OP-ED: Worse Than a Nightmare - NYTimes.com

Worse Than a Nightmare

President Obama can be applauded for his decisiveness in dispatching the chronically insubordinate Stanley McChrystal, but we are still left with a disaster of a war in Afghanistan that cannot be won and that the country as a whole will not support.

No one in official Washington is leveling with the public about what is really going on. We hear a lot about counterinsurgency, the latest hot cocktail-hour topic among the BlackBerry-thumbing crowd. But there is no evidence at all that counterinsurgency will work in Afghanistan. It’s not working now. And even if we managed to put all the proper pieces together, the fiercest counterinsurgency advocates in the military will tell you that something on the order of 10 to 15 years of hard effort would be required for this strategy to bear significant fruit.

We’ve been in Afghanistan for nearly a decade already. It’s one of the most corrupt places on the planet and the epicenter of global opium production. Our ostensible ally, President Hamid Karzai, is convinced that the U.S. cannot prevail in the war and is in hot pursuit of his own deal with the enemy Taliban. The American public gave up on the war long ago, and it is not at all clear that President Obama’s heart is really in it.

For us to even consider several more years of fighting and dying in Afghanistan — at a cost of heaven knows how many more billions of American taxpayer dollars — is demented.

Those who are so fascinated with counterinsurgency, from its chief advocate, Gen. David Petraeus, all the way down to the cocktail-hour kibitzers inside the Beltway, seem to have lost sight of a fundamental aspect of warfare: You don’t go to war half-stepping. You go to war to crush the enemy. You do this ferociously and as quickly as possible. If you don’t want to do it, if you have qualms about it, or don’t know how to do it, don’t go to war.

The men who stormed the beaches at Normandy weren’t trying to win the hearts and minds of anyone.

In Afghanistan, we are playing a dangerous, half-hearted game in which President Obama tells the America people that this is a war of necessity and that he will do whatever is necessary to succeed. Then, with the very next breath, he soothingly assures us that the withdrawal of U.S. troops will begin on schedule, like a Greyhound leaving the terminal, a year from now.

Both cannot be true.

What is true is that we aren’t even fighting as hard as we can right now. The counterinsurgency crowd doesn’t want to whack the enemy too hard because of an understandable fear that too many civilian casualties will undermine the “hearts and minds” and nation-building components of the strategy. Among the downsides of this battlefield caution is a disturbing unwillingness to give our own combat troops the supportive airstrikes and artillery cover that they feel is needed.

In an article this week, The Times quoted a U.S. Army sergeant in southern Afghanistan who was unhappy with the real-world effects of counterinsurgency. “I wish we had generals who remembered what it was like when they were down in a platoon,” he said. “Either they never have been in real fighting, or they forgot what it’s like.”

In the Rolling Stone article that led to General McChrystal’s ouster, reporter Michael Hastings wrote about the backlash that counterinsurgency restraints had provoked among the general’s own troops. Many feel that “being told to hold their fire” increases their vulnerability. A former Special Forces operator, a veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan, said of General McChrystal, according to Mr. Hastings, “His rules of engagement put soldiers’ lives in even greater danger. Every real soldier will tell you the same thing.”

We are sinking more and more deeply into the fetid quagmire of Afghanistan and neither the president nor General Petraeus nor anyone else has the slightest clue about how to get out. The counterinsurgency zealots in the military want more troops sent to Afghanistan, and they want the president to completely scrap his already shaky July 2011 timetable for the beginning of a withdrawal.

We’re like a compulsive gambler plunging ever more deeply into debt in order to wager on a rigged game. There is no victory to be had in Afghanistan, only grief. We’re bulldozing Detroit while at the same time trying to establish model metropolises in Kabul and Kandahar. We’re spending endless billions on this wretched war but can’t extend the unemployment benefits of Americans suffering from the wretched economy here at home.

The difference between this and a nightmare is that when you wake up from a nightmare it’s over. This is all too tragically real.

 

 

VIDEO + AUDIO: Marsha Ambrosius on Floetry break up, Michael Jackson + Aftermath / + versions of "Butterflies"

Marsha Ambrosius
Marsha Ambrosius on Floetry break up, Michael Jackson + Aftermath


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Michael Jackson by Marsha Ambrosius

June 25, 2010 by SoulCulture   
Filed under Articlesfeaturedbanner


I learned too much from Michael Jackson.  Having the opportunity to be both observer and writer/vocal producer was too rich to put into so many words.  Watching his breathing techniques, the vocal scales he would go over and over again before even stepping in the vocal booth at the studio every day we recorded.  He was perfect.  He was just so giving.  He gave his all.

That would be the same thing that inspires me about him.  He cared so much for everything and everyone.  He gave his all in anything he did.  His legacy is left for us to study.  It’s evidence of how GREAT he was and always will be.

I wrote “I Want You To Stay” for Michael Jackson a few weeks before he passed away.   I was going to be in London the week the tour started.  A few weeks prior to the tour, I flew over to London and during my stay, I wrote it in my mother’s house on her piano.

I did a studio version which will be on Late Nights & Early Mornings – Michael Jackson’s influence can be seen and heard in not just the music I make but in most artists. I can’t help it! No Pun. Why not strive for greatness?

Marsha Ambrosius – “I Want You To Stay” (Live in London, July 2009):

[Ed's note: Click here to download our live recording of Marsha Ambrosius' song for MJ, "I Want You To Stay" - performed live at London's Jazz Cafe in July 2009.

Marsha Ambrosius Recalls Meeting Michael Jackson

I'm nervous.  Excited but very nervous. It's a mild afternoon in New York City and I'm walking towards The Hit Factory studio to meet Mr.Michael Jackson.  Today would be the first day recording his vocals on a song I wrote.  A song called "Butterflies".  Oblivious to pedestrians and loud traffic.  Tuning out any sound interrupting my inner voice screaming "Calm down!!! You deserve this!!! You're worth this!!!".

I walk through the glass doors leading to a front desk.  I was told to give my full name and ID was required.  As expected, I was.  A doorman walked me to the key operated elevator and was escorted to his floor.  "Michael Jackson & Friends" was written on a white piece of A4 paper taped to the door.  I was led inside.

My heart is literally beating out of my chest and I'm two breaths short of a panic attack.  All I recall is the sound of a grand piano playing a harmonic scale, someone singing and seeing who that voice was coming from eye to eye.

It was him. The King of Pop. The Greatest Entertainer of All Time.  From the live room, he smiled at me and threw up a peace sign.  Continued to warm up his vocals as I stood in awe and then made his way to me.  He said my first name and gave me a welcoming embrace.  "Thank you," he said.

No Michael! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>via: http://www.soulculture.co.uk/featuredbanner/michael-jackson-by-marsha-ambrosius/





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Floetry-Butterflies (Video)


Please watch until the end! A video for Floetry's "Butterflies." The beginning of this video celebrates life, while the end of the video celebrates those who have passed on- Aaliyah, James Brown, Gerald Leverd, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopez, Tupac, Biggie, and Micheal Jackson

Michael Jackson Butterflies




 

VIDEO: Janelle Monáe Sings “Smile” Live > from Clutch Magazine

Janelle Monáe Sings “Smile” Live

Thursday Jun 24, 2010 – By Clutch

Never witnessed the live Janelle Monáe slow and sultry experience? Well then you need this video. The singer recorded her rendition of Charlie Chaplin’s classic hit on her debut album “Metropolis: The Chase Suite.” Now just in time for the first year anniversary of the Michael Jackson’s passing, the rising star sings the King of Pop’s favorite joint live for Billboard. Dunning her signature pompadour, Monae joins her band in their go-to black tuxes for a near tear-jerking performance.

We think the King of Pop is smiling now. What do you think?

 

PUB: Writers’ Bloc | Contest



 

The Bloc is having a paying contest. The winner gets mucho dinero.*

*much dinner?

 

I like money very much.

We thought forever that money was an apocryphal substance, but have recently discovered that it actually exists, and that you can hold it in your hand. We would like to put some money in your hand, so you can verify its existence, too. Please read this entire page carefully before you submit. (Seriously, we’re serious.)

 

The Gist

Send us a story of 11–5,000 words that focuses on this theme: making a sacrifice. You can be tragic, you can be hilarious, you can be ironic, you can write this hanging upside down from a bar—it doesn’t matter how you approach the topic. It can be true, or it can be not true, or it can be partly true and partly not true, or it can pretend to be true without actually being true, or it can pretend to be fiction to hide the dubious actions of its author. We’re looking forward to the way you bend words around this topic.

 

The Prize

The author of the entry that we feel best tackles the above topic will get their palms greased with at least $250. We’re counting on 25 entries to make that happen, but for every entry over 25, we’re boosting the prize by $5. Obviously the winning story will also be published and we will brag about it everywhere. If we don’t get 25 entries, the contest will be cancelled and everyone will get their money back, and we will sit in a corner and cry.

 

Entry Fee

$10 will buy you a season pass to this contest. If your story is rejected (see “Response Time”), you can send another one, ad infinitum. Scroll down and click the PayPal button—we will not consider your submission until we receive the entry fee. If we don’t get 25 submissions, everyone gets all their money back.

 

Deadline

The contest is open until July 4, 2010, at 6:19 p.m. At 6:20 p.m. on this day it will close. We gave this thing a four-month gap so we can generate lots of dough, to give to you, of course.

 

Response Time

Our ingenious response plan is borrowed graciously from Nate over at Bartleby Snopes. Hell, most of this contest jargon came from there, too. Thanks, Nate! Anyway, we’re operating on a rolling rejection process. We will always keep our top four submissions in consideration, and will email you as soon as possible if we have to turn your submission down. (Remember, though, you can submit infinity submissions.) We’ll announce the winner with a trumpet flourish by July 31, 2010. Within a week of that announcement, we will send the winner at least $250. That’s 1/4000th of a million dollars!

Please do not report these responses to Duotrope. The Swift List keeps us alive, and this is not our regular 1–2 day rejection process. Reporting contest rejections to Duotrope could potentially kill Writers’ Bloc, which is too young to die.

 

I’m ready to submit!

Step 1: Have you read ALL the instructions carefully?
 
Step 2: Click the button to pay your $10 entry fee. We will send you a personal confirmation to let you know that we are indeed watching over your $10 bill.  
 

Step 3: Send your submission to  . It’s quite important that your subject line contains the word “CONTEST,” or something to that effect, so we don’t think it’s a normal submission. Some brief guidelines:

1. DOC or RTF only—no DOCX, and don’t paste the story into your email.

2. No previous publications or simultaneous submissions.

3. Rights: You have the copyright to your own work. The Bloc claims First North American Serial and electronic rights, and the right to archive your work to infinity and beyond. If your work is reprinted, please cite Writers’ Bloc as the initial publisher.

 
 

 

But I just wanted to send you guys a regular submission, you know, for the regular issue.

Mosey on over here instead.

 

PUB: Wrekin Writers: 2010 Doris Gooderson

2010 Doris Gooderson

10th Anniversary of the Doris Gooderson Short Story Competition

Increased Prize Money - Same Entry Fees

First Prize = £150, Second Prize = £70, Third Prize = £40
Entry Fee = £3 per story or 2 for £5
Closing Date = 12th July 2010

 

Rules of the Competition

1.     Entries must not exceed 1200 words, must be in the form of a Short Story and written in English. Prizes: 1st = £150, 2nd = £70 and 3rd = £40. Further prizes may be awarded at the discretion of the judge.

2.     An entry fee of £3 is required for each entry or £5 for 2 entries. Entries from overseas can only be accepted with an entry fee in sterling.

3.     The attached entry form (at the bottom of this page) can be photocopied if required.

4.     The Closing Date is 12th July 2010.

5.     Each story must have a title page containing title, word count and author’s name and address.

6.     Subsequent pages should not have the author’s name or identifying marks but may have the story title.

7.     All entries must be on A4 paper (or foreign equivalent), and be double-spaced, typed, and on one side of paper only.

8.     No entries should be submitted into any other competition, whilst this competition is running, but may be entered elsewhere after 30th September 2010. No entries should be published elsewhere (including on the internet) where it has been involved in an editorial process.

9.     Entries failing to meet all of these rules will be disqualified. Fees from disqualified entries will not be returned.

10.  Copyright remains with the author, although winning entries will be published in the Wrekin Writers 2010 Anthology and may also be published on the Wrekin Writer website.

11.  The judge’s decision is final. No correspondence will be entered into.

12.  Winners will be notified by 30th September 2010.

13.  This competition is open to any one, of any age, from anywhere in the world.

14.  No entries will be returned unless a stamped addressed envelope is enclosed.

15.  No entries will be acknowledged unless a stamped addressed post card is enclosed.

16.  Entries with insufficient postage will NOT be collected from the Post Office, but returned to sender.

17.  Entry indicates an acceptance of these rules.

Royal Mail Price Rises - postal prices increase on 6th April 2010 - check your entry is correctly priced. We don't collect entries from the post office with insufficent postage on them. (So your entry fee cheque will not be cashed.)

Send entries to arrive by 12th July 2010 to:

The Competition Secretary, 29 Christine Avenue, Wellington, Telford, TF1 2DX.


The rules are quite straightforward, but if you have any queries contact wrekinwriters@googlemail.com

Please Note: We can only accept entry fees in Sterling. As rule 7 states that all entries must be on A4 paper (or foreign equivalent), we cannot accept emailed submissions. (We are currently establishing systems to be able to accept Paypal payments, which we hope to be able to offer in 2011.)

Entry forms (in Microsoft Word format and PDF format) can be downloaded from the 'Attachment' section at the foot of this page. Good luck! 

 

PUB: 2010 Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism - IWPR Institute for War & Peace Reporting

2010 Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism

 

 

Call for Entries

Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism

The Kurt Schork Memorial Awards uniquely honour the contributions of freelance journalists covering foreign news and reporters from the developing world and countries in transition. Since 2005, IWPR has been honoured to partner with the Kurt Schork Memorial Fund to administer and organise the annual awards.

A freelancer himself, Kurt Schork appreciated the obstacles and concerns of freelance journalists who work without the institutional or financial safety net of large news organizations and yet are usually first on the scene, often taking greater risks to keep the public informed. The Awards include cash prizes of $5,000 each per local and international winner as financial support to help them with continued reporting.

The Awards thus honour Kurt’s own legacy by supporting the continued excellent work of other brave freelancers. Nominees are judged not only on the quality of writing and investigative effort, but also on the level of courage and resourcefulness demonstrated in producing the stories – reflecting the journalistic standards and personal courage displayed by Kurt himself over the course of his distinguished career.

Details for applicants

Two Award Categories:

  • Local Reporter covering local stories,

  • Freelance Journalist covering international news.

Prize is $5,000 USD for each category winner.

All submissions must demonstrate professionalism, meet international journalistic standards, and provide evidence that courage and determination played a role in generating the articles. Winners will be chosen by an international panel of judges.

Eligibility

Local Reporter: Print journalists employed by a local news outlet and residing in a developing country or nation in transition (non OECD or EU countries), whose work has been published in a local publication are eligible. Although individual journalists are the primary focus, submissions from a team of journalists will also be considered.

Freelance Journalist: All freelance print journalists and those contracted by news organisations are eligible. A freelance journalist is an individual who is not employed by a news organization. They are self-employed, providing services, either on the basis of time or on the production of editorial materials as defined by individual contractual arrangements, and earn the majority of their income from journalism.

Eligible media: Entries are welcomed from all types of print-based media including newspapers and magazines and established on-line publications. Blogs and personal websites are not eligible.

Period covered: You can enter up to 3 articles published between 1 March 2009 and 30 June 2010.

Deadline for applications: Tuesday 13 July 2010.

How to apply

To apply by email or post please download and print out the 2010 Kurt Schork Awards PDF application form

You can email your entries to schorkawards@iwpr.net or send by post to:

Kurt Schork Awards
Institute for War & Peace Reporting
48 Gray's Inn Road
London WC1X 8LT
United Kingdom

Awards ceremony will take place in London on 3 November 2010.

 

 

VIDEO: Nigeria/ Scotland: Poet Jackie Kay on her "Dad's Awful Poetry" > from A BOMBASTIC ELEMENT

Nigeria/ Scotland: Poet Jackie Kay on her "Dad's Awful Poetry"

 

Scottish poet and novelist Jackie Kay's birth mother is the Scot while her father's Nigerian, but she was adopted by a couple of Glaswegian communists "who threw the kind of parties where everybody ended up singing Cole Porter and Rabbie Burns songs." Above, she talks about the perceived contradiction of being black and Scottish and how her mother gets asked about her daughter's tan. Here she talks on BBC's Strand about her memoir Red Dust Road and finally meeting her birth parents. Bernardine Evaristo's review in the Independent retells Kay, also a lesbian and a single mom, meeting her "dad":

...The book opens with Kay, now in her forties, waiting for the Nigerian father she has never met to turn up at a hotel in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria. Yet as soon as he arrives he whisks her off to her room and spends two hours trying to convert her to Christianity amid much "clapping and foot-tapping and spinning and reciting and shouting to God Almighty". It turns out that her father, a born-again Christian and preacher, wants to cleanse her of his past sin. "I realise with fresh horror that Jonathan is seeing me as the sin, me as impure, me the bastard, illegitimate." With characteristic humour, Kay quips, "He's like a bad poet who doesn't know when to quit, reading one poem after another to a comatose audience".
But she does meet one of Johnathan's sons for a beer, finding with her half-brother the recognition she sought: "I could happily sniff his ears and lick his forehead." It's also interesting to note that on meeting her birth mother in '91, now "... a divorced Mormon with Alzheimer’s, clutching plastic bag," it struck her that "both her parents had become extremely religious – and both came to meet her holding carrier bags."

 

 

 

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Poem of the month - March 2005

Late Love

How they strut about, people in love,
How tall they grow, pleased with themselves,
Their hair, glossy, their skin shining.
They don't remember who they have been.

How filmic they are just for this time.
How important they've become - secret, above
The order of things, the dreary mundane.
Every church bell ringing, a fresh sign.

How dull the lot that are not in love.
Their clothes shabby, their skin lustreless;
How clueless they are, hair a mess; how they trudge
Up and down the streets in the rain,

remembering one kiss in a dark alley,
A touch in a changing room, if lucky, a lovely wait
For the phone to ring, maybe, baby.
The past with its rush of velvet, its secret hush

Already miles away, dimming now, in the late day.

By Jackie Kay

 

About the poet

 

Jackie Kay; Photo: Howard Barlow

Jackie Kay was born and brought up in Scotland. She has published three collections of poetry for adults - The Adoption Papers, winner of a Forward Prize, a Saltire Award and a Scottish Arts Council Book AwardOther Loverswhich won the Somerset Maugham Award and Off Colour which was shortlisted for the 1999 TS Eliot Award. All of these collections were published by Bloodaxe.

 

Jackie's first novel, Trumpet (Picador, 1998), won the Guardian Fiction Prize, a Scottish Arts Council Book Award and The Author's Club First Novel Award. It was also on the shortlist for the IMPAC award.

She has written for stage and television, and a libretto of hers, Twice Through the Heart, was performed at the Aldeburgh Festival and the Queen Elizabeth Hall, with composer Mark Anthony Turnage.

Jackie's new collection of short stories, Why Don't You Stop Talking (Picador) was published to great acclaim, and she has also written a book about the blues singer, Bessie Smith. This book is entitled Bessie and is published by Absolute Press. Her forthcoming collection of poems, Life Mask, will by published by Bloodaxe in April.

Jackie lives in Manchester with her son, and is Lead Advisor to the Literature Department at the Arts Council of Great Britain. She also teaches Creative Writing at Newcastle University.

>via:http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/artsinscotland/literature/features/archive/poemmarch2005.aspx

 

INTERVIEW: Natural Hair Celebrity – T’Keyah Crystal Keymah > from Clutch Magazine

Spotlight: Natural Hair Celebrity – T’Keyah Crystal Keymah

Wednesday Jun 23, 2010 – By Laquita Thomas-Banks

To say that T’Keyah Crystal Keymah is multi-talented is an understatement. She is a performer, writer, author, producer, director, and public speaker. T’Keyah has performed on stage, television and film, and is also a philanthropist. Whether you remember her from the Emmy Award winning comedies like “In Living Color” and “The Cosby Show” or the longest running series in Disney Channel’s history, “That’s So Raven,” aside from her remarkable talents, you will definitely not forget her beautiful head of natural hair.

She also wrote and self-published a book containing simple, step-by-step instructions on maintaining natural hair called Natural Woman/Natural Hair: A Hair Journey at a time when natural hair books were a rare find. If you haven’t read it, it’s definitely one to add to your beauty books shelf.

T’Keyah Crystal Keymah took time out from her busy schedule to share her growing hair journey with CLUTCH!

Her natural hair journey…

Like most little Black girls of my generation, I grew up getting my hair pressed for school photos and other special occasions; and learning in the process (pun intended) that something was wrong with the natural state of my hair. I learned at my grandmother’s stove that God made Black girls less beautiful, less desirable, less acceptable than those that would grow up to grace magazine covers and such without ever getting their ears burned by a hot comb…

But with help from the gorgeous afroed images of Pam Grier, Rosalind Cash, and the like, I began to unlearn that awful myth. I think my first trip to Senegal, however cemented in me the idea that it was perfectly fine for my hair to match my face and my lineage. Like my dear late great friend Ms. Cash, wearing my hair naturally cost me many jobs. But like my mentor, I have, gratefully, been able to survive and even thrive in an industry that equates nappy/kinky/coily hair with poverty and ignorance.

Her favorite styles and products:

My favorite styles are twists and ponypuffs. I experiment with many different products. At the moment, I’m using Products of the Earth, Carol’s Daughter and Namaste. I don’t have much time to surf the net, but I have seen some of the natural hair sites. It is encouraging to see that so many people are now celebrating their natural hair.

On writing her book Natural Woman/Natural Hair:

I wrote NWNH because I wished there had been such a book for me when I first went natural and, again, when I first started working in television. I also wrote it because of the fan mail that I got and still get from natural hair fans.

Her thoughts on the rise in natural hair/natural hair products:

I love it, love it, love it! It is so very important that we spread the word to our sisters, friends, mothers and daughters that there is nothing wrong with us. That we, in fact, are beautiful too! Where products are concerned, I am particularly proud of all of the Black owned natural hair care companies on the horizon. I encourage people to support the independent companies who are struggling to survive in a harshly competitive market infested with perpetrators. Read labels!!!! Everybody is not who they say they are, doing what they say they are doing.

Her advice to those transitioning and contemplating wearing their hair natural:

Be creative. Be adventurous. Be confident. Be patient.

What she’s doing now:

At the time of the interview, she was in Chicago preparing for the gospel concert, T’Keyah Crystal Keymah Salutes Gospel’s Original Diva! which took place on June 18. The concert, which celebrated the roots of gospel music (T’Keyah, herself, singing songs by the great gospel divas), kicked-off the Black Music Month Gospel Trade Symposium in Chicago.

“After that I will go back to the screenplay on which I have been working for a while, as well as another music project. I may also do a play this summer,” she added.

More T’Keyah:

Website: tkeyah.com

Blogs:

keymahpresents.blogspot.com

thecrystalnews.blogspot.com

Facebook Fan Page: TKeyah-Crystal-Keymah

VIDEO: Hungu by Nicolas Brault - NFB

Hungu

Under the African sun, a child walks in the desert with his kin. Death is prowling, but a mother's soul resurrected by music will return strength and life to the child when he becomes a man. Inspired by the grace and raw beauty of African rock paintings, Nicolas Brault paints a story without borders, with the humanity and elegance of a universal narrator.

Hungu: Inspired by capoeira


Mestre Jogo de Dentro talks about the dance called capoeira, tracing its roots to the African slaves who were brought to Brazil.

Hungu: Meet the director

Nicolas Brault explains the creative process behind his short animated film, Hungu.
via nfb.ca

 

OP-ED: The pained legacy of comfort women | Race-Talk

The pained legacy of comfort women

The pained legacy

of comfort women

Featured, Women — By Guest Author on June 24, 2010 at 6:46 am

By Patricia F. R. Cunningham II, Graduate Associate, Office of Minority Affairs, The Ohio State University

“Those who don’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana.

In the course of history, there comes a point where we must reconcile two series of events and see how they are linked to one another.  There are many scenarios, which with full disclosure demonstrate the course of human events where we, as a series of communities, make mistakes.  One of the biggest mistakes of the 20th century is allowing slavery to be reintroduced in new forms.

In 1932, Japanese Lieutenant-General Okamura Yasuji was seeking a solution to the random raping of women by Japanese soldiers.  He placed a request for ‘comfort women’ to be sent to Shanghai for his troops.  Comfort women could be found at ‘comfort stations’ managed regularly until the end of World War II. At a comfort station or house, a soldier would pay a fee, obtain a ticket and condom and proceed to a woman’s room.

Following the second Sino-Japanese war, these houses were installed in occupied lands – 80,000 to 200,000 comfort women from Korea and others from China, the Philippines, Burma, Indonesia and Vietnam were enslaved.

Women would not only become sterile from repeated rapes, but many who became pregnant or infected with a sexually transmitted disease were given an antibiotic that would make their bodies swell and induce abortion.

Why were comfort stations created?  Several suggestions reoccur that scholars agree upon: to increase the morale of the troops; to prevent their soldiers from raping women in territories they controlled; to more efficiently prevent spread of STDs; to prevent leakage of military secrets.  None of these reasons justify what happened; but instead, provide poor excuses.

In 1990, almost 40 women’s groups in Korea petitioned the Japanese government to admit that Korean women were forced to be comfort women; to publicly apologize with full disclosure; to raise a memorial to honor those forced into sexual slavery and to serve as a reminder; and to provide monetary reparations and record these facts to be included in historical curricular education.  The government denied their petitions and allegations.  In 1991, three former Korean comfort women filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government.

A Japanese history professor at Chuo University in 1992 found documents that proved that the Japanese military forces had operated ‘comfort stations’.  These findings were published in various newspapers and the government admitted its involvement.

In 2001 a conference on “Japanese Crimes Against Humanity: Sexual Slavery and Forced Labor” was held in Los Angeles, CA.  Japanese researchers delivered papers claiming Japanese military, government and industry were involved in the decision to provide sex slaves for soldiers.  Su Zhi Liang, a history professor from Shanghai Teachers University, noted an earlier estimate by a United Nations human rights agency was conservative.  Liang determined at least 90 sex stations, each with about 500 women, operated in Shanghai alone.

The construction and government sponsorship of comfort houses has become public knowledge as survivors have come forward, groups have been founded and research performed, but that knowledge has not been used to prevent these kinds of atrocities from happening again in other forms.

What happened to comfort women would be human trafficking today.  Human trafficking is still as silent, but even more pervasive, and includes young male and female children as well as adolescent females.  In the past ten years, governments including the United States, formally organized and questioned other nations’ contributions to modern slavery.

Human Trafficking is modern slavery.  It is the second largest and fastest growing criminal industry in the world.  Victims are forced into labor, services, or the commercial sex industry in order to generate money from their labor and sex acts.

The United States has issued an extensive report that frames and defines human trafficking or “trafficking in persons” into eight categories: forced labor, sex trafficking, bonded labor, debt bondage, involuntary domestic servitude, forced child labor, child soldiers and child sex trafficking.  UNICEF reports that as many as two million children are part of the global commercial sex trade.  Methods of control include beatings, rapes, lies and deception, threats of serious harm or the seduction of educational attainment.  These same methods were used on comfort women.

Economics links chattel slavery, comfort women and modern slavery.  During the last thirty years the dominant area for recruiting child slaves and sex slaves has shifted rapidly from one country experiencing economic depression to another.  During the 1970s, traffickers targeted girls from Southeast Asia, especially Thailand and Vietnam, as well as the Philippines. It took a decade for the shift to focus on Africa. Young girls from Nigeria, Uganda and Ghana flooded the international sex trade and child market. During the 1980s and 1990s, Latin American girls from Brazil, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador became the source of wealth.

Traffickers move opportunistically to prey on vulnerable populations. In the 1980s, the trafficking out of Eastern Europe hardly registered on the radar screen. Following the economic and political collapse of the Soviet Union, the situation changed dramatically. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates since 1991, roughly a quarter of a million females were trafficked within Europe from East to West.  With ethnic cleansing and social and political strife currently in Kyrgyzstan, this could be the place to watch for a rise in human trafficking.

Slavery indisputably had a role in shaping the United States.  Its scars are still found as remnants in legislation, commerce and institutionalized racism.  Lessons from the shameful past apparently were not learned effectively to function as a preventive historical narrative.  The United States government found itself again having to be decisive about its response to comfort women and human trafficking.

The 105th Congress drafted and submitted a resolution that included the plight of women who experienced these atrocities.  In 1997, Rep. William O. Lipinski submitted a powerful resolution which expressed, “the sense of Congress concerning the war crimes committed by the Japanese military during World War II.” It described how, “The Government of Japan deliberately ignored and flagrantly violated the Geneva and Hague Conventions and committed atrocious crimes against humanity.” And, it included brief descriptions of the “enslavement of millions of Koreans and forcing hundreds of thousands of women into sexual slavery for Japanese troops.” As well as “refusal by the Government of Japan to fully acknowledge its crimes or to compensate its victims.”

The resolution asked  the Government of Japan to formally issue an apology for its war crimes and immediately pay reparations to victims.

Japan’s past is the precedent for today’s understanding of humanitarian issues and sexual violence in social conflict and war in countries all over the world. In order to prosecute and stop sexual violence in the present and future an understanding of devastation in the past and recognition of the use of sexual violence, enslavement, and exploitation must occur.

Japan’s wartime military comfort women houses’ are the modern precedent for issues of sexual slavery, sexual violence in war and human trafficking.   This is evident in compromised countries -Bosnia, Rwanda, Nicaragua, Sierra Leone, Darfur, and Burma.  The truth is, human trafficking occurs in the United States and many countries in Europe; no nation is innocent.

The United States State Department estimates 14,500 to 17,500 foreign victims are trafficked into the US each year.  There are more than 27 million slaves in the world today.  Something has to be done; not just by world governments, but in our everyday lives.  How can we take action?

Time is essential in getting vulnerable populations the support they need, it is also what each aware person can give.  Giving  time is the most effective method of being involved with a movement to end modern slavery.  It takes time to acquire knowledge.  By reading websites like Notforsalecampaign.org and others committed to ending slavery, we can all learn about current struggles happening all over the world. Then, there is advocacy; make choices as global citizens to lend fiscal support and tell others people about travesties occurring in the United States and around the world.  A Negro Spiritual reminds us that time does not wait for hesitation.  Liberation of children and women is not a time to hesitate.

It’s gettin’ late in the evenin’

The sun’s goin’ down

The time is right

To get in a hurry

And do it now.

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Filipino Comfort Women Still Struggle for Justice from Bulatlat on Vimeo.

Bibliography:
Destefano, A. (2007). The War on Human Trafficking: US Policy Assessed.
King, G. (2004). Woman, Child for Sale: The New Slave Trade in the 21st Century.
Yoshimi, Y. (2000). Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II.

 

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