WIB Around the World

Speech on International Women`s Day at the European Parliament, in a debate about violence against women
By Nurit Peled-Elhanan
International Women`s day, The European Parliament, Strasbourg, 8.3.2005

Thank you for inviting me to this day. It is always an honour and a pleasure
to be here, among you. 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 wouldn'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 halfheartedly 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, egalite et la fraternite is scared of little
girls with head scarfs, Great Jewish Israel is afraid of the Muslim womb
which all its ministers call it a demographic threat. Almighty America and
Great Britain are infecting their respective citizens with blind fear of the
M uslims, 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 turn 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 in 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, Aphgan 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 enlightment 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 prozak 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 racist and 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 in 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, had asked:

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

Jennifer Bing-Canar
Director
Middle East Program
American Friends Service Committee
637 S. Dearborn, Chicago, IL 60605
email: jbing-canar@afsc.org
phone: 312-427-2533 x18 International Conference of Women in Black

International Conference of Women in Black

Beste, Liefste,

Er is een eerste beslissing gevallen i.v.m. onze twee-jaarlijkse internationale conferentie van Vrouwen in 't Zwart Deze zal dit jaar tijdens de 2de helft van augustus doorgaan in Israël-Palestina. Vrouwen in 't Zwart Israël overleggen met hun Palestijnse zusters wat en waar en hoe de conferentie zal doorgaan. Zij wijzen er op dat deze samenwerking moeilijk is, niet omdat de Palestijnse en Israëlische vrouwen niet met elkaar zouden willen samenwerken, maar wel omwille van de checkpoints etc... Daarom kunnen ze nu nog geen juiste datum en plaats doorgeven, maar jullie kunnen alvast 2de helft van augustus in je agenda schrijven voor de ineternationale conferentie van Vrouwen in 't Zwart. Zo snel er meer info is stuur ik deze uiteraard door !

Dear, Dearest,

There is a decision that our two-yearly International Conference of Women in Black will take place in second half of August 2005 in Israel-Palestine. WiB Israel co-operate with our sisters from Palestine about it. This cooperation is not simple, not because the women don't want to work together, BUT because of checkpoints etc., so at this very moment they don't know the excact date of the conference, but please, write down second half of August in your agenda... as soon as we know more, of course I let you know

lots of love
lieve

----------------------------
Lieve Snellings
H.Corbeelplein 4
3012 Wilsele
Belgium
00.32-(0)16/20.13.25
www.womeninblack.org

	Women in Black, Baltimore
Want to help out? Contact Us Local Events Peace Links Other WIB Sites Special Reports	Speech on International Women`s Day at the European Parliament, in a debate about violence against women By Nurit Peled-Elhanan International Women`s day, The European Parliament, Strasbourg, 8.3.2005 Thank you for inviting me to this day. It is always an honour and a pleasure to be here, among you. 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 wouldn'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 halfheartedly 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, egalite et la fraternite is scared of little girls with head scarfs, Great Jewish Israel is afraid of the Muslim womb which all its ministers call it a demographic threat. Almighty America and Great Britain are infecting their respective citizens with blind fear of the M uslims, 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 turn 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 in 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, Aphgan 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 enlightment 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 prozak 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 racist and 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 in 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, had asked: Why does that streak o blood, rip the petal of your cheek? Jennifer Bing-Canar Director Middle East Program American Friends Service Committee 637 S. Dearborn, Chicago, IL 60605 email: jbing-canar@afsc.org phone: 312-427-2533 x18 International Conference of Women in Black International Conference of Women in Black Beste, Liefste, Er is een eerste beslissing gevallen i.v.m. onze twee-jaarlijkse internationale conferentie van Vrouwen in 't Zwart Deze zal dit jaar tijdens de 2de helft van augustus doorgaan in Israël-Palestina. Vrouwen in 't Zwart Israël overleggen met hun Palestijnse zusters wat en waar en hoe de conferentie zal doorgaan. Zij wijzen er op dat deze samenwerking moeilijk is, niet omdat de Palestijnse en Israëlische vrouwen niet met elkaar zouden willen samenwerken, maar wel omwille van de checkpoints etc... Daarom kunnen ze nu nog geen juiste datum en plaats doorgeven, maar jullie kunnen alvast 2de helft van augustus in je agenda schrijven voor de ineternationale conferentie van Vrouwen in 't Zwart. Zo snel er meer info is stuur ik deze uiteraard door ! Dear, Dearest, There is a decision that our two-yearly International Conference of Women in Black will take place in second half of August 2005 in Israel-Palestine. WiB Israel co-operate with our sisters from Palestine about it. This cooperation is not simple, not because the women don't want to work together, BUT because of checkpoints etc., so at this very moment they don't know the excact date of the conference, but please, write down second half of August in your agenda... as soon as we know more, of course I let you know lots of love lieve ---------------------------- Lieve Snellings H.Corbeelplein 4 3012 Wilsele Belgium 00.32-(0)16/20.13.25 www.womeninblack.org
	INTERNATIONAL WIB: POEM AND AUGUST CONFERENCE The following is a poem written by Noriko, a Japanese WIB, who stood in Canberra, Australia with local WIB between the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars. Women In Black/Australian women/In black clothes are/Standing quietly/Holding white boards in front of them. In the centre of Canberra’s City Walk/Protesting against war and violence/Without saying anything/They are standing quietly. I asked/“Is today the first day?”/Silly question. Since the United States bombed Afghanistan/They have stood there every Friday/For six months to date! How fitting, black clothes have become for our world today!/From the back of a building/We can constantly listen to the murmur of never ending death/And/When women in black clothes and black shoes/Stand in a circle facing passers by/Strange nervous circle, born in a city. People’s eyes staring at the unusual./They stop to read my board/”Women in black Vigils....Peace with Justice”/Women smile sympathetically at me./A man asks me/”What part of the world do you come from?”/”Japan” replying to him/”I remember Japanese women with whom/I walked and sat together.” Starting with seven Israeli women/Joined by Palestinian women/These women in black clothes on Friday/Spread to Israel, Belgrade.../Europe, Asia, Africa, America/and Australia. Plane tree brown leaves fall slightly/With the chilly beginning of winter we feel very cold./Women built Peace column with their bodies/Expressing something very important/Quietly. Translated by Joan Munro and Noriko Shiba, from “Upside-Down Stairs by Noriko Shiba. INTERNATIONAL WIB CONFERENCE IN JERUSALEM, AUGUST 2005 If you have never been to Jerusalem/Palestine this would be a great way to network, meet with an international group of peace makers, learn first hand about the problems faced by Israelis and Palestinians on the road to peace, demonstrate our opposition to the continued occupation and support peace initiatives. Do you have a topic you would like to present? Local WIB interested in traveling to this conference can connect through WIBbaltimore@hotmail.com. Contact conference organizers at WIB2005@netvision.net.il.
	For more information email mailto:wibbaltimore@hotmail.com
	last updated April 18, 2005

Women in Black, Baltimore