in light of womens month worldwide

Sunday, August 1, 2010


Israeli mother adresses European Parliament



Dr. Nurit Peled-Elhanan is the mother of Smadar Elhanan, 13 years old when killed by a suicide bomber in Jerusalem in September 1997. Below is Nurit's speech made on International Women's Day in Strasbourg earlier this month. Please listen to the words of a bereaved mother,whose daughter fell victim to a vicious, indiscriminating terrorist attack.





The speech:



Thank you for inviting me to this today. It is always an honour and a pleasure to be here, among you (at the European Parliament). However, I must admit I believe you should have invited a Palestinian woman in my stead, because the women who suffer most from violence in my county are the Palestinian women. And I would like to dedicate my speech to Miriam R`aban and her husband Kamal, from Bet Lahiya in the Gaza strip, whose five small children were killed by



Israeli soldiers while picking strawberries at the family`s strawberry field. No one will ever stand trial for this murder. When I asked the people who invited me here why didn't they invite a Palestinian woman, the answer was that it would make the discussion too localized.



I don't know what is non-localized violence. Racism and discrimination may be theoretical concepts and universal phenomena but their impact is always local, and real. Pain is local, humiliation, sexual abuse, torture and death, are all very local, and so are the scars. It is true, unfortunately, that the local violence inflicted on Palestinian women by the government of Israel and the Israeli army, has expanded around the globe, In fact, state violence and army violence, individual and collective violence, are the lot of Muslim womenUSA. This is because the so-called free world is afraid of the Muslim womb.



Great France of "la liberte egalite et la fraternite" is scared of little girls with head scarves. Great Jewish Israel is afraid of the Muslim womb which its ministers call a demographic threat. Almighty America and Great Britain are infecting their respective citizens with blind fear of the Muslims, who are depicted as vile, primitive and blood-thirsty, apart from their being non-democratic, chauvinistic and mass producers of future terrorists. This in spite of the fact that the people who are destroying the world today are not Muslim. One of them is a devout Christian, one is Anglican and one is a non-devout Jew.



I have never experienced the suffering Palestinian women undergo every day, every hour, I don't know the kind of violence that turns a woman's life into constant hell. This daily physical and mental torture of women who are deprived of their basic human rights and needs of privacy and dignity, women whose homes are broken into at any moment of day and night, who are ordered at a gun-point to strip naked in front of strangers and their own children, whose houses are demolished, who are deprived of their livelihood and of any normal family life. This is not part of my personal ordeal.



But I am a victim of violence against women insofar as violence against children is actually violence against mothers. Palestinian, Iraqi, Afghan women are my sisters because we are all at the grip of the same unscrupulous criminals who call themselves leaders of the free enlightened world and in the name of this freedom and enlightenment rob us of our children. Furthermore, Israeli, American, Italian and British mothers have been for the most part violently blinded and brainwashed to such a degree that they cannot realize their only sisters, their only allies in the world are the Muslim Palestinian, Iraqi or Afghani mothers, whose children are killed by our children or who blow themselves to pieces with our sons and daughters. They are all mind-infected by the same viruses engendered by politicians. And the viruses , though they may have various illustrious names-such as Democracy, Patriotism, God, Homeland-are all the same. They are all part of false and fake ideologies that are meant to enrich the rich and to empower the powerful.



We are all the victims of mental, psychological and cultural violence that turn us to one homogenic group of bereaved or potentially bereaved mothers. Western mothers who are taught to believe their uterus is a national asset just like they are taught to believe that the Muslim uterus is an international threat. They are educated not to cry out: 'I gave him birth, I breast fed him, he is mine, and I will not let him be the one whose life is cheaper than oil, whose future is less worth than a piece of land.' All of us are terrorized by mind-infecting education to believe all we can do is either pray for our sons to come back home or be proud of their dead bodies. And all of us were brought up to bear all this silently, to contain our fear and frustration, to take Prozac for anxiety, but never hail Mama Courage in public. Never be real Jewish or Italian or Irish mothers.



I am a victim of state violence. My natural and civil rights as a mother have been violated and are violated because I have to fear the day my son would reach his 18th birthday and be taken away from me to be the game tool of criminals such as Sharon, Bush, Blair and their clan of blood-thirsty, oil-thirsty, land thirsty generals. Living in the world I live in, in the state I live in, in the regime I live in, I don't dare to offer Muslim women any ideas how to change their lives. I don't want them to take off their scarves, or educate their children differently, and I will not urge them to constitute Democracies in the image of Western democracies that despise them and their kind. I just want to ask them humbly to be my sisters, to express my admiration for their perseverance and for their courage to carry on, to have children and to maintain a dignified family life in spite of the impossible conditions my world is putting them in. I want to tell them we are all bonded by the same pain, we are all the victims of the same sort of violence even though they suffer much more, for they are the ones who are mistreated by my government and its army, sponsored by my taxes.



Islam in itself, like Judaism in itself and Christianity in itself, is not a threat to me or to anyone. American imperialism is, European indifference and co-operation is and Israeli racism and its cruel regime of occupation is. It is racism, educational propaganda and inculcated xenophobia that convince Israeli soldiers to order Palestinian women at gun-point, to strip in front of their children for security reasons, it is the deepest disrespect for the other that allow American soldiers to rape Iraqi women, that give license to Israeli jailers to keep young women in inhuman conditions, without necessary hygienic aids, without electricity in the winter, without clean water or clean mattresses and to separate them from their breast-fed babies and toddlers. To bar their way to hospitals, to block their way to education, to confiscate their lands, to uproot their trees and prevent them from cultivating their fields.



I cannot completely understand Palestinian women or their suffering. I don't know how I would have survived such humiliation, such disrespect from the whole world. All I know is that the voice of mothers has been suffocated for too long in this war-stricken planet. Mothers' cry is not heard because mothers are not invited to international forums such as this one. This I know and it is very little. But it is enough for me to remember these women are my sisters, and that they deserve that I should cry for them, and fight for them. And when they lose their children in strawberry fields or on filthy roads by the checkpoints, when their children are shot on their way to school by Israeli children who were educated to believe that love and compassion are race and religion dependent, the only thing I can do is stand by them and their betrayed babies, and ask what Anna Akhmatova - another mother who lived in a regime of violence against women and children - asked: Why does that streak of blood, rip the petal of your cheek?!

Nedbank cup final

The hype @ soccer city today has made me super patriotic and so proud 2 be a south african.

theres a link can you see it ?

	SFR - Umshini Mix May 2009 .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

	MAINO, LLOYD BANKS, SWIZZ BEATZ - A MILLION BUCKS - DIRTY .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

	The Pussycat Dolls - When I Grow Up .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

	Brad Swiniarski - 03 breath easy .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

	Michael Buble - Feeling Good .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

	Michael Buble - Sway .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

	Richie Sosa - www.1vibe.net - Blame It On The Alcohol .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

	Jamie Foxx - Digital Girl .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

superheroes & supervillians

The day you realise that Santa is a myth and that superheroes are not infallible has got to be the most despicable day of your life. When you stop believing that anything is possible and that if you can’t do it , “they“ will do it for you.

I guess that’s why I stopped respecting the supermen and batmen of the world. Apart from their rather flamboyant dress code, the supers’ are perceived to be perfect. We all love the idea of Obama but even he caused a raucous when he won the Nobel Peace Prize recently with very little to show but hope. Even Nelson Mandela can’t claim to be the faultless idol.

It’s hope though that dies when your role-model is cut down to size. That’s when my castle, of previously unshaken foundation, rocked violently. The tremor sent me into panic mode: rationalising to no avail, disbelief, anger for not having known earlier, fear of losing!

A strange thing happened though, and perhaps that’s what is making me reflect. Santa wrote to say that his sleigh was out of action and there would be no fireplace posting that xmas. I took that quite harshly. I’d eaten all my veggies all year round and I’d been really good; why would Santa let me down???

It was by some luck or magic (whichever one is more appealing to you) though that I came across one of Santa’s Elves. Having left the ‘pole of dreams where the production of happiness had halted, he had ventured into muggle domain to seek greener pastures. The poor little Elf ,although soaring in his new role, was struggling to remember the enchantment of the toy factory. I on the other hand had accepted a black and white world but wanted more than ever to believe that I was wrong.

Elf took to me cautiously as I to him. I wasn’t prepared to have the mystery cause my castle to come crashing down. He was afraid that one person’s belief would not be enough to revive the magical empire of the ‘pole. Caution has transformed itself into a friendship. One in which magic is boundless.

I sometimes feel conflicted by my trust in Elf as opposed to my trust in other muggles. Perhaps the trust derives from Elf’s ability to actively listen. Perhaps Elf feels equally conflicted. There’s a duty inherent in the relationship that purports a high level of responsibility. A respect for differences and similarities and reliance assign itself to altruistic liaison.

I have become my dependable Santa. I don’t need special powers for that, the magic fills itself in the expectations on myself and the will to follow through. If I fail in these expectations then perhaps the magic has not run dry but the expectations are too high or the passion is waning. Saving the world is the aim, as long as it is one step at a time.

Elf has evolved too. He has become the ‘pole that he so dearly wished for. This, having found that the aura of the ‘pole was not the time and place or the opulence of the great giver; rather the giving. And so in giving and in sharing the little elf transforms inside the muggle world to a colossal philanthropist.

I guess where this leaves me is believing that superheroes and myths can be great and can make us believe much more in ourselves than we give them credit for. I think that the disheartenment and the disappointment created from the illusion are necessary for character building. I think friendships are vehicles to inspire positive growth. I think that giving is paramount to receiving. I think that listening is the undiscovered magic. I think that acceptance without judgement is a form selflessness which can only be acquired when giving happens without expectation of reciprocation. I think responsibility complements perceptiveness.

Anything is possible if you put your mind to it. Castles can be built to weather a storm, but it takes eternity to experience all the storms to be able to lay the right foundation. Belief is an unbelievable instrument of success.

The magic is spreading in and around our friendship. The experience is broadening and the beliefs are strengthening. I’m glad that Superheroes exist, Infallible or not!

wonderful feeling

a lot has happened in my life in the past few months

so what ???

i just learnt a seriously important lesson

the internet has its advantages

im not kidding

I was having a crappy day a few months ago...reasons not 2 be mentioned , but the thing is that i couldnt conceptualise my unhappiness until i blogged. It came out in a quite impressive way and caused waves of change ( jus to sound cheesy). It changed my life

anyway

2day was no better than that day , i felt like crying from undescribable disheartenment.

I could see the good that came out of the "bad" that happenned, but anyway i didnt want 2 accept it

I couldnt tell any1 around me either because i was showing a brave face to keep them going...so i sent myself a "future me" email. i told myself everything that i wanted to ...thats so rare!

everything i didnt want 2 admit came out like a volcano eruption. Ugly , red hot , but real

i feel so much better

hu would have thought

the internet has its wonders!