| APEC |
[06 Sep 2007|01:42pm] |
So many things are happening at the moment and I can’t quite tell whether it is good or bad. I’m probably going to get arrested this weekend. I haven’t been arrested before and I’m a bit scared of it really. But I am committed to fighting for the rights of women globally and APEC is very important both as a symbol and action of male supremacy. I cannot not go.
I’ve made up the purple flags and we are painting a banner this Friday which will likely read, “Globalise Feminism: end militarism.”
The march was organized by the Stop Bush Coalition and the march route has been declared illegal by the court. Although according to the current laws they cannot technically make protest illegal. They can however mass arrest people for ‘crimes’ like obstructing traffic. So if we do decide to try to march through the police barricades it will result in police violence and mass arrest. The police have cleared out jail cells and beds in mental hospitals in this event. They have also specially designed 31 busses as mobile prisons that they can pack us all into should we decide to use our right to protest.
The whole thing sickens me so much and so many people are not coming to this protest because they are too scared of police violence. As they should be. I’m scared too but actually I’m more scared by what this means for any and all political dissent. I truly think that we desperately need to fight the government on this all the way. It is too scary not to. How can we let them turn our cities into ‘restricted zones’? How can we let them take away our right to protest so easily?
I’ve met and marched alongside many of the men whose pictures I’ve been seeing on TV as not being allowed to approach the ‘restricted zone’. I have never once seen any of them be violent or commit violent action in a protest. And yet I have seen many violent actions being committed by the men on TV wearing blue uniforms. And yes, I do realise that I am defending the men of the left. Don’t worry it probably won’t happen again.
I just don’t know how anyone can stomach living without freedom. For myself I know that I could never be more afraid of being arrested than of living without freedom. Right now I feel so fucking stifled. I am willing to be arrested for my right to justified rage. I am willing to be arrested for my sisters across the globe who are suffering under oppressive, neoliberal, patriarchal economies. I am willing to be arrested for myself and my freedom, my right to a space and a voice in this patriarchal world. I have made a fairly scary decision because I have never been willing to be arrested before now. I realise that this fear and this choice are a luxury as many women around the world live under military dictatorships, or under male violence in the domestic sphere, in poverty, famine, drought, flooding, in warzones, millions of women surviving. Which is why I’ve chosen to march. These women are my sisters. I know they exist. They live, and they struggle and they survive. How dare I not do the same?
As women we know that ourSelves cannot survive without freedom. I will not survive without freedom. And I will not let men continually kill us by silencing our voices. Those fences, those police, those snipers on the rooftops, those frogmen, those helicopters, these fucking restricted areas. All of them are feminist issues. All of them silence women’s voices and we cannot let them do this to us without bloody well showing our rage and our refusal to comply. Well this is one woman that won’t be compliant or silent. Wish us luck, sisters.
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| Spinning Spinsters |
[06 Sep 2007|01:48pm] |
I wrote an entry recently about the lack of radical feminist creative writing. Well I was very wrong and I'm finding some absolutely amazing pieces of writing at the Trivia: Voices of Feminism online publication. If you don't have time to check it out in its entirity then I insist that you at least read this. It is absolutely amazing and totally blew me away.
And also check out the recent poem ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) subetha wrote about APEC here. Also very brilliant.
Sigh, and I am still feeling as uncreative as ever. Moving to the mountains was supposed to inspire me. Which it has really. For my birthday I went bush walking and saw lots of absolutely gorgeous waterfalls. It has been raining a bit recently so the falls were really stunning.
Yesterday I went along to an organising meeting for a "Raising Women's Voices" conference and met up with a bunch of feminist women here in the mountains. The conference looks like it will come together really well and I really enjoyed the meeting. I suggested that we put together a women's performance night which I'd really be willing to organise myself if I can find the resources. The committee organising the conference has absolutely no funding so we will presumably be limited in what we can do until we get an idea of cost and compared that with how much we think we can raise.
I'm so excited. I really think that women are starting to move again and it is bloody well time I think. And yes there are many women out there who have never stopped moving. I just love the older radical lesbian feminists that I keep meeting in all of my activism. They really inspire me to keep moving and keep committed. They were never afraid of being arrested. So I have no excuse to be afraid either.
Yay for finding courage and sisterhood and inspiration. Yay for protest and action and resistance. Yay for women.
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| Women for WIk |
[06 Sep 2007|05:01pm] |
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Go to the Women for Wik website. Sign your endorsement of indigenous rights. Tell the government that what they are doing in the Northern Territory is military invasion.
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