not the motorcycle diaries

I’m currently writing about the reports of sexual harassment and rape at the World Social Fora - particularly the rape charge laid by one woman delegate against a man from her delegation and later withdrawn at the Mumbai WSF 2004; and the rapes reported in the International Youth Camp at the Porto Alegre WSF 2005 and the Caracas WSF in 2006.

My writing is thinking through the intersectionality of material oppressions with gender, sexuality, race and class oppressions and how, as the Space Outside workshop program indicated, activists might work with the question “Who would have thought that sexual violence would be an issue in our so-called progressive activist communities? Aren’t we supposed to be living our lives according to the kind of world we want to see?” (From ASO’s Sexual Assault Workshop blurb). I think this is a bit of an eternal question for women in social movements (”I can’t believe it’s not comradeship!”) - but there are always new incidents and responses (or lack thereof) and of course these occurences should never go unchallenged.

There is, unsurprisingly, not a lot of substantial debate and analysis among activists about this available on the interweb, although I could be looking in the wrong places. There is however plenty of evidence to suggest that women in these contexts have challenged sexual harassment, violence and rape at the time and place, e.g. the Lilac Brigades at WSF 2005.

So if anyone has any thoughts and/or observations on rape at the WSF I’d be most glad of them …

There are those who would say that I am someone who “talks politics” a lot. Some people think this makes me ace, that I am someone they can “talk politics with”. Others think this makes me a boringbleedingheartfuckenPCleftiefemonazi and if they are caught talking to me are likely to be telling me so, or to note that talking to me is something that requires an “ability to talk politics” licence.

The implication of both these responses is that “people who talk politics” are (a) identified by particular unusual characteristics and (b) rare.

Question.

When is one *not* “talking politics?”

Oh my goodness … the hysterical hate that is directed at activists participating in the G20 convergence this weekend!

They are “Smelly Lefties” and “freedom-hating communists” to Andrew Landeryou, for example. And The Australian newspaper�has written one of those classic stories emphasising the convergence’s divisiveness: the organisers of A Space Outside, for example, are a “breakaway group” who may “turn violent” and have links to “terrorism”. Tim Costello says some of them are “communists, which is not what Australians want”. In fact The Australian was “barred” from entering A Space Outside (terrible isn’t it, the refusal to engage in the wearing, fruitless battle for just representation in the mainstream media!).

Convergence participants are easily juxtaposed with the consumer-friendly punters at the Make Poverty History concert - unfortunately this event, for all its positives, seems to have created another way of viciously ‘othering’ people who want to integrate their commitment to Making Poverty History in more ways than just rocking out to Pearl Jam (and who might even be possessed of an analysis which places neo-liberal capitalism and governance as the structures which Make Poverty in the first place, which uncomfortably implicates all of us, not just the anonymous Poverty Mongers).

These hateful depictions are remarkably at odds with the convergence’s detailed attention to non-violence and anti-oppressive behaviours, both within and without.

I myself am far more terrified by this man’s violence:

(Peter Costello) (intrinsically)

And indeed, these fellows (not intrinsically, but by virtue of what they are under order to do):

Than, say, these delightful young blossoms:

I mean really. A Space Outside is holding workshops on solidarity with indigenous Australian and Latin American activists, creative resistance, male privilege within activism and how activists must deal with sexual assault within their own activist communities. The convergence emphasises caring for each other, debriefing after the protests and being mindful of power imbalances across all activist processes. These processes are imperfect and problematic, yes (I wouldn’t have a thesis to write otherwise); but that level of reflection on how we can care for each other better and how we can creatively and mindfully express dissent against the global ills of endless war, endemic global poverty and ecological disaster, instead of ripping each other and our world into bloody little pieces every five minutes is certainly not echoed in how, say, our government ministers and mainstream media journalists tend to conduct themselves.

In closing, may I encourage all of you to participate this weekend in the virtual sit-in from the comfort of your own study chair.

Good reason to no longer be living in Adelaide’s southern burbs number 867362056.1(a).

I bet that doctor is the same one who would refuse to give girls the anti-nausea pills along with their ECP in order to ‘teach them a lesson’ (I wonder if anyone ever went back and vomited on him).

Actually I hope it is the same one, because it makes them an isolated case, and of course I don’t *want* to conflate Adelaide or its ’southern vales’ with morally confused doctors or anything else unfortunate.

But I can’t help it if this is the place where Family First was born.

*shudders*

Watching analysis of the US Congress election results on Thursday night was some of the most inspiring and hopeful television that I have seen in a damn. long. time.

Seeing George Bush so visibly shaken (”we got a thumping … I thought we were going to romp home!”), Donald Rumsfeld walking off the stage after HIS FINAL ADDRESS AS SECRETERROR OF DEFENCE, first lady speaker of the house from beautiful politics city San Francisco Nancy Pelosi referring to US troops in Iraq as “an occupation”, the high voter turnout, the continuous reporting of a “landslide” away from the Republicans….I was so.damn.moved.

When my folks were in town last weekend we were talking a lot about what dark times we live in (item: Mum and Dad are pro Bono. I am not). Mum suggested that it’s like when things just get worse and worse and worse and then suddenly the tide turns - the tide will turn away from the brink of infinite war in Iraq and the decimation of democratic processes and international human rights mechanisms, so we’ve at least got something to frickin’ work with again. The US Congress result and its ramifications feels like something along those lines, and even sooner than Mum might have meant (though she *is* known for her prophetic abilities, this is something far bigger than knowing I would not fail Year 12).

What would it take for a similar tide turning in Australia? Did this happen in the US because they see the body bags come home and Katrina happened in their backyard? Or could Australians be compelled to a similar action despite our relative distance from the atrocities of the global Bush coalition? Could I be getting fall-down, slur-my-words, wet-my-pants drunk at the next election night party because the Howard bastards *didn’t* win?*

At any rate, please Ms Universe can you ensure that Bush is impeached by Congress and he, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Rice are tried for crimes against humanity kthxbye.