What's left of Women's Day?

We are today the 9th of March 2011. Yesterday was the 8th of March 2011, or International Women's day. It has now been over a century of International Women's days; over a century of activism marked by that symbolic day, the 8th of March. Women have of course always fought for their rights, but we like to say that feminism is something of the twentieth century. 

     We also like to say that women's conditions have dramatically improved in that same century, that women are now equal to men, and that men are even abused in Canada or in some Scandinavian countries (stories of myk mann = a man who goes against the traditional male role). 

     The reason for me to write this post is that I was yesterday supposed to go shoot a march in support of Palestinian Women and in relation with the international women's day. I arrived there, and left immediately, for there was almost no one. It's international women's day and no one cares in Montreal. Tonight I came back from work, checked the Al Jazeera English website, and ended up on this story: "In Juarez, women just disappear". The issue is that in Juarez, a border city plagued by drug gangs, women often disappear because they are used by gangs to 'train' new recruits. They kidnap a young girl (like Alejandra Garcia Andrade), rape her, and after days of agony leave the dead body in a gutter.

Kifeya

Then I browsed a bit more on Al Jazeera, and found this other article: "The New Egypt: Leaving women behind". The story is about Egyptian women who feel left beside after the revolution that saw Egypt get rid of Mubarak. Kifeya! (enough!)

But the problem is that these two examples are only two examples. There are thousands of other examples, untold stories. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), hundreds of women are raped every months by rebel groups, by government troops, and even by UN troops sometimes; all of this resulting from centuries of colonization and destruction.

In Japan, dozens of women are raped every years by US troops in Okinawa. Dozens of female US troops are raped  every years by their own colleagues male US troops.

In other words there are countless examples of gendercides that keep occuring all around the world; sometimes much closer to home than most would think. Yet, on International Women Day, in Montreal, no one cared.

George Clooney the new South Sudanese Ambassador

Sudan: One country or two? - RIZ KHAN - Al Jazeera English



I used to think highly of Al Jazeera but now I feel all shaken... Why would they ever consider bringing George Clooney to a talk show to explain the matter with South Sudan and the upcoming referendum? Has Mr Clooney recently became South Sudanese? And has he on top of this been appointed by... someone to the job of South Sudan Ambassador?

It really annoys me to see these western pop-stars taking leading role when Africa is concerned! Next we'll have Wyclef Jean president of Haiti!

Sheep on da street!

Wowowiwow! Well it has been a while since I had a single thought (which is strong within me) for the Enigmatic Worthlessness!

But an international (article on Al Jazeera) event that reveals both human stupidity and a regime's own stupidity has forced me to come out of the closet, so to say, and post this.

(reuters)

Chinese citizens are on the street in front of the Japanese embassy in Beijing because they feel angered by... they themselves have no idea what.

Or rather they think they know. They think they feel angered because the Japanese are keeping

Zhan Qixiong, the chinese trawler captain, in custody. How is that surprising?

Quick summary of the situation. Some days ago a chinese trawler was sailing around the Diaoyu/Sentoku disputed Islands. The Chinese boat was approached by Japanese coast guard, and as an answer the chinese boat hit the Japanese ones. The Japanese coastguards thus arrested the Chinese crew and brought them back to Japan. Then, of course, the Chinese were crying out loud saying that the Japanese are insane.

What is scary is that people are not understanding that this is all just a political game over a couple of islands, and most of all that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is willingly fueling popular resentment over the Japanese in order to gain momentum and legitimacy.

However, although the use of nationalism feelings is easy and handy for the CCP in time of social unrest, it is a dangerous thing to play with. We saw it in Urumqi last year.

More on Trafigura, and how it goes under-reported in the media...

Trafigura, or how can people be that evil toward their own kind. After looking for some time I found more material to read on Trafigura and it's shameful action in Ivory Cost about 3 years ago.

In a previous post I related the great documentary produced by Al Jazeera, but I just found out that BBC had also produced another report, which is just as good.
Or I should rather say 'devastating' instead of 'great', as the topic is absolutely horrible. It is even hard to conceive that such evilness can be so easily done to men. Well I guess we tend to forget rather too rapidly the many examples that spot our history, from Hitler to Rwanda and Cambodia and Armenia and Guantanamo and Darfour and Palestine and Northen Uganda and ... The list goes on.

Coming back to Trafigura, I was quite glad to see that Al Jazeera wasn't the sole media to report this case.

But this was before discovering this article from The Guardian in which we learn that Trafigura is doing it's best to shut down any report made on them. Apparently they are trying to sue BBC for showing this documentary which is supposedly alleging false claims about Trafigura's abuses.
In the same time there is a huge PR campaign going on to make the company look better, while many journalists are being threatened not to write about the scandal.

But here and there some stories are being published. Of interest is one from the Financial Time on the question of the US Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789 which allows anyone to sue any company in the world against alleged human rights crimes in a US court - or at least it is being interpreted that way.
Apparently it is becoming more and more common to see huge multinational corporations being held accountable for their abuses of the international laws' loopholes. It has notably been used in the case of the Ogoni people in Nigeria against the Royal Dutch Shell Company, and the trial is taking place right as I speak.


(photos: NYTimes)

The Enigmatic Worthlessness of Justice?

I just found out about a new case of justice's worthlessness... This is a documentary from Al Jazeera on the case of Trafigura, the world's third largest oil trading company. According to Wikipedia - I'm not [yet] an academic - Trafigura last year had a turnover of US$73bn, or more than the double of Côte d'Ivoire's GDP last year (US$34bn), which gives an indication on what we are talking about.

The documentary is about the trial case between the people in Abidjan and Trafigura in which the oil trading company dumped toxic wastes next to villages all around Abidjan, resulting in sicknesses and deaths.

Apparently Martyn Day, the British lawyer defending the Côte d'Ivoire people, is fairly confident on the outcome of the trail that's gonna take place in October 2009. Yet I liked very much what he pointed out:

"But what I think has not worked quite well is the strong desire within Abidjan to see trafiquers itself in the dock in which it would have to defend the charges about what it did."

Yet I hope people in Abidjan win and finally get some proper compensations to deal with their legacy of sicknesses from Trafigura... And thant you Al Jazeera and Juliana Ruhfus for this documentary.

After the Pope: Obama

After the Pope voiced the Vatican's support for a Palestinian State, the Obama administration finally assumed the stance that the US ought to have taken many years ago. In this interview from Al Jazeera the US secretary of state, Hilary Clinton, is confirming what have been said between Obama and Netanyahu. That is that the US is

"committed to a two-state solution ... And therefore nothing should be done to undermine the potential resolution of the peace effort that could prevent such a two-state solution from taking hold"

And this is really a good thing. But now the questions on future borders remain highly uncertain. The Al Jazeera journalist asked Hilary if the borders from 1967 would be used but the questions remained unanswered. And as she said, the Obama administration is only pushing for a halt on further Jewish settlements project on Palestinian land, but what about all the existing ones that makes the West Bank look like a piece of Swiss cheese: full of holes!

Even if a Palestinian state is created, I still don't understand how it is gonna work since the territory agreed upon will consist of scattered pieces of Palestinian land between which Israeli check points will exist... A big masquerade.