Lizz Wright
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Lizz Wright - Amazing Grace (a capella)
Lizz Wright - Images (Live)
In Studio
Lizz Wright - Stop
Lizz Wright
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Lizz Wright - Amazing Grace (a capella)
Lizz Wright - Images (Live)
In Studio
Lizz Wright - Stop
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Maysa – Flower Girl feat Dwele
– October 12, 2011
Longtime member of Incognito & former member of Steve Wonder’s Wonderlove, Maysa will be releasing her new album, Motions Of Loveon November 8th. Stevie will make an appearance on this CD playing harmonica on a track that he wrote. Whoa! Dwele also makes an appearance on the super dope lead single, Flower Girlto show you how to build anticipation for an album’s release. Let us know what you think!
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Submission Guidelines for South Loop Review:
Creative Nonfiction + Art 2012
Creative Nonfiction Essay Contest
Our 2012 Creative Nonfiction Essay Contest is open to all nonfiction writers. We encourage submissions in essay, memoir, non-linear narratives and blended genre.
Award: $1,000 and publication in our September 2012 (Volume 14) issue.
Submission Fee: There is a $20 fee for each entry, which includes a two-year subscription to SLR.
Deadline Date: March 30, 2012, at midnight Central Standard Time.
Judging: Ander Monson will judge the contest and the winner will be announced to the public by June 1, 2012. All writers who enter will be notified by email of the judge’s decision.
Submissions: Submissions will be accepted from August 1, 2011 to March 30, 2012. Entries must be previously unpublished and must be no longer than 20 pages.
We accept submissions through our submission managing system: Tell It Slant (http://www.tellitslant.com). We will not be accepting essay contest submissions through postal services or to SLR’s email account.
Formatting Manuscript: All manuscripts should be in 12-point type, with at least one-inch margins, and sequentially numbered pages. Your work should be double-spaced. The author’s name, address, telephone number, and email address should be typed on a separate cover page. Submitters should include a brief biographical note with their submissions.
Questions can be addressed to southloopreview@colum.edu.
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The Miller Williams Arkansas Poetry Prize
Enid Shomer, Series Editor
The University of Arkansas Press publishes four books of poetry annually.
Announcing!
The University of Arkansas Press Poetry Series' annual $5000 Miller Williams Arkansas Poetry Prize
For submissions in September and October of 2011
One winner and up to three finalists will be published in 2013
In addition to publication, the winner will receive the $5,000 Miller Williams Arkansas Poetry Prize.
The poetry prize is named in honor of Miller Williams, one of America’s finest poets and cofounder and first director of the University of Arkansas Press. Williams was also a codirector of the University of Arkansas’s nationally recognized creative writing program. As the director of the UA Press, Williams published the work of many outstanding poets and writers, including that of Billy Collins, Ellen Gilchrist, Robert Mezey, R. S. Thomas, Frank Stanford, and John Ciardi. He is known to many as the poet who read a poem at Bill Clinton’s 1997 presidential inauguration.
The University of Arkansas Press invites submissions of manuscripts each fall for its poetry series, now in its twenty-eighth year. We are committed to publishing diverse kinds of poetry by a diversity of poets. The only criterion is excellence.
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS (PLEASE READ CAREFULLY):
1. The series is open to all book-length manuscripts by a single author of 60 to 90 pages, except translations. Individual poems may have been published in chapbooks, journals, and anthologies.
2. The editor requests that her friends and current or former students refrain from submitting to the series.
3. We request that anyone whose manuscript has been previously selected for publication in our poetry series wait three years from publication before submitting another manuscript for consideration in the series. For example: if your book was published in 2008 you may not resubmit until Sept. 1, 2011.4. No more than one manuscript per author, please.
5. Submissions will be accepted annually during the months of September and October. The postmark deadline for entries is October 31. Please do not send revisions once you have sent a manuscript. Up to four manuscripts will be chosen by the following July 1, one of which will win the $5,000 prize.
6. Manuscripts should be typed or machine-printed, single-spaced, with no more than one poem per page. Please do not include an acknowledgments page. No electronic submissions will be considered.
7. There is a reading fee of $25 payable by check or money order to the University of Arkansas Press. Please do not send cash.
8. Simultaneously submitted manuscripts are allowed provided we are notified immediately of acceptance elsewhere.
9. All entries will be judged anonymously. Please enclose two title pages with your submission: one page should include only the title of the manuscript and the other should list the title of the manuscript and the poet’s name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, and a brief, biographical statement. The poet’s name must not appear anywhere else in the manuscript.
10. If you wish to be notified that your manuscript was received, please include an SAS postcard.
11. If you submit a #10 SASE along with your manuscript, you will be notified of our decisions by July 1. Otherwise, check our Web site in mid-July (www.uapress.com), where the winners will be announced.
12. Manuscripts will be recycled rather than returned.
13. Send your manuscript and reading fee to:
The Miller Williams Arkansas Poetry Prize
University of Arkansas Press
105 N. McIlroy Ave.
Fayetteville, AR 72701
Please contact Deena Owens at drowens@uark.edu if you have any questions about the submission requirements.
The University of Arkansas Press • McIlroy House • 105 N. McIlroy Avenue • Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701
800-626-0090 • 479-575-3246 • FAX 479-575-6044
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Dorothy and Wedel Nilsen
Literary Prize for a First NovelThe annual Dorothy and Wedel Nilsen Literary Prize for a First Novel is endowed by author and editor, Wedel Nilsen. The competition is to identify and publish completed fiction manuscripts of high literary quality by authors who have not previously published a full-length novel or novella.
Submissions: Previously unpublished novels, novellas, and collections of closely linked short stories may be submitted for the competition. We do not accept manuscripts that have been self-published. The competition is open to unpublished novelists who are U.S. residents writing in English.
Manuscripts submitted to the contest will be read and judged anonymously. A final judge will choose the winning manuscript from a pool of finalists.
Award: The Prize includes a $1000 cash award and publication by Southeast Missouri State University Press. The winning author will be invited to present a reading at the University.Entry Fee: A $25 check/money order, made payable to Southeast Missouri State University Press, must accompany each entry. Multiple entries are allowed as long as they are each mailed with a $25 reading fee.
Deadline: Entries must be postmarked no later than November 1, 2011. Send hard copies of the entries to
Southeast Missouri State University Press
One University Plaza, MS 2650
Cape Girardeau, MO 63701Format: The manuscript must be typed and double-spaced, each manuscript-page numbered, with the following information on the title page:
- title of contest
- manuscript title
- author's name
- address
- telephone number
- e-mail address (if available)
This information must be nowhere else on the manuscript.
Failure to follow manuscript guidelines may disqualify entries.Receipt of manuscript will be acknowledged only if the submission is accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped postcard. No manuscripts will be returned.
The winner will be notified in May 2012.
If you would like to be informed of the contest results, check our website in May at www6.semo.edu/universitypress, or enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope with your manuscript submission.
Racism and skin colour:
the many shades of prejudice
Deeply entrenched attitudes towards colour, and the increasing promotion of skin-lightening products, are placing a 'horrible burden' on dark-skinned women
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- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 4 October 2011 15.00 EDT
Bim Adewunmi: ‘I never had any inclination to be lighter-skinned but almost every Nigerian Briton I spoke to had seen bad bleach jobs at weddings’ Photograph: Martin Godwin for the GuardianNext week, at the international black film festival in Nashville, Bill Duke and D Channsin Berry will premiere their new documentary, Dark Girls. The film looks at the everyday experiences of dark-skinned black women in America. The blurb from the official site promises the directors will "[pull] back our country's curtain to reveal that the deep-seated biases and hatreds of racism – within and outside of the black American culture – remain bitterly entrenched".
When the film-makers released a preview of Dark Girls in May, it spread like wildfire across social media sites and black entertainment blogs. Commenters wrote about being moved to tears by the nine minutes of film they'd seen and many mentioned how long in coming such a film was. Why did the documentarians decide to tackle this subject and why now? For Duke, a veteran of Hollywood – co-star of Car Wash and Predator – it was down to personal experience. "It came from me being a dark-skinned black man in America, and also observing what [dark-skinned] relatives like my sister and niece have gone through. The issue exists externally of our race, but a lot of it comes within the race itself and our perception of ourselves." Berry recalls being called "darkie" at elementary school by his fellow classmates, "and even some family members were like: 'He is really dark. Why is he so dark?' It left a scar. So when Bill came to me, within the first couple of seconds, I was on board."
Shadism lurks in our collective peripheral vision and rears its ugly head every so often. Earlier this year, there was a Twitter storm over a promotional flyer for a party in Ohio whose theme was "Light Skin vs Dark Skin". In May, the Afro Hair and Beauty show in London had a stall advertising and selling skin-lightening products. The stall was called Fair and White. In an interview with black newspaper the Voice, the co-organiser of the show, Verna McKenzie, said that she had "a responsibility to cater to the marketplace". Two years ago, makeup giant L'Oréal was accused of lightening the skin of singer Beyoncé in ads (it denied the claim), and last year, Elle magazine was accused of doing the same to actor Gabourey Sidibe (it said "nothing out of the ordinary" had been done to the photograph). Last month, a study conducted at Villanova University in Pennsylvania found that lighter-skinned women were more likely to receive shorter prison sentences than darker-skinned women, receiving approximately 12% less time behind bars.
I am a dark-skinned girl. I always have been – I was never fair-skinned, not as a baby (like my sister), not as a child (like one of my brothers) nor an adolescent. My parents did not wait for my colour to "come in". I was born a deep brown, and have pretty much remained so all my life. My extended family is pretty diverse-looking – from my second cousin Ruka, who looks white in certain lights, to my cousin Baraka, who is dark as night; I never had any real inclination to be lighter-skinned, but almost every Nigerian Briton I spoke to while writing this article reported having seen bad bleach jobs at weddings, church and parties.
Growing up in Nigeria during the 90s, I remember being offered a soft drink, and my hostess jokingly telling me to choose something other than a Coke because it "would make me darker". Even being a fairly confident and logical child, and despite understanding that a drink had no effect on my complexion, I changed my mind. During a decade there, it would not be the only time I would alter my drink order.
The women in Dark Girls discuss the role melanin has played in their lives. One woman recalls asking her mother to add bleach to her bathwater so she "could escape the feelings that I had about not being as beautiful, as lovable". Another says: "It was so damaging, it made us feel like we were 'less than'." The preview also shows a clip from a 2010 pilot study in which schoolchildren were asked to select from pictures of dolls ranging from light to dark. The researcher asks a five-year-old black girl to show her the smart child. The girl points to the image of the lightest child. She does the same when the researcher asks her to pick the good-looking child. Her reasons are "because she's white" and "because she's light-skinned". By contrast, she selects the darkest child when asked to pick out the "ugly" child and the "dumb" child. This time, her reason is "'cause she's black."
It is an update on the doll experiments carried out by African-American psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark in the 1940s, which sought to find out children's self-perception as related to race. They concluded that black children had internalised the racism caused by discrimination and segregation. "Our goal is to take that little girl's black finger off the picture that looks like her," says Duke. "If we can do that, maybe we will impact things, because the truth is that all of the dolls in that picture are beautiful."
The origins of colourism are widely believed to be in the "pigmentocracy" of slavery. Ruth Fisher, project manager of the Understanding Slavery Initiative, says: "Generally speaking on plantations, you had what you would call the house slaves and the field slaves. The delineation of shade in that regard would be those who were darker would be in the fields while those who were fairer or of mixed heritage would be the house slaves. Part of it was because of the fear factor; those who were more closely associated with being African or those who were new to the plantation would be darker and more resistant than those who were born on the plantation and therefore considered to be less aggressive, less rowdy.
"That started a divide within the African community on the plantation, because then those who were closer to the house had some of the less back-breaking work and therefore they felt that they were a bit more privileged."
Heidi Safia Mirza, professor of equalities studies in education at the Institute of Education, University of London, says: "Pigmentocracy in the Caribbean as a kind of social hierarchical system emulated from the slave days where there was favouritism if you were fairer, particularly if you were a woman." Mirza, who has been conducting her own research looking at young black and minority ethnic women in schools, tells the story of a Sierra Leonean teenager who reported being made fun of because of her very dark skin. "It was not uncommon for dark-skinned girls to be vilified and teased and called names like 'blick', which means 'blacker than black'."
Debbie Weekes-Bernard, senior research and policy analyst for education at the Runnymede Trust, wrote Shades of Darkness, a report on the way "darker-skinned girls reflect upon themselves against lighter-skinned (in this case mixed-parentage) girls" as part of her PhD. The subjects were girls between the ages of 12 and 16.
"The thing that struck me the most is that there were things at work societally, which place all women, but certainly black women, on a hierarchy of beauty," she says. "And the hierarchy of beauty for black women is different from the hierarchy for white women. For white women, it's about size and shape [thinness] but for black women it's all of those things, but also the shape of one's nose and lips, the texture of your hair and all those other things which are bound up within how 'womanly' or not you look. The issue, then, is that we have people being quite essentialist and saying you can only be really, truly black if you are darker skinned, compared with other lighter-skinned women who say they aren't considered to be truly black because they're lighter." She concludes: "There were darker-skinned girls who felt they were policing what it meant to be black; policing the boundaries of blackness, because they're tired of other people doing it for them."
Simone Bresi-Ando, founder of I'mPossible, a social enterprise for women of colour in the UK, thinks the film Dark Girls is "important and necessary" and also believes "it's so important that we start looking above and beyond tones and hairstyles and colour. We really have to be focusing on things that have trapped a whole race of people for so long. It's time to push it on."
It's a stance shared by Baroness Lola Young. "I have to voice disappointment that people still feel that they can't shake it off," she says. "Last month, yet another young black man got stabbed in London. Then there's Damilola Taylor. And all of that is going on and there's people worrying what shade of black they are and going out and buying bleaching creams from shops." She also has little time for the argument about the part the media has to play in the issue. "In my view, it's not good enough to keep saying, 'Oh, we're flooded with images of light-skinned black women in the media and therefore that makes people want to be light-skinned because they think it's something that is acceptable.' Because if you said that, then what about all the years in which we waited and never had any black people on television at all? Did that mean we wanted to obliterate ourselves totally in order to conform to a particular world view? It just doesn't make any sense to me at all. People need to get a grip." She continues: "How can we argue against Satoshi Kanazawa [an evolutionary psychologist who claimed black women are "objectively less attractive" than women of other races] when we're saying the same thing? It's racism in that case, but what is it when black people say it? Crazy."
Shadism and colourism have continued to flourish even in mono-ethnic societies. Last July, Vaseline launched a skin-whitening app on Facebook in India, enabling users to make their skin whiter in their profile pictures. The app was designed to promote the brands's range of skin-lightening creams for men, a fast-growing market on the subcontinent. In 2010 Jamaican dancehall star Vybz Kartel came under fire after lightening his skin. He said: "I feel comfortable with black people lightening their skin. It's tantamount to white people getting a suntan." In a statement to Vibe.com, he defended his use of "cake soap", saying: "When black women stop straightening their hair and wearing wigs and weaves, when white women stop getting lip and butt injections and implants … then I'll stop using the 'cake soap' and we'll all live naturally ever after." This month he will launch his range of 'skin brightening' products including moisturiser, soaps and fragrances in the Caribbean. He has high hopes for his range: "I wanna see them in Macy's and all other fine retailers worldwide," he told the Tribune newspaper.
At one point in Dark Girls, a young black man states his preference for "light skin, pretty girl, long hair", something Weekes-Bernard heard "frequently" when she was talking to her subjects. "There is an implicit assumption that there are black boys out there who only want to date either white or lighter-skinned women," she says. "Young dark-skinned girls are still facing this horrible burden," Duke says. He talks of a rapper who "literally stated in the casting announcement [for his music video] that no dark-skinned women need apply for the audition".
"This is this year!" he laughs incredulously. "We're not suggesting on any level that all black men are only attracted to light-skinned black women but we would be liars were we not to say that the predominant standard of beauty when black men look at women, to a great extent, is light-skinned, so-called 'good' hair and fair eyes.
"If you take a look at some of our celebrities – let's take the sports world for a moment – and look at some of the choices these gentlemen have made in terms of their girlfriends and mates, I think one would be hard-pressed to find a woman of dark complexion," says Berry. "I think they buy into [the idea that] once you have the money, you get a status symbol. And she doesn't look like your mother."
Duke thinks it is of "enormous importance" that Michelle Obama, the wife of the world's most powerful man, is dark-skinned. "I don't think he'd be president of the United States if [Michelle] was a light-skinned black woman," he says. "There are a lot of black women who would not have voted for him because the implication would've been that women of a dark hue are not acceptable to him, so why does he deserve their vote? We don't talk about it very much but it runs very, very deep. You're expected, if you're a successful man, to have a light-skinned trophy on your arm. With a dark woman on your arm, it means, for whatever reason, and this sounds horrible, you had to settle. I mean, this thing of colour in our culture is deep."
Mirza points to the commercialisation of "darkness". "Now, being dark can be appropriated and turned in on itself and turned into a 'style'. Consumption and commercialisation has come in – it sells records, cosmetics, and has become a vehicle for capitalism. But it is still entrenched in racist meaning. Nowadays it may be less about social mobility and more about desirability." Pigmentocracy still exists, she says, only the forms of mobility have changed. "It's about celebrity now, being famous and beautiful and how that's defined is to be thin and white, and fair and black. People are caught up in it 100%. They used to call it false consciousness. You could call it that, but in a sense, it's about presentation and identity. How you see yourself is through representation – how the world represents you. You want what you are shown, what is presented and promoted as privileged."
The producers of Dark Girls hope their film will have the cross-continental appeal of Chris Rock's 2009 documentary, Good Hair.
"We had more than 725,000 hits to the preview in 28 days," says Berry. "And we had more hits from France and Germany and the Netherlands than from South Africa and Jamaica. It tells us what the world wants." He and Berry hope that their film will start a healing, something that, according to Berry, needs to start at home. "Reinforce that your child is beautiful. Don't only tell them, show them," he says.
Bresi-Ando says: "If we want to get to the next level, for other people to respect us as well, we have to respect and love ourselves. If you live your life making choices based around not liking yourself in the full glory of what you can be, why would anybody respect you?"
__________________________
I was about 8 or nine when my colour was mentioned directly to me. It was in Sierra Leone where I grew up by a white woman married to a Sierra Leonean. Her daughter was my friend and I remember clearly her saying something like ‘You are the prettiest dark black girl I know’ or ‘You are pretty for a dark black girl’. I do not remember the words exactly but I do remember thinking what an odd thing it was for someone to say. So I dd what any happy 8 year old would do and ignored her and continued playing.
The next time I had to think of my colour was at 16 when I moved to the UK. It just comes with the territory. I realised that the comment was quite a negative reinforcement of the light skin stereotype of black people (the lighter, like the woman’s daughter, the better looking). What I had not realised was the impact the ‘dark black’ comment had on me.To this day I describe myself as dark black not negatively but with immense pride.
My daughter’s first time was at 3 in nursery when she came home and said a girl had said she did not like her because she was black. She was extremely upset and confused. The solution for her was to go into nursery the next day and say ‘it is sad that you do not like me because I am black but I love me and there is really nothing you can do about it!’ Exactly what she did and she carries that attitude to this day 12 years on. In the background I made the head of the nursery aware of what had happened.
So when was you first time your colour was brought to your attention in a negative way?
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Esperanzah Talks:
"He Said What?!!"
Esperanzah Talks:
Dark Skin Girls Are Ugly
>via: http://esperanzah.tumblr.com/post/9122909213/esperanzah-talks-dark-skin-girls...
__________________________
*Prepared for BGLH by Meosha Tall of 1MeNaturally
Introduce yourself!
S: My name is Stephanie. I sleep in Zoetermeer, The Netherlands. (I intentionally say sleep because I’m more or less “living my life” in Amsterdam and Rotterdam.) I’m reppin’ Konongo, Ghana. The fatherland – the home where the heart is. I study Comparative Arts and Cultural Studies at the Radboud University Nijmegen. I’m one of the contributing editors for SheBreathes.com and also a member of n8pro, an initiative that advises various cultural institutions in Amsterdam and surroundings. Next to that I also have a side job as a customer service representative for a well known international carrier.
What is the natural hair scene like in the Netherlands?
S: I don’t think our scene differs that much from yours because the Internet blurs all geographical borders. All the websites, blogs, Tumblr pages, YouTube tutorials etc. are accessible by anyone in any country at any time. Since Dutch people tend to look up to American culture and get easily influenced by it, we immediately picked it up when the natural hair scene in the US blew up. Although I can count the websites on maintaining our hair on one hand it’s great to see people are getting more aware of the beauty of it and celebrating it. There is even an annual beauty pageant for natural hair.
In the past few months the media has been picking up rocking natural hair as a “trend” and “being hip”. Although I think it’s a bit weird how wearing out the hair you were born with is seen as hip and trendy, it does bear fruit by offering the majority of the people a broader perspective.
When did you go natural?
S: It’s an overstatement to say that I really thought over going natural. I just did it. Yes, I did it myself standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom with sewing scissors. I think it was in ’07 when I started to get really tired to say the least, of maintaining relaxed hair. The burn marks as a cause of flat ironing while in a hurry weren’t a good look and you’re not even allowed to sweat! After not having my hair relaxed for quite some time I started noticing a cute curly outgrow and all I thought was “lemme see more of that!” Nothing revolutionary really.
In what ways (if any) has going natural affected you?
S: Overall it made me more conscious of the products and ingredients that will boost my inner and outer health balance. But what has affected me the most is not the going natural itself, but seeing, hearing and feeling peoples’ misconceptions about natural hair. If I knew that rocking my natural ‘fro would cause such a stir I would’ve thought twice. Fortunately I’ve got thick skin and a sharp tongue, but some days I wish I could get unnoticed. Strut the street without people staring at me and making (degrading) remarks. Whether you think I’m dope for rocking a ‘fro or even the exact opposite that’s alright, but remember my hair doesn’t make me different from anyone else. In terms of hair, I’m not here to make a change, I’m here to stay the same…and now THAT is revolutionary.
How would you describe your hair?
S: This is such a confronting question because I really don’t know. All I know is that I’ve got a lot of hair. My hair is quite thick and dense, super unpredictable and only really defined and curly from the moment I step out of the shower ‘til I touch it, and after I take out my two strand twists.
What’s your regimen?
S: I have been using CURLS products for quite some time now. My hair loves the Coconut Sublime Conditioner and the Whipped Cream. I also make my own glycerine spritz and use some pure shea butter every now and then. Since Fall is on its way I started using the MYhoneychild Honey Love Moisturizer again once a week. I use Urtekram Shampoo. My favourite one is the one with a mixture of rhassoul (african soap mud), aloe vera, coconut and corn sugar soap, etc.
As far as my regimen goes, I wash my hair with shampoo and comb it out with a wide tooth comb while the shampoo is still in my hair. After that I rinse out the shampoo and add way too much conditioner to my hair. Then I comb it again with a medium tooth comb and twist my hair while the conditioner is still in. I rinse out the conditioner with lukewarm to cold water while my hair is twisted. At last I spray the glycerine spritz on my hair, apply the CURLS Whipped Cream and twist my hair once again. I wrap my hair in a piece of satin fabric and let my hair dry overnight. 9 out of 10 times it isn’t fully dry the next day so the first day after I’ve washed is usually a bad hair day. (I hardly wear out protective styles).
What mistakes have you made with your hair that you’ve learned from?
S: Dyeing it with Schwarzkopf hair dye.
What’s the best/most effective thing you do for your hair?
S: Doing a super chunky twist out every night.
What would you like to see in the Netherlands in terms of haircare?
S: Like I said there aren’t many websites on haircare so you can imagine there are even less web shops offering natural hair products. And all products are being imported from the US so it’s like double the price yall have to pay! So it’s obvious that I would like to see a bigger range of products to choose from for a reasonable price. I know it’s wrong for me to say, but I like if not love, your unstable dollar! Hehe.
Is there a blog/webpage where we can find you?
S: Continuouslyevolving.tumblr.com and when the time is right I’ll be back on Facebook. facebook.com/graceagainstthemachine.
AN IRANIAN actor has been sentenced to one year in prison and 90 lashes for her starring role in Australian film My Tehran for Sale.
In an outcome that could have been lifted from the pages of the movie's script, Marzieh Vafamehr was arrested in July and received her sentence at the weekend, according to reports quoting Iranian opposition website kalameh.com.
The exact nature of the crime she was charged with is unclear and the Iranian embassy in Canberra did not respond to The Age's request for comment. Vafamehr often appears with a shaved head and no headscarf in the film, which also explores cultural oppression in Iran and taboos such as drug use.
A still from the movie My Tehran for Sale showing actor Marzieh Vafamehr. The Adelaide Film Festival contributed to the film's production costs. Photo: Bonnie Elliott
One of the film's Australian producers, Kate Croser from Adelaide production house Cyan Films, confirmed the sentence. Neither the producers nor the film's Melbourne-based director, Iranian-Australian Granaz Moussavi, would comment because of Vafamehr's family's wishes to let the case follow the proper legal channels. Vafamehr will appeal her sentence.
Shot on the sly in Iran with a local crew in 2008, My Tehran for Sale is a fictional work. However, in a previous interview Moussavi said she also drew on her own experiences and those of the people she met as an interpreter at the Woomera Detention Centre for the film.
''I believe that when you do anything independent in Iran, … writing or making films, there is always the issue of getting criticised or negatively thought of,'' she told The Age in 2008.
The film's poster.
The film focuses on ''Marzieh'' (played by Moussavi's childhood friend Marzieh Vafamehr), an actress struggling under her country's controls over artistic expression. The government has banned Marzieh's work, and her romance with an Iranian-Australian expat (Amir Chegini) leads her to consider life outside Iran.
The film also deals with the secret lives of Iran's youth and, in one poignant scene, young people arrested at an underground dance party await their punishment as the sound of a cracking whip is heard in the background.
The film has never officially screened in Iran but had its Australian debut at the Adelaide Film Festival in 2009. Its international debut was at the Toronto International Film Festival, and Moussavi toured the film around the country last year as part of the Human Rights Arts and Film Festival. The film's makers won an Independent Spirit award at the Inside Film Awards in 2009.
Human Rights Film Festival director Matt Benetti said news of Vafamehr's arrest was a shock.
''It just hits home much more,'' he said. ''Iran in particular seems to censor a lot of the artworks of a political nature and I just think it's really important it gets out.''
Katrina Sedgwick, director of the Adelaide Film Festival, described news of Vafamehr's arrest as ''surreal''. The festival had helped Moussavi develop the film and contributed about $125,000 to its production.
The film is due to be shown as part of an Amnesty International women's rights film festival later this year.
Amnesty International Middle East and North African spokesman James Lynch said film industry workers were the latest group to be targeted by Iranian authorities and described Vafamehr's sentence of flogging as ''cruel, inhuman and degrading''.
Tawakul Karman
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'There Is No Turning Back'
Oct 9, 2011 9:15 PM EDT
This week, along with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and African peace activist and Daily Beast contributor Leymah Gbowee, Yemeni journalist and human-rights activist Tawakul Karman was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work advocating for democratic reforms and the release of political prisoners in her country. She spoke to Nadia Al-Sakkaf, publisher and editor in chief of The Yemen Times, about how the prize might aid in her efforts, if it can protect her from persecution—and the question of whether women can ever truly be free in Muslim society.
Do you have any specific new plans for protests in the coming days, with the situation so volatile?
We are continuing with our plight until we reach our goal, which is toppling the regime. We have an escalation plan, and we are sticking to it. We have made large strides in our struggle for freedom, and there is no stopping us now. The protesters have gone through more dangerous situations and this did not stop us in the past. Why will it stop us now?
Has it been difficult to rally people to your form of protest? Will the prize help you rally more people?
The prize will definitely bring in more supporters, but what’s more important is that it has given us all a surge of confidence and hope. It is not easy to be demanding for something that is actually your right for months on end and not get it; instead you are beaten, harassed, and killed. Surprisingly, when the protesters are attacked violently more come in. It is like they are saying to the regime: you can kill us, but we will never die. But with education pending and jobs lost, and a lot of uncertainty—especially that there was news on political compromises—many of the youth became frustrated. This prize, although unexpected, came right on time.
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Jonathan Saruk / Getty Images
Do you think the prize will protect you in some ways? Will it be more difficult for the authorities to arrest you?
It has given me and our cause more international recognition. But I am not sure it will bring protection since this regime does not really play fair. I know there is a bounty on my head, such as there is with many other leaders and protesters. This is why I don’t leave Change Square unless really necessarily. What this prize has done is help us shame the Western governments, especially the U.S. and Britain, who deal with double standards and differentiate between our plight and that in Syria. They say Syria is a revolution and ours is a political crisis that could be solved by compromise. This is not fair. The Nobel Prize for Peace says that we are peaceful protesters, and hence the regime and its partners can’t call us rebels and shoot us down in cold blood.
Is the Arab Spring souring?
If you keep up with the news in the region you would not say that. Look at Saudi Arabia and the news of allowing women to participate in the political process. Look at Jordan and Bahrain. The spring is out; there is no turning back.
What rights should women have in Muslim societies?
The same rights that are provided in our religion, which is equality and justice. Women are capable and have the right to be empowered and recognized. I am the first Arab woman to win a Nobel Prize for Peace, and I feel this is an achievement not only for me but for all Arab and Muslim women.
Can women ever be fully free in a Muslim society?
Yes, if we have democratic regimes. Women were free in older times when the Islamic nation was strong. There are so many examples in history, not more than a thousand years ago, when Muslim women were leaders, scientists, professionals, and so on. It is all about justice, and justice can be attained through having the rulers accountable to their people.
What political outcome would you like in Yemen? Syria?
We demand toppling the oppressive regimes and punishing the war criminals for what they have done to their people. They can’t simply do all this and get away with it. We want a new system which is based on the people’s rights and on social contract between the governors and the governed through which the international values of human rights such as democracy, justice, equal citizenship, gender equality, freedom of speech, and press are respected.
I want a future where my children feel safe and appreciated and proud to be who they are. My heart is one with all the Arab Spring heroes no matter how small they think their role is. I know they believe like me that we are working for a world whereby an Arab can live with the other in a respectful and dignified way. We as Arabs, finally after many decades of weakness, have proved to the world that we have greatness in our hearts.
What would like the international community to know about you? And Yemen’s revolution?
I would like the world to know that Yemeni women are strong and if empowered they can achieve. The world needs to look beyond stereotypes and dress code. In our hearts we are just human beings who want to live a dignified life. Is that too much to ask for?
The Nobel Prize for Peace says that we are peaceful protesters, and hence the regime and its partners can’t call us rebels and shoot us down in cold blood.
Being a practicing Muslim woman who is affiliated to the Islah Islamic Party, is that a contradiction with your role as a freedom fighter? And do you think this will change the world’s perception of the religious party?
There are two points here. One is the relation between religion and political and public activities. The religion you follow should not be a barrier or anybody’s business when it comes to the political activities and fight for freedom because this is universal and everybody’s right regardless of their religious affiliations.
About Islam in particular, I am so glad that this prize was given to me being the person who I am because it will help the world break the stereotypes about Islam and Muslim women. Islam is a religion that encourages freedoms and was based on the liberation of the bodies and the minds from slavery, oppression, and fanaticism. It is high time it is recognized as a religion for peace as it truly is. This is also a chance to teach all those who thought their problems could be solved by violence that this way will never solve anything.
Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.
Nadia Al-Sakkaf, editor in chief and publisher of The Yemen Times, continues to lead her independent paper—and to raise a young daughter, surrounded by the sights and sounds of a country veering dangerously toward civil war.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
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This interview first aired live by phone from Yemen on September 23, 2010 as part of a larger interview with Pardiss Kabriaei, staff member of the Center for Constitutional Rights. This version is presented for easier listening and has been edited for sound quality. Tawakul Karman has been an activist for the rights of women, and democratic rights in Yemen for many years. She was the first to start sit downs in what is now called Liberty Square. She has been jailed repeatedly by the current regime in Yemen bringing thousands into the streets to demand her freedom.
28:17 minutes (25.9 MB)
>via: http://kboo.fm/node/31413
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To learn more about Nobel laureate Tawakul Karman, I recommend the following must-reads:
16 of History’s Most Rebellious Women [TIME]
Tawakul Karman, a Yemeni activist, provides thorn in side for Saleh [Guardian]
The Woman at the Head of Yemen’s Protest Movement [TIME]
A Day in the Life of a Yemeni Revolutionary [Huffington Post]
>via: http://pantslessprogressive.com/post/11139703408/to-learn-more-about-nobel-la...
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October 11, 2011
White House
Maintains Blackout
in Yemen, Bahrain
The Obama administration has been notoriously unkind to Yemen and Bahrain’s revolutionaries. Left to deputies, counterterrorism officials and the local ambassadors, President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have expended their foreign policy rations on Libya and Syria. Limited statements, uninformative briefings and tightly controlled information revolving around al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and Iran effectively pushed Yemenis and Bahrainis to the bottom of America and Saudi Arabia’s sphere of influence.Yet U.S. news organizations must take some responsibility for their actions, even if the barrier between state and media is paper thin. Few journalists seem concerned that Bahrain’s King reconvened a sham session over a sham lower parliament, where he championed material reforms to conceal a systemic political crisis. Nor would there be any praise from the administration after unsuccessfully hyping a failed “National Dialogue.”
Perhaps no journalist tasked to the State Department believes Ali Abdullah Saleh’s cries anymore, but not one directed a question towards his latest promise to resign. Another lie is still news since it impacts the whole of Yemen’s situation; if Saleh outright refuses to sign the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) initiative until his political opponents are exiled, all U.S. demands to this end are rendered mute. The administration's policy is floating dead in the water alongside the GCC initiative, buried again by protesters over the weekend.
A major story if someone actually wanted to cover it.
Jamal Benomar, the UN’s envoy to Yemen, also briefed the UN Security Council on Tuesday, giving journalists plenty to discuss with the White House’s Josh Earnest or the State Department’s Victoria Nuland. Again the topic wouldn’t be the GCC’s initiative, which the UN is about to formally stamp, but how Saleh refuses to sign it. Western diplomats keep dropping hints of “one week,” a tactic they began using months ago, and the GCC’s contents remain obscured after multiple edits by Saleh’s party and the UN’s delegation. Although the oppositional Joint Meeting Parties is risking its last strands of credibility by cooperating with the GCC and UN, the political bloc - at least in public - rejects the intiative without Saleh’s immediate resignation.
However the JMP may harbor alternative plans to obtain power through the GCC, and no other party agrees to this concession.
Most importantly, Saleh’s entire strategy is geared around staying in office until a new presidential election is held, which could be anywhere between three and six months in an ideal world. His first objective is to exhaust the revolutionaries; if he can’t, political maneuvering around the election will preserve his shrinking political network. On Sunday revolutionaries marched out of Change Square chanting, "Oh world, why are you silent while the people of Yemen are getting killed?"
So if not now, when will journalists probe the administration's immoral response to Yemen in greater depth? Tomorrow? Next week? After more blood is spilled, as is too often the case?
Unfortunately the mainstream media generally operates under Washington’s control while projecting an aura of independence, and thus cannot be fully blamed for inaction in Yemen or Bahrain. Media awareness is low, but organizations are rewarded in access and easily steered towards the “correct” narrative. U.S. media has little incentive to examine Yemen’s revolution or Bahrain’s uprising in depth, and could jeopardize access to information on AQAP or Gulf developments. A larger system beyond the media’s control has been corrupted.
The U.S. government also has a duty (supposedly) to inform the American people, which is why many have lost faith in both organs. When no journalist asks about Saleh’s latest scheme, the administration could release an official response through another press statement. These have no effect on the situation because they are unflinchingly supportive of the GCC initiative, but they speak to the simple fact that the administration does have other options - it just doesn’t want to explore them. The only tangible response is putting EU countries in the lead, as if to hide the collapse of U.S. policy in Yemen.
Ignoring Saleh’s ploys until UN action can be organized doesn’t suggest calculation, but a lack of urgency to remove him from power. Diplomacy inaction.
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From the Fall 2011 Innovation issue
By Jennifer Steil
SANA’A—It’s 2009. Dust from the recent bombings still hangs in the warm air of Sa’dah, a city 113 miles north of Yemen’s capital, just shy of the frontier with Saudi Arabia and the vast desert known as the Empty Quarter. A five-year-old girl stands crying in the street. Hungry, thirsty, and alone, she has been wandering in the ruins of her home, searching for her mother, father, or any other family members, all of whom have vanished in the devastating battles between the Houthi Shiite rebels and the government. She finds no one.
At last, someone finds her. An old woman stops to help the weeping child but is unable to discover who she is. The traumatized girl cannot give her own name or the name of anyone in her family.
“I will be your grandmother,” the woman, Mariam Hadi Ali, says to the girl. She calls her Hadiya, which means “gift” in Arabic. Together, the two flee Sa’dah, seeking refuge from the bitter conflict. They land in nearby Amran, where UNICEF has set up a small transit camp. By then Hadiya is acutely malnourished and requires two months of treatment with Plumpy’nut, a peanut-based, high-calorie paste created especially for famine victims.
She has stabilized nutritionally. But her other afflictions will be slower to heal. Hadiya, now seven, is psychologically scarred, says Rajia Sharhan, a Yemeni pediatrician and nutrition officer with UNICEF Yemen. While she has begun to play a little bit in the camp, she hardly speaks and usually hides behind her new grandmother. She has never attended school. She remembers nothing of her past and cannot return home.
Yemeni children have more to fear than starvation. Ongoing armed conflicts in many parts of the country terrorize their minds. Violence traumatizes everyone, but it’s far worse for children, says Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF’s representative in Yemen. Yemenis are growing up with bullets flying around their heads. It is not uncommon to see a child playing with the unexploded ammunition that litters the streets. Even refugees who do still have homes often cannot return. Landmines riddle the Sa’dah region, and many who have tried to return home have lost limbs in the process.
Of the more than 300,000 who have fled the conflict, most still live in camps. Among these is a family of 14 who in September 2009 fled Sa’dah, the capital of the northernmost province, with only what they could carry. Mohammed al-Mogny, his two wives, their nine children under the age of five, and a set of grandparents left their cows, sheep, and chickens behind and walked for two and a half days before settling in a deserted area called al-Mazraq. Within a month, some 10,000 others had followed them there, gathering where they found familiar faces. By the time they arrived in al-Mazraq, all nine children were suffering from varying degrees of starvation. The seven-month-old twin boys, Saleh and Ali, were close to death. The grandmother, Haleema Saleh, was looking after all nine children, as the mothers were busy fetching wood and water and doing the cooking. It was she who got them treatment from UNICEF. The boys were hospitalized and the rest of the children treated with Plumpy’nut until they recovered.
These are the lucky few. Those unable to find their way to the few functioning refugee camps are not faring as well. Often, they live far from treatment centers and cannot afford to travel. Recent fuel shortages and skyrocketing prices have made car travel all but impossible. A journey that cost $2.50 a year ago now costs $40, so parents often wait until their children are in crisis before seeking help. Fuel shortages also mean that even the camps cannot get water, as it must be transported in trucks or pumped from the ground using gasoline-powered pumps.
ON THE BRINK
The problem is about to get much worse—reaching famine proportions on a biblical scale. Just across the Gulf of Aden, the famine in Somalia has captured the world’s attention with the likes of Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, and Madonna all campaigning for relief. Meanwhile, the looming humanitarian disaster in Yemen, a country with more than twice the population, has been largely ignored. The political upheaval that began with anti-government protests around the country in January, combined with violent conflicts in many parts of the country, are driving tens of thousands from their homes.
These new floods of internally displaced are now straining communities that were already struggling. In the south, more than 60,000 have been displaced by recent conflicts in Abyan. Many areas remain inaccessible to aid organizations because of running battles. In the strategic southern city of Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan, just inland from the Gulf of Aden, Islamic militants have been battling security forces on a daily basis.
Internal displacement is just one of the myriad crises facing a Yemen teetering on the brink of catastrophe that could result in widespread starvation, the collapse of the economy, runaway disease epidemics, and massive internal displacement of the most vulnerable Yemenis—
a recipe for instability and further conflict. Hundreds of thousands of protesters, frustrated with a government they feel has ignored their needs for too long, have gone into the streets and squares, demanding an end to the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who, they charge, has been largely responsible for pushing the country to the edge of this humanitarian disaster.
Conflicts between youthful protestors and government security forces lead repeatedly to bloodshed. But while the protesters face real danger, a far greater threat to the Yemeni people is playing out across the nation. Yemen’s economy is in freefall. Over-reliance on oil revenues (which make up more than 70 percent of state income), corruption, a lack of coherent economic policy, and President Saleh’s web of patronage are all taking a steep toll. An attack in March on an oil pipeline in Ma’rib, 150 miles east of the capital, halved the country’s oil exports and left it with severe fuel and foreign exchange shortages. The weakened government took months to reach a deal with the tribe responsible to arrange for the repairs.
As a result, lines of cars waiting at filling stations extend for miles. Many wait weeks for a tank of gas. When fuel arrives, fighting often follows. “I always know there is fuel when I hear shooting,” a taxi driver told activist Kawkab al-Thaibani one morning. The fuel shortage contributes to Yemen’s already critical water shortage. Most of Yemen’s water comes from aquifers deep below ground, which means fuel is required to pump it to the surface. In Sana’a, 60 percent of water arrives in tankers. So when trucks can’t get fuel, Sana’anis can’t get water. Al-Thaibani’s home often is without water for weeks. When water is available, its price has quintupled since January. Much of the country is in a similar situation.
More than half of Sana’a’s shops are shuttered, and few cars can be seen on the once bustling streets. Many Sana’anis have sent their families back to villages where they can live more cheaply. Even before the current crisis, more than three million Yemenis were severely malnourished, according to the World Food Program. Nearly half of the country’s population is below the poverty line. Now, skyrocketing food prices are intensifying the situation. Yemen imports 90 percent of its wheat and 100 percent of its rice, meaning that rising global food prices have led to a sharp increase in domestic prices, hitting the poorest families hardest. If a political solution is not realized soon, inflation, now averaging 16 percent annually, could rise to 30 percent by the end of the year, say economists.
Yemen cannot be compared with any other country experiencing an “Arab Spring.” Unlike Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria, Yemen is chronically underdeveloped, so what is happening now places additional strains on an already critical situation. Tensions in Sana’a dramatically worsened in June and July, says UNICEF’s Cappelaere. Militias loyal to the powerful al-Ahmar family, among Saleh’s chief rivals, have taken over the Hadda neighborhood where they live, erecting roadblocks of sandbags, while a few hundred feet away, government troops are poised for battle with them. When the Republican Guard recently tried to remove some roadblocks, shooting broke out, forcing Cappelaere to flee to his office, which is where he now sleeps. “We need to be very clear that Yemen is on the verge of a massive, massive humanitarian crisis,” he says.
UNICEF has been forced to drop all of its long-term development programs to focus on emergency aid. Rather than working to create sustainable water systems, the organization is simply trying to get emergency water supplies to the most desperate. Campaigns urging Yemeni women to breastfeed (one of the best ways to combat chronic infant malnutrition) and to immunize their children have been suspended. “For the moment, we are a kind of fire brigade,” says Cappelaere.
Each month, the organization must find a way to transport an average of 21,000 gallons of diesel to the camps of Sa’dah refugees in Hajja. This diesel is needed to fuel the pumps that extract water from deep in the earth. It takes five people working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, simply to ensure that those 21,000 gallons of diesel get to the camp. The need for water is especially urgent, given that summer temperatures in the camp hover around 115 degrees Fahrenheit. Moving food and other supplies around the country has become equally difficult. UNICEF struggles to find truckers willing to take their consignments to the south. When they do find a driver, often extortionate prices are demanded. “But we don’t have a choice,” says Cappelaere, explaining that with the security risks, it’s uncertain the trucks will ever make it to their destinations. “We cannot call on the government to make them secure because the government is not in control.”
Nearly half of Yemen’s children are stunted as a result of chronic malnutrition, and may starve to death in just a couple of years. Many teenagers don’t look much older than eight. In Abyan, at least 12 percent of babies under the age of one are acutely malnourished. Al-Thaibani knows families who feed their infants only tea. For the first few years of conflict in the north, UNICEF could not get into Sa’dah. When they finally gained access, workers found that 45 percent of the children were acutely malnourished.
Humanitarian organizations are also thwarted by the lack of a functioning government. They cannot work with the country’s various ministries, because most are depleted by defections or shut down. So they are forced to seek alternative means of delivery in a country lacking a strong civil society. Among the severe health crises is the loss of nearly a third of all vaccine supplies, since fuel shortages mean clinics cannot keep generators working to cool them. While the immediate impact is invisible, it won’t be long before disease epidemics dramatically increase child mortality. Already an outbreak of whooping cough has begun in the north.
Countries interested in Yemen’s future cannot wait any longer before stepping up aid. “We have a responsibility not to wait until people start to die to call the alarm bell,” says Cappelaere.
ROOTS OF DISCONTENT
The country’s slide into the abyss has its roots in politics as well as in poverty. Protesters across the nation blame the current political and economic turmoil on President Saleh, who became president of North Yemen in 1978 and of the entire country after it united in 1990. On paper, Yemen’s government is a constitutional democracy with executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The president is head of state, while the prime minister is the head of government. A 301-seat elected parliament and a 111-seat, president-appointed Shura council comprise the legislative branch. There is notional separation of powers, regular elections, and genuine pluralism—more democracy than exists anywhere on the Arabian Peninsula.
But while Yemen’s government has superficial resemblance to western democracies, in practice, parliament is little more than a tool of President Saleh. His party, the General People’s Congress [GPC], wields nearly all the power. He regularly uses parliament to stall legislation he doesn’t like. The judiciary is corrupt and manipulated by the regime. The president, rather than ministers, makes all major decisions. Costly oil subsidies encourage smuggling, which benefits corrupt presidential cronies—and keep oil revenues from contributing to public welfare. Oil sold at official, reduced prices in Yemen can be diverted, then sold on an industrial scale on the black market for far more. The people who benefit most from oil smuggling are those with the greatest access to fuel, namely the president’s allies.
The Yemeni people, the majority of whom live in destitution, have felt a growing sense of inequity as they watch the ruling elite look after their own interests, with no consideration for the public good. Yemeni political analyst Abdul-Ghani al-Iryani says Saleh’s manipulations have made his people completely dependent on corruption and patronage.
In 1994, a warlord from the Hashid tribal federation (to which Saleh’s clan, Sanhan, belongs) looted the warehouses of the highway authority in Aden, says al-Iryani. The warlord used the equipment to start his own construction company, accepting government contracts and cash but failing to fulfill his obligations. When he submitted an inflated invoice, even the corrupt minister of Construction and Public Works refused to pay. The warlord complained to the president. The next day, armed thugs surrounded the ministry and began shooting at the minister’s office. No one intervened. Central Security officers, whose job is to enforce the law and protect government officials from this kind of attack, simply watched. After hiding under his desk for two hours, the minister finally agreed to pay the invoice. Even today, this is how Saleh approaches the role of the state, says al-Iryani. “He has completely undermined the rule of law and turned the government into a mafia enterprise.”
Southerners who feel disenfranchised by unification have been pressing for secession, while the Houthi Shiites in the north have been battling the government for self-rule for years. Saleh failed to follow through on 1994 promises to decentralize authority and allow Yemeni provinces, known as governorates, more autonomy, says Mohamed Qubaty, former adviser to the prime minister and a longtime member of the ruling GPC party. After years of frustration with Saleh’s refusal to move the state toward a true parliamentary system, Qubaty quit earlier this year and moved to London.
Saleh has consistently made decisions that have denied his people economic opportunities. When he backed Saddam Hussein and refused to oppose Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries responded by expelling some two million Yemeni workers. The remittances these workers sent home had been a major contribution to Yemen’s national income. Yemen’s support for Saddam led to a $500 million (33 percent) decline in remittances to Yemen between 1990 and 1991, according to the World Bank, damaging an already fragile economy.
For 20 years, Saleh also refused to reform the civil service and allowed scores of Yemenis to receive wages for doing nothing. When he was finally forced to tackle the problem of these “ghost workers,” he exempted the army and security forces—the core of his support. If everybody receives a salary from him, then he controls everything, says al-Iryani. “Economic backwardness was an integral part of his strategic assault.”
Groups of students demonstrated their dissatisfaction with the government as far back as the presidential election of 2006. These students felt marginalized by their government, frustrated with the lack of jobs, and furious over the widespread corruption within the regime. They didn’t want a violent battle. They simply wanted change. But they were afraid to speak freely. They worried government informants would finger them, endangering their families. But five years later, watching the Tunisians and Egyptians rise up against their governments gave them the courage to act. Protesters took to the streets in January. Civil society groups and opposition leaders joined forces to demand an end to political repression, corruption, grim economic conditions, 40 percent unemployment, and an end to the rule of President Saleh.
AGENTS OF CHANGE
It never occurred to Kawkab al-Thaibani to become an activist. A doctor, perhaps, or a professor. But politics? That was for men. Al-Thaibani, 28, had an unusual childhood. In a country where many girls never finish primary school, her father strongly believed in education for women. He encouraged his daughters to excel in school and finish university. But he died when al-Thaibani was only 10 years old, and her uncles forbade her to attend university. When they finally relented, after months of her protests, they refused to let her study medicine (unsuitable for women), but they did allow her to learn English.
After graduation, she began teaching, but quickly became bored. “I respect teaching, but I didn’t enjoy it,” she says. Lacking alternatives, she walked into the offices of the Yemen Observer one day and told the editor-in-chief that she wanted to be a reporter. Though she kept her petite frame swathed in a blackabaya, her long dark hair covered by a hijab, and face obscured by a niqab, she worried that she would be accused of immodesty for working alongside men. To a Yemeni woman, reputation is everything. As she gained experience, her passion for reporting on injustices burned away the last of her fears. Her first human rights story followed the case of a Yemeni woman who maintained she was raped while unlawfully imprisoned. Al-Thaibani was inspired by the woman’s bravery. It is most unusual for a rape victim in Yemen to report the crime or attempt to seek justice.
“I was surprised to find myself writing about politics because I had never thought that was for me,” she observes. Her fervor for human rights also led her straight to Khaled al-Anesi, 41, a lawyer and human rights activist who was an early mentor. They married in 2008. Now, almost every day, she winds a colorful scarf around her hair, kisses her one-year-old son goodbye, and takes two buses across Sana’a to University Square, where protesters have been peacefully demanding an end to the regime of President Saleh since January. A few times a week, she spends the night. Al-Anesi, a protest leader who has camped there since the beginning, refuses to leave until Yemen has the civil society the protesters are demanding. He is also afraid to go, having received several death threats. Al-Thaibani moved back in with her mother after mysterious angry men came to their home looking for al-Anesi.
Hatred of the president and his corrupt entourage keeps alive the rebellion of hundreds of thousands like al-Thaibani and has persuaded them to take to the streets in towns across the nation. For many, it is the first time they have questioned the authority of the president, tribal leaders, or even religious leaders.
“The disease is Saleh,” says al-Thaibani. She remembers the moment she turned irrevocably against him. It was March 18, 2011 when snipers killed at least 52 peaceful protesters. “I was really pissed off when he was showing up on TV and saying the neighbors were the ones who did it,” she says. Like many Yemenis, she is sure government security forces were responsible. “I hated to look at the TV at that moment. He was so arrogant. He was disrespecting his people.”
A visit to two young boys shot that day further politicized her. The first boy, around 12 or 13 years old, lay still and expressionless in his hospital bed. Curious to see the protests, he had left home without telling his mother. While standing in the crowd, he spotted a sniper on a rooftop and pointed, calling “Sniper! Sniper!” At that moment, a bullet hit him, permanently blinding him. “He was very upset,” says al-Thaibani. “Not sad or breaking down but silent all the time.” She asked him how he felt and he said “nothing.” He told her that he was going to go back to school as soon as he could see again. The second child, who had gone to the protests with his father for Friday prayers, was in a coma. It hadn’t occurred to his mother that anything would happen to him. “Is there any mother who would send her child to his death?” she asked.
It wasn’t just the children themselves who drove al-Thaibani to rally against the government, but what their suffering symbolized—the regime’s callous disregard for its people. “We are Yemenis and cannot detach ourselves from being Yemenis,” she says. “I have seen the massacres. And this is the turning point in our lives.”
NEW LIFE IN CHANGE SQUARE
It was the turning point in many Yemeni lives—and, many hope, for the country itself. The protestors have made University Square, now renamed Change Square, into a miniature version of the Yemen they would like to see. Made of tents, it is home to tens of thousands of people—Sunni and Shia Muslims, Islamists and secularists, men and women from tribes across the nation. They have created their own code of behavior. They criticize the state media and debate the merits of democracy. Groups that have never spoken to each other live side-by-side. But perhaps most unusual, in one of the most armed countries in the world, it is free from weapons. Seventeen similar encampments have sprung up across Yemen, including particularly robust protests in Aden and Ta’iz.
“This revolution changed the Yemeni mentality,” says al-Anesi. “It made Yemeni people believe in peaceful change. This is what we are fighting for, to keep the people fighting peacefully and not to go back to guns and violence.” This is a country where it’s not uncommon for men to die in a fight over 100 riyals (47 cents). Arguments escalate quickly into violence when everyone is armed.
But in Change Square, Yemenis have begun to recognize the merits of peace. In the square, entire families who have never before engaged in politics paint themselves with Yemeni flags and protest together. Small boys sell boiled eggs with “Leave!” written on the shell—a message for President Saleh. Others sell tea with “a freedom flavor.” The protest is not confined to a narrow group of intellectuals. Hundreds of different groups populate Change Square, including semi-literate tribesmen from the north, housewives, tradesmen, and the unemployed.
Thousands of protestors remain there 24 hours a day. Young people study how to use Facebook as an agent for change and recite revolutionary poetry. A web of electrical cables has spread through the square, providing power for computers, televisions, and large screens. People climb on stages to sing a few songs of peace, and then go on a march before returning to pray. For the first time, many women are engaged in public life. “I met one illiterate woman who said she feels like she is being educated because of exposure to life in Change Square,” said al-Thaibani. This involvement of women is remarkable in Yemen, where no woman has wielded real political power since Queen Arwa reigned from 1067 to 1138.
While the protesters are still a minority in this country of 23 million people, the 70 percent who live in rural areas and eke out an existence from subsistence farming will find their lives transformed if the protesters’ demands are realized. The state the demonstrators seek would bar government revenues from disappearing into the pockets of the rich and powerful and would instead develop an effective safety net to look after the impoverished. The government would no longer buy off tribal leaders with lavish gifts of houses and cars but would provide effective delivery of services such as education and health care.
For all this to happen, the protestors say, Saleh must go.
THE POWER STRUGGLE
Indeed, in its earliest stages, the momentum and scale of the protests nearly succeeded in overthrowing the president. After the March 18 massacre, one of Saleh’s closest confidants, General Ali Mohsen, changed sides, taking a significant part of Yemen’s armed forces with him and forcing Saleh to make temporary concessions. At one point, the president agreed to bow out of the 2013 elections and remove his son Ahmed as his chosen successor.
But then a critical escalation by pro-Saleh protesters (many of whom were paid to support him) gave new hope to the president, and he dug in his heels. The tens of thousands who regularly rally for Saleh say they want the president to stay. Among their reasons are that Saleh has always looked after the armed forces; aided many business people; and been a strong leader who brought unity, development (albeit limited), and a degree of security and order. And of course plenty of tribes have benefited from oil money. Like Saleh, they attribute the nation’s chaos less to his misrule than to the malign influence of opposition forces.
The international community and eventually the Gulf Cooperation Council [GCC], an alliance of six Gulf states, stepped in to mediate between the regime and the parliamentary opposition. Protesters, southern separatists anxious to dismember the country into the two nations that had existed before 1990, and the Houthi rebels of the north were left out of these negotiations. The outcome was a call for the president to step down in favor of the vice president within a month, new elections to be held 60 days later, and immunity from prosecution for Saleh and his family. The president came close to signing this proposal three times, always backing down at the last minute. The third time, at the end of May, the leadership of both the JMP [Joint Meeting Parties], the loose coalition of opposition parties, and the president’s GPC party signed the initiative. But Saleh himself once again balked.
Fighting quickly broke out between government forces and the Ahmar family, the most powerful clan in the Hashid tribal federation, who have supported the protesters. The clashes with government forces on the streets of Sana’a, which left hundreds dead, ceased abruptly after a June 3 assassination attempt on Saleh. The president was flown to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment after suffering severe injuries in the bomb attack on the palace’s mosque that killed 12 senior officials and wounded 123 others. While the perpetrators remain unknown, many suspect that because the explosives were planted in the presidential mosque, the attack was, at least in part, an inside job. Details of Saleh’s injuries are unclear, but most reports say 40 percent of his body was burned. In August, Saleh was released from the hospital, but he has yet to return to Yemen. One report claims that Washington has convinced him to stay in Saudi Arabia, avoiding the fate of former Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, who is facing corruption charges in Egypt. Yemeni officials deny this, saying that Saleh will return to Sana’a when he has finished recuperating. Saleh himself said in a televised speech to loyalists in mid-August that he would be back “soon.”
At first, protesters and international observers were optimistic that Saleh’s absence would allow a relatively peaceful transition of power. But it has become clear that Saleh’s influence did not end with his departure. Vice President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, who nominally assumed power in Saleh’s absence, appears impotent, failing to push forward with any change. A senior member of the Yemeni government, who declined, for fear of reprisals, to be identified, blames the opposition, saying that Hadi indeed has power, but that the JMP has been refusing to meet with him.
Now Yemen is reverting to traditional type, regime hardliners facing off against an intransigent opposition. No dialogue is underway. The protesters remain in Change Square, angry over their increasing marginalization, but with no effective way to gain a foothold in the political process. Even here, rifts are appearing. Many young, independent protesters now feel that the JMP, a party with significant Islamist sympathies, is hijacking their revolution.
No one can predict what will happen should Saleh return. The most likely result, says al-Iryani, the political analyst, is civil war, and “the first victims will be Saleh and his family.” Even if it lasts just a few weeks, the violence could end up splitting the country into three: the eastern governorate of Hadramaut, the south, and the north. That could prove to be Saleh’s lasting legacy—“the man who claimed to be the Great Unifier of Yemen would bring about the ultimate destruction of his country,” says al-Iryani. Nor would the division of the country necessarily bring peace. The result could well be perpetual civil war, since none of the three components would be either politically or economically viable. The only stable condition, says al-Iryani, is the Republic of Yemen—unified.
SO WHAT TO DO?
As protesters risk their lives and millions face starvation, a political settlement is essential to staving off a humanitarian crisis, say analysts, aid workers, and diplomats. To achieve this, Saleh must empower the vice president to take forward the political process—which most Yemen watchers believe isn’t possible without Saleh actually stepping down or signaling his intention to do so in the very near future. Yemen observers, almost without exception, believe that to begin addressing the huge challenges confronting the country, a unified government must be established—incorporating as many major strands of Yemeni politics as possible. The GCC initiative envisages a member of the current opposition leading this government, presiding over presidential elections, and, in the longer term, pushing forward vital constitutional reform.
Yemen’s political landscape in its broadest sense—civil society, universities, tribes, armed forces, unions, media—needs to start incorporating the new ideas emerging from Change Square. But the humanitarian crisis and those most desperately in need cannot be held hostage to the arrival of political stability. Ultimately, most of the work has to be done by Yemenis, but the international community can have two important functions. It must step up the pressure for change and provide both humanitarian and developmental support. Yemen is remarkably underfunded from an aid point of view. American diplomats in Yemen have long privately complained that their government focuses too much on flexing its military might in an anti-terrorist campaign of marginal significance to Yemenis, since terrorist groups have little support among the population.
Not enough resources have been devoted to development aid, which would have far more long-term impact on reducing terrorism than drones or secret bombing raids. U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan’s recent statement to Saleh that American aid would flow only once he resigns and a political solution is found alarms many humanitarian workers. “I keep telling donors that if they allow the situation to deteriorate much further, with structures at every level breaking down, you are not going to get a political solution,” says Richard Stanforth, policy officer for Oxfam Great Britain, which operates in Yemen.
Even in the absence of political stability, international organizations must find creative ways to get vital resources to the Yemeni people. Emergency fuel aid from Saudi Arabia should be used to help basic lifesaving services restart. Priority should be given to immunization and the transport of food.
In Change Square and elsewhere, vigils continue with a hope that someday these voices will be heard. Each day they have a little less food, a little less optimism, and draw a little closer to the plight of their starving brethren. Yet there remain some sparks of light. Change Square protesters recently taught a group of children about democracy through mock elections. The children excitedly chose cartoon characters to be their president and ministers, electing a Pokémon character as minister of electricity in a landslide vote.
So al-Thaibani has not entirely lost faith in a better future. “I am still very optimistic,” she says in the encampment. “Things get worse when you are passive and still. But when I move, things get better.” Too much is at stake for her to walk away now. Knowing Hadiya and millions like her facing starvation are without a voice, al-Thaibani feels an obligation to keep using hers.
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Jennifer Steil is the former editor of the Sana’a-based newspaper the Yemen Observer and the author of The Woman Who Fell From the Sky, An American Woman’s Adventures in the Oldest City on Earth. She lived in Yemen for four years.
[Photo: Sallam]
(Downloadable PDFs of individual World Policy Journal articles can be purchased through SAGE.)
Identity & Purpose:
Lessons from Queen Nanny,
Harriet Tubman &
Sojourner Truth
Lately, I have been wrestling with Identity and Purpose. On one hand, there’s who I am and what I am purposed to do in the world’s eyes. On the other hand, there’s my God-given identity and my God-given purpose.
In Judges 6, the nation of Israel had once again fallen back into their familiar patterns of rejecting God’s purpose for them and turning to idols. As such, they were given over to the Midianites for 7 years. Now, set the scene, a slight man, son of Joash the Abiezrite, (of one of the least clan of the tribe Manassah) is threshing wheat in winepress in order to avoid being seen by the Midianites.
12 And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him, and said to him, “The LORD is with you, you mighty man of valor!”
13 Gideon said to Him, “O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.”
14 Then the LORD turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?”
15 So he said to Him, “O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”
16 And the LORD said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man.”
17 Then he said to Him, “If now I have found favor in Your sight, then show me a sign that it is You who talk with me. 18 Do not depart from here, I pray, until I come to You and bring out my offering and set it before You.”
And He said, “I will wait until you come back.”“The Lord is with you, mighty man of valor.” Gideon interjects, “but where has God been all these years? Why are my people in this predicament?” The response he receives is this: “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”
Gideon had questioned the very nature of the Creator who had named him and purposed him for this time. His fear, based in what he could see with is eyes, caused him to focus on the here-and-now when he was being called by a God who is not constrained temporally. 2 Peter 3:8 illustrates this well:
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
“But how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manassah…” Gideon said. But what he did not grasp is that because the Lord is with him, he would be empowered to carry out his purpose in spite of his shortcomings. Yes, he was a man of low social stature, and yes, he was a member of an oppressed people, but did that mean that he could never be called and purposed for great acts of liberation?
I recall women like Queen Nanny, Harriet Tubman, and Sojourner Truth. All were subject to slavery and oppression as African-descended women in the “New World.” All were seen as less-than, and treated as chattel. But all of these mighty women of valor answered the call of freedom. In 18th century Jamaica, Queen Nanny of the Maroons, was instrumental in the formation of Maroon communities, comprised of enslaved Africans who ran away. Born into freedom into the Ashanti tribe of Ghana in 1686, Queen Nanny knew what freedom felt, looked, and tasted like. In spite of slavers’ efforts to beat out the memory of freedom, autonomy and self-sufficiency, she held onto that and rebuilt it.
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In a different context, Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross), an enslaved African woman with a brain injury from childhood abuse at the hand of her “master,” should not have been a freedom fighter leading enslaved Africans to freedom. Even in today’s context, her recurring seizures and narcolepsy should have been an impediment to her life’s work, but records indicate that she used peoples’ fear and ignorance of her condition to her advantage. In their fear and pride, many of those who would oppose her wrote her off as “crazy” and “harmless.” After all, who, in their ableist hubris, would be threatened by a narcoleptic African woman? Harriet Tubman, as part of a network of abolitionist activists, defied the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, and freed thousands. Faced with hostility from Irish immigrants, who’d been pitted against free Africans for labor, Harriet Tubman worked to free her family and countless others from the “peculiar institution.”
“I freed thousands of slaves; I could have freed more if they knew they were slaves.” ~ Harriet Tubman
Sojourner Truth (born Isabella Baumfree) (1797-1883), born into slavery in New York, escaped to freedom with her infant daughter in 1826. Shortly afterward, she became the first African-descended woman to successfully sue a white man for parental custody of her son. Daughter of an enslaved Ghanaian man who knew freedom, she sought it for herself and others. By all accounts, she should not have been able to accomplish what she did: procuring her childrens’ freedom, becoming a vocal anti-slavery activist, and later pleading for land grants from the US governmment on behalf of formerly-enslaved Africans. At age 46, in 1843, she changed her name to “Sojourner Truth” and told her friends “The Spirit calls me, and I must go.” Perhaps she had an encounter with God that convinced her of her identity and purpose that transcended her history as a formerly-enslaved African woman in the settler colony that was known as the United States of America. Perhaps it was this that empowered her to speak the truth of slavery’s brutal immorality and injustice before hostile crowds.
“The Spirit calls me, and I must go.” ~ Sojourner Truth
What Queen Nanny, Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth have in common is that all of them, at one point, named themselves. All of them saw an identity that was separate from what society told them they were. They knew that they were more than their station as enslaved African women. They embarked on their life’s work with this new-found identity, empowered and enabled fulfill their purpose.
++++++++++++++++++++About aconerlycoleman
I am an alumna of UC Berkeley I am an African-American woman reclaiming her lost heritage I am student of history reclaiming stolen narratives