physics, she went to the University of Western Ontario but left her formal scientific work when she was inspired by the non-violence of the Chipko movement. "My father had been a forester and I had grown up on those hills. I learned from the [peasant women] what forests mean for a rural woman in India in terms of firewood and fodder and medicinal plants and rich knowledge." Shiva founded her Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology in 1982, in a cow shed at the foothills of the Himalayas, to "serve the powerless not the powerful, which would not get all its cue from Western Universities and international institutions, but would also be open to learn from the indigenous knowledge of local communities".
Her organisation promotes biodiversity, conservation and small farmers' rights. She is an authority on globalisation and biodiversity, lobbying governments and challenging agriculture giants such as Monsanto.MORE

NEW GUINEA


ANF demands release of jailed striking nurses in West Papua

NF Press Release29 March 2011 The Australian Nursing Federation is calling for the immediate release of five nurses in West Papua who have been jailed by the Indonesian government for taking industrial action. ANF acting federal secretary Yvonne Chaperon said eight nurses and midwives were originally detained by the criminal investigation unit of the Papuan police in Jayapura for their involvement in industrial action. Five nurses remain in jail.

“The nurses and midwives at the DokII Hospital in Jayapura were promised an incentive payment over a year ago and were suddenly informed on 30 December 2010 that the local authority had rescinded the decision to pay them. This led to a decision by the nurses and midwives to take industrial action and the subsequent detention and interrogation of five nurses.” MORE

SOUTH AFRICA



War declared against domestic worker abuse

The South African Domestic Service and Allied Workers’ Union (Sadsawu) has declared a war against the abuse of domestic workers. The union has urged workers to report unfair labour practice to their nearest labour centres.

“It is high time that these vulnerable workers fight back for their labour rights. As a union we are here to help them,” said Eunice Dhladhla, Sadsawu’s national organiser”

“Our members are being abused on a daily basis, intimidated behind those big electrified walls and we are saying that must stop,” she said.

Domestic service has long been a major sector of the SA labour market, particularly for black women, but the government has only lately begun to consider stipulating minimum employment conditions in this sphere.

Dhladhla said her union had received numerous complaints from domestic workers alleging that their employers were not complying with the minimum employment conditions prescribed by the Department of Labour.MORE

MEXICO


Welcome to Mujeres Libres; a celebration of the struggle of the Zapatista Women (Website)

This website is dedicated to Zapatista Women as well as Zapatismo. It is not to alienate our compañeros, but a response to the fact that there are no comprehensive and updated websites in English that are dedicated to Zapatista women. Any revolutionary movement that does not include the full participation of women will be fundamentally limited in what it can achieve. Zapatista women have been an inspiration to men, women, children and entire movements all over the world. They are the glue of the Zapatista movement. They have managed to help transform a campesino movement against oppression into a universal movement for humanity and another world.

This is a site about work. Solidarity work. Culture as a weapon. Cooperative work and an alternative economy.

This is a place for research and collaboration.

A site on Zapatista women is also a reponse to people's general inclination to focus, when they think and speak of the Zapatistas, on the white, western educated male (sucomandante Marcos), which though Marcos is rightly loved and respected, points to our societies ingrained sexism, racism and love of "the spectacle."MORE

1994 Chiapas and the women? free electronic book

2007 Zapatista Women: 'We Are What Holds the Community Together': A Year After the Passing of Comandanta Ramona, Civilian and Insurgent Women Tell of Their Movement Within a Movement

December 31 2006, Oventic, Chiapas: "As a woman and as an indigenous person I have much to learn and much to teach." These are the words of Zapatista Comandanta Sandra when she opened the session dedicated to speaking about the struggles of women within the struggle for all people. For Zapatista communities, and other indigenous communities already involved in external struggles, their internal struggles can sometimes be overlooked. On this occasion the people of the world were invited to listen to these women's stories, their resistances and their triumphs.

The table is lined with the ski-mask-covered faces of the women of the Zapatista movement. Their expressive eyes emphasize the words they speak. These women represent a movement to free the indigenous people of Chiapas from discrimination with dignity and respect. They also represent a struggle for the dignity and respect of women in those same communities, and though there are many there are still few who have a voice. Gathered at the table are women civilians and insurgents both. They are members of the five Caracols and work in all areas of government, they are promoters of health and education. They are also insurgents and commanders of the army EZLN. Today they use their voices to speak for the many other women who demand their rights and recognition.MORE

'WE LEARN AS WE GO' - ZAPATISTA WOMEN SHARE THEIR EXPERIENCES

Women talked about different ways that they organized to achieve these changes. Forming women’s collectives was one example. These economic collectives - vegetables gardens, bread-making collectives, artisan cooperatives - have been an important source of financial resources which were invested back into the communities. But having an all-women’s space was also key for women to come to voice; the collectives acted as a springboard for their participation in other areas of the Zapatista movement. Rosa Isabel, a member of the Production Commission, explained: “Working together in the women’s collectives is where we get over the fear and embarrassment that we feel. We work together and we’re happy working together.”

Many women also recognized the importance of having role models. They gave thanks to the women who had come before them: las guerrilleras, las caídas, las primeras luchadoras - the women warriors, the women who have fallen in the struggle, the first women fighters.MORE

Zapatismo, a feminine movement

Beyond symbolism

Women have been prominent in all the public events of the Zapatistas. Comandanta Ramona, known since the Dialogue of the Cathedral two months after the uprising, received special notoriety as the only representative of the Zapatistas at the First National Indian Congress, held in Mexico City in 1995. Comandanta Ana María pronounced the main speech of the Zapatistas in the First Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism, held in 1996 in La Realidad, Chiapas. Comandanta Ester was the main speaker of the Zapatista delegation in the Federal Congress in 2001.

All of them, and many others, revealed on a number of occasions both their personal talent and the prominent role of women in the Zapatista movement. They also showed how much the movement appreciated the historical and symbolic importance of presenting its main proposals, in critical moments, through the voice of a woman. Beyond symbolism, it is significant that women have had significant participation in all Zapatista delegations, and that its largest delegation, when 5000 Zapatistas travelled all over the country, was made up of couples of men and women.

In the Zapatista communities, daily exposed to the pressure of the military siege, women have directly confronted the troops with no other weapon but their dignity, in the best tradition of civil resistance. When the aggressions increased, and the army were killing the men before their eyes and forcing them to escape to the mountains, many women decided to stay in the communities and confront the troops—to protect the community, the children ... and the men. "What else could we do?", commented Comandanta Margarita, of Morelia.MORE

Indigenous Feminism in Southern Mexico

Indigenous forms of feminism are an important site of struggle that explicitly recognize the vital issues of cultural identity, nationalism and decolonization. This paper explores the situations from which emerged indigenous feminism in southern Mexico and examines the ways in which indigenous women from this region struggle to draw on and navigate Western ideologies while preserving and attempting to reclaim some indigenous traditions, such as pluriculturalism and complimentarity, which have been eroded with the imposition of the dominant western culture and ideology. Indigenous feminism contests the existence of a universal feminism and the existence of universal truths and rights in favor of a more inclusive discourse of equality as difference. The struggles of indigenous women hold a lesson and opportunity, not only for feminists, but for all people in the industrialized world to begin to open our eyes and make space for the plurality, not universality, of the earth and its rich cultures.MORE

2008 The First Zapatista Women's Encuentro: A Collective Voice of Resistance

Just after midnight on January 1st, was the 14th anniversary of the Zapatista uprising, and the caracol of La Garrucha was alive with celebration. From the top of a refurbished school bus we watched a mass of bodies dance to norteños below a vast sky littered with stars, and the occasional covering of fog that characterizes the mountains of the Mexican southeast.

This night marked the end of the third Encuentro [Gathering] of the Zapatistas with the People of the World, and the first Encuentro of Zapatista Women and the Women of the world. Why a women's encounter? "Because it was time," repeated the voices of the masked women speaking before a seated audience of women from Zapatista support bases across Chiapas, as well as from social movements in Mexico and the world. MORE

NIGERIA

2010 Censored Story, Nigerian women act against abuses of Big Oil, Sign on letter to Secretary Clinton

In several separate incidents, Nigerian women have engaged in peaceful struggle against the oil multinationals wrecking their environment, livelihoods and those of their families and their future.
Hundreds of women took over the Escravos Chevron-Nigerian government gas pipeline project in mid-August 2010 over failure of Chevron and the government to address their concerns. The women demanded shore protection (oil company operations lead to erosion and loss of community land) and local electrification as well as jobs.
“The reason why we filed this protest is that the affected communities want shore-piling for erosion control. We also need step down line for industrial electrification for the entire Ugborodo communities”. -Chief Thomas Ereyitobi, Chairman of Ugborodo community
“Madam Mercy Olowu, Ugborodo woman leader, lamented the devastating impact of decades of oil exploration and exploitation on the communities. ‘Things have remained the same here since I was 15 years old. Nothing has changed except that the oil companies’ activities has spoilt our land and caused untold hardship to the people. We can no longer bear this brunt.’”MORE

Nigeria: Niger Delta Demands for Justice Undaunted By Decades of Violence

Dakar And Lagos — Nigerian environmental rights groups have been making the case for the expulsion of oil companies from the Niger Delta in the southeastern part of the country at the World Social Forum in Dakar.

Speaking at a meeting organised by a group of Nigerian women's environmental rights activists, Goodison Jim Dorgu, the Executive Director of the NGO Environmental Health and Safety Network, based in the oil-producing state of Bayelsa, said Nigerian civil society has come to the united conclusion that oil companies responsible for severe environmental degradation should leave without delay.

...

Emem Okon, the head of the Women's Development and Resource Centre in the city of Port Harcourt, alleged that the oil companies' own security personnel have been involved in attacks on women. She also said the Nigerian army had committed grave violations of human rights.

"There are specific cases in Akwa-Ibom State, where Shell brought in a Shell crew and they attacked women. A pregnant woman was shot dead. There are also cases in Ogoniland where the government set up Rivers State Internal Security Task Force, and what these soldiers did was to use women as a weapon of war," said Okon.

"A lot of women were raped, a lot of young girls were taken into sexual slavery."

...

Speaking to TerraViva from her home in Port Harcourt, Debbie Effiong of the NGO Gender and Development Action, said environmental degradation, poverty, activism and violence are intertwined.

"The environment is part of the livelihood of women; the land sustains them as farmers. Their farmlands are destroyed through oil pollution. So the violence by the military to suppress the people's cause for environmental justice has prompted a lot of awareness among the women."
MORE

2003Hands up or we strip!

Six hundred Nigerian women held a US oil giant to ransom armed with a simple weapon - the threat of taking all their clothes off. And it worked. Tania Branigan and John Vidal explain

Pit a group of unarmed mothers and grandmothers against a mighty oil multinational and most punters would place their bets on the oil company. But to judge from the current protests in Nigeria, they would probably lose their cash.



The Goliath in the case - ChevronTexaco - has been forced to promise jobs, electricity and other improvements to villages in the Niger Delta after 600, mainly Itsekiri tribeswomen stormed the company's huge Escravos oil terminal, bringing it to a standstill for 10 days.


....


Protesters say it is particularly important for women to get involved in the current campaigns against the oil firms which dominate the region. Women are often targeted by the brutal federal police and army, which are used by a government desperate to suppress any protest that might scare off foreign companies. Enrique Restoy, a researcher on Nigeria for Amnesty International, says there is no evidence of direct links between overseas firms and human rights violations by soldiers, but adds: "What's very clear is that the government is doing whatever it takes for these companies to stay."

Rapes, beatings, prostitution and murder by soldiers are all common, and attacks on men also have an indirect effect on women. "When a man is harmed, whether he is a father or husband or son, that impacts very strongly," says Ekine. "For example, when women are widowed, quite often they are disinherited or ostracised."

All this helps to explain why women in the delta are so angry. "We will no longer take this nonsense; this is the beginning of the trouble they have been looking for," warns Anunu Uwawah, one of the protest organisers. "I give one piece of advice to all women in all countries: they shouldn't let any company cheat them."

...

Campaign groups warn that in the past oil firms have dragged their feet over promised improvements or completed projects shoddily; a charge that the firms refute. But the action set a precedent, and within days, four pipeline flowstations feeding into the terminal had also been occupied by women, this time from the Ijaw tribe. ChevronTexaco said last week that it was preparing to negotiate. MORE

2002 NIGERIAN WOMEN IN OIL-RICH DELTA REGION PROTEST

Chevron reached agreement with the women to end their occupation of the Company's facilities after signing an agreement that will guarantee regular job offers and some amenities for the communities. The deal, regarded as a landmark in the relationship between Chevron and its host communities, had Chevron promising to raise the bursary for students in tertiary institutions from N50,000 to N75,000 effective from the 2002/2003 academic session, while that for secondary schools will be raised to N20,000 from N10,000.

Chevron is also to put in place a N20-million credit scheme for 10 Ijaw communities, totalling N200 million, to aid business development. The scheme will be run by a yet-to-be-named non-governmental organisation. The company has also committed itself to providing two speed boats for each of the 10 communities and electricity and water projects in all the communities. The deal will be reviewed every three years.MORE

WORLD

The Guardian: Top 100 Women Campaigners and Activists Ongoing series

Sweatshop Warriors By Miriam Chin Yoon Louie

The Global Women's Movement by Peggy Antrobus Interview with Grenadian Peggy Antrobus 2003

Comments

I'm a bit uncomfortable with the term 'warrior' here...

[thejeopardymaze]

Despite the good the activists are doing, and I am happy that they are doing this work, that doesn't count as 'warrior', at least to me. I am admittedly over simplifying it, but preparation and training for kicking ass (not as in the stupid dick waving type to justify acting like a thug, mind you) and self-defense is part of that path, and I've become tired of seeing the term misused.

There is supposed to be a great article called 'There Are No Peaceful Warriors!' out there, but sadly, it never appeared online. In the meantime, here's a link to a blog I've been reading recently about the warrior path and self defense (note, I'm not on a warrior path, so I'm not an expert here), who is more familiar with the contents of that article I mentioned than I am:

Championing Ourselves
http://caithream.blogspot.com/


A more interesting critique of the current concept of the warrior path is here, I'll leave to readers to decide who is really right in this, because I still haven't.
http://elf.dreamwidth.org/118071.html


Anyway, despite my nitpicks about the terminology, thank you for the link round up.

Re: I'm a bit uncomfortable with the term 'warrior' here...

[the_future_modernes]

Despite the good the activists are doing, and I am happy that they are doing this work, that doesn't count as 'warrior', at least to me. I am admittedly over simplifying it, but preparation and training for kicking ass (not as in the stupid dick waving type to justify acting like a thug, mind you) and self-defense is part of that path, and I've become tired of seeing the term misused.


I... don't think I am understanding your objection properly. Is there anyway you could rephrase that,possibly?

Mercury is in retrograde, right?

[thejeopardymaze]

Warrior =/= commitment to nonviolence.

Re: Mercury is in retrograde, right?

[the_future_modernes]

Oh I see what you are saying. Your definition of a warrior means physical combat?

Not always

[thejeopardymaze]

But it shouldn't be dismissed lightly, and I believe training in firearms should be part of that path.

Re: Not always

[the_future_modernes]

Ahhh, I understand. I'm afraid I'll have to disagree with you then. For me, the definition of "warrior" is not that narrow. I do appreciate the links though. I learned a lot from them.

Re: I'm a bit uncomfortable with the term 'warrior' here...

[the_future_modernes]

Like, I've read elf's comment and in my opinion what she describes as warrior behaviour applies to the activists as well. Your other link, I'm going through. But I just wanted to confirm, are you saying that your definition of warrior means that someone is a soldier in an army like the US military? Or am I missing something?

Not a soldier, more like someone with an agenda

[thejeopardymaze]

And trying to succeed by any means necessary, more or less. I do believe elf is probably mostly right, though I think ethics should be considered pretty important-but I might be misreading the thread in some way.

And

[thejeopardymaze]

I've always liked Vandana Shiva, despite some minor disagreements with her. Her work, I've noticed, has been misrepresented by GMO apologists, which is the point of PR.

(This isn't to say I'm against all GMO, since there is value for it in the medical front, just mostly the screwing over of farmers, pollution, patent nonsense, land mismanagement, and so on).

Re: And

[the_future_modernes]

I love Vandana Shiva dearly. She was one of the first people I found when I went looking for POC environmentalists and I love the type of activism that she is doing.

Yeah,

[thejeopardymaze]

If it wasn't for her, it would of probably taken me a bit longer for me to understand that the trouble with too much of modern agriculture is about corporate power and the lack of food and land sovereignty, not the simplistic vegan/vegetarian fantasy I used to have back in my teens to early 20's. A real food justice movement has to have an honest look at class and corporate power, which has yet to really happen in the US that much just yet, I've noticed (it's why I tend to read the Marxist socialist sites when it comes to food issues than slow food ones). It doesn't help that the media just likes to focus on safe people like Michael Pollan and Alice Waters, not people who do real work.


ETA: That didn't come out right. Safe, as in, judging the masses for what they buy, which is all well and good for the ruling elites. I might elaborate more about what I mean in a month. But Pollan and Waters do have a white upper middle class elitism about them, Pollan especially, and my blood boils each time he calls the feminist and civil rights movement elitist in order to evade issues about the affordability of safe food.

Re: Yeah,

[the_future_modernes]

he calls the feminist and civil rights movement elitist in order to evade issues about the affordability of safe food.

HE DOES WHAT

Re: Yeah,

[thejeopardymaze]

Radiation-tainted milk in Japan, Pollan on food movement elitism, and more

http://www.grist.org/sustainable-food/2011-03-21-from-radiation-tainted-milk-to-crony-capitalism-in-california-ag


A great many social movements in this country have begun with elites, with people who have the time and the resources to devote to them. You go back to abolition, women's suffrage, the environmental movement. That's not unusual. And to damn a political and social movement because the people who started it are well-to-do seems to me not all that damning. If the food movement is still dominated by the elite in 20 years, I think that will be damning. It would need to be more democratized


Translation: The masses can't liberate themselves.

Re: Yeah,

[the_future_modernes]

You go back to abolition, women's suffrage, the environmental movement.


BULL. SHIT. He's just managed to erase ALL teh work that marginalized communities did to free themselves! *middle fingers up!*