Dear Goddess of Horror, how do we wake up from this nightmare? May we propitiate you with the archived entrails of Nate Silver’s pre-election projections?
In confusion, Cassandra.
Category: Politics
Remember the black suffragists
#Remember. What it took to #getoutthevote for _everyone.
When and Where I Enter: a difficult but needed reminder that Susan B. Anthony did not believe in the black vote. And from black suffragist Anna Julia Cooper,
The white woman could at least plead for her own emancipation; the black woman, doubly enslaved, could but suffer and struggle and be silent.
And from the article, the African-American Suffragists History Forgot, a prescient quote from Frances Ellen Watkins Harper,
I do not think the mere extension of the ballot a panacea for all the ills of our national life. What we need today is not simply more voters, but better voters.
Vote to bring satire and irony back
In my last non-citizen attempt to #getoutthevote, some headlines of fascism and dictatorship from other parts of the world. In my birth ‘democracy’ India, a progressive national TV channel is banned for a day, a professor fighting for indigenous rights is arrested falsely, and an entire people are being systematically blinded by the state in Kashmir. Oh, and in the Philippines, Marcos the dictator is being given a ‘hero’s’ burial. Irony has died so many deaths these past few years. Vote to bring satire and irony back to life (in feminist, non racist ways)!
Musawah and other musings
Three weeks ago, I decided to give myself a #10wikiweeks challenge: write a Wikipedia article every week, for ten weeks. The first two weeks, I wrote about Freedom Nyamubaya and Peggy Antrobus, amazing feminists from Zimbabwe and the Caribbean, respectively. Now I’m into Week 3, and it happens to be the first week of Ramzan/Ramadan this year. So here’s my iftar offering: an article on the incredible network of global feminists working on feminist interpretations of Islam, Musawah. Many of those in the network are personal inspirations, and they delightfully confuse and confound the stereotypes around Muslim women (as though this is a homogenous category). I would love to know how many of you knew Musawah existed, and how many of you are surprised and pleased to know what they do. Ramzan Kareem, everyone!
I also snuck in an article earlier in the week, on Ayize Jama-Everett, the inspiring African-American science fiction writer I heard at the Bay Area Book Festival last weekend. I’m rarely shocked by gaps in the English Wikipedia, but this one did surprise, given that Ayize is a US citizen, and has written a fairly acclaimed trilogy. Wonder why he got left out, despite obvious notability? People do often choose to write about what they know (and whom they look like), including on Wikipedia.
As Siko Bouterse and I have said on Whose Knowledge?: there is a historical process of socio-cultural colonisation and imperialism that has outlasted the territorial. In a sense, the ‘global South’ and the ‘global North’ are political terms of geography, history, as well as ideological and material dis/privilege: there is a ‘global South’ in the global North and vice-versa.
Not One More…
So the Stanford rape case has had me so angry, it’s been hard to respond coherently. The situation is that of Brock Allen Turner, a (white) male student – who happened to be on the Stanford swim team at the time – raping an unconscious female student in January 2015, and then getting only six months with probation last week, because the judge deemed a prison sentence would have a ‘severe impact’ on him. The woman responded with a searing letter: “I was not only told that I was assaulted, I was told that because I couldn’t remember, I technically could not prove it was unwanted. And that distorted me, damaged me, almost broke me. It is the saddest type of confusion to be told I was assaulted and nearly raped, blatantly out in the open, but we don’t know if it counts as assault yet. I had to fight for an entire year to make it clear that there was something wrong with this situation.”
The father of the perpetrator responded with another letter in which he called it “20 minutes of action” for which his son shouldn’t be punished.
And in the meantime, Black Lives Matter activist Jasmine Richards was facing up to 4 years in prison for trying to ‘de-arrest’ someone during a peace march. She was finally sentenced, in the past week, to 90 days in jail, with 18 days served, and 3 years on probation. She spends time in prison, Brock Allen Turner doesn’t.
So all of this is fury making of the worst kind. But I wondered – knowing how rarely rape gets convicted anywhere in the world – what the stats were in the US. Sure enough, Rebecca Solnit had the even more fury-making answer: so you thought 6 months with probation was absurd? The outrageous truth is that reporting a rape (women are twice as likely as men *not* to report) will be unlikely to lead to a conviction: only slightly more than 2% are convicted.
What is the conviction rate in India? Better than the US, strangely, but declining each year, even as reported cases go up: 44.3 percent in 1973, 26.4 percent in 2011.
And the base: across the world, rapes go unreported in the majority of the cases. It’s estimated that in India, reported cases are 1.8 per 100,000 people; for the US, it’s 28.6 per 100,000. And again, across the world, in the majority of cases, the perpetrator is known to the victim/survivor.
So in all the fury making around Stanford, yes – sign the campaign asking for judge Aaron Persky’s recall (I did). But as in so much else around injustice, recognise how we all tend to respond to individual cases rather than the underlying structural conditions of patriarchy and sexual assault. Did we pay attention to this case because the media carried it, and because he was a Stanford swimming champion? Did we not pay attention to Delta Meghwal’s rape and murder because she was Dalit?
So hold on to your outrage, make it count. Support the women and men around you who fight against patriarchy and discrimination every single day, not just this week.
#NotOneMore #FreeWomensBodies #NoMoreRape #RecallAaronPersky #JusticeforDelta #BlackLivesMatter
Shut Up and Listen (also, Read).
Just back from two days at the Bay Area Book Festival in downtown Berkeley, where we bookended our time with the most brilliant panel yesterday of five authors of speculative and subversive fiction in which only *one* was a white dude (and the others covered a multiplicity and intersectionality of races, ethnicities, genders and sexualities), and ended today with an Egyptian transnational secular Muslim feminist speaking with a Bay Area African American feminist.
In between, we went to a panel of science nerds who write about cooking, linguistic nerds who are conlangers (those who construct languages) for shows like the Game of Thrones and the Expanse, wandered down Radical Row and talked revolutions, and made friends with bookshelves in the middle of the road. Bibliophile, activist, heaven.
While my brain is still processing and sedimenting all I learnt, I’ll leave you with a few brilliant lines from Harlem/Bay Area African American science fiction writer, Ayize Jama-Everett, who when asked how/if his speculative fiction is also subversive, said: “I’m a black man in America. Every thing I *do* is subversive… When I read about utopias, I ask: where are the black people? …Writing is both an act of lunacy and bravery. It’s blood on a page.”
And the final final word from the fabulous Mona Eltahawy, speaking to the equally fabulous Chinaka Hodge, to folks who think about ‘rescuing’ people from ‘over there’ and bringing them back ‘over here’, mistakenly thinking ‘over here’ is not equally (if differently) misogynistic, racist, xenophobic, homophobic… “We’re doing our own work ‘over there’. Work on your own ‘over here’… and don’t forget to shut up and listen”.
Yes, my brother, my sister. *mic drop*.
Aung San Suu Kyi and the day of democracy
“We have been struggling for democracy since 1988… We have suffered very much but now we see the results and the fruits of our suffering. It is a beautiful beginning.”
Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League of Democracy (NLD) party finally form the government in Burma/Myanmar. And while there are enormous struggles and questions ahead – including how she will respond to the ethnic minorities who have faced such violence and torture at the hands of the junta, and who have felt let down over the past few years at her relative silence on their situation – it’s worth pausing for a moment to reflect on the enormity of what has been achieved.
Suu Kyi was under house arrest for nearly 15 years till her release in 2010. There are 110 former political prisoners in the 390 candidates elected to both houses of Parliament, many of who spent over two decades in prison. The first time the NLD swept the polls was in 1990, with 81% of the seats. Last year, the NLD took 86% of the seats.
A few years ago, soon after Suu Kyi was released from house arrest, I was with a group of Burmese refugees in Thailand, and they talked about how they (in some ways, literally) worshipped her. For them, far away from their homes, their extended families, and their idol, the sense of betrayal felt greater. I gently pointed out that she was getting older (she’s now 69 years old), and that perhaps in order to gain political power for the NLD, she needed to tread carefully – and in a way that may have felt too much like a compromise to them. And so/yet, here we are. I’m not sure my friends thought they would see this in their lifetimes. I think of them in Chiang Mai, and on the borders between Burma and Thailand, and I hope they are celebrating this victory for justice. However complex and troubled the road ahead may be for Burma and Aung San Suu Kyi, may it be strewn with jasmines for today.
Gems from the Ocean
I’m ashamed to say I’ve only just discovered August Wilson, the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright known as the American Shakespeare. But what a way to discover him and his searing explorations of what it means to be black in America: through the stunning, gut-wrenching interpretation of his play Gem of the Ocean, currently playing at the Marin Theatre Company. Go see it, Bay Area peeps; you must.
Wilson is best known for his ten play cycle on the lives of African Americans in the 20th century, one for every decade. Gem of the Ocean is the first of the cycle, written second to last in 2003 (Wilson died in 2005). And for us, there were multiple performances on theatre night: the play itself, and then the responses of the predominantly white audience (AFAICT, we were one of two families of colour attending) that stayed for a Q&A session with cast and crew after.
Amongst the conversations with no clue: ‘I don’t understand where the spirituality of the original went…’ So Wilson uses seemingly Christian symbolism underwritten by Yoruba spirituality, which hybridised form dramaturg Omi Osun Joni L. Jones pops up so powerfully in her interpretation. In other words, it’s nothing but political and spiritual, just perhaps not your politics and your spirituality, Mr. White Theatre-goer.
The interpretation also breaks with the familiar idiom of ‘naturalistic’ theatre, which is how August Wilson is often played. Instead, it offers rhythm, beat, syncopation: jazz of word and gesture. Be prepared for its power, and for its getting under your skin. I found myself squirming in my seat, hardly able to sit still (such a no-no for a polite theatre-goer!).
But the best of the evening was the well-meaning road to hell: ‘I wish young black children could watch this play’… Yes, they should. I hope they do, and the theatre is doing its best to make it happen, with multiple matinee shows. But even more so, elite white people should watch this play. And not deflect the responsibility of thinking about it. Understand, as August Wilson says in the play, what black folks, people of colour, need for full citizenship in this country: “You gonna have to fight to get that. And time you get it, you be surprised how heavy it is.” (And yes, it echoes all that my Dalit and Adivasi friends are feeling right now too).
So t
hank you, Daniel Alexander Jones, Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, and the incredible cast and crew of the Gem of the Ocean. I can’t imagine Wilson being interpreted in any other way.
Calling in for Gaza
From my inbox this morning…
National Call-In Day for Gaza!
January 16, 2009
We designate Friday, January 16th as National Call-In Day for Gaza. Calling is quick, easy, and effective, and will take about 5-10 minutes. We need to keep the phones ringing non-stop for the duration of the day so that our message CAN NO LONGER BE IGNORED.
Contact in order of importance:
1) Call President-Elect Obama’s Transition Team at 202-540-3000.
Ask that President-Elect Obama and his team call for:
1) An immediate cease-fire.
2) An end to the blockade and siege of Gaza.
3) An immediate withdrawal from Gaza.
Be firm and polite and stress the fact that over a thousand people have died and thousands have been injured in Gaza, mainly civilians. This follows months of suffering under a severe blockade that has resulted in shortages of food, fuel and basic medical supplies. When calling, mention (UN Security Council Resolution 1860 that was adopted last week which calls for an immediate ceasefire and unimpeded humanitarian access.
2) Call your Representative at 202-224-3121. Ask how they voted on House Resolution 34 which passed overwhelmingly in the House last Friday, with 390 Representatives voting yes, 5 no, and 22 present. The resolution “recognizes Israel’s right to defend itself” and “reaffirms the United States’ strong support for Israel.”
If your Representative voted “no” or “present” on H.Res. 34, thank them and ask that they cosponsor Rep. Kucinich’s upcoming resolution.
(See: http://endtheoccupation.org/downloads/KUCINI_001_xml.pdf)
If your representative voted “yes” on H.Res. 34 state your disagreement with their vote and ask them to co-sponsor the Kucinich resolution.
3) Call your Senators at 202-224-3121 and assert your disagreement with their unanimous vote on Senate Resolution 10 and ask that they introduce a resolution in the Senate that is similar to Rep. Kucinich’s resolution in the House.
Please forward this to all your lists and personally contact 10 friends and urge them to make these calls to save lives in Gaza.
Change happens with numbers. That is how Obama became president and that is how we can bring a lasting peace and justice to the Palestinians. As people living in America, we control the discourse and the funding that has resulted in the present massacre in Gaza. Considering the fundamental role that we play in this political situation, our participation is the least we can do.
“The death of children is the death of innocence, and the death of innocence is the downfall of humanity.”
– Emine Erdogan, wife of Turkey’s Prime Minister, 1/10/09
For 2009: we refuse to be enemies?
What an annus horribilis 2008 was. Clinical depression of every kind: economic, political, personal. India was bombed repeatedly – and with precise geographical equity: north, south, east, west. I was in both Bangalore and Delhi over the summer, and missed the bombing of N block market by a couple of hours. Similar just-misses reported in from friends in Bombay, but the overall horror of it all goes far beyond close encounters of the worst kind. Between the escalation of rhetoric on the India-Pakistan front, and the egregious escalation of far more than rhetoric on the Israel-Palestine front, the new year feels shop-soiled and already ready for return. But since I have been accused of growing tendrils of Pollyanna-like optimism in the midst of utter despair, I leave you with an image from an India-Pakistan peace vigil I attended early last month, and a poem inspired by that, and this week’s protest against Israeli attacks on Gaza.
We refuse to be enemies.
We refuse to use your words, claim your politics,
accept your versions of history.
We will wear our anger like a shroud,
we will hold our defiance like a shield,
we will carry our compassion like a sword.
We refuse to be enemies.
We refuse to believe that hate is justified,
that peace is weak, that conflict is endless.
We will sing across the borders,
we will march across the divisions,
we will fly our peace like a flag.
We refuse to be enemies.