Resistance in the News

Angola to host landmine pageant
By Mary Harper
BBC News / March 26, 2008

Landmine victims are to take part in a beauty contest in Angola, where tens of thousands have been injured by mines.
The pageant has been organised by Angola’s de-mining commission, and aims to restore the confidence of victims and raise awareness of their plight.

Millions of mines were planted in Angola during a 27-year civil war that ended in 2002.

The “Miss Landmine Survivor” contest will be held on 2 April in a luxury hotel in the Angolan capital, Luanda. Eighteen women will take part, one from every province in the country. All of the contestants have been maimed by landmines.

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Can women find unique ways out of war?
Women leaders from 45 nations meet in India this week to discuss their role in conflict resolution
Christian Science Monitor. Mark Sappenfield. March 7, 2008

Sakena Yacoobi well knows the hardships of Afghan women, caught between a war and the hopelessness of poverty and illiteracy.

Yet on International Women’s Day Saturday, the Afghan educator will not ask the world to help Afghan women. Instead, she will ask Afghan women to help the world.

In a time of growing conflict around the world, she believes the wisdom and compassion of women can offer a way out. “Women bring tolerance and patience,” she says. “Women can bring solutions – we cannot accomplish that with weapons.”

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URUGUAY: SPIRIT OF AFRO RESISTANCE ALIVE IN CANDOMBEWritten by Marie Trigona for www.upsidedownworld.orgThursday, 21 February 2In the streets of Montevideo, Uruguay, Afro-Uruguayans celebrate an often-ignored part of their history – Candombe and resistance. For more than 200 years Afro descendants have maintained the tradition of Candombe, a rhythm that traveled from Africa to Uruguay with African slaves. The music carries centuries of resistance and liberation. Continue Reading »

Nobel Peace Laureate Says US Trying to Stall Cluster Bomb Agreement
Thursday, February 21, 2008

Wellington, New Zealand - Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams accused the United States on Wednesday of trying to stall negotiations on an international agreement to ban cluster bombs - without even attending talks on the treaty.

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INTERVIEW: “If the WSF Didn’t Exist, It Would Be Necessary to Create It“ January 23, 2008 / IPS / BamakoAminata Dramane Traoré – a writer and former minister of Culture in Mali — is one of the leaders of the anti-globalisation movement in Mali, says that the World Social Forum (WSF) is a representative movement that is essential to the common struggle of people oppressed by a “violent world economy” which often flouts fundamental rights. Traoré spoke with the IPS correspondent Almahady Cissé about international economic relationships and the future of the WSF. There is still much to be done to shed light on the relationship “between the destructive nature of neoliberalism and armed conflicts,” Traoré said. Continue Reading »

Israeli pianist Daniel Barenboim takes Palestinian citizenship

Haaretz - 13 January 2008

Daniel Barenboim, the world renowned Israeli pianist and conductor, has
taken Palestinian citizenship and said he believed his rare new status could
serve a model for peace between the two peoples.

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Racing to Capture Vanishing Languages
By JENNIFER V. HUGHES
January 13, 2008, The New York Times

JEREMY NEWBERGER, a documentary filmmaker, was camped on the banks of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia with two scientists studying the world’s vanishing languages. They were trying to meet a medicine man who is one of about 100 people who still speak Kallawaya, when one of the scientists, Gregory D. S. Anderson, became ill.

“I was in my tent thinking ‘Oh, this is so perfect!,’ ” Mr. Newberger said, laughing. “We’re looking for the medicine man and here this guy is sick? This is so great.”

Mr. Newberger was traveling with his fellow filmmakers, Daniel A. Miller and Seth Kramer — a trio who make up the Garrison-based company, Ironbound Films, along with Victor Gallo, the company’s supervising editor.

The medicine man was found, Dr. Anderson was filmed drinking a cup of herbal tea and his stomach ailment had subsided by that evening.

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Anti-War Lessons From New Hampshire
by Tom Hayden
Thursday, January 10, 2008, The Nation

Thousands of idealists marched door-to-door through the snows and delivered a decisive message that the times were changing. From that moment forward, the establishment and its war policies began disintegrating from within.

The year was 1968. The insurgent campaign was on behalf of Senator Eugene McCarthy.

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Why We Resist
Chris Hedges
Truthdig.com
12/10/2007

The refusal to pay my taxes if we go to war with Iran, and the portion of my taxes spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan if we do not cut off funding for these two conflicts, is not a means. It is an end. I do not know if my refusal, and the refusal of others, will be effective in halting these wars. All I know is that it is worth doing. The alternative, a complacency bred from cynicism and despair, is worse. Refusing to actively resist injustice and flagrant violations of international law, refusing to attempt to turn back the tide of American tyranny, is surrender. It is the death of hope.

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Tell the Truth About Mideast Nukes
The Middle East has had a secretive nuclear power in its midst for years

When will the US and the UK tell the truth about Israeli weapons? Iran isn’t
starting an atomic arms race, it’s joining one

By George Monbiot
The Guardian (UK) — November 20, 2007

George Bush and Gordon Brown are right: there should be no nuclear weapons in the Middle East. The risk of a nuclear conflagration could be greater there than anywhere else. Any nation developing them should expect a firm diplomatic response. So when will they impose sanctions on Israel?

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