Category: Women’s rights
The US military is NOT a feminist organization
worker | October 9, 2020 | 7:00 pm | Women's rights | Comments closed

The US military is NOT a feminist organization: It can’t protect women’s rights abroad as it can’t protect its own female soldiers

The US military is NOT a feminist organization: It can’t protect women’s rights abroad as it can’t protect its own female soldiers
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/503061-us-military-not-feminist/
The assertion that the US military would ever fight for the rights of women abroad is absurd considering it doesn’t even protect its own female soldiers from their male comrades.

One could be forgiven if they have been led to believe that the US military is a force for women’s rights around the world.

Indeed, we are often told that the US should be careful, for example, in withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan lest women there be left to fend for themselves in a hostile environment without their protection. This message came through loud and clear from Democratic lawmakers who recently grilled the Trump Administration about its peace efforts in Afghanistan and its decision to withdraw all American troops by May 2021.

As NBC News put it“President Donald Trump’s envoy to Afghanistan faced tough questioning… by Democratic lawmakers who accused the administration of jeopardizing the rights of Afghan women in pursuit of a peace deal.” 

The assumption of the Democrats, just as that of many pundits, is that the US has somehow advanced the cause of women in Afghanistan since the US began intervening in that country in 1979.

For example, in a recent op-ed, Ved Nanda, University Professor and director of the Ved Nanda Center for International Law at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, also urged the US to tread carefully in withdrawing from Afghanistan because, in his words, “Afghanistan is at a crossroads – people there are thirsting for peace and stability, of which they have dreamt for 40 years. It wants to keep the progress it has made on human and minority rights, media freedom, and building democratic institutions. The future remains uncertain, but the U.S. must not abandon the country once again, which it did after helping the Mujahideen to repel the Russians from its territory.” Nanda’s assumption is that progress, including in women’s rights, is advanced by US intervention in Afghanistan, and is somehow threatened by its withdrawal.

Such assumptions ignore key facts about the history of US intervention in Afghanistan, and about the nature of the US military in general.

First of all, the US did not, as Nanda claims, support the Mujahideen in order to repel the Russians from Afghanistan. Rather, as the architect of US’s intervention in Afghanistan at that time, Zbigniew Brzezinski later admitted, the US began supporting the Mujahideen in Afghanistan six months before the Soviet Union invaded that country, and the US did so, moreover, in order to draw the USSR into a protracted war there. Brzezinski’s explicit goal was to give the USSR its own Vietnam war so as to undermine the Soviet Union.

The fate of the Afghans in that conflict, and of women in particular, was of little concern; indeed, they were nothing but collateral damage in Brzezinski’s cynical “chess game” with the Soviet Union. And, damaged they were. At the time the US began supporting the radical, misogynist jihadists in Afghanistan (one of whose leaders was Osama bin Laden), Afghanistan was being led by the secular Taraki government which had been doing much to advance women’s rights.

The US intervention destroyed that progress for decades to come; it did not advance it.

As history scholar Michael Parenti explains“the government . . . continued a campaign begun by the king to emancipate women from their age-old tribal bondage. It provided public education for girls and for the children of various tribes. A report in the San Francisco Chronicle (17 November 2001) noted that under the Taraki regime Kabul had been ‘a cosmopolitan city. Artists and hippies flocked to the capital. Women studied agriculture, engineering and business at the city’s university. Afghan women held government jobs — in the 1980s, there were seven female members of parliament. Women drove cars, traveled and went on dates. Fifty percent of university students were women.’” 

All of this was shattered with the rise and conquest of the US-backed Mujahideen. Thus, as Parenti explains, when the US’ jihadist friends eventually came to power, “they ravaged the cities, terrorized civilian populations, looted, staged mass executions, closed schools, raped thousands of women and girls, and reduced half of Kabul to rubble. In 2001 Amnesty International reported that the Mujahideen used sexual assault as ‘a method of intimidating vanquished populations and rewarding soldiers.'” So much for advancing women’s rights!

ALSO ON RT.COMThe murder of a female soldier has shown just how bad sexual violence is in the US military. As a soldier who was raped, I knowAnd, what has been the consequence of the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and its subsequent, nearly two-decade occupation? More suffering for the Afghan population, men, women and children alike.

First, we must start from the fact that, after the US’s long occupation of Afghanistan, that country is ranked at the very bottom of all countries in the world for women’s rights – this, according to a piece in Time magazine, citing a report from Amnesty International, and lamenting how this possibly could be given that the US “war was billed, in part, as ‘a fight for the rights and dignity of women.’”

Of course, the assertion that the US military would ever fight for the rights of women simply miscomprehends the goals and nature of that military. Thus, the American military does not even protect its own female soldiers from their male comrades. The incidence of sexual harassment and sexual assault within the US military is high and climbing, with 13,000 female soldiers in fiscal year 2018 (the last year for which complete data is available) reporting that they were sexually assaulted or raped.  A staggering 38% of female veterans and active military personnel have been treated for “Military Sexual Trauma”; nearly a quarter of all female military personnel have reported being sexually harassed, and one-fifth of those report being raped thereafter.

These terrible statistics were highlighted by the murder this year of Army Spc. Vanessa Guillen, a female soldier at Fort Hood in Texas. She was brutally killed and dismembered by a fellow, male soldier after she shared allegations of sexual harassment with her family. One-third of the female soldiers at this base have officially reported being sexually harassed by soldiers.

Meanwhile, US forces are guilty of abusing, harassing and sexually assaulting women in virtually every country it has a presence. In the US war on Vietnam, for example, soldiers reported that the rape of Vietnamese women and girls was “standard operating procedure for American infantrymen. And the Vietnam War was not unique in this regard, with a Duke Law Review article explaining that rape and sexual violence has been perpetrated on a significant scale by the US military in every conflict it has been engaged in since at least WWII, and including during WWII. What’s more, this is not just during wartime, but also during peacetime at nearly every all of the US’s 800 global military bases, where US troops are serviced by prostitutes and trafficked persons with a limited degree of consent.  As feminist commentator, Elizabeth Mesok, explains“US imperialism [is] dependent on sexual torture.” 

Indeed, all imperial intervention is dependent upon the abuse of women. This is why the main legal instrument purporting to advance women’s rights, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) makes it clear in the preamble “that the eradication of . . . colonialism, neo-colonialism, aggression, foreign occupation and domination and interference in the internal affairs of States is essential to the full enjoyment of the rights of men and women.” That is, the very idea that US intervention in other nations will advance women’s rights is anathema to the main international treaty created to protect such rights. It is no surprise then that the US is one of only a handful of nations which has refused to ratify this Convention – but another reason to doubt the US’s bona fides in claiming to protect women’s rights abroad.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

IWD 2018 Greetings – Women* Rise Up!
worker | March 1, 2018 | 9:04 pm | Communist Party Canada, International Women's Day, Women's rights | Comments closed

February 27, 2018

IWD 2018 Greetings – Women* Rise Up!

This year, women will celebrate International Women’s Day with a renewed sense of strength. In many places around the world women are taking stands against sexual harassment, and sexual violence. While in North America this is often connected with what is called the #metoo movement, it is also happening in countries as diverse as India, Ireland and  Japan. We know that sexual violence is still common – in particular women who are Indigenous, racialized, trans, homeless, or sex workers are disproportionately at risk. In war zones, rape is a weapon.

This January there was a second year of marches where those who are gender oppressed displayed resistance against patriarchal violence, inequality, exploitation and oppression perpetuated by capitalism across the globe. Many of the marches had demands that included support for economic equality, women’s right to freedom from violence, full reproductive rights and freedom, full equality rights for the LGBTQ community, racialized peoples, workers, immigrants, those with a disability, for civil rights and environmental justice, and against police brutality and racial profiling, demilitarizing law enforcement and ending mass incarceration.

This fightback is important, but often there is no lasting organizational structure to support it.

The gains of women and the working class, are directly related to the strength and unity of the organizations that fight for their rights.

The retreat and foot dragging of the Liberal government on such matters as the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women’s Inquiry; pay equity; improved sex work legislation; and a universal, accessible, affordable, quality public childcare system – stands in contrast with their quick stands in favour of Kinder Morgan and Keystone XL pipeline projects, support of the Site C dam, the theft of Indigenous lands and continued genocidal violence.

The government’s support for capitalist globalization and free trade deals such as NAFTA and the TPP extends Canada’s imperialist agenda, where corporations will gain further power and profits, but working people – women and their families – are denied food security, the ability to form or join a trade union, access to affordable housing, healthcare, education, prescription drugs and more. This government, like the Harper Tories, continues to ignore the longstanding demand to create a universal, accessible, affordable, quality, public childcare system.

Women in Canada are losing ground in terms of pay equity and pensions. The gender gap in Canada is now double the global average; racialized women make only 68 cents for every dollar made by non racialized men. The Liberal government has no plans to rectify this situation. Recent pension reforms roll-back gains women had achieved by excluding the years taken off on maternity and parental leaves in calculation of their final pensions. These are not “improvements”; this is austerity. Women are being forced to pay the price for the ongoing capitalist economic crisis and for continuing corporate tax cuts and giveaways. It’s no wonder that a recent study on the Global Gender Gap reached the damning conclusion that at the current rate, it will take 170 years for women to reach equality.

There has been a rise of racist, fascist, and extreme right-wing groups in Canada. Gendered Islamophobic violence occurs all too often in Canada. Muslim women are often verbally attacked and have been physically assaulted by having their hijabs ripped off or worse. As this violence escalates, the government sits idle while the media perpetuates the lie that Western military intervention in the Middle East is required to “save” Muslim women. The Liberals have capped refugee migration and sponsorship to Canada while making war on their North African and Middle Eastern homelands, and exploiting them for photo-ops. This is not feminism.

The truth is, PM Trudeau and the Liberal government cannot claim to be feminist while advocating and defending corporate power and super-profits. Policies and decisions that perpetuate violence against Indigenous women and territories, that deepen and expand gendered and racialized economic inequalities, that impose war and austerity at home and abroad, are all part of the capitalist agenda – an agenda that is incompatible with the demands of working-class women from all communities for peace, equality, democracy and economic and social security for themselves and their families.

Historically the labour movement in Canada has played a major role in building unity for women’s rights. However, women in leadership of the labour movement is on the decline, and those that are left to fight are weakened by the exit of Unifor. We must demand the return of inspired, progressive women into the leadership of the labour movement to unite our class in the fight against the main enemy – capitalism.

We need to continue to Rise Up! We need to organize! The Communist Party of Canada demands Full Gender Equality NOW:

  • Restore funding for women’s equality programs.
  • Close the wage gap – legislate full pay and employment equity.
  • Guarantee accessible and publicly funded abortion and reproductive rights services in every province and territory.
  • Create a universal, accessible, affordable, quality, public childcare system, with Canada-wide standards and union wages for childcare workers.
  • Protect women’s right to EI maternity coverage; expand parental benefits to 52 weeks.
  • End all forms of violence against women and provide adequate funding for crisis centres and transition houses. Repeal Bill C-36!
  • Scrap NAFTA, TPP and other treaties for corporate rule.
  • No to Islamophobia! End US, Canadian, and NATO intervention in the Middle East, zero tolerance for Islamophobic and gendered violence, and open Canada’s doors to immigrants and refugees. Repeal the Canada-US Safe Third Country Agreement. Repeal Bill C-51, stop Bill C-59 and other unconstitutional and undemocratic security state laws.
  • Repeal the Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, which the Trudeau Liberals supported.
  • No to austerity. No to war. People’s needs – not corporate greed!

*Note: Women in this statement includes All Women.

Women’s Commission & Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada

Griselda Aguilera Cabrera: Women in Cuba: Our Achievements and Continuing Struggles
worker | January 17, 2018 | 8:34 am | Cuba, Education, Women's rights | Comments closed

Three years of Narendra Modi’s government: The devastating situation of women in India
worker | May 20, 2017 | 6:47 pm | Analysis, class struggle, political struggle, struggle for the equality of women, Women's rights | Comments closed

Saturday, May 20, 2017

Three years of Narendra Modi’s government: The devastating situation of women in India

https://communismgr.blogspot.com/2017/05/three-years-of-narendra-modis.html
Three years of Modi Raj. How has it been for the women of this country?
In one word: devastating. Budget spending on women related programs has been cut, employment opportunities for women are nowhere in sight, unbridled violence against women continues and on top of everything, we have scores of RSS-inspired leaders who are openly preaching a return to medieval times with women locked inside domestic walls, wearing “proper” clothes and behaving respectfully towards men.
No surprise that the promise of passing the Women’s Reservation Bill is not even on the govt.’s agenda.
Cuts in govt. spending on women
For the past 2 years we have seen significant cuts in the gender budget, and this year also the pattern continues. When Finance Minister, Arun Jaitely, presented the budget it was called a budget for women by Ministry for Women and Child Development. But what do the numbers say?
This year’s budget was a disappointment in terms of gender budget. There are many schemes and programmes which don’t have separate allocations for women. Dairy and fishery are two industries that provide employment to a large number of women and yet their budget has no separate allocation for women. Same goes for the various agricultural schemes.
The only food related programme which has a separate allocation for women is National Food Security Scheme which saw a meagre increase of Rs. 60 crore.
According to the Economic Survey 2016-17, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme has 57% participation of women workers. Finance Minister claims to have increased the scheme’s budget by 26%, from Rs. 38,500 crores in 2016-17 to Rs. 48,000 crores in 2017-18. But the revised estimate of 2016-17 for the scheme was Rs. 47,499 crores, which makes the increase in this year’s budget just 1%. We know how Modi government likes to forge numbers but take a closer look and you can easily call their bluff. We regularly see reports about the non-payment of wages under MGNREGS. These workers are amongst the poorest of our country, their wages are a matter of survival for them. Did the Finance Minister think a puny increase of 1% will solve the crisis of non-payments this scheme is facing?
Integrated Child Development Scheme employs only women and caters to the nutritional needs of 0-6 year old children. Minister for Women and Child Development, Maneka Gandhi, informed the Rajya Sabha in May, 2015 that there are 24.58 lakh women employed under the scheme. These women are not considered workers and in lieu of their services are given a meagre amount of money as honorarium. Anganwadi workers have been demanding for years that they are brought under the definition of workers. But like the preceding Congress government, Modi government too has been ignoring their just demands. These workers don’t get their paltry honorarium regularly. In the financial year 2015-16, according to WCD ministry, the scheme endured 50% budget cut. Similarly, in financial year 2016-17, the scheme’s budget was cut by another 6%. In this year’s budget, it saw a minimal increase of Rs. 34.79 crores, from Rs. 411.68 crores in revised estimate (2016-17) to Rs. 446.47 crores. This “increase” will not be able to cater to the needs of this extremely important scheme.
On New Year’s Eve, PM Modi claimed to launch a new scheme for pregnant women of the country called maternity benefits programme. In reality, it was just expansion of an already existing scheme. Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY) was introduced in 2010 and in 2013 was brought under National Food Security Act. On 17th May 2017, the cabinet decided to limit the scheme to only firstborns as opposed to earlier when it was for first two live births. This excludes a large number of women from the scheme. In violation of the NFSA, the government has also decided to provide only Rs.5000 to the mothers instead of Rs.6000. Also, this benefit will be linked to Aadhar cards, which will leave out thousands of women. The Modi government has allocated only Rs 2700 crore for this in 2017. This will cover only 17 percent of the 2.6 crore live childbirths per year in India. It is evident that the centre government is trying to rid of its responsibilities toward women of the country by such moves.
No work for women
A report by the Labour Bureau published in 2016 revealed that just 22% of women over the age of 15 were working on a regular basis, compared to 74% men in the same age group. In urban areas, the working women’s share slips to a mere 14%. This shocking state of affairs, which puts India at rank 136 out of 145 countries for gender parity in work, is not new: it has continued like this for many years. But Modi govt is completely blind to this. No policy has been announced to encourage more job opportunities for women, no special measures for preparing women to take up jobs has been thought of, technical training for women still focuses on beautician and tailoring courses and there is no attempt to address safety and security issues for women in workplaces.
Wage differentials between men and women doing the same work continue as before, maternity leave and other benefits are not available to the bulk of working women and special provisions like creches at workplaces are rarely found even in ultra-modern industries, forget about the smaller units.
As a result, women’s unemployment was pegged at 8.7%, more than double that for men, according to the report. This is of course based on reporting by women who said they wanted to work but couldn’t find it. The vast majority of women are simply confined to their homes with no hope for working, even in dire circumstances, because of the stranglehold of patriarchal thought on families. Modi, and the Sangh parivar are not in the least bothered by this at it fits in with their ideology completely.
In 2015, WCD minister, Maneka Gandhi, made a request to Finance and Corporate Affairs minister, Arun Jaitely, to make it mandatory for companies to disclose whether they have constituted an anti-sexual harassment committee. Arun Jaitely rejected the request stating that industry representatives are against this type of enhanced disclosure and this is not desirable. This shows that as long as the industries are happy it is absolutely fine to ignore Vishaka guidelines which directs the offices where women work to have in place an anti-sexual harassment committee.
Hindutva inspired approach to women
It may be easier to rectify the errors in policies and implementations of schemes. But what the Modi government and its motherboard RSS is trying to do with the fabric and structure of our society will be extremely difficult to undo. They are propagating the anti-women agenda intensively and it is evident in the comments and statements their ministers, BJP leaders and RSS members make regularly.
This year in March, minister for Women and Child Development, Maneka Gandhi, made a statement which brought her under fire. She has said on record that there should be an earlier curfew for women in their hostels for their own protection. She went on to say that a 16-17 year old girl is ‘hormonally challenged’. Hence, a lakshmanrekha is drawn to control the ‘hormonal outburst’. According to her “logic” women are responsible for their own safety and to ensure it, they should just remain in confines. Young adult females’ hormonal equilibrium is too fragile to let them out in society. She justifies the patriarchal norm of keeping women locked away in order to “protect” them.
The appointment of Yogi Adityanath as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, shows that the government is dead set to push the hindutva agenda which is devastating for women. This is the same person who had said in a speech that dead bodies of Muslim women should be dug out of their graves and be raped to avenge the so called “Love Jihad”. A person who thinks that raping a women, dead or alive, is acceptable is now the Chief Minister of the largest state in the country. This is the ideology that the RSS and their political extension BJP upholds.
Immediately, after becoming the CM of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, ordered the police to form ‘anti-Romeo squads’ to curb incidents of eve teasing. But media reports show, that this squad has primarily targeted couples, often beating them up, as recorded on videos available on social media. This is not an attempt to protect women from harassment but a thinly veiled plan to prevent inter-caste and inter-religion marriages. This again is an attack on a women’s right to choose their partner.
Similarly the BJP leader, Manohar Lal Khattar, had said that women are the reason behind rising incidents of rape in India. He is now the Chief Minister of Haryana since the last three years.
Violence against women
Violence against women in its myriad forms continues unabated under Modi’s rule, despite much chest thumping by diverse BJP leaders about protecting “our mothers and sisters”. Police records, which reflect only the tip of the iceberg, show an uptick in 2015 over 2013 for rape, attempt to rape, kidnapping and abduction, assaults, and domestic violence among others. Strangely, the bunch of penal provisions related to dowry exhibit a dip. This may be because the Sangh parivar and BJP has always been wishy washy about opposing the heinous practice of dowry and its barbaric product, dowry deaths, probably resulting in a lower registration of cases by the police. In all, recorded crimes against women increased by 5.8% in 2015 compared to the last non-Modi year 2013.
The appalling state of convictions by courts in cases of crimes against women continues under Modi rule, worsening in several instances. While conviction rates for rape, attempt to rape, kidnapping and abduction showed minor increases, they are still such that roughly three quarters of those brought to trial are let off by courts. Conviction rates for three other violent crimes against women – assaults with intent to “outrage modesty”, “insult to modesty” and cruelty by husbands and relatives – actually declined under Modi if one compares 2015 to 2013. Overall, under Modi raj, conviction rates for crimes against women have declined from an already outrageous 22.4% in 2013 to 21.7% in 2015.
Since last year, Modi government has taken upon the responsibility of salvation of Muslim women by ending triple Talaq. While this practice is no doubt anti-woman but is the Modi government really interested in the welfare of Muslim women? It doesn’t seem like it. Because BJP’s and Modi’s answer to this archaic practice is uniform civil code. One might ask what will be the character of this uniformity. We all know RSS wants to make India a Hindu Rashtra. So, one can infer that this proposed uniformity will destroy our multi-cultural society to create the nation of RSS’ dream.
Also, Modi and his beloved Sangh parivar, who consider themselves the sole repository and protector of Hinduism, have completely failed to raise their voice against a host of heinous anti-women practices which are widely prevalent in the majority community. These include dowry, dowry murders, son preference driven female feticide and infanticide, and various rituals and customs for keeping women enslaved to menfolk. To don the cloak of reform of anti-women practices in Islam only and turn a blind eye towards Hinduism exposes the fraudulent nature of this anti-triple talaq stance of the govt.
So, what does it mean to be a woman under Modi raj? It means that women’s place is in the shadows. And they shall remain in the shadows till the patriarchal society need their services.
May Day 2017: Unite and fight!

Source: CP Canada website

Unite and fight for jobs, democracy, sovereignty, equality and socialism!

We celebrate May Day 2017 in the shadow of the Trump war machine which has moved the whole planet into extreme danger of extinction due to nuclear war and/or climate change.  According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, it took just 100 days in office for the Trump administration to move the Doomsday Clock to 2 and a half minutes to midnight.  The world hasn’t been this close to Doomsday since 1953, at the height of the Cold War when the US openly campaigned for war with the USSR.  Is this the end of history that capitalism’s triumphant spokesman Fukuyama proclaimed in the 1990s?

For the last 25 years, capitalism has had the upper hand, and the ability to demonstrate its self-proclaimed ‘superiority’. Its enormous wealth and capacity could have been put to the service of the world’s exploited and impoverished billions with health care, education, jobs, development, peace and disarmament, and action to reduce the effects of climate change. In fact this is socialist Cuba’s contribution over the past 25 years, despite the US embargo.

But capitalism did what capitalism always does – seek out new places and new ways to exploit and to profit from the misery of the many, for the benefit of the richest corporations and the wealthiest few. This is the nature and the purpose of capitalism:  the exploitation of one human being and one class by another, for the private profit and benefit of the ruling class at the expense of the working people, the youth, women, immigrants, Indigenous Peoples. It is incapable of addressing the needs of the people, or the needs of the planet, because its purpose is to ruthlessly exploit both.

As a result austerity has been introduced across the capitalist world, and wages, pensions and living standards have fallen in all the advanced capitalist countries, including in Europe and North America, while unemployment – and the growth of the ultra-right and its policies of xenophobia, racism, and misogyny – has surged.  In the developing countries, hunger, debt, dependence, and capitalist globalization, and threats of invasion and ‘regime change’ are the reality of capitalism’s self-proclaimed ‘superiority’ over national sovereignty, independence and socialism.

We see the outcome of this dictatorship of the most powerful corporations in the US today: the ultra-right in control of the White House, the Congress and Senate, and the judiciary.  With an agenda to match: corporate tax cuts, deregulation, free-trade benefiting the most powerful US corporations, militarization funded by massive cuts to social security, and war with the two-pronged objective of leveling all resistance to US corporate power and profits inside and outside the US borders.  This means war on the labour and peoples’ movements at home, war and subjugation on nations and states around the world, and war on the planet itself.

This is an agenda of global destruction that the Canadian government should strongly oppose.

But the Liberals have tiptoed around the Trump administration, supporting illegal US airstrikes on Syria and Afghanistan, threats to invade and overthrow the DPRK (North Korea), and any country that resists the US global corporate agenda. The Liberals have promised to double Canada’s military budget in order to pay NATO 2% of GDP as demanded by Trump, or in lieu of payment, to send Canadian troops wherever Trump decides to make war next.

And, instead of pulling out of NAFTA and exposing the US administration’s reactionary and job-destroying agenda on trade, the Liberals are supporting a renegotiation of NAFTA that will wreak havoc on Canadian jobs, manufacturing and agriculture, on resource development, on universal public Medicare, on labour and democratic rights, on sovereignty and independence.  This is the moment when Trudeau should have said NO.

NO to NAFTA – NO to war

Canada is at a crossroads. In one direction, the Liberals’ team-up with the Trump administration will escalate Canada’s complete integration into the US war economy and politics.  This would mean Canada would lose its manufacturing and industrial sector and revert to a source of natural resources and a market for US value-added goods and services.  We will see a further drop in wages, pensions and living standards, where even minimum wages are not guaranteed.  We will also lose Medicare and universal social programs, our labour, civil, social and democratic rights, along with what remains of our sovereignty and independence.  In return, we become a completely integrated part of the US war machine, spending $40 billion a year on war (and rising).

For corporate Canada and their political parties this may seem like a good way to go. For working people it’s a fast-forward freeway to disaster.

It’s deeply regrettable that the NDP and Greens both support US airstrikes on Syria and renegotiation of NAFTA, while also claiming  to represent the interests of working people.

It’s also disturbing that the outgoing CLC leadership has taken the same position, when NAFTA was widely panned and opposed as the corporate agenda on steroids.

In 1988, just a few months of campaigning by a broad-based coalition of labour and the democratic people’s movements nearly derailed the first free trade deal between Canada and the US.  This powerful movement against capitalist globalization succeeded in derailing both the MAI and the FTAA, and came close to blocking NAFTA.

Similarly, massive anti-war and anti-globalization protests took place around the globe during the same period, mobilizing public opinion against nuclear weapons, and for political solutions to global problems.

The Women’s March of 5 million women globally including 200,000 women in Canada, along with the struggles of Black Lives Matter, Idle No More, and mobilizations for climate justice, show the way forward today.

The struggle of the youth and minimum wage workers to win $15 and Fairness, and the response of the labour movement in Quebec to make $15 a universal bargaining demand, is the way forward.  The response of some unions in BC and Ontario to make $15 a basic bargaining demand, and to win it after striking on it, is the way forward.  It’s a political and economic fight that the CLC should adopt at its May convention.

The fight to pull out of NAFTA and adopt a trade policy that’s multi-lateral and mutually beneficial, creating value-added jobs, building  sustainable primary and secondary industry and manufacturing, will need the CLC to bring the labour movement and its allies into the streets, to oppose capitalist corporate globalization supported by both Trump and the Big Business parties in Canada.

Mass mobilizations are also needed to get Canada out of NATO, to bring Canadian troops home, and to adopt a foreign policy of peace and disarmament.

Workers in Canada can show their solidarity and support for workers’ struggles globally by standing shoulder to shoulder in opposition to austerity and war, capitalist globalization, Islamophobia, racism, xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia, reaction and fascism.  They can stand with Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Palestine, and all those countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa fighting for their right to self-determination and independence from US interference, including those who choose a socialist path of development.

Working people, youth, women, the unemployed and labour must use their united might to oppose compromise with US war-mongers and the reactionary, fascist-supported administration of Trump’s government of oilmen, generals and bankers.

A People’s Agenda for Canada

Labour and its partners must unite and fight for a People’s Agenda for Canada, organizing mass mobilizations to campaign for:

  • Fair trade, not NAFTA – multi-lateral trade with all countries that is beneficial to all parties, and includes long term credits for developing and socialist countries;
  • A foreign policy of peace and disarmament – Get out of NATO and NORAD, Cut military spending by 75%, bring home Canadian troops involved in foreign wars;
  • Fight Climate Change – nationalize natural and energy resources; close the tar sands and guarantee jobs in public development of new energy sources such as solar, wind, thermal, and renewable energy;
  •  Create Jobs – invest in a national housing program to build affordable social housing across Canada; invest in value-added manufacturing, including a Canadian car and urban and inter-urban mass rapid transit; agricultural implements industry; machine tool industry; ship-building; expand social programs;
  •  Raise wages and incomes – raise the minimum wage to $20; substantially increase pensions and drop the age for a full pension and OAS to 60; introduce a guaranteed annual income at a living wage; increase EI to 90% of former earnings and expand to cover all job seekers including part-time and first-time job seekers   Enact universal pay and employment equity; repeal the Temporary Foreign Workers Act;
  • Expand immigration and refugee acceptance and re-settlement; scrap the Canada-US Safe Third Country Agreement;
  • Expand universal social programs and Medicare, and introduce a system of universally accessible, affordable, quality public childcare;
  • Eliminate tuition fees and make post-secondary education accessible to all;
  • Protect and expand civil, social, labour and democratic rights.  Enforce and enact anti-hate laws.

Another world is possible – and urgent! 

In this centenary year of the victory of the Great October Revolution, which opened the door to socialism and workers’ power around the world, we recall the historic struggle of the working class in Russia to create a society free of exploitation and oppression, a society of equality and justice, where working people were in the driver’s seat and corporations, greedy landowners and landlords were put out of business, and war-mongers and profiteers sent packing.  With 100 years of both heroic and painful experience of war and fascism, and the overthrow of the socialist states in Europe, we know that socialism represents the future, and capitalism is the past.  There is no other rung on the ladder of human development between capitalism and socialism.  The time has come – is overdue – for working people to take control of our own destiny, to establish working class political power.

In the struggles ahead, working people will build socialism anew, learning from the experiences of the past and building for the future.  The struggle continues, more urgent than ever.

Africa: African Feminism Past and Present
worker | April 10, 2017 | 8:32 pm | Africa, political struggle, struggle for the equality of women, Women's rights | Comments closed

AfricaFocus Bulletin
April 10, 2017 (170410)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

“On February 18th I lost my grand aunt – my grandmother really …
This incredible woman, May Kyomugasho Katebaka left us at the age of
97. We last met in 2014 when I visited her. She’s a fierce woman.
Fierce in her religion but also fierce in her knowledge of what she
wanted from the world. And that is what moves me. Moves me every time
one claims feminism is foreign and for the educated, un-african. She
always came to mind when I met such arguments. I would tell myself
that if only they could hear half her life story, then they would
understand why I am such a rebellion.” – Rosebell Kagumire
(https://rosebellkagumire.com/)

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“Today as ever, African female activists are reshaping not just
African feminist agendas but global ones as well,” wrote scholar
Aili Mari Tripp in a March 8 article published in African Arguments.
But this was only a small sample of articles and web features that
have recently appeared highlighting different aspects of “African
feminism(s),” as well as a host of new books by both famous and
relatively unknown authors.

Among sources that have come to my attention in the last month, this
AfricaFocus Bulletin features the overview article by Aili Mari
Tripp, a reflection by Ugandan journalist and activist Rosebell
Kagumire, several additional links to web features from the African
Feminist Forum and OkayAfrica, and a listing of a selection of
recent related books, from 2017, 2016, and 2015.

The article from March 8, International Women’s Day, was the initial
impetus for this Bulletin. But it is appropriate that the Bulletin
comes only a few days after April 7 (Mozambican Women’s Day),
commemorated to honor the example of Josina Muthemba Machel (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josina_Machel), who I was privileged
to work with in Dar es Salaam in 1966-1967, a few years before her
death at the age of 25 on April 7, 1971. [I don’t know who wrote the
Wikipedia article, but it is substantive and, to my knowledge,
accurate).

Additional recent web references

African Feminist Forum, “Know Your African Feminists” and “African
Feminist Ancestors” Accessed March 2017
http://www.africanfeministforum.com/ – direct URLs:
http://tinyurl.com/mrlua9o and http://tinyurl.com/nxg3u8v

“Talking African Feminisms with Dr. Sylvia Tamale,”
Rosebell Kagumire blog, August 19, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/m9l3fav

“OkayAfrica’s 100 Women” Accessed March 2017
http://www.okayafrica.com/100-women/

“Ghana: Women are the new face of telecommunications’ players,”
Balancing Act Africa, March 17, 2017
http://tinyurl.com/ma3j2sr

“Malawi: Rural Women, Empowerment and Mining,” Publish What You Pay,
December 19, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/m35tt3k

Eunice Onwona, “Karen Attiah Is the ‘Warrior of Diversity’
Channeling Journalism Into Activism,” OkayAfrica, March 17, 2017
http://tinyurl.com/mwvggag

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

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Those who Defied the Odds, Those Who Stood True to their Beliefs
Till the End

by Rosebell Kagumire

African Feminism, March 22, 2017

http://africanfeminism.com – direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/m3h7dhw

On February 18th I lost my grand aunt – my grandmother really
(English limitations) because in my culture a sister of my
grandmother is my grandmother. Both have almost equal roles and
space in your life.

This incredible woman, May Kyomugasho Katebaka left us at the age of
97. We last met in 2014 when I visited her. She’s a fierce woman.
Fierce in her religion but also fierce in her knowledge of what she
wanted from the world. And that is what moves me. Moves me every time
one claims feminism is foreign and for the educated, un-african. She
always came to mind when I met such arguments. I would tell myself
that if only they could hear half her life story, then they would
understand why I am such a rebellion.

Grandma May, always made it a point to tell us she got ‘saved/born
again’ in 1949. Religion was at the centre of her life. She always
told us had it not been for her selfless service in the church, she
would have ended up like most women of her time.  She was one of the
few among millions of women at the time who could read. And that
came through the colonial state where knowledge of the bible
accorded one certain privileges.

Her life is an inspiration. She was married, briefly, and quickly
figured out that married life wasn’t for her so she dedicated
herself to serving the church. Where she was married and even when
she didn’t have children of her own, she is known to have treated
the kids she found in the home like her own. Of course this is
something many women are required of by society and the conditions
are often not on their side – women should have choices – but the
love between her and her step children remained even when she was
longer part of their family. That love was demonstrated till the
end.

In my culture and many in Uganda still, unmarried and childless
women are scorned upon but Grandmother May commanded a certain
respect above all these. She managed to weave her life story, with a
church as her shelter, to be who she wanted to be. Of course many
would say she should ‘have had a child at least’ and god knows what
other pressures she faced. All these little narrow definitions of
what a woman’s life should be according to society wouldn’t dwindle
her.

I loved her and she lived an exceptional life and didn’t matter who
accepted it. She was beautiful too and a deep deep soul. In many
ways she was still traditional like I remember her asking me to
always wear long t-shirts over my jeans – you know – not to show
‘secret body parts’ like we call it in my Runyankole. I usually
laughed these off.

She is inspiration and the fact that her life in itself – some
aspects probably weren’t intentional – but she never followed the
crowd. And that’s enough to get me through this life. I thought in
the spirit of women’s history month, Grandma May fully represents
the people in my life that shattered those expectations. To
understand where we are going we must always look back for a lesson,
inspiration and sometimes caution.

********************************************************

How African feminism changed the world

Aili Mari Tripp

African Arguments, March 8, 2017

http://www.africanarguments.org – direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/hrpzdbw

[Aili Mari Tripp is Professor of Political Science and Evjue Bascom
Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison. She is the co-editor, with Balghis Badri, of
Women’s Activism in Africa (2017).]

Today as ever, African female activists are reshaping not just
African feminist agendas but global ones as well.

One of the great fallacies one still hears today is that feminism
started in the Global North and found its way to the Global South.
Another is that universal understandings of women’s rights as
embodied in UN treaties and conventions were formulated by activists
in the North.

International Women’s Day, however, provides an opportunity to
highlight the reality: that not only do feminisms in the Global
South have their own trajectories, inspirations, and demands, but
they have contributed significantly to today’s global understandings
of women’s rights. Nowhere is this clearer than in Africa, where
women are increasingly exerting leadership from politics to business
and have helped shape global norms regarding women’s rights in
multiple arenas.

For decades, African activists have rejected the notion that one can
subsume all feminist agendas under a Western one. As far back as the
1976 international conference on Women and Development at Wellesley
College, Egyptian novelist Nawal El-Saadawi and Moroccan sociologist
Fatema Mernissi challenged efforts by Western feminists to define
global feminism. In the drafting of the 1979 Convention on the
Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the All African
Women’s Conference was one of six organisations and the only
regional body involved.

African women have also been influencing national gender policies
for over half a century. In 1960, for example, Mail’s Jacqueline Ki-
zerbo had already developed the idea of considering the gender
impacts of policies. It was only decades later that this idea – now
commonly known as “gender mainstreaming” – gained international
currency, particularly in national budgetary processes.

In key UN conferences, African women activists have been visible
from the outset. Egypt’s Aida Gindy held the first international
meeting on Women in Economic Development in 1972. The Kenya Women’s
Group helped organise the 1985 UN Conference on Women in which
African women brought issues of apartheid and national liberation to
the fore. And Egypt’s Aziza Husayn helped organise the 1994 Cairo
International Conference on Population and Development, which
shifted the debate around population control away from a traditional
family planning emphasis on quotas and targets to one focused on
women’s rights and health.

Additionally, Sierra Leone’s Filomena Steady was one of the key
conveners of the Earth Summit in 1992. Tanzania’s Gertrude Mongella
was General Secretary of the pivotal 1995 UN Beijing Conference. And
African women peace-builders played a crucial role in the 2000
Windhoek conference, which paved the way for a UN Security Council
Resolution encouraging the inclusion of women in peace negotiations
and peacekeeping missions around the world.

Leading the world

Women in Africa have also set new standards for women’s political
leadership globally. The likes of Guinea’s Jeanne Martin Cissé,
Liberia’s Angie Brooks and Tanzania’s Anna Tibaijuka and Asha-Rose
Migiro have all held top positions at the UN. Meanwhile at a
national level, many African countries have made important gains in
women’s representation.

Rwandan women today hold 62% of the country’s legislative seats, the
highest in the world. In Senegal, South Africa, Namibia, and
Mozambique, more than 40% of parliamentary seats are held by women.
There are female speakers of the house in one fifth of African
parliaments, higher than the world average of 14%. Women have
claimed positions in key ministries throughout Africa. And women
have increasingly run for executive positions, with Liberia, the
Central African Republic, Malawi and Mauritius all having had female
heads of state. Moreover, these increases in female representation
are taking place across the continent, including predominantly
Muslim countries such as Senegal, where women hold 43% of
legislative seats.

These new patterns are found at the regional level too, with women
holding 50% of the positions at in African Union Commission,
compared to just one-third at the European Commission. South
Africa’s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma meanwhile chaired the AU Commission
from 2012 to 2017.

Women’s strong presence in African parliaments has resulted in new
discussions about strategies to enhance female political
representation worldwide. Scandinavian scholars such as Drude
Dahlerup and Lenita Freidenvall even argue that the incremental
model that led to high rates of female representation in Nordic
countries in the 1970s has now been replaced by the “fast track”
African model in which dramatic jumps in representation are brought
about by electoral quotas.

Shaping the world

African women have also been pioneering in business. Aspiring young
female entrepreneurs today have several role models they can follow
such as Ghana’s Esther Ocloo, who pursued the idea of formalising
local women’s credit associations and became a founding member of
one of the first microcredit banks, Women’s Worlds Banking, in 1979.

According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, African countries
have almost equal numbers of men and women either actively involved
in business start-ups or in the phase of starting a new firm. And in
countries such as Ghana, Nigeria and Zambia, women are reportedly
more likely to be entrepreneurs than men.

These changes are evident not only at the grassroots but, to an
extent, at the highest levels. Female representation in boardrooms
worldwide is very poor, but Africa’s rate of 14.4% is only slightly
behind Europe (18%) and the US (17%), and ahead of Asia, Latin
America and the Middle East.

Finally, a younger generation of activists is emerging throughout
Africa today and redefining feminism from an African perspective.
One sees this not only in the work of the African Feminist Forum,
which first met in 2006, but also in the work of figures such as
novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who issued a clarion call to women
in her video We Should All be Feminist, adapted from her 2013 Ted
Talk, in which she explores what it means to be an African feminist.
Her book length essay by the same title is found on bookshelves in
major cities around the world, and the Swedish Women’s Lobby has
given it to every 16-year-old in Sweden to help them think about
gender equality.

Feminist discourse meanwhile has become commonplace throughout the
continent on websites, blogs, journals, and social media. New
feminist novels like Dust by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor (Kenya), Kintu by
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi (Uganda), and Americanah by Adichie
(Nigeria) have offered new ways of imagining women.

There are clearly still enormous hurdles for African feminists to
overcome in fighting for gender equality. But as they have over the
past half a century, Africa’s women activists of today are reshaping
not only African feminist agendas in tackling these challenges, but
global ones as well.

*********************************************

Books, 2017

[Thanks to Kathleen Sheldon for most of these suggested books.
Short quotes after each book are from the publishers’ descriptions
unless source is otherwise cited.]

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in
Fifteen Suggestions, 2017. “Adichie has partly written Dear Ijeawele
to reclaim the word feminism from its abusers and misusers. Her
advice is not only to provide children with alternatives—to empower
boys and girls to understand there is no single way to be—but also
to understand that the only universal in this world is difference.”
– Emma Brockes, The Guardian (UK)
http://amzn.to/2ndqp05

Balghis Badri and Aili Mari Tripp, eds. Women’s Activism in Africa:
Struggles for Rights and Representation, 2017. “Drawing on case
studies and fresh empirical material from across the continent, the
authors challenge the prevailing assumption that notions of women’s
rights have trickled down from the global north to the south,
showing instead that these movements have been shaped by above all
the unique experiences and concerns of the local women involved.”
http://amzn.to/2nJLhxq

Helene Cooper. Madame President: The Extraordinary Journey of Ellen
Johnson Sirleaf, 2017. “Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and
bestselling author Helene Cooper deftly weaves Sirleaf’s personal
story into the larger narrative of the coming of age of Liberian
women.”
http://amzn.to/2nCo0Nm

Linda M. Heywood. Njinga of Angola: Africa’s Warrior Queen
Hardcover, 2017. “Though largely unknown in the Western world, the
seventeenth-century African queen Njinga was one of the most
multifaceted rulers in history, a woman who rivaled Elizabeth I and
Catherine the Great in political cunning and military prowess.”
http://amzn.to/2nnklmd

Kathleen Sheldon. African Women: Early History to the 21st Century.
2017. “The rich case studies and biographies in this thorough survey
establish a grand narrative about women’s roles in the history of
Africa.”
http://amzn.to/2ndpiNS

Books, 2016

Berger, Iris. Women in Twentieth-Century Africa, 2016. “This book
introduces students to many remarkable women, who organized
religious and political movements, fought in anti-colonial wars, ran
away to escape arranged marriages, and during the 1990s began
successful campaigns for gender parity in national legislatures.”
http://amzn.to/2nJSnSC

Feldman-Savelsberg, Pamela. Mothers on the Move: Reproducing
Belonging Between Africa and Europe, 2016. “[The author”takes
readers back and forth between Cameroon and Germany to explore how
migrant mothers—through the careful and at times difficult
management of relationships—juggle belonging in multiple places at
once: their new country, their old country, and the diasporic
community that bridges them.”
http://amzn.to/2o5jC6c

Hunt, Swanee. Rwandan Women Rising. Durham, N.C.: Duke University
Press, 2017. “[The author] shares the stories of some seventy
women—heralded activists and unsung heroes alike—who overcame
unfathomable brutality, unrecoverable loss, and unending challenges
to rebuild Rwandan society.”
http://amzn.to/2o56cY4

Mgbako, Chi Adanna. To Live Freely in This World: Sex Worker
Activism in Africa, 2016. “Well-written and elegant, Mgbako’s
research reveals the rise of African sex work activism and the
ongoing trials and tribulations of organizing in the face of
economic, social, and political adversity.” – Aziza
Ahmed,Northeastern University
http://amzn.to/2nVXb3V

Rhine, Kathryn A. The Unseen Things: Women, Secrecy, and HIV in
Northern Nigeria, 2016. “The book is especially innovative in its
rich detail about desire, pleasure and love, and the strategies men
and women use to reconstitute relationships after testing positive
for HIV.” – Carolyn Sargent, Washington University in St. Louis
http://amzn.to/2nCFqd1

Scully, Pamela. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (Ohio Short Histories of
Africa), 2016. “A clear and concise introduction to the woman and to
the domestic and international politics that have shaped her
personally and professionally.” —Peace A. Medie, University of Ghana
http://amzn.to/2ndGpPI

Sylvanus, Nina. Patterns in Circulation: Cloth, Gender, and
Materiality in West Africa, 2016. “[The author] tells a captivating
story of global trade and cross-cultural aesthetics in West Africa,
showing how a group of Togolese women—through the making and
circulation of wax cloth—became influential agents of taste and
history.”
http://amzn.to/2nJW8Ye

Books, 2015

Galawdewos, Wendy Laura Belcher, and Michael Kleiner. The Life and
Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros: A Seventeenth-Century
African Biography of an Ethiopian Woman, 2015.
“This is the first English translation of the earliest-known book-
length biography of an African woman, and one of the few lives of an
African woman written by Africans before the nineteenth century.”
http://amzn.to/2nnpSco

*****************************************************

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
write to this address to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about reposted material, please contact directly the original source mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see
http://www.africafocus.org

Upcoming Actions on March 24, March 25, and May 1
Dear Sisters and Brothers,
Houston Communist Party, Houston Socialist Movement, Latinos Inmigrantes Triunfadores, MORENA-Houston SE, Organizacion Latino Americano Pro-Derecho Del Inmigrante, and Party for Socialism and Liberation are organizing three important actions during the next several weeks.
On Friday, March 24, from 11 am until 2 pm, we will be demonstrating against Governor Greg Abbott while he speaks to the Greater Houston Partnership at the Hilton Americas Hotel, 1600 Lamar Street. Greater Houston Democrats are also planning to protest against Abbott, so discussions about developing a unified action are under way.
 
On Saturday, March 25, beginning at 11 am, we will have a counter-protest against the pro-Trump Houston MAGA March scheduled at City Hall, 901 Bagby St. Some Trump supporters may be armed, but this will not stop us from standing up against exploitation, white supremacy, anti-immigrant hysteria, misogyny, anti-LGBT bigotry, and the threat of Fascism.
 
On Monday, May 1, from 5:30 pm until 8 pm, there will be an International Workers Day/Dia Sin Inmigrantes Rally held at a City Park. This action will combine the traditional celebration of May Day by workers of all nationalities with a special focus on solidarity with our immigrant brothers and sisters. An event page with the location and details for this event will be posted soon.
If your organization would like to support these actions, or if you would like more information, please call 832.692.2306 or 713.447.4106. We look forward to your participation in these events.
In Solidarity,
HSM