SEPTEMBER 1994 QUEBEC ELECTJO^gLEftfegfraa S~*~i CMPA $2.25 KINESIS #301-1720 Grant Street Vancouver, BC V5L 2Y6 Tel: (604)255-5499 Fax:(604)255-5511 Kinesis welcomes volunteers to work on all aspects of the paper. Our next Writers' Meeting is Sep 6 for the Oct issue and Oct 4 for the Nov issue, at 7 pm at Kinesis. All women welcome even if you don't have experience. Kinesis is published ten times a year by the Vancouver Status of Women. Its objectives are to be a non-sectarian feminist voice for women and to work actively for social change, specifically combatting sexism, racism,classism, homophobia, ableism, and imperialism. Views expressed in Kinesis are those o the writer and do not necessarily reflect VSW policy. All unsigned material is the responsibility of the Kinesis Editorial Board. EDITORIAL BOARD Shannon e. Ash, Lissa Geller, Agnes Huang, Fatima Jaffer PRODUCTION THIS ISSUE Shannon e. Ash, Fatima Jaffer, Tanya de Haan, Robyn Hall, Winnifred Tovey, jWendy Frost, Nancy, Poliak, Lael Sleep Amal Hassan, wendy lee kenward, Liz Kendall, Leah Ibbitson, Joelle Paton, Teresa McCarthy, Coleen Hennig Advertising: Cynthia Low Circulation.Cat L'Hirondelle, Jennifer Johnstone, Christine Cosby Distribution: Cynthia Low Production Co-ordinator: Agnes Huang Typesetter: Sur Mehat FRONT COVER Photo by PRESS DATE August 23, 1994 SUBSCRIPTIONS lndividual:$20 per year (+$1.40 GST) or what you can afford Institutions/Groups: $45 per year (+$3.15 GST) VSW Membership (includes 1 year Kinesis subscription): $30 per year (+$1.40 GST) SUBMISSIONS Women and girls are welcome to make submissions. We reserve the right to edit and submission does not guarantee publication. If possible, submissions should be typed, double spaced and must be signed and include an address telephone number and SASE. Kinesis does not accept poetry or fiction. Editorial guidelines are available upon request. DEADLINES All submissions must be received in the month preceding publication. Note: Jul/ Aug and Dec/Jan are double issues. Features and reviews: 10th News: 15th Letters and Bulletin Board: 18th Display advertising (camera ready): 18th (design required): 16th Kinesis is produced on a Warner Doppler PC using Wordperfect 5.1, PageMaker 4.0 and an NEC laser printer. Camera work by Midtown Graphics. Printing by Horizon Publications. Kinesis is indexed in the Canadian Women's Periodicals Index, the Alternative Press Index and is a member of the Canadian Magazine PublishersAssociation. ISSN 0317-9095 Publications mail registration #6426 1 974-1 V94 News Elections in Quebec 3 by Miche Hill SFU Feminist Institute 4 by Nancy Poliak Women Hold conference on social policy 5 by Jackie Brown Workfare 'n Kounselling 5 by Seenit Beenthere Features International Conference on Population and Development 9 as told to Agnes Huang NAFTA and the Mexican Elections 10 by Maria Julie Amestoy Greening our Cities 11 by Shannon e. Ash Reprint: Interview with Himani Bannerji 14 as told to Fatima Jaffer 20th Anniversary Quiz 16 by Sur Mehat Centrespread RWANDA: Interview with Pascasia Kobazaire 12 as told to L. Muthoni Wanyeki An Abbreviated History 12 compile by L. Muthoni Wanyeki Commentary 13 by L. Muthoni Wanyeki Women and the Quebec elections 3 Regulars As Kinesis Goes to Press 2 Inside Kinesis 2 What's News 6 by Shannon e. Ash and Teresa McCarthy Movement Matters 8 by Laiwan and Wei Yuen Fong Paging Women 17 by Lissa Geller, Wendy Frost, Smita Patil, Wei Yuen Fong and Lael Sleep Letters 19 Rwanda Bulletin Board compiled by Liz Kendall, Tracy Dietrich, wendy lee kenward, and Wendy Frost ..21 The next writers' meetings are on September 6 & October 4 @ 7 pm at VSW #301-1720 Grant St Mhb?^ 1 ^IB W ^^^mfW^m k ~" ilf'-':mS^^mim '*% \ f-^^ws Paging Women.. SEPTEMBER 1994 o news would toe better news \s We're back, after one of the warmest summers ever in Vancouver...looking healthier and a lot less washed out than a couple of months ago. August started off slow...News broke late and we went to press earlier than usual this month (our production schedule has to do with some Pope who came up with the Western calendar system.) We called some contacts in Toronto to find out if August was a slow month out there too., it was, we were told. Then we called Montreal and found out Quebec was having an election in September. ...you see, for our daily amusement, we mostly read The Globe and Mail and The Vancouver Sun or wqtch the national TV news shows, and from those sources, we knew that there was some kind of threat to Canada brewing in Quebec. Good thing Kinesis has a few friends in Quebec to set us straight. So there you have it. It is not Separatism that is brewing, but an Election. Our s tory on page 3 sketchesout what some women in Quebec are doing to raise issues of concern to women ...unfortunately, things are so hectic there, we had difficulty reaching many women for comments. However, most of the women we talked to were pleased Kinesis was writing a story on the Quebec elections. .."Noone seems to care. No progressive paper has really taken up these issues yet...," said one woman. On the topic of elections, we have been watching the elections in Mexico... [read story on page 10]. As Kinesis goes to press, the results of the ballot count in Mexico are coming in...unconfirmed reports put the rightwingPRI-which has ruled Mexico since 1929, and brought maquiladoras, transnational corporations and NAFTA into the lives of women and campasinos [peasants]-back in power. Protests have sprung up all over the country, and the Zapatistas in Chiapas [remember the New Year Revolution in Chiapas in our February issue] continue to fight the state's militia. Meanwhile in Canada [including Quebec, at this point], the federal government's Social Policy review is due to be released mid-September. Originally billed as the Liberal government's Action Plan for "improving" social programs-unemployment insurance, retraining, child benefits, childcare, and transfer payments to provinces for healthcare, welfare, etc-and by the way, reducing the $40 billion federal budget for social spending, it could end up being more of a discussion paper. The Women's Social Policy Review Conference that took place in Vancouver in July [see page 5] is just one of the many many conferences and campaigns planned by women's groups across the country to develop a feminist vision of the Canadian social safety net and devise strategies to ensure the burden of the "reform" doesn't fall heavily on women and children. By the way, Seenit Beenthere's story [also page 5] is satiri- cal-theAxman'sWorkfareandKounselling Centre doesn't really open until later this month. Moving along, another federal body has been in the news lately. Seems the secretive Canadian Security and Intelligence Service has been really charitable these days, donating financial, personnel and technical assistance to white supremacist groups in Canada. Bet you didn't know CSIS does more than bug the telephones of feminists, anti-free trade and anti-racist activists, and other lowlife left-wing types. Okay, so some of you did know they were providing assistance to the white supremacist group, the Heritage Front and the Reform Party. After the news broke, someone commented in the Kinesis production room that it's funny [she didn't mean ha ha!] how the media is jus' so appalled that a CSIS guy might have been working for the Reform Party, while noone's questioning how come the Reform Party's security gua rds are members of the Heritage Front. Meanwhile, rumour has it that the ^Thanks Our thanks to Vancouver Status of Women members who support us year 'round with memberships and donations. Our appreciation to the following supporters who became members, renewed their memberships or donated to VSW in July: Cathy Bannink * Debra Browning * Barbara Curran * Cathy Davidson-Hall * Nancy Dickie * Michelle Dodds * Gloria Filax * Sharon Lambright * Barbara Lebrasseur * Neil Power * Catherine Rev ell * Russell & Dumoulin * Janet Shaw * Mary-Woo Sims * Sheilah Thompson * Women's Work Screen Print We would like to say a very special thank you to the following supporters who have responded so generously to our annual spring fundraising appeal. The ongoing support of VSW donors, as well as the support of many new donors, is crucial to the expansion of VSW's vital services and programs in the face of continued government cuts to our funding. We are very thankful to: Janet Berman » Betty-Ann Buss * CUPE Local 2950 * Elsie Eccles * Mary Frey * Stan Gabriel * Janine Gavin * Carole Gerson * Darby Honeyman * Rosalind Kellett * Donna Kydd * Alyssa Lehmann * Betty Nonay * Susan O'Donnell * Marion Pollack * Janet Routledge * Lisa Turner CORRECTION writer who broke the story of The CSIS Agent Who Helped Build The Heritage Front And Was Preston Manning's Bodyguard, is a ppa rently researching beyond Canada, tracing similar links between government "security" services in Western European countries, and the growth of white supremacist groups in those countries. Anyway, there has been no comment from CSIS yet. We, at Kinesis, however, do know how to get CSIS to talk. In Vancouver, CSIS is located across the road from the Anza Club, and if you walk too close to the building with shaded windows and mini- cameras crudely placed along the buildings walls, an electronic CSIS voice will call out: "Step away from the building!" Try it. But not alone. Also in Vancouver, in the past six weeks, there has been an increase in the organization and recruitment of people into the neo- Nazi skinhead movement in the downtown core. Apparently, 30 skinheads have been recruiting street youth with offers of food, clothing, shelter and money. Recently, there has been one reported attempted rape of a woman, and one woman was doused with lighter fluid and set on fire. First Nations people, people of colour and immigrants of colour have been assaulted. Lesbians and gay men have been harassed, as have people with physical or mental disabilities. As we go to press, the BC Organization to Fight Racism is calling a public community forum to address the issue of hate group organizing and recruitment, as well as to address the lack of services for street youth. Kinesis will report on that meeting in an upcoming issue. Another story we're working on for an upcoming issue looks at the recently [but to close to our press deadlines to cover] released BC Task Force Report on Access to Contraception and Abortion Services. The report focuses on how to improve education about, information on, and access to contraceptives and abortion services in BC. One more update as Kinesis goes to press. We carry a story on the violent harassment of abortion clinic workers and patients at Everywoman's Health Centre in Vancouver by anti-choice activists on page 6. We just heard that the special prosecutor appointed by the BC government to look into whether the Attorney Ceneral's Office should proceed with charges against Gordon Watson, the anti-choice activist in question, has decided that charges will indeed be laid against Watson. Watson will appear before the BC Supreme Court on September 12th on contempt proceedings and before the Provincial Court of BC on assault charges. That's pretty much all we have for this month's As Kinesis Goes To., well, we have a few minutes before presstime for one last little scoop. (At least we thought we had the scoop on it until today.) Judy Rebick will be co-hosting a television debate show called Facing Off on CBC News World, beginning ' September 19that8pm. Her partner in slime will be Toronto Sun columnist, Claire Hoy (a boy) with nasty rightwing politics. On the good side, Hoy is, at least, honest. So if you have cable TV, tune in on September 19th-- there's something [Rebick] on the tube worth watching. Don't miss it. ^ £>^4 Wellhereweare...summer'salmostover and we're back at work. We had a month off to prepare for the rest of our 20th year. Did you miss us? We missed you. Kinesis has three sad goodbyes—two of our most tireless volunteers and long-time Ed Board members, Gladys We and Faith Jones, and our advertising and distribution coordinator, Cythia Low, have decided they've had enough!...at least for a while. (We'll give them three months, then they'll be back.) Gladys was our very own computer expert, fix-it gal, and all-around great volunteer. If Gladys couldn't solve our computer woes with her own bare hands, she usually was able to find someone who could. We'll really miss Gladys especially now, because we can hardly see anything on our computer monitor, so you can't blame us for any of the tyyppos. Gladys was always very optimistic..she had confidence that we would get the paper done before the deadline passed. And she was always so cheery and ready to help out on short notice. How can we not miss her! Happy trails, Gladys. As for Faith, what can we say except she hung in for the long haul and now understandably needs a rest? Faith wrote for Kinesis, proofed for Kinesis, helped edit for Kinesis, pasted up Kinesis, helped out at benefits for Kinesis.. .you get the picture don't you? Oh, and she also went to school full- time, full-year, and had time to can dozens of jars of pears in her spare(?) time. So, now she's taking a break for a little while. Rest up Faith and we'll see you soon...we hope. Our advertising and distribution coordinator Cynthia Low has decided to hitch up the team (consisting of one dog) and head out toward the sunset. Yes, Cynthia is leaving us after doing a bang-up job hustling up some new advertisers for us and keeping the old ones on board. She's going forth to sell her wares, which, for those of you who don't know, are some of the best functional and durable ceramics around. Best of luck Cynthia, and thanks again for a tough job well done. And we'll miss you too, Lizzie. So, as you've probably already guessed, We're needing to hire a new advertising coordinator and distribution coordinator. The deadline is Tuesday September 6 at 5pm sharp. Check Bulletin Board, page 22 for more information regarding these two positions. Now it's time to welcome the women who came in to volunteer at Kinesis for the first (and certainly not the last) time. Welcome to new writers this issue: Seenit Beenthere, Maria Julie Amestoy, Pascasia Kabazaire, and Shree Mulay. Welcome to new production volunteers Joelle Paton and Leah Ibbiston. Joelle came . in during the heat of production and did an excellent job proofreading. Next time, we'll let her wield an x-acto knife. And Leah was amazing on PageMaker, whipping of great ad designs. And one final thing., .we'll soon be coming out with 20th anniversary postcards, designed by six women artists in Canada...Stay tuned for details. And hey, you can still get an anniversary t-shirt! Okay, here's our apology for the issue... The gals from WomenFutures called us to let us know that we printed the wrong price for their handbook on community economic development, Counting Ourselves In (in Movement Matters, May 1994). We listed the price our the book as being $13, but in fact it's only $12 (plus $3 for postage and handling if you want the handbook mailed to you). They also told us that Counting Ourselves In is now available in French too. If you want a copy, call WomenFutures at (604) 737-1338, or write to them at 217-1956 WestBroadway, Vancouver, BC, V6J1Z2. i 1 binloaig alboui wjriiieg for lKvinesis? @ 1 lb ere s a cleaclline. (§) "Bui it is Kiaesis..." © •255-5499< SEPTEMBER 1994 News Women and the Quebec elections: Coalition gears up by Miche Hill The date is set, September 12. The provincial election has been called in Quebec and the race is on. The politicians scramble. The mainstream media churns out scary separatism tales. Not a word yet about women in Quebec. What's going on? Mary Hannenburg of the Quebec Native Women' Association points out that most Aboriginal women are not really involved in the provincial political process. "I can't speak for all Aboriginal women, but for many women, it's a wait and see attitude. We don't know who we will be dealing with, who we will be negotiating with— we just have to wait and see what happens. The federal government hasn'tbeen too interested in helping women in the communities deal with the problems they are facing. Most women won't be participating in the election—they aren't letting voter registration happen on their territo- ries-and very few women will actually vote." Although the focus is on the two front running parties, the Quebec Liberals and the Parti Quebecois, not one of the 24 political parties registered to run candidates in this provincial election have made women's issues a major focus so far. Women's groups, including La Federation des Femmes du Quebec, the Quebec Native Women's Association, Women's Committees from unions along with over 50 NAC member organizations are forming a coalition to raise women's issues in the upcoming Quebec provincial election. As Kinesis goes to press, the coalition is organanising a press conference to ensure women's issues and concerns are raised during the campaign. "We want to know how the parties are going to address women's issues" says Raymonde Leblanc, Quebec regional representative of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC.) "All the national [Quebec] women's organizations in Quebec will be joining together in coalition to raise the profile of women's issues in this campaign." The coalition will be building on work done by women's groups during the federal election. The coalition will be asking the Parties questions on women's employment, the economy and social issues, as well as on immigrant women's rights, childcare, and funding to women's groups.They will also be releasing a paper on women's poverty in the next few days. The need for the women's movement in Quebec, as in other provinces to mobilize around the issue of women's poverty, unemployment and social programs is critical. "All the national [Quebec] women's organizations in Quebec will be joining together in coalition to raise the profile of women's issues in this campaign." - Raymonde Leblanc - Unemployment in Quebec is at record levels, and women tend to be hit hardest. "The real unemployment rate is 22 percent, and in some areas, it is much worse," says Leblanc. Shree Mulay of Montreal's South Asian Women's Centre says that the employment situation for immigrant women, especially women of colour^ is in fact much worse. "A lot of jobs have been lost, in the garment industry for example, has had a direct impact on immigrant women," says Mulay. "We are asking for some basic changes, such as raising the minimum wage." Mulay says this is the kind of concrete solution they know the government can introduce without major legislative changes, to help address the economic crunch women are facing. So far most of the converage on the election by the English mainstream media has focussed on the sovereignly question, even though both major parties [the Parti Quebecois and the Liberals] have attempted to shift the focus of the campaign towards each party's economic plans for the province. Leblanc and Mulay agree that focusing only on the sovereignty issue is simplifiying matters. "Poverty is the main issue for women in Quebec. Jobs, the economy and social programs, it's all connected", said Leblanc. While many of the women's groups in the Coalition are generally supportive of self- determination for Quebec, Mulay says many immigrant groups and individuals are concerned that the PQ has not demonstrated a clear commitment to protecting the rights of immigrants in an independant Quebec. "ImmigrantwomenseethePQasathreat- -whether that's true or not-that's the general attitude," says Mulay "They're worried about what will happen, concerned about the free movement of people across the borders [between Quebec and Canada]. "But immigrants in Quebec are also very disilussioned with the Liberals. They [the Liberals] haven't come through with their election promises and people aren't happy. Where are the jobs? Immigrant women are unemployed in greater numbers-the job loss in the garment industry has had a greater impact on immigrant women." Since the Free Trade Agreement with the US came into effect, the garment industry , which has been a major employer of immigrantwomen, has lost 80,000 jobs"But , when push comes to shove, [immigrants] will probably vote Liberal because they are so afraid of the PQ." However, Mulay says most immigrant women's organizations, such as the South Asian Women's Centre, will be participating in the non-partisan Quebec Women's Coalition to ensure the concerns of immigrants and of women in general are placed on the table during the campaign. "We had some pretty good forums and debates on women's issues in the federal election, and this [press conference] will be our first attempt to spark discussion on these issues during the provincial election." says Mulay. "We will, for example, be asking individual candidates to sign a form supporting a pay equity law." The Coalition's press conference is the first step in what they see as long term organizing. The coalition is also planning a women's march on Quebec city, whatever the results of the election, in the Spring. Miche Hill is a Mi 'kmak volunteer writer for Kinesis, with roots in Quebec. SEPTEMBER 1994 News Feminist institute at SFU: Coming down the hill The Feminist Institute for Studies on Law and Society wa s born on Burnaby mountain, within the remote concrete maze of Simon Fraser University. Since 1989, the organization has mainly served its academic constituency: feminist women and men working in university criminology and law faculties. But this September, the Feminist Institute will travel down the mountain for a free, day-long public event, the first move in its goal of linking community and academic activists. "The tradition has been that the university comes down the hill and bestows information or 'knowledge' on the community," says Institute director, Karlene Faith. "The new tradition should be that the community goes up the hill and makes demands of the university." The September 17th symposium—Social and Legal Issues onFeministHorizons— will highlight lawyer Anita Braha speaking on lesbians and the law. It also features presentations on male survivors of childhood sexual abuse (studentKathleen Burke); policy issues related to pregnant women and mothers who use illicit drugs and alcohol (student Susan Boyd); First Nations women and self-determination (Gloria Nicolson of the Professional Native Women's Association); and women and psychiatry (student Jackie Coates). Faith, who teaches in SFU's criminology faculty and recently wrote the award- winning book, Unruly Women: The Politics of Confinement & Resistance (Press Gang Publishers), is passionate about the need for students and teachers to engage with community issues-and for grassroots feminists to exercise "their entitlement" to the university's resources. "Within the community, there are antagonisms towards the university that are deserved," says Faith. "Universities can be elitist and heavily competitive. Tuition costs are rising and there is declining support for mature students, who are primarily single mothers. And some university people may be very limited in their life experience or confined by their discipline. But universities are a tremendous resource for making all sorts of connections. "And while we can't allow the university to detach itself from social reality, we have to remember that the university is also reality, a convergence of realities. "Classisa huge issuein community and university relations. There are assumptions made about who is at university, yet the student population is very heterogenous. Among the students I work with [in criminology], the majority are young feminists or people who represent some minority group. Issues of class and homophobia, for example, are fundamental to what we do." The Feminist Institute was founded in 1989 by six women at the SFU School of Criminology. (Criminology is an interdisciplinary field, drawing from sociology, psychology, legal studies and the humanities in general.) The founders wanted a means to focus on feminist research on socio-legal issues: the intersections between women's experience, and the so-called justice system. "There isn't very much in women's lives that isn't bound up with socio-legal processes," says Faith. "So many fundamental women's issues—poverty, discrimination, single parenthood—are rampant within women's prisons, for example. Those issues are all being litigated, in some way or other. Women lawyers and others are bringing them into the courts to try to change laws and to change social policies. "The founders of the Feminist Institute wanted more connections with community activists and more contact with other university women in North America. We were doing feminist teaching and researching, V / j_ Introducing Amplesize Park's A^» 1 own line of clothing \^L / New hours: fel Mon, Tues, Thurs 11 -6 Fri 11-7 Sat 10:30-4:30 /» Closed Wed & Sun i Quality consignment \ clothing ~ 1 Size 14... plus \S0 1 Amplesize Park has moved to: \^ |7 1969 Commercial Dr. \ V Vancouver, B.C. \ Sarah-Jane (604) 251-6634 and it was important to build on the strengths of each other's work." They received an initial start-up grant of $10,000 in 1990 and have run on volunteer energy ever since. The institute's original co- directors, Joan Brockman and Dorothy Chunn, developed FEMNET, a computerized network of women in Canada and "Universities can be elitist and heavilycompetitive... but universities are a tremedous resource for making sorts of connections.1 - Karlene Faith ■ around the world who do socio-legal teaching, research and practice. Brockman and Chunn continue to manage FEMNET. At present, the Feminist Institute's coordinating committee includes Faith, Sam Banks, Dorothy Chunn, Margaret Jackson, Bed & Breakfast A Memorable Escape Centre Yourselt in the comfort and tranquility of Canada's beautiful, natural Gulf Islands 5 acres of forested foot paths trails with ponds ocean and mountain views Decadent Breakfasts Hot Tub A private retreat (604) 537-9344 Mail: R.RJ2, S-23, B-0, Ganges. B.C. VOS 1E0 Dany Lacombe and Jane Pulkingham (from SFU) and Melody Hessing (from Douglas College). An Advisory Board draws on mainly Vancouver-based women working in the legal and research fields. Membership is open to any interested person ("just send us a letter requesting membership," says Faith, "and we'll keep you notified of events, etc."). The September event, says Faith "is a chance for women in the community to gain more clarity about issues, or discover new questions, or find new ways of looking at the work you're doing. Or it might just be 'a reprieve' from the hard work"—a chance to be informed and stimulated. "There won't be any strings attached to attending." "Social and Legal Issues on Feminist Horizons" takes place Saturday, September 17,10:30 am 4 pm at Vancouver's SFU Harbour Centre, 555 West Hastings Street, (near the Water Street skytrain). There is a non- hosted lunch break between 12:30 and 2 pm. For help with childcare or more information, please call 291-3018. The Feminist Institute for Studies on Law & Society can be reached through Simon Fraser University, Burnaby BC V5A 1S6; Tel: (604) 291-3018. FAX: (604) 291-4140. Nancy Poliak is a freelance writer and editor living in Vancouver. Utility Assistant (Female/Male) GAS OPERATIONS [The operations group is seeking qualified [candidates with trades related background to apply for the position of Utility Assistant. These entry level jobs located in the Lower Mainland require a familiarity with work on a construction j ob site or in a maintenance shop. The work environment may be outdoors or in a mechanical shop and involves physical labour as well as the ability to competently utilize tools and equipment. Succcessful candidates must have: •completed graduation from Grade 12 •demonstrated mechanical aptitude and ability •related work experience and/or pre-apprentice trades training at a recognized institution •good communication and comprehension skills If you possess all of these qualifications, you are invited to submit your resume quoting file IL-124/94C to: BCGas Human Resources Department 12th floor, 1111 West Georgia Vancouver, B.C. V6E4M4 Closing Date: September 16,1994 No telephone calls please BC Gas encourages applications from qualified women and men, aboriginal people and visible minorites. SEPTEMBER 1994 News Social policy review conference: Women set agenda by Jackie Brown About 200 women from throughout British Columbia turned out for the Women's Social Policy Review Coalition conference on the Liberal government's plans to overhaul Canada's social programs, and to defining a feminist agenda for social policy review. Held June 22-24 in Vancouver, the conference brought togther a number of women's and anti-poverty groups and activists who shared ideas and strategies for ensuring Canada's social safety network remains intact and is beneficial to all women. The conference featured workshops on education and youth; Native self government; UIC, training and employment; women and pensions; the feminization of migration; women and poverty; and childcare and domestic workers. Workshops explored existing social policies and programs and changes needed to make them more responsive and accessible to women. Strategy sessions focused on community education, activism and lobbying. Presenters included: Sunera Thobani, president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC); Goo H- zew'h,also known as Gloria M. M. George, a Wetsuwet-en hereditary member; Rose Brown, an organizer with End Legislated Poverty (ELP); Alison Sawyer, a lawyer and member of the Gender Issues committee of the Canadian Council of Refugees; Alicia Mercurio, a 30-year activist in the area of adult educarionand human rights, and Nora Lagunzad, a founding member of the Vancouver Committee for Domestic Workers and Caregivers Rights (VCDWCR). Cenen Bagon of the VCDWCR (one of the conference's organizers) said organizers were pleased with the diversity of women who attended, especially considering there was only about a month to organize the event. "This conference was designed to organize a response from women about the social policy review and decide what kind of vision we want for social programs," said Bagon. "What I saw was a lot of women who are not satisfied with the current system. Instead of cutbacks, there need to be improvements so that the system responds better to the needs of different women." The Coalition's next action is a weekend protest at the end of October. A number of women's groups will create banners depicting social policy changes and which will be displayed around thecity. A march and rally will take place on the Saturday. (Time and place haven't been finalized). The Coalition is also tying into a national campaign sponsored by NAC which includes a social policy conference to be held in Saskatchewan from September 30 to October 2. The Women's SocialPolicy Review Coalition is a network of women and women's groups committed to working for social programs that will benefit women. Member groups include: Women and Work, Vancouver Status of Women, South Asian Women's Take Back the Night Take Back the Night first took place as a coordinated national women-only demonstration in Canada in 1981 when the Canadian Association of Sexual Assaul Centres organized to protest male violence, particularly in the street. Thirteen years later, women's groups have organized Take Back the Night 1994 to be held in many cities across the country on Thursday, September 22nd. This year a national roar o women's voices will be heard as we take to the streets simultaneously throughou Canada to celebrate our victories, to experience the strength of women coming togethe in conscious action with and for each other and to demand continued changes to the status of all women. All womenare encouraged to join together on September 22nd anc Take Back The Night. (Pictured above is a scene from Vancouver's Take Back the Nigh rally 1993.) In Vancouver,women are gathering at the Georgia street side of the Vancouver Art Gallery at 7:30pm. Call Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter 872-8212 for more information and childcare registration. Network, Women for Better Wages, End Legislated Poverty, Women's Employment and Training Coalition, Aboriginal Women's Council, Women to Women Global Strategies, Indian Homemakers Association and several Lower Mainland Women's Centres. If you would like more information abou t or want to get involved with the Coalition or NAC campaigns, contact the Vancouver Status of Women at 255-5511. Jackie Brown is a freelance writer living in Vancouver. The Axman cometh: Tears, jears greet Centre by Seenit Beenthere Under drizzling skies and the watchful eye of the Privatization Squad, federal Human Resources Development Minister Lloyd Axman cut a ribbon and tearfully declared the opening of the high-tech Workfare'nKounsellingKommunity Centre in Gritville, British Columbia. The centre, privately managed by the WorkingLearningKaringCorp. of Alabama (WKKC), is a prototype of halls to beestab- lished nation-wide. The WKKC replaces unemployment insurance and income assistance programs, whose passive approach was abandoned for the Grit's "get off your loaf" strategy. Friday's festivities marked the culminatiion of efforts to revise, reform and renew Canada's outmoded and overburdened social safety net. The Liberals pulled out all the stops, contracting out hundreds of part-time jobs as caterers, parade marshals and kazoo blowers to members of the town's flexible labour force. On the podium, Axman wept openly as he described his ministry's achievements. "Working, learning and caring are cornerstones of our new vision of social security," sobbed Axman. "We've removed disincentives, empowered individuals through job training and small business loans, and targetted the needy. "We've saved the taxpayers billions by eliminating wasteful universal programs. And we've pledged, through our Guaranteed Annual Income, that no one will sink too too utterly low. "As a nation, we can now take on the globalized economy. To each Canadian I say: make economic restructuring and the jobless recovery work for you!" The WKKC, a fluorescent green low-rise near the GudBuyBuy Mall, will employ up to 15 home-based teleworkers. Clients and employers will use state-of-the-art interactive computers to access the centre's training, hiring and life skills services. The mayor of Gritville, Conrad Paste, praised Ottawa's move to decentralize government operations and promote community control. "This beautiful building is just the beginning for Gritville," declared Paste. "Social services used to drag this town down: high taxes, welfare fraud, stay-at-home layabouts. The WKKC and the philosophy it represents are good for business and what's good for business is good for Gritville." The opening was not without controversy. On a level playing field opposite the WKKC, 3 million demonstators from the Coalition for Better Not Less waved placards, hurled water balloons and chanted slogans. Quickly drying his cheeks, Axman lashed out at his critics. "There is a job to be done, a deficit to tackle,and international capital to appease," shouted Axman in a moment of rare candour. "EPF, CAP, NAFTA, TNC—it's just alphabet soup to the average Canuck. Let's not bore each other with soup. "And this incessant whining about "legislated poverty" or "redistributed aims" clearly shows who the special interest groups really are: cheaters and Nervous Nellies too devious and dependent to stand on their own two feet." Axman left the WKKC early after the crowd surged across the street. The Privatization Squad maintained control during a performance by the Harmonization Brothers, who belted out stirring renditions of "You Say Clawback, I Say Tax Back, Let's Call The Whole Thing Off" and "I'm a SAP for the IMF and I Love It." But the Devolution Dance troupe's ballet "Slaying the Child Poverty Dragon" was halted when the mob stormed the stage. The dragon was hospitalized for minor bruises. An Axman aide was charged with assault but later released after claiming he had mistaken the dragon for a protester^ Seenit Beenthere is a freelance writer living in Gritville who refuses to be bored by soup. SEPTEMBER 1994 What's News by Shannon e. Ash and Theresa McCarthy Employment equity act in Ontario Ontario's EmploymentEquity Act will be proclaimed by Ontario's legislature on September 1. The Act was the target of a rightwing backlash in the province and country-wide when it was first introduced as a bill last winter. Among groups lobbying against the legislation was the Canadian Federation of Independent Business [see Kinesis, Feb. 1994]. The Act designates four groups (women, "visible minorities," Aboriginal people, and people with disabilities) for equity action. At present, the legislation exempts "small employers" (defined as less than 10 employees for the private sector and less than 50 for the public sector) from the effects of this legislation. Therefore, unfair hiring practices can continue to occur in these workplaces. Another flaw in the legislation is that there are few mechanisms specified or little incentive for employers to remove hidden workplace barriers from employment or promotion within organizations. It is expected that the onus for challenging employers or fighting for removal of barriers may fall on employees. However, the legislation has been described by some community activists as a starting point for equity in the workplace in Ontario. Massive water diversion in BC The Kemano Completion Project (or Kemano 2) is the second stage of a massive water diversionprojectby Alcan Aluminum near Kitimat, British Columbia, between the central interior and the northern coast. First Nations peoples, fishers' groups, and environmentalists are among those opposing the project. In the first phase in 1952, Alcan dammed the Nechako River at its source and diverted the water to an electrical generating facility at Kemano that powered aluminum smelting near Kitimat. The Cheslatta Carrier nation was forcibly relocated to make way for the project, and their traditional territories flooded. "The first time we saw an Indian agent was in 1952," says current Cheslatta chief Marvin Charlie. The agent came to tell them that their land, which had never been ceded, would be flooded and they must negotiate a surrender. The people were self-sufficient but after relocation were dependent on welfare and faced social decline. The Carrier Sekani Tribal Council is opposing Kemano 2, which would include construction of a mountain tunnel and a new water release structure to control the massive reduction of water flows into the Nechako River. Alcan would sellthehydro- electricity created to the province and possibly the United States. Kemano 2 will reduce the flow of the Nechako by 87 percent of its original flows. The Nachako's flow has already been reduced by 33 percent by Kemano 1. Among negative impacts of the reduced flow would be a major decline in the salmon fishery. Twenty-three percent of the Fraser River's sockeye production depends directly on the Nechako. More than half the BC commercial salmon catch originates in the Fraser watershed, and 65 percent of BC First Nations bands depend on the Fraser and Kemano fisheries. There is already a decline of Pacific salmon stocks originating in the US. A closed-door agreement between the provincial and federal governments and Alcan in 1987 allowed Alcan to proceed with Kemano 2. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans refused to release documents by its scientists assessing Kemano's impact, and put a gag order on the scientists, which—at least in one case—has only recently been lifted. One scientist, Dr. Mundie, said his research clearly indicated Kemano 2 carried a high risk for fish. In October 1990, the Conservative cabinet, under Brian Mulroney, exempted Kemano 2 from an environmental review; in 1993, a Commons-Senate committee condemned the exemption as unconstitutional, and illegal. In response to the opposition to Kemano 2, the BC Public Utilities Commission is holding a public review. However, the review cannot look at impacts outside the Nechako and Kemano watersheds, and no major changes can be made to the project. Current federal fisheries minister Brian Tobin has said the 1987 agreement is binding and the project cannot be stopped. The Carrier-Sekani Tribal Council is rejecting the public hearings as a sham, and is calling for an inquiry into the original 1952 agreement, the 1987agreement, and the 1990 exemption. Protests were held outside the public hearings in Vancouver this summer. For a copy of The Watershed and more information, contact Carrier-Sekani Tribal Council, 200-14606th Avenue, Prince George, BC, V2L 3N2. Attacks escalate at abortion clinic The Everywoman's Health Centre Society in Vancouver is calling on the BC government (again) to ensure better enforcement of the injunction against anti-choice protesters afteraVancouveranti-choice activist shoved a camera into the face of a clinic worker who was filming him. Last month, George Watson assaulted one of the abortion clinic's security workers, Margaret Panton. Vancouver police are recommending Watson be charged with the assault of Panton. The Ministry of the Attorney General has appointed a special prosecutor to determine whether charges will be laid. Everywoman's Health Centre and the BC Coalition of Abortion Clinics (BCCAC) say this incident could mark the beginning of the kind of violent action being taken against abortion providers in the US. The assault on Panton on August 3rd follows hard on the heels of the July 29 murders of pro-choice doctors in Florida. Watson has been compared by US psychologists with Paul Hill, a prominent anti-abortion activist in the United States, who has been charged with the murder of a doctor and his escort outside a Pensacola, Florida abortion clinic. Kim Zander, a spokesperson for Everywoman's Clinic, says, "In Toronto, Dr. Morgentaler's clinic was bombed and abortion providers throughout the country are targeted, harassed and threatened. We fear that this violence will escalate. Knowing all of this in advance, are we going to let more violence happen here?" According to Jennifer Whiteside, spokesperson for the BCCAC, "Violence against abortion providers and pro-choice activists has not abated, but press coverage has. The big blockades, which received more sensational media coverage, have become less common. However, more subtle and potentially dangerous actions have taken their place. These activities continue largely without being prosecuted by the police or criticized by the press." Meanwhile, Vancouver Police's Community liason officer, Anne Drennan, says the police "do give the clinic special attention. We treat their problems with all due respect and consider them to be potentially serious, always," but in order for the police to lay more charges against protesters, the clinic must "spell out what their complaints are." According to Kim Zander, "the threat of death now hangs over all abortion providers, including in this city." The centre has approached the Attorney General's office and is asking for a meeting with police supervisors to increase protection of the centre, its workers, and clients. Everywoman's Health Centre and the BCCAC are also demanding that "the police and govenment authorities acknowledge [the US] murders as part of an organized continent-wide attack against abortion providers, clinics, staff and clients and pro-choice activists." Prenatal nutritionprogram The Fed era 1 Govenment announced last month the creation of the Canada Prenatal NutritionProgram (CPNP),directed towards low-income pregnantwomen. The Program, which will receive $21.5 million a year over four years, is intended to provide nutrition counselling, inter-agency referral, food supplements, education, and support and counselling on smoking, substance abuse, family violence, and stress. The program targets pregnant women who are most likely to have unhealthy babies that would also be at high risk due to poor health and malnutrition of the mother. The program is to be implemented and delivered in partnership with the provinces and territories through the federal government's Community Action Program for Children and through the Brighter Futures First Nations and Inuit component. It will build on or expand existing prenatal health programs. Female circumcision refugee accepted A Somali woman was granted refugee status in the first case in Canada of a woman being granted refugee status because of fear of genital mutilation. Khadra Hassan Farrah did not want to take her daughter back to Somalia where she would undergo the ritual: "I was prepared toleave my daughter here foradoptionif my case was rejected. I couldn't take her back." She said many Somali women are forced to undergo the procedure, which involves cutting the external female sexual organs away and sewing the opening shut, except for a small hole for urination. "They did it to me and I didn't want my daughter to go through the same thing." Following repeated demands from and concerted lobby campaigns by women's groups such as the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, Canada finally began accepting refugee claims in early 1993 from women who say they are being persecuted because of their gender. New housing in BC A new program to provide affordable housing in British Columbia was announced on June 30 by provincial Housing Minister Joan Smallwood. "Homes BC" will have four components to provide average and low-income BC residents with adequate and affordable housing. Homeless/At Risk Housing is designed to provide housing for those who find it most difficult to get safe and affordable housing: young single mothers, women and children leaving transition houses, inner-city youth, and people with alcohol and drug dependencies or mental illness. Non-profit housing will assist non-profit sponsors to build housing for low and moderate-income renters; a minimum of 60 per cent of the units will be low-income. Priority will be given to mixed-income projects designed for families with children and people with disabilities. These two components are planned to provide 900 affordable housing rental and co-op units in 1994/95. New Options for Home Ownership is an initiative to create affordable forms of home ownership such as equity co-ops. Priority will be given to current residents of social housing. TheCommunity Housing Initiativewill provide $1.6 million in grants for projects providing advocacy, public education, and new housing-related services by community housing organizations. The BC government has also recently amended the Residential Tenancy Act to provide more protection for the 450,000 tenant households in BC. UN releases population report The United Nations has released a report to thelnternarionalConference onPopu- lation and Development (ICPD), which will take place in Cairo September 5 to 13. The report promotes the education and empowerment of women, and access to voluntary family planning as methods to limit population growth. OfFicE SuppliEs EastsjcIe DATAGitAphics 1460 Commercial Drive teI: 255*9559 Fax: 255*5075 Rice, Paper /\laf?£,i«g For* Veeoupo^e on Terra Cotta, wicier, wood ... or-to cbenupuourdinner*porta/ Art SuppliEs ^-Unjon Shop CaII or Fax ancI we'U sencJ you our MONthly flyER of qREAT officE supply spEciAls. Free NEXi^Ay uElivERy. SEPTEMBER 1994 What's News The report also stresses women's right to reproductive choice, stating, "Evidence is accumulating that free and equal access to health care, family planning and education is .not only desirable in itself but a practical contribution to the success of wider objectives, including environmental protection and economic development." An earlier report by Unicef demonstrated that there is a direct correlation between women attending primary and high school and reduced childbearing. The Vatican and some Islamic authorities have criticized the report. The Roman Catholic hierarchy is vigorously opposing the positions of some delegate governments, particularly the United States, which support access to abortion and rights to "reproductive and sexual health." "Sexual health," argues the Vatican, could include gay and lesbian rights. Al Azhar University in Cairo, a centre of Islamic learning, and the government of Iran have said parts of the preparatory documents offend Islam. At the ICPD prepa ra tory meeting in New York in April [see story page 9], Vatican pressure convinced the delegations of ten countries to oppose language in conference documents referring to reproductive health, reproductive education for adolescents, and safe motherhood. Although a minority, because the meeting operated by consensus, this language ended up bracketed in the preparatory document—meaning it will have to be discussed again at the conference itself and won't be taken as a given starting point. In the Philippines, the Roman Catholic Church held a protest of 200,000 people to oppose the government's birth control program—counselling and free contraception— and to demand a boycott of the ICPD. Students from Catholic schools who attended said they had been ordered to do so. AIDS in the world The education of women has been identified by the World Bank as one of the most important factors in improving health in developing countries. And marginalized groups need basic human rights before they can defend themselves against AIDS, according to the director of the International AIDS Centre at the Harvard School of Public Health, Jonathan Mann. People who belong to groups that are "discriminated against, marginalized..and excluded from society"—women, ethnic minorities, and gay men—are most at risk for HIV infection. Mann, speaking at the 10th International Conference on AIDS in Tokyo, Japan, said drug users and prostitutes in barbara findlay B.A. M.A. LIB is delighted to announce that she is now practising I with the law firm of Smith and Hughes 321-1525 Robson St. Vancouver phone 683-4176 Smith and Hughes offer a full range of le?al services to the lesbian, gay and bisexual communities of Vancouver. Initial consultations are without charge. Western Europe are harassed by police, interfering with their ability to take part in AIDS-prevention programs. Lack of access to health care in the United States means low income people are vulnerable to infection and receive poor care if ill or infected with HIV. And in many countries, women are beaten if they refuse unwanted intercourse with an infected partner, and have no legal protection. Garment workers win fight Workers in a garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, succeeded in winning the payment of overdue wages. The workers of Flint Garments, who are almost all women, demanded payment of three months overdue wages and five months overtime pay in December 1993. In response, men were hired to assault them, and ten workers were injured. Workers filed a police report and pressured the police into arresting the thugs. The workers then began a strike, sit-in and blockade to demand payment of their overdue wages and to protest against the violence directed against them. They also sent written complaints to the Labour Ministry and the Garment Owners' Association. After two meetings between the owners, workers and government did not resolve the situation, the owners gained a court order to remove goods for shipping. Women workers lay in front of the gate to prevent entry and police were unable to recover the goods. At a third meeting, the factory owners finally agreed to pay the outstanding wages in installments, and the workers have since received the first payment. The owners accepted full responsibility for the injured workers. A victory procession was held on January 3. Feminist writer faces death threat Taslima Nasreen, a feminist writer in Bangladesh, hasbeen threatened withdeath by some Muslim fundamentalists for speaking out against the oppression of women. Nasreen recently published a book, Lajia (Shame), about a Hindu family in Bangladesh being persecuted by fundamentalist Muslims. The government banned the book, which sold 50,000 copies, for "creating misunderstanding between communities." MUNRO • PARFITT LAWY E R S quality legal services in a woman friendly atmosphere labour/em ploym en t, human rights, criminal law and public interest advocacy. 401-825 granville street, Vancouver, b.c. v6z 1 k9 689-7778(ph) 689-5572 (fax) Nasreen has also made controversial statements, reportedly supporting sex outside marriage and allegedly stating that "we have to move beyond these ancient texts [such as the Koran] if we want to progress." On June 4, the government of Bangladesh brought criminal charges against Nasreen for insulting the Muslim religion, for which the maximum penalty is two years in prison. About 10,000 fundamentalists rallied in Dhakar, the capital, demanding the death penalty for'Nasreen and other "blasphemers." One Muslim cleric offered a bounty to anyone who kills her. [The bounty has apparently since been withdrawn.] Nasreen went into hiding in June, but has since appeared in Sweden, where she accepted an award. She has said that her statements about the Koran had been taken out of context, but she will continue to speak out about the condition of women: "Everywhere I look I see women being mistreated and their oppression being justified in the name of religion. Is it not my moral responsibility to protest?" She cites religious courts which pronounce extreme sentences, including death, on women breaking Islamic law, as interpreted by fundamentalists; these sentences are illegal in Bangladesh but the la w is not enforced. Lesbian mom wins custody A US woman has won an appeal of a Virginia court decision which had removed her three year-old son from her custody. A state appeals court overruled the 1993 decision by a US Judge, who determined Sharon Bottoms was an unfit mother because she and her lover, who lived together, engaged in oral sex, which is a crime under Virginia law. A number of US states have " sodomy" laws which prohibit certain sexual acts, even between consenting adults in private. The Virginia Courts of Appeals panel, in a three-to-zero decision, ruled that "private sexual conduct, even if illegal, does not crea tea presumptionofunfitness."The panel DR. PAULETTE ROSCOE NATUROPATHIC PHYSICIAN HOMEOPATHY COUNSELLING DETOXIFICATION HYCROFT MEDICAL CENTER 108-3195 GRANVILLE ST. VANCOUVER, B.C. V6H 3K2 731-4183 also said that Bottoms' mother Kay, who had been awarded custody, had no more legal standing than a stranger. Only in custody disputes involving two parents can the court decide who is "better;" in disputes between a parent and a third party (such as a grandmother), it must be proven that continuing parental custody would be extremely harmful to the child: Although Bottoms is "really happy" about the decision, her son may not return to her home for up to two years, pending her mother's appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court to reverse the decision. Sources: Sojourner-The Women's Forum, Aug/94; bad attitude, UK; Asian Women Workers Newsletter, Apr 94; Cross Cultural Communication Centre, Toronto, Aug/94; Scoop: a publication of the Co-operative Housing Federation of BC, Aug/94; International Women's Rights Action Watch, Jun/94; BC Aboriginal Fisheries Commission Newsletter; Canadian Dimension, Jan/Feb 94; The Watershed, Carrier-Sekani Tribal Council. Sth Annual Hritish Columbia HIV/AIDS Conference FOCUS ON YOUTH The 1994 Conference theme will be Youth with a focus on education & health promotion. WOMEN'S CENTRE | WOMEN WORKING \ TOGETHER • Library • Lounge • Resource Office • Outreach Programs AQ 2003, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, V5A1S6 291-3670 Specific topics will include: Primary Care Workplace Measuring the Impact Health Promotion Education Interurban & Rural Perspective Aboriginal Issues HTV/AIDS in Prisons Palliative Care Reaching Women HIV, Drugs and the Street Youth Living with HTV/AIDS Managing Chronic Grief Delivering Care to Women & Children Penetrating the Silence Guest Faculty Include: Jane Fulton, Health Economist, Toronto David Schnarch, Licensed Clinical Psychologist, New Orleans This multi-disciplinary conference is eligible for continuing education credits For information, please call: (604) 822-2626 or 822-4965 Fax (604) 822-4835 SEPTEMBER 1994 Movement Matters listings information Movement Matters is designed to be a network of news, updates and information of special interest to the women's movement. Submissions to Movement Matters should be no more than 500 words, typed, double spaced and may be edited for length. Deadline is the 18th of the month preceding publication. by Laiwan Services for Black Francophone women The Black Francophone Women of Toronto Network is a rion-profit organization where local Black women get together to provide services to other women in their community. The goal of the network is to help the Black francophone women and their families adapt to the social, cultural, economic and emotional environments. It promotes the Black woman's self-sufficiency; self-respect and dignity, and intervenes with government institutions, private sector and nongovernmental organizations to help them design projects for the Black francophone woman. Services provided include help with: immigration (call-in); guidance; help with lawyers, social services and school boards; employment (seeking a job, documentation); social services (city orientation); finding francophone medical centres or affordable housing; and intervention in situations of abuse, assault or family violence. For more informa tion contact: Le Reseau des femmes noires francophones de Toronto, 464 Yonge Street, Suite 211, Toronto, Ontario M4Y 1W9. Tel: (416) 924-7169. Inquiry at UBC Women at the University of British Columbia who lay complaints and pursue formal grievances dealing with discriminatory practices rangingfrom racism to biased evaluations and sexual harassment by faculty in UBC's Political Science Department are calling for support from the wider community. UBC's Political Science Department has apparentlybeguna misinformation campaign designed to discredit the students who have complained about inappropriate conduct among the faculty towards students. Media reports that cite Don Blake, the head of the Political Science Department, contain "sanitized" departmental versions of complaints and erroneously state that these versions are the complaints themselves. The de- partmenthasalsomisrepresentedthenumber of students involved in complaints and the duration of time over which the Faculty of Graduate Studies has received complaints. The Graduate Student Society at UBC will attempt to monitor the proceedings of an inquiry beginning with the as-yet-ignored issue of what rights students have to protection in the present situation. Several students say they have already suffered penalties or received veiled threats formaking complaints. The inquiry was called by Dean Marchak and Dean Grace and announced in the form of a press release from Media Relations UBC. The university lawyer Bertie McClaine is responsible for appointing a commissioner(s) for the inquiry and drawing up the Terms of Reference. Support for women students being requested includes that women: request information about the inquiry from the University Media Relations Office and the Faculty of Graduate Studies; request information from the Minister Responsible for Skills and Training and Higher Education; request an interview with Don Blake, head of the Department of Political Science about the misinformation issued by him; publish excerpts from student complaint letters and memos which are available upon request. For more information contact Amanda Ocran at 224-6445 or the Graduate Student Society at 822-3202. Women Creating Change conference The Saskatchewan Action Committee on the Status of Women is sponsoring a Women's Agenda Conference on November 18-20 in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. The conference is called "Women Creating Change: Equality, Development and Peace," and is partly funded by the Canadian International Development Agency and the federal government's Women's Program. Pre-registration for the conference begins in September. For more information, contact: SAC, 2343 Cornwall Street, Regina, Saskatchewan, S4P 2L4, Canada. UN postcard campaign The March on the United Nations in New York on June 26 was the first step in demanding worldwide human rights for all gay people. The UN Postcard Campaign is petitioning theUnited Nations to demand equal right for all lesbians and gay people. They want the UN to amend Article 2 of the Universal dDclaration of Human Rights to include the words "sexual orientation." Their goal is to deliver to the UN 1,000,000 postcards during the UN's session this fall. The UN Postcard Campaign supports the human rights of all the world's people, including its gay, lesbian and bisexual citizens. With your help, the UN Postcard Campaign could get them to do this. To request information and postcards to send to the UN, telephone or fax 1-800- 656-8672. The mailing address is: The UN Postcard Campaign, 2255-B Queen Street East, Suite 811, Toronto, Ontario, M4E1G3, Canada. European women and poverty The Women's Committee of the European Parliament adopted a report in February showing recent statistics that 50 million people are living in poverty within the European Union. This is about 15 percent of Europe's population. In all member states, single parents and the elderly are amongst the most vulnerable groups, of which women are estimated to make up about 80 percent. The report states that social exclusion is mainly due to three factors: development on the labour market (unemployment, atypical work, part-time work); changes in family structures (such as divorce, single parenthood, etc); and absence of adequate policies at national and European levels to deal with these developments, such as the financial dependency of women, and the fact that benefits are in general linked to the previous job held. The Women's Committee resolutions makea number of recommendations: a minimum income; a special European Women's Movement Programme for women in areas of social tension within the European Union; an information campaign on the feminization of poverty; more gender specific statistics on women; and an annual Poverty report by the European Commission. The European Commission is also urged to take measures in favour of refuge centres for homeless women and victims of violence and to hold consultations with non-governmental organizations and grassroots women in the process of drafting programmes and projects. The Groner Report is available from national European Parliament offices in Europe. Fighting toxic chemicals in Mexico Solidarity workers and Mujer a Mujer have joined with the Mexican Maquila Women Workers Network in protesting health and environmental problems caused by the harmful use and disposal of toxic chemicals by multinational corporations in the Mexican maquiladora region. In response to corporate and governmental demands that the multinationals lower their standards to "compete with Mexican workers," they are supporting the efforts of Mexican workers to raise standards. On June 27, the Mexican Maquila Women Workers Network organised a Day of Action Against Toxic Chemicals in a number of cities along the Mexican/US border. In Canada, Solidarity Works and Mujer a Mujer (Woman to Woman) called on labour, women's and environmental groups, to send taxes to the Mexican and Canadian governments demanding strict enforcement of healthand safety andenvironemntal standards in the maquila. The campaign, however, continues beyond the Day of Action. Little is heard about the inspiring work of labour and community organizers who are fighting to win their union rights and improve their standards of living and quality of life. The Mexican Maquila Women Workers Network is one of these groups. They bring together women's groups and Veux-tu etre active dans le mouvement des femmes en franfais??? Contacte-nous ou viens te joindre a Reseau-Femmes Colombie-Britannique Telephone: 736-6979, poste 332 Telecopieur: 736-4661 women maquila workers involved in workplace and community organizing, education and leadership training programs, and public campaigns like the Action Against Chemicals. Fax copies of your letters of support to: The Maquila Women Workers Network, care of Mujer a Mujer (Women to Women), 416- 532-7688. For further information contact: Mujer a Mujer (Woman to Woman) and /or Solidarity Works, 606 Shaw Street, Toronto, Ontario, M6G 3L6. by Wei Yuen Fong Women for Better Wages (WBW), a coalition of women's groups, individual women and union women in the Lower Mainland of BC, is organizing a series of workshops on sectoralbargaininginSeptember. The workshops will be held in Vancouver, Kamloops and Nanaimo. WBW says sectoral bargaining is one strategy to improve working conditions, wages, and benefits for women by making it easier for women to unionize. Under the current labour legislation and anti-worker climate, women in service sector jobs or in small workplaces find it almost impossible to organize collectively. WBW says that if sectoral bargaining were allowed, women workers could would be able to bargain collectively by sector— such as banking or retail—rather than in a small group or one-on-one with their employers. Sectoral bargaining could particularly benefit women in non-standard jobs— part-time, short-term, contract and temporary work—and those working in isolated workplaces, such as domestic workers and home workers. WBW's hands-on workshops are in- . tended to provide women with a chance to evaluate sectoral bargaining as a strategy for advance women's economic status. The workshops will be held: •In Vancouver: Thursday, September 8 in Room L3, Brittania Community Centre, 1661 Napier St. •In Kamloops: Monday, September 12 in Room 101N, Cottonwood Centre, 750 Cottonwood Ave. •In Nanaimo: Tuesday, September 20 at the Nanaimo Women's Resource Centre, #219-285 Prideaux St. All three workshops are from 7-9:30 pm and childcare subsidies are available at the workshops. To register or for more information, call: Agnes Huang, 685-6140 (in Vancouver); VickiNygaard, 376-3009 (inKamloops); and Marilyn Coleman 758-7872 (in Nanaimo). Women who are unable to attend the conference but who would like more information about sectoral bargaining can write to Women for Better Wages, c/o 4332 Erwin Dr, West Vancouver, BC, V7V1H6; or call or fax (604) 922-4067. ??$??? VANCOUVER STATUS OF WOMEN Annual General Meeting & Volunteer Appreciation Sunday September 18,1994 11:00 am to 5:00 pm at the Vancouver Status of Women #301-1720 Grant Street Tel 255-5511 In addition to the presentation of our Annual Report & the election of members of the Coordinating Collective—we will be holding three workshops on programming, communications and volunteer development SEPTEMBER 1994 Feature Population and Development: An international debate by Shree Mulay as told to Agnes Huang The United Nations International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) will be held between September 5 to 13 in Cairo, Egypt. The ICPD will have two concurrent forums—one for government representatives from UN member countries and another for non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Several preparatory committee (PrepCom) meetings were held leading up to the Cairo conference. Out of those meetings came a 16-chapter document laying out the framework for debate and discussion for the ICPD. Shree Mulay attended an ICPD PrepCom meeting in April in New York. She will be attending the NGO forum of the Cairo conference as the representative of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC). Mulay is a member of the New Reproductive Technologies Committee of NAC and has been involved with the South Asian Women's Centre in Montreal for many years. Agnes Huang: The upcoming conference in Cairo will be the third such conference, the first being in Bucharest in 1974, the second in Mexico City in 1984. What is the purpose of this year's conference? Shree Mulay: Actually, the Cairo conference is the first conference on population and development. The earlier ones were on population alone. This points to thechanging trend or better appreciation by the world community that you cannot talk about population and not talk about development. Huang: What do you expect to come out of the ICPD? Mulay: At one level, I'm optimistic there will be better recognition of women's reproductive rights and reproductive health—a broader definition of reproductive health that's not merely related to contraception but to motherhood, better family health care, and other issues. I'm also pessimistic because reproductive rights and reproductive health do not seem to be seen with respect to ending all forms of discrimination against women. You begin to wonder to what extent women are going to be able to exercise their reproductive rights when in fact they are [unable to exercise their basic human rights.] So I'm ambivalent about the outcome of this particular conference. Huang: One of the things that came out of the PrepCom in New York was a 16-chapter document setting out a framework for debate and discussion at the Cairo ICPD. What is your impression of that document? Mulay: [I'm critical of it because] there was one chapter on reproductive rights and one on reproductive health, but when you critically examine the other chapters, you realize that these concerns have been isolated in these two chapters and that the document as a whole does not enshrine those ideas. These two chapters are also full of brackets, [which is] where the rights of women are put. [The bracketed parts] are also where there is no consensus and over which most of the battle [at the Cairo conference] is going to take place. At the New York PrepCom, it was clear from the debate on the floor that there is going to be tremendous resistance to many of the notions of reproductive rights and reproductive health. The Vatican, of course, continues to lobby strongly for its position that the right to abortion be opposed. Huang: What do you think will be some of the main issues at Cairo? Mulay: One is the issue of what precisely constitutes reproductive rights and reproductive health. There are two lines on this particular issue—that reproductive rights means individuals have an unalienable right to have children no matter what and no one can decide for them how many children they should have. At the other end is the notion that reproductive rights means the right of people to decide how many children they should have within a particular social context. This argument is played out by both the more conservative governments as well as the more liberal ones. Canada sort of falls in- between. The debate will definitely focus on abortion; on what exactly is fertility regulation and to what extent contraceptives can be promoted among young people; and what exactly constitutes a family. The latter is an important debate because the Vatican does not recognize any kind of family except the nuclear, heterosexual family—it does not even recognize the kinds of families that have existed in many parts of the world, such as the extended family or families are you picking on us when you are doing almost nothing about reducing your consumption? If consumption was reduced by a miniscule percentage, we would not have the kind of problem you are talking about." Women's rights as human rights was an issue because the abuses that take place around the enforcement of population control target women. It can be [in the form of] political force or economic pressures—for example, if you accept this long-acting contraceptive, you will be given a house, piece of land, or whatever. Huang: You also attended the People's Perspectives on Population conference in Comilla, Bangladesh last December. This symposium brought together 61 women from 23 countries. Out of the symposium came a declaration on population issues. Part of the declaration was a statement that "there cannot be a feminist population policy"... "I am inclined to agree with the women from the South... a population policy is really an anti-feminist position." where women as a group collectively take care of children. The debate on the family will reflect on who should have access to information about contraception or childbirth, for example. The other area of debate is going to be on the question of sustainable development. While the conference is supposed to be about population and development, one really does not see that much about development. The NGO groups in the South have felt that the PrepCom document has been watered down quite a bit with respect to sustainable development. Governments of southern countries want no regulations about what kind of factories they build and what kind of development takes place while northern countries are really not dealing with the issue of how they can limit their consumption.It'salreadya cliche thatnorth- ern countries consume 80 percent of world resources while having 20 percent of the world's population, and southern countries have 80 percent of the population but consume only 20 percent of the resources...yet there is no mention of this in the document. Huang: You mentioned that many countries in the South are pushing for an agenda of unrestricted development. What is the agenda of women in the south in framing the discussion around sustainable development? Mulay: The women from the southern NGOs at the New York PrepCom were saying that sustainable development has to be environmentally viable and not at the expense of people, that the population policy programs which seek to limit the number of children should not be coercive and their explicit purpose should not be to create this cheap labour market—because the fewer children women have, the easier it is for them to be moved around and work under hard conditions. [Thewomenalso] focussed on regulatory issues, such as when you construct a factory, what kind of environmental regulations should there be to control pollution, since most poor people live in highly industrialized areas. One cannot approach the question of population growth as the only factor in balancing world resources and development. I heard southern women say, "why Mulay: About 75 percent of the Bangladesh conference were from the South and there was a strong sense that you cannot talk about a feminist population policy. There is a debate out there in the women's movement as to whether there can be a feminist population policy. For example, the International Women's Health Collective, which is based in New York, holds the position that it is possible to talk about a feminist population policy if one places the question of reproductive health in the context of family health care. According to them, the two have to be in place in order for it to be considered any feminist population policy because it violates and contradicts the basic premise of feminism. But having seen what happens with the kinds of changes and the actual implementation of these programs in Third World countries, I am inclined to agree with the women from the South; that support of a population policy is really an anti-feminist position. If you talk about population as the problem, than of course the solution would be that you have to take any measures necessary [to control population] such as, for example, in China, where they have a coercive policy about how many children a woman or a couple can have. Since it is necessarily coercive, it is really not a feminist solution. One cannot talk about population policy from any other perspective except the real situation on the ground, which is that coersion is used in these population policies, and therefore women should oppose them. Huang: How do women's groups and NGOs in the North place themselves in the debate about whether there can be population policies that do not target women, particularly poor women? Mulay: My sense is that the spectrum of NGOs representing women's groups will be quite wide at the Cairo ICPD. Many of the northern women's groups think population is a problem. But, as in Canada, there are several women's health organizations that take a position closer to that of the South because they see the links between what is happening in the North and in the South. For example, the situation for Aboriginal women, women of colour and rural women is like that for women in the South. [We have in Canada] the presence of the South right here in the middle of the North. The kind of policies we are talking about in the South are being implemented in Canada with respect to Aboriginal women. Another group of women with strong views are women with disabilities because they see the implementation of some of these population policies as having a eugenic dimension to them. They point to the kind of things that are happening in China, where the Chinese government has enacted a law which forces women who have been diagnosed with carrying a child with disabilities to have an abortion. Huang: What is NAC's position on issues around population and development? Mulay: There hasn't really been an overall enunciation of NAC's position with respect to population and development, but there have been [a number of] resolutions. For example, a resolution taken in June on Norplant [a long-acting contraceptive] recognizes that Norplant is being used to limit the fertility of women in the South, as well as looks at why it was brought to Canada. That isanexampleofaclearrecognition[inNAC] that population control policies limit the rights of women and are anti-people in many ways. NAC generally takes the position of the right of women to be able to exercise choice over their bodies. Therefore, on one hand, NAC supports [the right of] women all over the world to have access to, say, legal abortion, but, at the same time, recognizes that many reproductive technologies are being used against women, such as sex selection to abort female fetuses and so on. NAC would like restrictions and control over these kinds of technologies. Huang: In terms of what follows the Cairo conference, is it likely that women who attend the Cairo conference and who participate in the 4th UN Conference on Women in Beijing next year will keep the discussion of population and development high on the agenda there? Mulay: I hope they will. I'm not sure what will come out of Cairo, certainly with respect to reproductive rights, health and so on. But if the onslaught which has been launched by the Vatican is successful, and none of these issues get through, I think we will have to keep this issue quite central to the Beijing agenda. And not just Beijing, the Copenhagen Summit [on the Family in July 1995] is also important. It is crucial that there be recognition of the diversity of families which exist, including the rights of gays and lesbians, in order for complete recognition of the diversity of peoples and families in the world. The Cairo conference, the Copenhagen Summit and the Beijing conference are a culmination towards the recognition of some of these rights. On the one hand, as I said in the beginning, I'm pessimistic but, on the other, I see some perceptable changes being made and, hopefully, these international conferences contribute to that. I see these international conferences creating a positive climate to the extent that women's groups are able to lobby, to keep women's rights, including reproductive rights, central. [The conferences] also have provided women with the tools to work and lobby. Women at the New York PrepCom were very effective in the way they carried on the lobby process. There is a greater need to be able to do that in Cairo, to ensure some of the wording is not diluted further but is kept strong. Agnes Huang is a Chinese feminist activist who wants to be in Beijing in September 1995. Thanks to Lael Sleep and Sur Meliat for transcribing this intervieiv. SEPTEMBER 1994 Feature NAFTA and Mexico elections: Women of the Americas by Maria Julie Amestory The following was written shortly before the elections in Mexico on August 21. Organizations in Mexico that have been carrying on the struggle against NAFTA and for a better trade agreement called an interna tiona 1 conference in July and invited guests from Mexico, United States, Canada and other Latin American countries. The theme of the conference was "Integration, Democracy and Development Toward a Social Agenda for the Continent." The conference was a forum to continue developing responses to the crisis in the lives of the ordinary people in the Americas, created by the continental integration process and by the global agenda of world capital. Delegates a t the conference sought wa ys to combat the decline in living standards, common throughout the Americas, and the enormous transfer of wealth from the poorest people to the richest; to counter the growing attacks on democracy and democratic institutions; to find ways to halt the attack on health, education and social welfare in Canada, the US and Latin America; and finally, to put forward proposals for sustainable development. The delegates at the conference agreed on eight major areas that would constitute a social agenda, and said that before trade agreements are made, there has to be agreements on: •A declaration of human rights that every country would have to subscribe to, and enforce, especially for entry into any free trade agreement; •An agreement that there be a basic living standard that apply to all of the people of the Americas, including standard healthcare, education and social welfare; •A guarantee of women's rights throughout the Americas. The double and triple exploitation of women, particularly in Latin America, must end; •Rights of Aboriginal people have to be respected in international and national agreements and treaties; •Respect for the right of workers to organize. Basic trade union rights are essential; •The application of democracy at all levels of government and in all the institutions of government; •A program of sustainable economic development for the countries of Latin America, which remove them from being producers of raw materials for the North and pools of cheap labour; • An agreement for the protection of the environment. The problem with the trade agreements such as the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is that basic rights have not been respected. In fact, the FTA and NAFTA are not trade agreements, but agreements that make it easy for capital to access sources of raw material and cheap labour. At the conference, delegates were not opposed to free trade, but to the free trade agenda set by international capital, which is simply a licence to exploit the people of the Americas. One Mexican delegate at the conference said women and campasinos (peasants) should be protected. There is a growing national movement bringing together the urban poor and campasinos to demand, basic rights—the right to food, clean water and free speech. Women in Latin America have suffered more exploitation that anyone, and Aboriginal women the most of all- -exploitation by capital, the state and the church. Delegates from Latin America aree aware NAFTA is only a platform by which American capital intends to bring into being continental integration of Latin American countries on their terms. The delegates from Chile, Brazil and Columbia made it clear that their anti-free trade movements will not allow their countries to enter NAFTA as it presently stands. There was agreement that some forms of continental integration of the economies of the Americas could be positive and progressive. These could include assistance for sustainable development in Latin America, including economic support from the US and Canada, and an international agreement of individual sovereign states to develop a social charter and a process of liberalizing trade that is an economic agenda for people. The barrier to a continental social charter is international capital, which seeks a charter to carry on unobstructed investment where it wants, on its own terms. The state structures of most American countries—the lack of democracy, the influence of the military, and the increasing degree of centralization of control—also needs to be overcome. People are not going to find democracy in Latin America, and unless the people of Canada and the US block it, there is going to be further erosion of democracy here too. We know that social institutions in the US and Canada are under attack, and democratic control over them, which should be strengthened, is being eroded. The Mexican economy If you listen to the propaganda of the Clinton, Mulroney and now Chretien administrations, they would have you believe that NAFTA and die decisions around it are beginning to transform the Mexican economy. In fact the Mexican economy is in crisis. For example, the Mexican government claims it created two million jobs between 1983 and 1993, but what they don't tell you is 1.1 million new workers enter the workforce each year—that means there are nine million more unemployed people than there were in 1983. In 1983, 37 percent of the national income went to wages. By 1993 only 25 percent of the national income went to wages. There ha s been a decline in the standard of living of the majority of Mexicans. Child malnutrition went from 7.5 percent to 15 percent. In 1993, the buying power of the Mexican minimum wage dropped to 60 percent of its 1983 value. Minimum wage is now 81 cents per hour or $6.50 a day. Manufacturing wages in Canada are eight times that of wages in Mexico. Per capita income is one-sixth that of the US. In the early 80s, there was a [foreign] debt strike by several major debtor nations, including Mexico. Mexico was the first to break down and accept the demands of the international financial institutions and of the US. In the early 80s, Mexico owed $80 billion US in foreign debt. Over the last 14 years, they ha ve paid off $100 billion in interest and principal, but now owe $116 billion, in addition, they owe payments on another $125 billion in personal debt and foreign investment. That means Mexico owes $240 billion US plus interest. Meanwhile, the number of billionaires in Mexico has gone from one to over 20. Mexico has gone through a process of privatization. Last week, Fortune Magazine listed as the most profitable service corporatrion in the world Telephonos de Mexico, which made $2.9 billion US profit last year. The Mexican government, responding to pres sure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the US, privatized the telephone company. And in keeping with the NAFTA process, the government recently announced there will be 20 new maquiladora "free trade zones" in the state of Chiapas. Uprising in Chiapas The significance of the uprising in Chiapas in Mexico [see Kinesis, Feb/94] has been understated in the mainstream media. Since the coming to power of Mexico's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in the 1930s, there is no single event that has shaken Mexican society more than the revolution in Chiapas. It is not a revolution restricted to the Zapatistas in Chiapas or the other Southern states of Mexico but has support throughout Mexico. Last month, the Zapatista National Liberation Army and the Zapatista Front held a national democratic conference in Chiapas, with more than 5,000 Mexican and foreign delegates attending. The Zapatista revolution is about ending the control of transnational corporations and rich Mexicans, about land reform and opposition to NAFTA-which allows priva- tizationof communal lands to fransnationals formonoculture.ThepeopleofChiapashave no choice. They could die of poverty or fight. In Aguascalientes, Mexico, the Zapatista National Liberation Army's chief spokesman, known only as Marcos, told some 5000 delegates to the convention that the Zapatistas would place their weapons at the disposal of the civilian movement created by the recent convention in Chiapas. There is expected to be "peaceful civilian mobilization" if the PRI wins the Mexican elections. The convention is demanding the creation of a transitional government that would dismantle the PRI's hold on power in Mexico. Elections 1994 in Mexico Mexico's mainstream press supports the PRI and opposes the leftwing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PDR) headed by Cuauhtemoc Cardenas—the son of the Mexican president in the 30s who nationalized the oil industry. Cardenas was truly elected in 1988, but the election was stolen by fraud. Half-way through the counting of the votes, the PDR was in the lead, the computers "brokedown," and when counting resumed, instead of having 45 percent of the vote as in the first count, he got 20 percent of the vote in the second half of the counting. In Mexico's election this year, the PRI government says the new voters list only has a four-percent error, while the PDR says it is 17-percent fraudulent-some people on the list are dead, never existed, or have been registered twice, et cetera. The PDR says one name in six is fraudulent. In addition, millions are not even on the list, yet the list was closed by the commission several weeks before the elections. There is no doubt that massive electoral fraud will take place in Mexico's elections. And while the media is aware that the eyes of the world are looking, it is a controlled media that does not give the PDR, Zapatistas, and the opposi rion the kind of coverage they deserve. International observers may not be able to prevent massive fraud but their very presence tells the world that the Mexican government is so corrupt, it needs watching. Looking ahead The only solution is the election of a democratic government of national unity, which will work for a continental agreement with the other nations of Latin and North America based on sustainable development. The popular movement in Mexico is very sophisticated, well developed and growing. The Mexican people, in growing numbers, are not prepared to accept the corporate agenda. Whatever the consequences, we shall see a continuing struggle by a broad coalition, including churches, women's organizations, NGOs, campasinos, the authentic trade union movement, and others united in this common agenda. There is a rising anti-free trade movement in Chile and other Latin American countries and talk of a secretariat to coordinate the work of anti-free trade movements of all the countries of the Americas. In Canada, if you look at the phrases "competitive advantage," "globally competitive," "restructuring" and "downsizing," you find these are euphemisms for reducing the living standards of Canadians. The objective of the transnational corporations is to cut the living standards of all of us, and the argument is: "how can you compete with manufacturing wages in Mexico that are an eighth the level of Canadian ones...we all have to tighten our belts and do with less". Mexican people support the Canadian struggle to defend our living standards because they see the ability of the people of Latin America to say, "we want an improvement in the living standards of Latin America, we don't want the gap to be one to eight, we want the wages of Mexican workers to rise significantly to a continental level." People in Latin America support our struggles to maintain our health care, education, social welfare and minimum wage structure. But instead, North American corporations tell us we need to be able to compete with the third world. Governments are listening to the corporations and are obsessed with debt reduction policies, moving closer towards cutting out social spending, which will lower corporate tax levels and allow them to make greater profits. In the Americas, there is a greatneed for peoples to work together for sustainable economic development and mutual assistance. The agenda of the corporations is that both the North and the South are areas for exploitation. Our agenda is to build a relationship of solidarity with all peoples of the Americas, for the developemnt of a new social agenda for the Americas. I hope the Mexican people are given the chance to decide through the vote on a future that is more justly based on cultural rights, and that roots out the ignorance on which is based the most terrible insults to a life of dignity and respect. There is a big challenge for anyone who has a social conscience—the possibility to define, through popular victories, the acceptance of human rights as a way of life in societies of the Americas. "Ah, I was born in the war of flowers, I am a Mexican. I suffer, my heart fills with sorrow; I see the desolation that grips the temple as all the shields are consumed in flames." (Taken from "songs of Mexican" lament the collapse and destruction of the Aztec world.) Maria Julie Amestoy is a woman of the Americas and a member of the Women of Colour and First Nations Women Political Action Group. Sources for this story are: Mind Link; John Tabacfim MacFarlana, and documents from International human rights groups in Latin America. 10 SEPTEMBER 1994 Feature Greening Our Cities: Reclaiming our spaces by Shannon e. Ash The Greening Our Cities Conference on sustainable urban communities in the Vancouver region was held May 7-8 [see Kinesis Jul/Aug 94]. The conference focussed on alternative visions to that of a Vancouver driven by corporate development, as well as to propose strategies to deal with some of the pressing ecological issues facing the Greater Vancouver region, where it is predicted the population will almost double in the next 30 years. Some of the presentations made by women at the conference are excerpted and summarized here. The first session examined some of the Vancouver area's history, current problems, and some positive actions. Rose Pointe, Education Coordinator of the Musqueam First Nation, spoke on the panel, called "Visions of Living with the Land in the City." The Musqueam's traditional territory includes the areasnow known as southern Vancouver and Richmond. There is a reserve near the University of BC, but a land claim to a much larger area has yet to be settled. "... At one time, Vancouver had 27 creeks that had natural salmon habitat...and now the only one that has natural salmon in it is in Musqueam, called the Musqueam creek. In 1957, they used to call it Tin Can Creek, because the stores in the area would dump their garbage in the creek. "We are trying to keep that creek alive...But people in the area when they clean out their swimming pools, it dumps into the ditches...and some of it ends up in Musqueam Creek. "I know that many of the creeks that once harbored salmon are gone forever, because they were either covered up, bulldozed away, or culverted. "...Native people talkabout genocide...I would support that [this is so] in that [the dominant societies] try to keep us from surviving economically. At one time at Seabird Island [where I was born,] there were seven dairy farms. They were disbanded because our people could not borrow from the bank to improve the standards [of the dairy farm]. So what were our people to live on...? ...Logging was the only thing that was left, and that paid very well in those days... "The image in those days was "he's just a farmer." But the farms are where we get our food from. And I think we have to support our farmers and keep them. I remember when all along Marine Drive, south of Marine Drive, there were farms all along there. Now you only find one." Mae Burrows of the United Fisherman and Allied Workers Union spoke of the impact of urban life on B.C.'s waterways. "Urban development is...one of the biggest gobblers-up of fish habitat. What we need to start doing is seeing fish habitat as a really important part of our ecosystem. Much of what goes into the marshes can be reclaimed, and reused." "...We like to think we have sewage treatment. We have a primary treatment plant at Iona. 'Primary' is a real misnomer because all they really do...is scrape the thick stuff off the top. They test the water at the end of Iona and there's 120 toxic chemicals coming out of there into prime salmon marshland...We use the Fraser River, which is probably the most important salmon-bearing river in the world...as a gigantic toilet. "[Politicians] try to generate a tax revolt: Would you pay a gazillion dollars for sewage or not?' People have said, "yes, we would pay more for sewage.' That's because of the work of the citizens groups and grassroots organizations. Burrows also spoke on the Kemano II project [see What's News, page 7]. "It's Alcan Aluminum's right, given to them by two levels of government (federal and provincial) to virtually have control over the entire Nechako River, to divert 87 percent of the water in that river...it's not about aluminum smelting anymore, it's about hydro consumption. All of these issues, while they often take place throughout the province, every single one of them ha s to do with us urbanites, who li ve.. down here. "The province is going ahead with the Kemano Completion project to provide us with hydroelectricity based on the assumption that we're going to keep growing, that we can't limit growth...We have enough energy in this province now; if we moved into conservation, [we could] save 50 percent of the energy we're consuming. We don't need Kemano II." Rachel Rosen of the Environmental Youth Alliance spoke on her work with the Youth Stewardship Project: "We are creating a youth garden at Cottonwood Community garden in the Downtown Eastside. This area...is the lowest per-capita income community in Canada...there's a real lack of park space, wildspace, compared to the west side of Vancouver. It's been traditionally neglected. "There's five acres of community garden there. Strathcona Garden was started about ten years ago on a dump site. Then Cottonwood branched out of that three years ago...I think it's an amazing example of what people can do with this abandoned land. We are going in there and dealing with car parts, other kinds of garbage, sand from baseball diamonds that the city dumped on the ground. This is what we're trying to garden in. "We're not only growing food but there's a lot of ecological implications to our work, such as soil reclamation, and wildlife habitat. There's a social aspect—a real sharing of knowledge as people of different ages and backgrounds have so much to offer.. It's a great way to educate people on a basic hands-on level. Too often, kids think that fish grows in styrofoam, and adults bite into tomatoes and don't realize that they were picked by indentured labourers in Mexico who are working for multinational corporations. "..In planning for a green city, we have to take into account cultural [and] educational backgrounds, class...we need to start breaking down some of the oppressions that exist between all of us...we need to support people who are working within those issues." Concern about access and linking with diverse communities was stressed a number of times during the conference (which was attended by relatively few people of colour.) The question, "what are our visions of a green city that is socially just?" was an important part of the conference. In introducing the session on "Visions of Community Well-being" Marcia Nozick (editor of City magazine) spoke on the connections between sustainability and justice: "It's important to understand that the same forces that are polluting our air, our water, our soil, those same economic forces are undermining and dismanding the structure of community life...Rootlessness and dispossession are the inevitable byproducts of an economy that's based on global competition and capital mobility. People have to move to find jobs; corporations move to find cheaper labour. I've been told thateven the average food molecule in Canada travels 2,000 miles before it reaches our dinner table. "Vancouver sees itself as being a 'world class city'—this world-class city vision is based on ever-expanding growth and consumption, on unfair trade practices, and on gross inequities in access to land and resources and to the decision-making process. I think the challenge for the Green City vision is to create a city that has communities that are more economically self-sufficient, where people have their needs met and that are grounded in the experiences of people who live in these communities." Heather Pritchard of the Community Alternatives Society (CAS) spoke of belonging to an intentional community for over 15 years. Most members live in a housing co-op in Kitsilano, and the Society also runs Fraser Farm Co-op in Aldergrove, an organic farm. "I am definitely below the poverty line," said Pritchard, "but I don't have an experience of poverty, because my housing charges are based on my income." Affordability is key: "Right now in Kitsilano [an area of Vancouver that became genrrified in the 1980's and saw land and housing prices skyrocket] we'd never be able to do what we did 15 years ago." CAS has an "edible landscape:" fruit trees in the front and back yards, wild garden along the perimeter. The farm co-op provides some income through sale of seasonal salad and garnish products to restaurants. They share equipment and appliances and, like in many co-ops, have a free bin to re-use goods. The community regularly pledges money which is then directed toward various social change projects. For example, composting has been taking place for the last decade, using a huge "one of a kind" composter which has "engineers from all over the world phoning up to find out how it works." They now have some funding to construct prototypes of this composter, to do composting for apartment buildings. Another project is "Farm Folk/ City Folk", which focusses on issues of food and agriculture. The second day of the conference focussed on action. Nancy Skinner, an activist in urban ecology issues in Berkeley, California for 20 years, talked about her experience in urban activism. Among the groups she has been active with is Berkeley Citizens Action (BCA): "The most important aspect of BCA is that it evolved out of progressive social change movements. It was a coalition made up of student groups, anti-war groups, senior citizen groups, tenantactivists,civil rights, the women's movement. The bottom line is that social justice and social equity were always the focus of the organization. BCA's environmental activism grew out of these concerns. Thus it was primarily centred on the environmental issueswhich provided an opportunity for community development [and] social equity. "I think [this is] important because, to be honest, the environmental movement has still pretty much been a white middle class movement. If we come a tit from the.tradirion of the environmental movement, which has mostly been a conservation movement, we lose a lot of people. If we come at it from the community development [and empowerment] point of view, then it's much more embracing." One of the first environmental issues BCA tackled was energy conservation when US fuel prices rose in the late 70s. Low income people were harder hit as more of their income goes toward essential needs. When the city's budget was reduced by tax cuts, social programs began to be cut; the BCA "proposed energy conservation as a way that the city could save money, internally,...so we could redirect that money to social programs. "The essential component of achieving a green city is community buy-in, which requires coalition-building and participatory democracy integrated into every aspect of your work...It's not enough to have a vision, and then try to sell it or impose it, because people have to own it, people have to feel it's their vision too." Coalition-building requires "recognizing and respecting" existing organizations in the communities with which you want to make links. Marcia Nozick spoke on her work as the Healthy Communities Coordinator in Winnipeg: "Winnipeg is very different from Vancouver. Winnipeg is being marginalized in the global economy and our inner city is rapidly declining. "We're looking at how we can develop a local economy that can support the inner city...We're looking at projects that strengthen the local economy and avoid creating dependency on charity systems and on other systems which are not designed to build human self-reliance and self-respect among participants. We don't support food banks, we support other kinds of alternatives, [like] community kitchens. We promote the sharing of wealth, power, and decision-making, and cooperative approaches to community economic development." Nozick says they are "auditing" organizations, businesses and government institutions for their contribution to community development. The criteria include: "production of goods and services [locally] for local use"; "long-term employment of local residents; local skill-development; local decision-making." Some of the actions coming out of the conference include an Eco-City Network [see Bulletin Board]; a group supporting First Nations land claims, called Friends of the Treaty Process [con tact: Marion Halle 876-62 73]; and a Food in the City group [contact: Susan Petersen 228- 9802]. Shannon e. Ash has been growing vegetables in her front yard, and they're doing very well, but does anyone know how to get rid of powdery mildew? SEPTEMBER 1994 Interview with Pascasia Kabazaire: "We want to be called Rwandese." as told to L Muthoni Wanyeki i__ L. Muthoni Wanyeki: The conflict in Rwanda has resulted in over 500,000 deaths and an outpouring of refugees, 65 percent of whom are women and children, into neighboring African countries. Living in Canada, it has been difficult fo\ get an accurate picture of what is going on. Although the conflict entered the mainstream media here in April, with the death of Pvandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, it has been going on for over three years. <~ould you give us a little history? Pascasia Kabazaire: In Rwanda, there are three tribes: Bahutu, a big group; Barutsi, the ones fighting to form a new government; and batwa, the pygmy people, very small in number. These people lived together under a King before 1959. After that time, the Hutu formed a government. But they were too strict. Even though they were supposed to share and give some seatsin government to the Tutsi people, they refused everything to the Tutsi people. From 1959 on, Tutsi people ran away from Rwanda. Pascasia Kabazaire and L. Muthoni Wanyeki Three years ago, they were fed up with being refugees. They asked to come home, but the government refused. So they came by force—actually if they hadn't been prevented by the French, they would have managed to go in without too much bloodshed. When Habyarimana met with the UN [United Nations] in Arusha and theOAU[Organizationof African Unity] was • arranging for everything to be done well. Some extremist Hutu didn't like it. They arranged the mass killings behind the back of the UN. The RPF [Rwandese Patriotic Front] went in quickly to see if they could save some people. Wanyeki: The agreement that was reached in Arusha was that Habyarimana was to take leadership for the interim and to lead the country into multiparty elections where there was meant to be some power sharing. '■ Kabazaire: Yes, but extremist Hutu didn't like it, they wanted to rule forever by themselves. Wanyeki: The western, mainstream media continue to explain the situation in Rwanda as being solely based on tribalism—as they tend to do with almost all political crises in Africa. For example, right now, the labour and student riots in Nigeria around the military governments refusal to accept the multiparty election results and the conflict that those riots have sparked arealsobeingex- plained in solely tribalisticterms.Whatare your thoughts on that? Kabazaire: Habyarimana and Hutu extremists were trying to use tribalism to keep political power to themselves. But now, the RPF and the Hutu that are in government are trying to avoid tribalism. The war, fighting and bloodshed will never end if this tribalism goes on. We want to be called Rwandese— not Hutu, not Tutsi, not Twa. Wanyeki: So tribalism is actually a tool that's used to divide people... Kabazaire: Yes, it's a way of dividing people to keep power. There is a saying: "divide and rule." .Wanyeki: And there are Hutu members of the RPF, isn't that right? Kabazaire: Yes, the RPF is said to be Tutsi but actually they are mixed. They are like me, they don't believe they are Hutu or Tutsi. Moreover, there are Hutu who have always been against Habyarimana's government, some of whom are also now joining the RPF. There are different political parties, but they want to be called Rwandese, they want to share power. And they also want all of the refugees to return. Those who ran away long ago, those who are in Ngoma [in Zaire] now, should go home. Wanyeki: Now that the conflict has settled somewhat, what do you think the priorities are in terms of rebuilding? What are progressives saying both in Rwanda and abroad? Kabazaire: We wish the refugees that are suffering the most in Ngoma would go bac"k home. There are too many, there are no facilities there. The solution is to go home and to build a new government and the country. There is totally zero now, everything is gone. Wanyeki: One of the questions we hear a lot is what to do with the extremists that sparked this kind of bloodshed. What are people saying about justice, about making sure that tribalistic propaganda and this kind of induced conflict doesn't happen again? Kabazaire: We all have to fight it. We should help one another and share. There is no need to keep power, that is dangerous. As it is, if the Hutu hadn't refuse power to the Tutsi before, this wouldn't have happened. Wanyeki: The conflict has resulted in the outpouring of refugees, most of whom are women and children, into neighbouring African countries. We've heard a lot about the death of the President, but we haven't heard much about the death of the Prime Minister who was a woman. Women and children always seem to bear the brunt of this kind of war. Do you want to talk about that? Kabazaire: It is a pity that women in Rwanda were not given opportunities in government. If many women had been in government, they would have had the heart to sympathize with everybody. They are not money-minded; they don't want power for power's sake. The former Prime Minister, Agathe Unwillingiyimana, was against discrimination. She wanted power to be shared amongst the Hutu, Twa and Tutsi. She was happy that the Tutsi were coming back into the country. She was the first to be beheaded. And many woman were raped before being killed. There are now many orphans. So, woman and children are suffering the most in Rwanda. Wanyeki: What has the response been from Rwandans living abroad in terms of organizing and support work? Kabazaire: The world is helping Rwanda, helping the refugees in Ngoma. Wanyeki: You mentioned that there were four Rwandese families living in Vancouver. What have Rwandans here been doing during this period? Kabazaire: We feel very concerned, we wonder what to do. Communications are a problem, we can't even write to people there. Right now, we are just waiting. After that, we will itry to make contact and help by all means. 'Wanyeki: And the last question. As a Rwandese woman living abroad yourself, what do you feel women, and especially women of colour, living in Canada should know? Kabazaire: Women should be helped, especially those who come from another country for a better life. We should be given the opportunity to do the jobs we know we can do and not be denied that opportunity because we are foreigners. We should be helped, be trained in the fields we want so that we don't sit without doing anything. Wanyeki: Is there anything else you would like to add? Kabazaire: Yes. Many Rwandese women have never had the opportunity to get an education. But they are talented musicians, good singers and dancers. If I had money, I would help them to travel and sing and dance so they could raisejnoney to help the orphans at home-we have a lot of orphans in Rwanda, morethananywhere else. These women could help if they where given the opportunity to do so. Pascasia Kabazaire is a Rwandan housewife and single mother currently living in Vancouver. L. Muthoni Wanyeki is a mixed race, Kenyan lesbian who has worked in community-based media in Vancouver. Thanks to Amal Hassan for transcribing this interview, and to Dawit of Immigrant Services for assistance in arranging this interview. A longer version of this interview aired in August on Obaa, a show for and by women of colour on Co-op Radio, Vancouver. An abbreviated history compiled by L Muthoni Wanyeki Pre-colonial times: 1300s: Tutsi migration from the north into what is now Rwanda following an earlier Hutu migration. The Tutsi are cattlekeepers. The Hutu are farmers. Exchange of goods occurs. Intermarriage between Tutsi, Hutu and Twa (the pygmy indigenous people), becomes common. The kingdom of Gasabo comes into being, with a common language, common traditions and common religion. All clans in Gasabo come to have members from all three nations [tribes]. The kingdom is feudal, but based on consensus decision-makingbetween the king and village chiefs, chiefs and sub-chiefs, and the elders. Colonial times: 1899-1916: Gasabo is seen as a German protectorate after the arbitrary division of Africa amongst European colonizing states. 1919: Gasabo is ceded to the Belgians as Ruanda-Urundi—first under a League of Nations mandate, then as a UN trust territory. European missionaries/ethnologists enter and the people begin to be registered along national [tribal] lines. 1926: The Belgians pass the Morteham Law, directing King Musinga to appoint only Tutsi as chiefs. He refuses to do so. 1931: The King is forcibly exiled to Zaire by the colonial governor. His brother Gitarama takes over. The Hutu are forced into labour by the Tutsi Chiefs who have been placed in the position of acting as an enforcers for the Belgians. 1959: Peasant uprisings begin over issues of land and exclusion from political power. Refugees leave for Tanzania, Uganda and Zaire. 1961:The Gitarama monarchy ends with a coup d'etat. Post-colonial times: 1962: Rwanda and Burundi gain their independence. Elections are held in Rwanda. Hutu representatives win most of the seats. Tutsi representatives who won seats are killed. A military, one-party state is established under President Kayibanda. The Tutsi are persecuted for land acquired under colonization. The flow of refugees continues as the mass killings of Tutsi begin. 1973: President Kayibanda is overthrown by former Minister of Defense, Juvenal Habyarimana. The French provide training and financial support to the Rwandese army and support to the new government. 1980s: President Obote in Uganda orders the expulsion of all Rwandese refugees. Some Rwandese join with the Ugandan opposition under Museveni. 1986: President Museveni comes to power in Uganda. 1987: Museveni's Rwandese supporters form the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and with his support, begin negotiating with President Habyarimana for the unconditional return of all Rwandese refugees to Rwanda. October 1990: Negotiations fail. Returning Rwandese are harassed and sometimes killed. TheRPF enters Rwanda. The civil war begins. Internal opposition to the authoritarian and discriminatory nature of Habyarimana's regime steps up. Some members of the opposition join with the RPF as it advances. The army provides military training and arms to the Interahamwe, the youth wing of Habyarimana's party, the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development (NRMDD). The Interahamwe begin mass killings of Tutsi civilians, Tutsi and Hutu opposition members and intellectuals under official orders. The French interfere, siding with Habyarimana's government. August 1993: Under internal and western pressures for political pluralism, the military government signs a peace accord with the RPF in Arusha, Tanzania, intended to end the three-year civil war. Fausrin Twagiramungu, a Hutu opposed to Habyarimana's regime, is designated Prime Minister for an 18-month interim period. At the end of this period, Rwanda is meant to hold its first multiparty elections to form a six-party coalition government. Late 1993: The French leave Rwanda under pressure from the RPF and the African and Western countries who brokered the Arusha peace accord. April 6, 1994: President Juvenal Habyarimana dies in unexplained plane crash. Suspected are Hutu extremists op posed to the Arusha peace accord; and the RPF. April 7, 1994: Prime Minister Agathe Uwillingiyimana,amoderateHutu,opposed todiscriminationalongnational [tribal] lines and a supporter of political pluralism, is executed by the Interahamwe. Radio Mille Collines and Radio Rwanda begin to broadcast anti-Tutsi propaganda. Mass killings begin. Civilians begin to stream into Ngoma, Zaire. April 8,1994: The RPF begins its offensive from the east. The UN removes almost all its personnel from Rwanda. May 23,1994: A 36-hour truce allows for the entry of a UN special envoy whose purpose is to attempt negotiations between the military government and the RPF. May 25, 1994: The UN sends 5,500 peacekeepers into Rwanda. The Congo [Zaire?], Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania and Zimbabwe commit troops. The military government agrees to UN-sponsored peace talks. The RPF refuses to negotiate with the military government, which it terms criminal for the incitement of genocide. It states its intention to enter a ceasefire only when the massacre of civilians ends and when civilians are granted safe passage. June 23,1994: The French enter Rwanda with 2,500 troops and begins to establish a security zone in southwest Rwanda. The UN Security Council has approved Operation Turquoise as a two-month long humanitar- ian mission for the protection of civilians, butigrants the French pre-emptive military measures. The RPF terms Operation Turquoise a foreign invasion. July 4,1994: The RPF gains control of the capital city, Kigali, and with it, has secured the eastern half of Rwanda. The French initially try to stop the RPF advance westward, but later return to their protection of civilians mandate. July 9, 1994: The RPF charges Canada with harbouring a Hutu extremist, former Presidentia 1 Advisor Leon Mugesera, a landed immigrant doing post-doctoral work at Laval University, who was identified by Amnesty International. The RPF demands his trial by the international human rights tribunal for inciting genocide in a 1992 speech. July 14,1994: The Prime Minister-designate Twagiramungu arrives. The RPF declares a unilateral ceasefire. It also demands the trial for war crimes of members of the RNMDD and re-education, rather than punishment for civilians who participated in the mass killings. Twagiramungu states his intention to abide by the Arusha peace accord, excluding the RNMDD from the coalition. August 22,1994: The French are due to withdraw, to be replaced by UN-sponsored African assistance mission. Thanks to Pascasia Kabazaire for all the background information. Commentary: by L Muthoni Wanyeki As is the case with wars the world over, the civil war in Rwanda has had devastating consequences. There have been over 500 000 deaths, 65% of them women and children. In some cases, entire families have been wiped out. There has been an outpouring of almost three million refugees into neighbouring African countries. Humanitarian aid-food supplies, medical supplies, medical personnel~to the refugee camps is pitifully inadequate. Aid workers estimate that there have been an additional 25 000 deaths due to cholera and dysentery. There are at least 75 000 orphaned children. The cash- crop based economy of Rwanda is ruined: unpicked coffee rots on the bushes. Schools and hospitals have been looted. There is no electricity, no running water, no sewage systems. The enormity of the tasks ahead is staggering. And how to begin to deal with the trauma of witnessing mass rapes, mass murders, the displacement of entire peoples? To aid in the recovery, it is imperative that we understand exactly what happened - -and it has been hard indeed to reach that understanding here in Canada because of the framing of the situation in Rwanda by the North American media. A Somali woman from Africa Watch, a London-based human rights information group, has called the mainstream western media's coverage of Rwanda shameful. And it has been shameful indeed. The mainstream western media's formulaic response to any political crisis in the third world-and particularly in Africa-has been followed to a tee. Observation: Internal conflict. Reason: Tribalism. Consequences: "THOSE people are killing themselves!" Moral Dilemma: "Should WE let them do that to each other?" New observations: An outpouring of civilians into neighbouring countries. An estimated 200-500 000 deaths, 65% of those women and children. A higher moral purpose emerges: "SAVE THEM!" And in comes the cavalry... The problem with this kind of formulaic response is that the emergence of the dilemma and its resolution by the rise of a higher moral purpose on the part of the West tends to obscure the historical facts behind the initial observation of internal conflict. The obscuring of history, even very recent history, means that basic Western assumptions can be called into play. The cavalry can thus ride in, assured of its messianic role, and the only debate from that point on will be debate on the logistics of the cavalry's deployment. The mainstream western media would have us believe that the conflict in Rwanda is solely tribal in nature. That long-standing tribalism between the Tutsi of the Rwandan Patriotic Front and the militia of the Hutu government flared into civil war with the murder of Rwandese Hutu president on April 6. This simple call-and-response approach has utterly failed to account for the recent history of the African continent, as well as the particular political context of Rwanda. The late 1980s and the early 1990s saw a continent-wide movement for political pluralism in Africa. Sparked in part by the fall of single-party states in the so-called Eastern Bloc, the multiparty movement became a focus for popular anger and frustration over economic hardships and human rights violations, specifically around political dissent and organized protest. Articulated by intellectuals, as well as by the now well-established professional and business classes, the multiparty movement drew the eager support of Western donor countries and agencies. For the professional and business classes, for the most part, advocated an end to corruption by the implementation of free trade policies. Right-wing economic agendas became synonymous with the term democracy. With western pressure and rising internal dissatisfaction, multiparty elections were held in many former one-party states. And while the elections have meant that many governments that had grown comfortable with the power for authoritarian control have been toppled, they have also meant that attempts at socialism and state control of various industries for the purpose of equitable distribution have, in several countries, been put to rest. In all of these conflicts, threatened regimes have used any and all tools possible to retain political and economic power. The situation in Rwanda is no different. And tribalism has always been a useful tool to manipulate power. The Belgians were aware of that when they implemented the Morteham Law in colonial times, which granted political power solely to the Tutsi. The military government was aware of that when it attempted to redistribute land upon independence. The state-run media and the militia of the Interahamwe has been aware of that as it strongholds for the fading regime against internal opposition and the entry of the RPF. Tribalism in Rwanda is not longstanding-it dates back to the Morteham La w. There are Hutu opposed to Habyarimana's regime. TherearebothHutu and Tutsi in the RPF. And the UNHCR [UN High Commission for Refugees] has no evidence that the RPF is exacting revenge for the mass murder of Tutsi upon the return home of Hutu refugees. The role of the French in supporting the Habyarimana regime cannot be forgotten. The support of the west for the power-sharing Arusha peace accord is suspect, given that political pluralism will achieve no real economic change for the people of Rwanda- -although certainly, the gain of a safe homeland for all its peoples cannot, by any means, be seen as trivial. My point is that African people mobilized—and will continue to mobilize—because they have felt disempowered. That disempowerment and the struggles it produces are not tribal in nature, although they may come to be articulated along tribal lines. Struggle is always both economic and political in nature-tribalism is a convenient tool- -and a colonial invention in the case of Rwanda-to divert attention from what is really at stake. The western free trade agenda means that the west has a stake in the outcomes of those struggles. Tne arrival of the cavalry, named as peacekeepers, obscures that fact by implying neutrality. We know the west is not neutral. We have a responsibility not to play into the set- ups placed before us. An earlier version of this commentary aired in June on Obaa, a show for and by women of colour on Co-op Radio in Vancouver. Feature Interview with Himani Bannerji: Women against religious fundamentalism by Himani Bannerji, as told to Fatima Jaffer This article first appeared on the centre pages in the April 1994 issue of Kinesis. Due to a printing error, the colour overlay on the text made it difficult, if not impossible, to read the article. The Kinesis Editorial Board decided to reprint the article this month following numerous verbal and written requests to that effect from Kinesis readers [see Letters, page 19]. Himani Bannerji is from India. She is a member of an Indian women s group, Sachetana (consciousness). She teaches in the Sociology department at York University in Toronto. She researches in the area of gender and colonialism, particularly looking at the women's movement in India. She is part of an ongoing discussion about women and fundamentalism in India.. Kinesis spoke with Bannerji, who was in Vancouver last month. Fatima Jaffer: Could you define fundamentalism and communalism? Himani Bannerji: In Canada, community and communalism are good words. If you call somebody a communalist in Vancouver or Toronto, you would not usually be saying they're politically reactionary. But in India, communalism is tied up with religious bigotry and right-wing definitions of community—stickingupforcommunity,de- fined on the basis of religion, versus all people, or community versus class. Class politics are wider and include Hindus, Muslims, and Christians—all people or national politics that have a notion of a liberal democratic state for all are short-circuited by communalism. Communalism leads to the creation of countries on the basis of religion. Communities in India are indigenous communities, so there's no question of sticking up for your own—your own exists all over. You don'ttalkabout littleethnic groups because this isn't about an ethnic group in India; it's about 13 percent of the indigenous people—the largest Muslim presence anywhere in the world. jaffer: You're talking in sheer numbers, because there's the whole Middle East as well. Bannerji: Yes, but no Middle Eastern country, no country in the world has as many Muslims as India. You're talking about 12-13 percent in present-day India, minus Bangladesh, minus the area that is Pakistan, and it's still the largest Muslim concentration in the world. So if your community is the whole country, community politics in that sense does not make sense. The dalit (the untouchables caste) community politics might be called community politics, but it will never be called communalism. Communalism came to be an euphemism for standing for your own religious grouping, for a state founded on the basis of religion. This is why the Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha would be considered communal politics, because they would name the political subject as being religious identity, not a social, national, economic identity. This is why "communalism" is a bad thing—it means somebody who wants no single state, someone who does not believe in the rights of all workers, someone who first defines people in terms of religion, then defines politics and exclusivity on the basis of that. Jaffer: How does caste fit in to this? Bannerji: Caste is one of the definitions in what we are talking about, but caste politics didn't arise like that. We'll leave that aside for now. Let's look at f undamenta lism, which isagainareworkingof religion. When a group of people decide that they know what the true fundamental meaning is, they become the fundamental spokesperson for interpreting [that meaning.] A practising Hindu or Muslim can practise religion in many different ways. Fundamentalism is not being religious. You can be a practising Hindu or Muslim, you don't have to be a fundamentalist. Whatmakes you fundamentalist is believing that one version is the one true version and there is no other, excluding all the competing versions and practices that exist. Jaffer: And believing no other version should exist... Bannerji: Yes, claiming a monopoly of definition for one truth of the religion. Fundamentalism is extremely elitist. It comes from the aristocracy of any group, Hindus or Muslims and, in the context of India, it's Reagan gave very solid support to Christian fundamentalism. When [US president George) Bush bombed Iraq [during the "Gulf War" of 1992], he prayed the whole night with [Christian fundamentalist] Billy Graham. Why Billy Graham? Yet no-one made a big issue out of this, or noted that he supported the American state as a fundamentalist state. But if an Islamic leader had done that, it would immediately be highlighted in the Western media as fundamentalist and fanaticist. In the West, Christian fundamentalism, in direct and indirect ways, has a lot of ties with state policies, such as the way that welfare is decided, the way that women are looked at, the way that abortion rights are talked about, the way gays and lesbians are labeled. All this has to do with how these states relate to moral-majority campaigns and fundamentalism within their own countries. Jaffer: And all these things threaten the economic base, the people who have power, or people for whom the economy is structured... Bannerji: Economic issues are more indirectly but very powerfully involved. In Part of the strength [of fundamentalism] comes from how it is presented in international politics and...media the (Ulemat's) or the Brahminical castist interpretation of Hinduism parading as the real Hinduism and the real Islam of the country. Jaffer: And it is directed at the non-elite, the "masses." Bannerji: Yes, it becomes the representative, the spokesperson for millions of people. It suppresses all the other voices that are within that religious group and actively works to put them out of existence. Jaffer: Where does it get its strength? H: Well, it doesn't manage to [put other voices out of existence], fortunately. One of the problems with Western propaganda about fundamentalism is that [the propaganda] makes [fundamentalism] into something real. In India, hundreds of thousands of people disagree with these [fundamentalist] versions of Hinduism and Islam. I have been in marches where a million people marched against the destruction of the Ayodhya mosque [in December, 1992, by the BJP, Bharatya Janata Party, the Indian People's Party, one of the Hindu fundamentalist political parties] but no one reported that here. There's no attempt to highlight the competing and contesting views inside the country itself. Part of the strength [of fundamentalism] comes from how it is presented in international politics and in the international media. Jaffer: What about Christian fundamentalism? Bannerji: When you look at the American presidency and its support of fundamentalism in regard to abortion issues, the "family", or homosexuality, you find that people like [former US president Ronald] India, people don't talk much about fundamentalism; they talk about Hindu and Muslim right-wing reaction. Indian nationalism has many strands. Some of it is not religious-based, some of it is. The version of India as Hindu wasn't invented by the nationalists. It was the work of almost a hundred years of British historiography and administration. Having taken over India from the Muslims, British historiography talks about India as belonging to Hindus, and of Muslims as foreigners. Eighteenth century Orientalist writers in the West,forexample,definedtheoriginalpopu- larion of India to be Hindu. The new formula of Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan, that the Sangh Parivar (coalition of Hindu fundamentalists associations political parties) is using has its roots in that. What is forgotten is that only a very small number of Muslims came to India from the Middle East. The millions of Muslims living in India are actually indigenous to India, people who chose a religious conversion, but culturally, socially, regionally, linguistically, are Indian. The myth of the Muslim as "foreigner," came from the crusade literature of Europe, and the perenial trade competition between the merchantry of the Red Sea area, and the European merchantry. Until the 17th century, the Ottoman Empire was present all the way to Vienna, half-way into what is called Europe now. A whole set of stereotypes in Europe were invented about the Muslims. It wasn't until the late 18th century when the English took hold of Bengal that this became the ruling discourse: Muslims as the outsider, Muslim as the invader, Muslim as the fanatic. The mixture of religions, cultures and politics in India that go way back are completely ignored. For example, the fact that Urdu as [an Indian] language is a form of Farsi [a Middle Eastern language,] the fact that the clothes you and I are wearing right now are of both the Middle East and India, is completely forgotten.Thecolonialdiscourse of seeing India as Hindu was spread out very far. Cultural nationalism from the mid-19th century picked up this cultural formulation of India as Hindu. Indian nationalism can be said to have at least three elements: Hinduism; the liberal democracy of the West, i.e. the separation between state and religion and a civil state for all; and a quasi-socialist component from the anarchism, communism and socialism of Europe collapsed into something called the Fabian socialism of the Nehruvian Congress. There were different periods during which different strands predominated. In the late 19th and early 20th century, there was a big competition between which strand would get hold of the politics. [Mahatma] Ghandi straddled the two. On one hand, Ghandi did have a religious kind of understanding and his use of Ramayana (a classical Hindu ethical text) was predominant, particularly with regards to the poor. Ghandi had three or four voices with which he spoke [to different peoples]...That is why Ghandi's ability to bind large numbers of people of disparate positions could clearly come about. Jaffer: Which, in some sense, is often the only option available during an anti- colonialist war... Bannerji: To some extent, except that Ghandi never supported communists, public distribution, public control or public means of production. Whereas Ghandi supported the poor, he also said, in his kingdom of Rama, the just kingdom, there'll be kings and beggars. Beggars will be looked after by kings, and kings will also be respected by the lower classes. But he never said why in a country there should be kings or beggars. If Ghandi had any enemy bigger than the British it was the Soviet Union and the communists. The first act of the Indian state whenitcameinpowerinl947wastobanthe Communist Party of India. For three years, they banned the party, lots of people were killed, and there was enormous persecution of Communists. The Ghandi who said not to give revenue to the British never supported the peasants in their no-rent struggle against local landlords. He remained solidly with the property owner. The same tool he used to unite people also divided people. He named the people as Hindus, and named the people as Muslims, gave them an ideological space in his kingdom, but never considered them as producing people of the country who should have the means of social wealth in their control. After almost 50 years of Indian independence, about 45 percent of people live below starvation level. People still own hundreds of thousands of hectares of land, and that is considered okay by the state even though, legally, it is forbidden. But the landless Indian poor cannot challenge a landlord for owning hundreds of thousands of hectares, 14 SEPTEMBER 1994 Feature given that also part of the landlord's family is in the government, makes legislation, and industrializes India. There's no way people could ever implement these laws and the government has no real will to do it. • This is why nationalist slogans on religion talking about economic questions take hold. This deprivation is volatile and politically actionable. You're not talking about consciousness and culture, you're talking about complete and utter deprivation, starvation, the selling of women in markets, the selling of children in markets, the labour of five year olds, the dispossession of people to an extent where cities have grown to the size of up to 16 million people because the countryside is totally and completely devastated and controlled. The left organizing in India has been internally weakened and externally bashed in by the state powers, a powerful, Draconian imperial state which has inherited the colonial machinery. [The government] didn'tdis- mantle it, but reinforced it. The state has one of the largest standing armies in the world— an army that does not often go and do things to other nations, but works on its own people. India has five kinds of well-trained, and well- funded police. Again, their main target is the poor, the "unruly" and the "ungovernable". The British called Indians ungovernable, the rich now call the Indian poor ungovernable. The government has also dismantled a lot of people's organizations and continually threatened popular, class-based, anti-state organizations of any kind. Ideologically, the left has never really addressed the question of culture, not because it didn't want to, but it put them in a strange quandary; the quandary of Ghandi. That is, if you name people on the basis of religion, you stand the risk of exacerbating religious differences. If you don't, you stand the risk of actually ignoring realities within which people actually live. Then comes electoral politics, which use features of religion to get votes. [Mahatma] Ghandi's great gift to the Muslim community of Muslim personal lawwasanassaultagainst women as far as I'm concerned. Upping the religious definitions of people and saying "I am the protector of the minorities" has been a big game of the Congress Party. Today, it's members of the Sangh Parivar which were not importantduring independence [in 1947] but have now become powerful [because] they are reaping the benefits of games that Congress has played for over 30 years now. Places where there had been gains by Congress have now become major riot belts. In 1991, the Prime Minister of India released something called the Mandal Commission, [which] said that poor people, on the grounds of poverty and not just caste, should have affirmative action or what they called positive discrimination. Naming people as low caste took the scenario away from the right-wing to some extent and, in the name of caste politics, created class politics— in many places lower caste and lower class are synonymous. The Mandal Commission actually had a way of creating solidarity among the people, which was very inimical to the interest of the right- People were then called back into the [right-wing's] folds in the name of being Hindu, or Muslim, creating big hegemonic blocks that can be pitted against one another. Huge riots followed. The media's rule has also been lethal in the communilisation of Indian life and politics. The media got captured by Hinduization, by history programs that they used to run [on TV] and still do. One [program] was a complete Hinduisation of Indian history, done by historians who were Hindu fundamentalists themselves. The Muslim rulers and any benevolence in their eras [of rule in India] was completely forgotten as were many facts of Hindu history, or that language and cultural things, like dances, were a combination of Hindu and Muslim cultures. What was left in place was the image of continual invaders coming to India. SEPTEMBER 1994 Then came the dramatization of the Ramayana. They interpreted the text—it's 18 volumes thick, so you can pick out of it anything you want and what they picked out was patriotic, militaristic, paternalistic, patriarchal and casteist. The areas where the Ramanaya was a well-read text among the rural peasantry is the area where the heaviest fundamentalist campaigns happened. The south has still not been affected by this Sangh Parivar onslaught because the south has its own anti-Brahminical politics^—popular consciousness is more against the Brahmins than the Muslims. When you look at all the different levels, you begin to get the scope, contradictions and complexities of the situation. Modern Indian poverty and the incredible political and economic crisis that India has been in over the last 10 years, has given a rich ground for communalism and fundamentalism. In Bombay, where riots never happened between Hindus and Muslims until now, the areas targeted were where Muslims live. Lots of Muslims right now are words, it is the elevation of a killer kind of masculinity. Jaffer: So where is the opposition to this coming from? You say there's a strong opposition; what is it and where are women in this whole equation? Bannerji: There is a strong opposition. This is where I think alternate media—because the mainstream media of the West will never do it—has to highlight the fact that hundreds of thousands of people have not agreed to [the fundamentalist agenda.] For example, there have been all kinds of groups of Muslims and Hindus together fighting the aristocracy inside their own communities. The present riot-mongeringhasalsohad little appeal. The unsettlement or disarrangement of people's lives hasn't pleased people. Yes, there are short bursts of violence, but •there's no desire for a long term bloodbath on the part of either ordinary Hindus or ordinary Muslims. You can periodically stir them up but you can't keep it going. And the fact that [right-wing, fundamentalist parties] failed electorally [in the last elections] in the places where they gen- By saying that [feminism is] not Indian ignores the hundred years of women's struggle and male reformers who were pro-women's rights. low-income people. The tailors, handicraft workers, dayworkers, etcetera live in this slum where Hindus and Muslims have lived since the partition [of India in 1948]. The riot didn't happen between the slumdwellers, the riot happened against the slumdwellers by upper-income housing estates and the police. In February, 1993, this riot left quite a lot of people dead and the area was completely devastated. Basically, they were trying to get rid of people from the slums to take over the property. There isagoodbookcalled KTiafa'S/iorfs, Saffron Flags that talks about the organization of the RRS (Rashtrya Sawyam-Sevak Sangha, the National Volunteers Association which is a para-military political party) and BJP. It traces the roots back to the early 19th century, showing their interplay with Indian politics and economics as the years go by, culminating in the present state. It's absolutecomplicity with foreign capital and absolute anti-protest stand inside the country. They have used this idea of foreigner/ invader against anything that looks barely progressive, ranging from being anti-trade union, anti-Communist Party, anti-women's organizations, anti-civil rights, or anything that is even vaguely tolerant of class- politics. Everything is named as foreignism and therefore not nationalism. Feminists, for example, are big enemies of the Hindu nationalist fundamentalists because they are foreign in their ideology. That states obviously Hinduism means the domination of women and whoever says it doesn't must have learnt it abroad. By saying that's not Indian ignores the hundred years of women's struggle and male reformers who were pro-women's rights. The ideology of Mao and Marx and so on are foreign too, so whoever's Lenin's son or Mao's son is basically an enemy of the state and of society. Fundamentalism is also masculinity; it attaches itself securely to the patriarchal organization of a few thousand years and valorizes that. A man who is a killer is a hero. A man who disagrees with killing Muslims becomes a feminized man. That's the way men who are anti-communal are described, as not being men. The heroic man is this Brahminical casteist, militaristic, patriotic and patriarchal man—in other erally formerly had strongholds makes me think that there may not be as solid a ground as they think. There has been a lot of civil protest. As well, there has been a lot of political protest coming from the Leftist parties, not just communist, but other progressive and left parties. Trade unions have also been very active. Women's groups have played an interesting grassroots role in the opposition. Some, who aredirectly party-connected have held their own campaigns. But those who are not [connected to a political party] have done campaign work on the ground. As a whole, it's not game-over by any means. I don't believe we will see a Sangh Parivar India in the next 10 years, which is what I thought was likely two years ago. In areas that were former BJP strongholds, there has been a lot written by va rious groups, and the marches and the demonstrations and so on that have taken place have lead me to think this is by no means a settled and concluded story. It's not over yet. The role the West will play will be very crucial in that a lot of people are sending money to India for the Sangh Parivar cause. The American establishment has given it some support as well. They were expecting these [parties] would gain power [in the last elections]~the parties do support a "free market," privatization, foreign capital, and so on and, at the same time, maybe have a way to crush class and popular protest in India. The West wanted the BJP to prove themselves, and the BJP did not prove themselves as effectively as the West wanted them to, so I'm not sure whether Western support is as strong as it was in 1990. However, the project of opening up India [to the West], which combines privatization, foreign capitals, lack of reserve bank laws, and so forth, may now have attached itself to the [leading] Congress Party and may have found in Congress its true ally. I believe Congress has jockeyed some of the forces of Western capital to its side. The repression that the Congress can do is sufficient unto itself. The labour movement is being effectively targeted by the state and by new economic policies, where wages are down, real wages are falling, trade union protections are beginning to be eroded away and breakdowns in the trade unions in different sectors is happening and so on. There are many ways to skin a cat-there are more roundabout, circuitous and structural ways of disorganizing a country than having to have a big ideological, national agenda. It's perfectly possible in the coming 10 or 15 years that, [while] we may not see a Sangh Parivar government, we will see periodic upsurges of this kind, and coalitions forming between Congress and the BJP, for example. [They had a coalition] before this riotious time, and they can do it again and again, pulling in and pulling out. In a way, that is more effective in terms of socio-eco- nomicdisarrangement—whatiscalled structural adjustment in India—than having a national, sewn-up ideology against which people can actually rise up in a concerted way. Right now, you're fighting 10 battles. And your energy is being dissipated in all directions. But if you can make [the battle] one, we could be more effective because groups could join together. Instead, what is going to happen is strategy of confusion, of assault by erosion, rather than a kind of full assault. At the same time, I don't think the women's politic that's rising in India is a negligible politic at all. At present, thirty percent of political sea ts have to be reserved for women from the village government level, all the way to the top. That means the vote of women and their political participation has becomeabigcatchment area for every political party. [As a result,] there's a very strong demand for women's rights, women's necessities, women's basic needs, and so on, from the ground level and then all the way up. And this electorate [of women], and these political officers are not going to be so easily captured by the BJP-VHP, even if BJP and VHP did have a women's wing and tried, in a modifying way, to give certain kinds of rights to women. But they fall short when it comes to issues of property, freedom of women— abortion inlndia hasbeenlegal since the 50s. There is now abortion on demand by constitution, but there was an attempt to rescind it on the part of these parties—that has not been taken kindly to by women. So this is a major political wrench in the works. Jaffer: Do women actually fill that 30 percent of seats? Bannerji: Yes, the quota gets filled, less at the national level, but more and more and more every year. And in the villages of West Bengal, for example, the village election is important. Eighty percent of Indian people still live in the villages of India, so the village government is not negligible. It's the conduit between the state policies and the local people. It has a hand in irrigation planning, marketing, street distribution, trucking of things, and the levy policies of grain by the state. Village government is a powerful instrument and has been captured in most places in West Bengal by the left. In other places, it's by mixed groups of people, but women, somehow, instinctively have drawn more to the left and to progressive parties than to the right. It's a life instinct really. Women don't have to read a book about what leftist policies are; they live the experience of having seen the Congress before, having seen the Hindu Sangh Parivar element in their countryside. We're at an interesting time where the organized politics of the left may have become weaker in some ways, but the popular politics from the [grassroots] has become stronger. Where this formation in the end is going to go, no-one knows—it's a complicated and important time in India's history, probably as important as around the time of the independence movement and partition. My hope lies on the ground, really, with the women, with popular politics as well with the left parties. Fatima Jaffer is a Kenyan-born, Vancouver- based, South Asian lesbian, who works in the media. Thanks a zillion to the hardy transcribers: Rosalind Libbey, Sur Mehat, and Lynne Wanyeki. 20th Anniversary by Sur Mehat Kinesis introduces the 20-years-ago-this- month quiz, as part of our ongoing celebration on these pages of Kinesis' 20 years as Canada's oldest, regidarly publishing, feminist newspaper. Answers to the following are contained in your September 1974 issue o/Kinesis (orfailing that, can be found on this page.) If you would like to add information to any of the answers, submit ■ m the you r own quiz, or correct quiz mistress, please >ur six-year-old (then) i us a line. a In the September 1974 issue, how old was the writer of the letter regarding girls' rights to play team sports such as baseball and football? a) 35 b)85 c)10 d.27 0 B TM "fori What was the cover story that month? a) a feminist review of the Broadway play Hair b) a sociological investigation of the term "heavy" c) a report on spousal income tax d) an investigative report of the dangers of doing "the hustle." What were the illustrations used for the article "Women in High School Today?" a) A girl throwing an apple at a blackboard, and a training bra strung up a school flagpole b) A bespectacled worm sticking out its tongue as it comes out of an apple sitting on some books, and three photographs of a girl pitching c) a field hockey team trashing a classroom and a drawing of a school- house being pulverized by a black- patent-leather-shoed foot d) teenagers smoking in the girls room and a kindergarten-aged girl suiting up for football 0 One of the magazines recommended in the Media Scanners column was: a) Good Karma b) Disco for Me and You c) Women Sports d) Rebel Chicks What phrase was used to describe Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung and Grace Maclnnis in the centrespread feature? a) Three rabble rousers b) Three muskateers c) Three cool chicks d) Three pioneers H?7 B The "Please Read This Article" on page 9 [a precursor to the "VSW Thanks" of today] attempted to attract women to a new writer's group by assuring them, a) It will not be a heavy b) It won't be heavy, promise c) It won't be a HEAVY d) It won't be a "heavy"! B B Letters to the Editor came under the title: a) My word b) Oh, my word! c) The last word d) The only word What kind of group was based in Coquitlam and presenting a 10-week course that month? a) tie-dyeing b) meditation c) consciousness-raising d) interpretative dance £ According to the article "Women in real estate," what was the total percentage of women employed in the sectors of finance, insurance and real estate in the Lower Mainland at that time: a) 51.9 percent b) 20 percent c) 62.7 percent d) 30 percent What was the headline of the short memoirs that appeared on the bottom of page 2? a) Memoirs of a militant debutante b) Memoirs of a supercool chick c) Memoirs of an ex-prom queen d) Memoirs of June Cleaver 3^§ SI > ° 3 s 3 " H s 5' < »"?• < S Illifl§|ltfl-sli 8 s> * I « I * a f" S " ~ £ o-'-S o 5 < ill <8 8-§ % 3-3 §•■ CT * ti « f" 1 %$. S §• \ 2 ^c *£§ 3 * § § S 8 j; o k s- a • >nV lift ill i8|'S^l§.2f H^? | $ o £. o^ o ^qq ^ « a y, n » ;■ * S. 5- 3. JL t j 3* ^J i » I Iff if I2* 8 S-S. 5; o o S* Q $T < : ><& §l §■ If I 111 < 5: < . 1SI s a ;• 5- 3 3' ° ill : : ffi O ;;Br3 ^ £ ^ £ ~ $ ! »n$ «<§ as S* 3 "^ o> P- ^ 5- fJS off] 2, < >}fOQ 5. if 2 FILM 250 Films from 40 countries KINESIS SEPTEMBER 1994 Buixettm Board EVENTS EVENTS EVENTS Bulletin Board listings have a maximum of 50 words. Groups, organizations and individuals eligible for free space in the Bulletin Board must be, or have, non-profit objectives. Other free notices will be items of general public interest and will appear at the discretion of Kinesis. Classifieds are $8 (+$0.56 GST) for the first 50 words or portion thereof, $4 (+$0.28 GST) for each additional 25 words or portion thereof and must be prepaid. Deadline for all submissions is the 18th of the month preceding publication. Note: Kinesis is published ten times a year. Jul/Aug and Dec/ Jan are double issues. All submissions should include a contact nameand telephone number for any clarification that may be required. Listings will not be accepted over the telephone. Kinesis encourages readers to research the goods and services advertised in Bulletin Board. Kinesis cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information provided or the safety and effectiveness of the services and products listed. Send submissions to Bulletin Board, Kinesis, #301 -1720 Grant Street, Vancouver, BC, V5L 2Y6. For more information call 255-5499. WANNA GET INVOLVED? With Kinesis'? We want to get involved with you too. Help plan our next issue. Come to the Writer's meeting on Sep 6, 8pm at our office, 301 -1720 Grant St, Vancouver, if you can't make the meeting, call 255-5499. No experience is necessary, all women welcome. VSW WANTS YOU! Want to get more involved but not sure where to begin? Join us—become a volunteer at Vancouver Status of Women. VSW volunteers plan events, lead groups, raise funds, answer the phone lines and help to connect women with the community resources they need, organize the library and other exciting tasks! Come to thecommittee meetings: Finance/Fundraising, Wed, Sep 7, 6 pm. The next volunteer potluck and orientation will be on Wed, Sep 21, 7 pm at VSW, 301-1720 Grant St. For more info, call Jennifer at 255-5511. POLITICAL ACTION GROUP The next Women of Colour and First Nations Women's Political Action Group meets once a month. For more info please call Miche at 255-5511. SEXUAL HARASSMENT SUPPORT GROUP Meets twice a month atthe VSW, 301 -1720 Grant St. For more info, call Miche at 255- 5511. FEMINIST NETWORKING Meets once a month. Call Miche for more info at 255-5511. Remember December 6 then take December 6th is Canada's National Day of Remembrance and Action to End Violence Against Women. The YWCA of Canada distributes the Rose Buttons with informational bookmarks for your group to sell for fimdraising/public education. Bags of 100 for $50 each (prepaid plus GST and P ST for Ontario residents) English or French text. ...order your buttons today! Resources on Violence Against Women Fresh Start - A booklet for women in abusive relationships and others who want to understand the issues. French or English. Price: 6 or more $2.75 ea. 1-5 $3.25 ea. There's No Excuse For Abuse Find out what actions we can all take to stop violence against women. Resource kit includes tear-off information display pad, up-to-date resources. French or English. Price: $ 10 ea. ($9 ea. for 10 or more) Prepayment required (inch 7% GST) Community Action on Violence Against Women V YWCA of Canada Gerrard Street East Toronto, ON M5B 1G6 Tel: (416) 593-9886 Fax:(416) 971-8084 DESH PARDESH CABARET Desh Pardesh, a Toronto-based organization exploring the arts, culture, and politics of South Asians in the diaspora, presents Sex- Ploits, an evening of cabaret performances Fri Sep 2, 9-11pm at the Theatre Centre, 1032 Queen St W, Toronto. Sex-Ploits explores the politics of sexuality, race and identity. For more info, call (416) 601-9932. FEMINIST FORUM Social and Legal Issues on Feminist Hori- zons takes place Sat Sep 17,10:30-4pm at SFU Harbour Centre, 555 W. Hastings St. The forum is an informal day of speakers and presentations (see page 4for details). Sponsored by the Feminist Institute for Studies on Law & Society Non-hosted lunch break between 12:30-2 pm. The forum is free. For help with childcare or more info, please call 291-3018. FALL EQUINOX RITUAL All wiccan (or interested in wicca) lesbians are invited to a Fall Equinox ritual with other lesbian witches. Enjoy the changing season's colours, prepare for the shorter days ahead; howl at the moon with other dykes. Merry meet and part. For place, time, and other info, call Bridgig, 255-5409 or Pat, 253- 7189. RITUAL ABUSE CONFERENCE A ritual abuse conference, Working with Dissociation, Mind Control and Ritual Abuse, will be held on Sep 24-25 at the Sheraton Landmark Hotel in Vancouver. The conference is designed for counsellors, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, support and frontline workers, medical practicioners, social workers and nurses working within this field. For more info, call 736-3610. Registration $260 in advance. Mail to Registration Office, Justice Institute of BC, 4180 West 4th Ave, Vancouver, BO; V6R 4S5. GLOBAL RESTRUCTURING Putting a Face on Global Restructuring: Women Examine the Consequences, will be held Oct 20-21. The conference, co-sponsored by Centre for Research in Women's Studies and Gender Relations (UBC) and Oxfam-Canada, will focus on structual adjustment; the impact on Aboriginal peoples; implications for women's work; competitive impoverishment; sovereignty and democracy; and women organizing in the future. For info on location and cost call 822-9173. TRANSITION HOUSE FUNDRAISER The Victoria Women's annual 8km run/4km walk will take place Sun Sep 11 to raisef unds for the Victoria Transition House. Both the run and walkstart at 9:15amatthe McKinnon Gym, University of Victoria. To register for both events, call 382-8181. HEALERS CONFERENCE This year's annual women's conference in Whitehorse, Yukon with the theme 'Women as Healers" will take place on Fri Sep 23. For more info call Tracey de Jaray or Natalie Edelson at the Women's Centre: (403) 667- 2693. BREAST CANCER CONFERENCE A national conference, The Quality of Life: Women and Breast Cancer, will take place Sep 16-19 in Toronto. Keynote speakers include: Sharon Blatt, President of Breast Cancer Action Montreal and Sandra Butler, author of Cancer in Two Voices. To obtain a detailed brochure, call (416) 924-8998, or write: CRI, #106-344 Dupont St, Toronto, Ont, M5R1V9. PERSON'S DAY BREAKFAST The 8th Annual Person's Day Breakfast in Vancouver will be held Oct 21, 7-9am at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. This year the keynote speaker will be Mobina Jaffer, a lawyer and longtime advocate for women and people of colour. Tickets are $45 and childcare is $5 per child (pre-register by Oct 14). The venue is wheelchair accessible and there will be sign language interpretation. For info and tickets, call the West Coast Women's Legal Education and Action Fund at 684-8772. STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT The Structural Adjustment Echo Workshop, organized by the Philippine Women Centre, will provide a venue for migrant workers and migrant workers advocates to arrive at a better understanding of the causes of overseas migration and their situation in the global economy. The workshop will be held Sept 23-25 at St. Giles Church, Van. For more info, call the PWC at 322-9852. MIGRANT WORKERS SOLIDARITY The public is invited to a post-workshop solidarity evening with Filipina migrant workers Sun, Sep 25, 6-9:30pm at St. Giles Church, 305 W. 41st Avenue, Van. Joy de Guzman from the Asia Pacific Mission for Migrant Workers (an organization based in Hong Kong) will be speaking. For more info, call the Philippine Women Centre at 322- 9852. INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY Organizing and Empowering Women for Change, the 6th International Solidarity Affair will be held Oct 20-28 in the Philippines. The conference is organized by GABRIELA, a nationwide coalition of women's organizations in the Philippines. Women from marginalized groups in the North are invited to participate. For more info, contact the Philippine Women Centre at 322-9852. COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT A Community and Economic Development conference, sponsored by the Penticton & Area Women's Centre, will be held Oct 1 -2 in Penticton. The conference will explore all aspects of development, research, advocacy, and organizing. For more info, call Laurel Burnham at (604) 493-6822. TEE CORINNE Tee Corinne will read from her new book Courting Pleasures. Sat Sep 10, 8pm atthe Vancouver Lesbian Connection, 876 Commercial Dr, Van. Tickets are sliding scale $5- 10. Proceeds go to Little Sisters' Defense Fund. Advance tickets are available at Little Sisters and the Vancouver Women's Book- store. For more info, call 669-1753. LESBIANS AND THE LAW The Feminist Institute for Studies on Lawand Society is hosting a free public symposium entitled Social and Legal Issues on 'Feminist Horizons Sat Sep 17 from 10:30am-4pm at Simon Fraser University Harbour Centre, 555 W Hastings St. The forum will feature Anita Braha speaking on "Lesbians and the Law" and a panel of presentations on various socio-legal topics. If you need assistance with childcare, please leave a message at 291-3018. WOMEN AND SOCIAL POLICY A National Conference on Women and Social Policywill be held in Regina, Sask, from Sep 30-Oct 2. The focus of the conference is on the development of a newfoundationfor an alternative social policy, particularly income and security issues, from a feminist perspective. For more info, call (306) 585- 4036. A CELEBRATION OF AGING Amazing Greys II invites women to gather and celebrate the adventure of aging, Oct 28-30 at Island Hall Beach Resort in Parksville, BC. There will be workshops, a display of SEPTEMBER 1994 21 Bulletin Board EVENTS EVENTS crafts and women's handwork, and books of inportance to aging women. There are no special age requirements, and there is an open extension to AGIT (Amazing Greys in Training). Registration $75. Make cheques payable to Amazing Greys Gathering and send care of Else Kennedy, 2871 Henny Road, RR#1, Chemainus, BC, VOR1KO. For more info call or fax Else at (604) 246-3347. COLLABORATIVE PERFORMANCE Common Ground Still Moves is a collaborative installation and performance with BC and Ontaria artists: Sarah Link, Rebecca Van Sciver, Haruko Okano and Joan Van Damme playing until Sep19atthe Burlington Art Centre, 1333 Lakeshore Rd, Burlington, Ont. For more info, call (905) 304-1327. CAREL MOISEIWITSCH Carel Moiseiwitsch's visual art exhibition, Trophies will be on display at the Pitt Gallery, 317 W Hastings St, Van, from Sep 8-Oct 8. The artist will be present to discuss her work on Sat Sep 17, 2-4pm. For more info, call 681-6740, fax 681-6741. LESBIAN BATTERING Lesbians abusing other lesbians is not new— doing something about it is. A two day conference is in being planned for mid-October, sponsored in part by International Lesbian Week. Conference organizers are looking for lesbians willing to assist in planning, facilitating workshops, acting as support workers, offering child care, etc. For more info, call Anna or Mary c\o The BookMantei, 1002 Commercial Dr, Van. NORA KELLY Nora Kelly, author of My Sister's Keeper, will read from her latest mystery, Bad Chemistry Tues Sep 13, 7:30 pm at Women in Print, 3566 W4th Ave, Van. For more info, call 732- 4128. YMCA YOUTH CONFERENCE The International Unit of the YMCA is holding a conference, Right on! Human Rights and You, for youth aged 13-18 Sep 2-5 at Camp Elphinstone on the Sunshine Coast (BC). The conference will focus on issues at the local, national and global levels and involves interactive workshops. The cost is $150 and includes food, lodging, and transportation to the camp. Subsidies are available. For more info, call Noel Hulsman or Fahra Khan at 681 - 0221 (Ext 318). SHARI ULRICH West Coast singer/songwriter Shari Ulrich will top the list of performers at the second annual Fundraising Gala for the WomenSpeak Institute. The gala, which celebrates Women's History Month, will be held on Fri Oct 21 at 8pm at the Performing Arts Theatre of Douglas College's New Westminster Campus, at 8th and Royal. Tickets $20 for students. Call 527-5472 to order. For more info, call Barbara Der at 521-4272 or 930-0988. FRINGE FEST The Fringe Fest, Vancouver's alternative theatre festival celebrates its 10th anniversary with over 500 live performances by 100 theatre troupes from across the globe Sep 8- 18. Performances will include everything from feminist satire, gay comedy, to African storytelling. All tickets are under $10 and are available through the CBO, 280-2801. For show and venue info, call 873-3646. AIDS AWARENESS WEEK The national AIDS Awareness Week takes place Oct 3-9. AIDS Awareness Week provides a unique opportunity for individuals, community groups, healthcare profession als, public health departments and governments to make a difference in the fight against AIDS. This year's theme is "AIDS and Youth". For more info about events in Vancouver, call the YouthCo AIDS Society at 688-1441. LIL CHRZAN Lil Chrzan's A Few Small Works, an exhibition of female figures in oil and mixed media, will be shown from Sep 17-30 at the Vancouver Women's Bookstore, 315 Cambie St. For more info, call 684-0523. ECO-CITY NETWORK The second gathering of the Vancouver Eco- City Network will take place on Mon Sep 12 at 6:30 pm, at the Strathacona Community Garden's Cottonwood site off Prior St (at Strathacona Park). The Eco-city Network promotes the creation of a socially just and ecologically sustainable Vancouver region. The Network was formed at the Greening Our Cities Conference held in May. Join the Eco-city Network for a potluck corn roast! Bring your favourite seasonal dish, andyour own plate, cutlery and mug. For more info, call 736-7732. VIDEO IN SCREENINGS The Ethics of Ambiguity will showcase two videos by New York lesbian and gay activist videomakers Jean Carlomusto and Gregg Bordowitz. "A Selective History of AIDS Activist Video" will be shown Thurs Oct 6 and "To Each Her Own" & "Fast Trip-Long Drop", will be shown Fri Oct 7. Both screenings will be held at the Video In, 1965 Main St, Van, and will start at 8pm. Tickets are $4/5. For more info, call 872-8337. VIDEO WORKSHOP Video In Studios presents an advanced workshop called "Contemporary Issues in Documentary" Sat Oct 8, 1 -4pm at the Video In, 1965 Main St, Van. Drawing from the recent history of both AIDS-inspired activist work and recent queer video, the workshop will consider the necessity and the limits of identity politics and the need to confront hopelessness and anger in new ways. The cost is $10-25. To register, call (604) 872-8337. GROUPS support? Come join us for lunch.and help us plan some social activities. We're " Just out!". Please call Geri in The Lower Mainland at 278-8497 (Evenings). WOMEN OVER 40 40 and Fabulous Plus is a social evening designed for, but not exclusive to, women 40 and over. Dance to music from Glenn Miller right up tothe present day performers. Held on the third Sat of every month from 7pm- 1am, starting Aug 20 at Uncle Charlie's Lounge, 455 Abbott St. Tickets are $5 at the door and includes supper. CUSTODY SUPPORT GROUP Acustody support group is lookingfor women who are interested in establishing a support group for women going through custody battles. If you are interested, call 591-7087. WOMEN'S DISCUSSION GROUP A women's discussion group on the environment, feminism, and sustainability would like to encourage interested women to get involved. Meetings are generally held monthly. For details, call 255-5763. LESBIAN AVENGERS Interested lebians are invited to join the Lesbian Avengers, a direct action group focussed on issues vital to lesbian survival and visibility. This group originated in New York, and has become an international organization. The next meetings are on Sep 9 & 23 at 7:30pm at the VLC, 876 Commercial Dr. For more info, call 688-WEST ext 2005, or the Lesbian Avenger Hotline 268-9614. GROUPS GROUPS DAWN BC The DisAbled Women's Network of Vancouver is holding monthly meetings for all disabled women interested in meeting other disabled women for support and information sharing. Meetings are held on the second Sun of the month from 2-4pm at the Vancouver Housing Registry, 501 East Broadway. For info, call 253-6620. IMMIGRANT AND VISIBLE MINORITY WOMEN The Immigrant and Visible Minority Women's Group of The Burnaby Multicultural Society holds meetingsthefirstandthird Wed of the month. Immigrant and visible minority women in the Burnaby area are invited to discuss, learn and take action on issues that are of interest to them. Workshop sessions on multiculturalism and dealing with racism will be held in Oct. For details, contact Kitty Chan at 299-4808. HIV POSITIVE WOMEN The Oak Tree Clinic, a new care centre for HIV positive women and children has opened its doors and is accepting new clients. To make an appointment to see a doctor or counsellor, call 875-2212. MENOPAUSE SUPPORT A Menopause Support Group in Edmonton meets every third Wed of the month at 7:30 at the Royal Alexandra Hospital-Women's Centre in the Out Patient Diabetic Clinic. For info call 939-3699. TEEN MOM DROP-IN Eastside Family Place now has a drop-in space for teen moms on Mons, between 3:30-5:30 pm. Free snacks and coffee available. Located at 1661 NapierSt (at William & Commercial, just off Granview Park). EAST-SIDE LESBIAN YOUTH The East-Side Youth Drop-in for lesbian, gay and bisexual youth and their friends will be held at Britannia. This is a safe, confidential, non-threatening environment to discuss issues, build support and meet people. If you are between 15 and 25, want to get involved or get more info, call Jason at Britannia Community Services, Mon or Wed, or leave a message at 253-4391. WAV AW TRAINING Women Against Violence Against Women/ Rape Crises Centre (WAVAW) is looking for women volunteers to do crisis line work. The next training begins Sep 14 for 11 weeks on Weds, 7-10pm and Suns, 11 am-5pm. Child care and transportation subsidies available. Sign language interpreters will be provided if needed. For more info, call 255-6228 or TTY 254-6268. MATURE LESBIANS Are you starting or continuing the coming out process? Are you looking for friendship and Kinesis is looking for a part-time Advertising Co-ordinator who is creative, energetic, well organized, responsible, and has good person-to-person skills and is aware of feminist issues and values. DUTIES INCLUDE •soliciting new advertising accounts and maintaining the current advertising base • invoicing all accounts Wage based on percentage of advertising revenues per month DEADLINE SEPT 6, 5 PM JOB STARTS SEPT 12 Women of colour & First Nations women are encouraged to apply. Affirmative action principles will be in effect for this hiring. Kinesis Hiring 301-1720 Grant Street Vancouver, BC V5Y 2L6 Phone: 255-5499 KINESIS Distribution Co-or< Kinesis is looking for a part-time Distribution Co-ordinatorwho is energetic, well orgainized, responible, has good interpersonal skills and is aware of feminist issues, has access to vehicular transportation. DUTIES INCLUDE •maintaining statements and records of sales and collecting payments •picking up & delivering Kinesis to mailing house and in-town distributors •relaying information to the Editorial Board Wage based on10/hrsperissueat$15/hour DEADLINE SEPT 6, 5PM JOB STARTS SEPT 12 Women of colour & First Nations women are encouraged to apply. Affirmative action principles will be in effect for this hiring. Kinesis Hiring 301-1720 Grant Street Vancouver, BC V5Y 2L6 Phone: 255-5499 Position Available Community Organizer Vancouver Status of Women VSW requires a part-time Community Organizer/Advocate for 20 hrs a week at $15/ hour plus benefits for a term of six months beginning on Oct 1. Women of Colour & First Nations women are encouraged to apply. Affirmative action principles will be in effect for this hiring. DUTIES The Community Organizer/Advocate is staff person at the VSW who works closely with the Program Coordinator and other staff members to increase the visibility in the lower mainland of feminist issues in general and VSW in particular by: •strategizing, organizing and implementing projects involving VSW and other women's groups •working with volunteers and other staff to develop and implement a detailed program for outreach •liaising with the media and government on behalf of VSW •sharing in all internal organizational tasks QUALIFICATIONS •broad based knowledge & familiarity with women's issues, and community groups •good communication and organizational skills •the ability to envision and initiate the implementation of two projects—the Cable TV Show & Speakers' Bureau DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS Monday September 19 at 4 pm Send Resumes to: Vancouver Status of Women 310-1720 Grant Street Vancouver, BC V5L 2Y6 Phone:255-5511 22 SEPTEMBER 1994 Bulletin Board GROUPS SUBMISSIONS CLASSIFIEDS CLASSIFIEDS MOSAIC ACTION GROUP MOSAIC has started a Multicultural Women's Community Action Group, for immigrant women active in the community and wishing to getfurther involved. Enhance knowledge of issues, acquire practical skills, become resource persons for multicultural organizations and community projects. Meetings will be held twice a month at MOSAIC, 2nd Fl, 1720 Grant St. For more info, call Nikki Nijhowne at 254-9626, voice mail #305. LESBIAN SOCIAL GROUP A Bunch Of Lesbians (ABOL) social evening every Wed 7:30 pm at the Gay and Lesbian Centre, 1170 Bute St. Open to all lesbians. Guest speakers, discussions, videos, special events. POSITIVE WOMEN The Positive Women's Network in Vancouver has formed a Women's HIV Caucus to provide a time and place for HIV positive women to discuss advocacy issues. For women who would like to get involved in the causes, but don't want to lose their confidentiality, there is the option of phone conferencing. For more info, please contact Carla at the PWN, 893- 2200. MAPLE RIDGE CONTACTS The Lesbians and Gays of Maple Ridge Social Group hold monthly potlucks, brunches, games etc. New to the community? You are welcomed here. Call 467-9566. VALLEY MEN & WOMYN If you would like to meet other lesbians, gays or bis and you live in the Abbotsford area, you are invited to call, Friends in the Valley at 853- 7184 or write to Box 8000-591, Abbotsford V2S6H1. SUBMISSIONS SOLO FLIGHTS The New Play Centre is now accepting submissions for Solo Flights, an evening of one- person show(s) to be presented during the 1995 Vancouver New Play Festival. All submissions must be original, unproduced works. Submit a completed draft of your script to: Solo Flights, The New Play Centre, 1405 Anderson, Vancouver, BC, V6H 3R5. For more info, call 685-6228. Deadline: Nov 1. THE SEEDLING PROJECTS The New Play Centre is accepting plays for The Seedling Projects, eight 15 minute new theatre pieces to be performed during the 1995 New Play Festival. Projects must be 15 minutes in length, including set up and take down. The selected eight participants will be given $400 each to produce their projects. Submit a one page outline of the play or a complete script to The Seedling Projects, The New Play Centre, 1405 Anderson St, Vancouver, B.C. V6H 3R5. For more information call 685-6228. Deadline: Nov 15. INCEST ANTHOLOGY Sister Vision Press is inviting women of colour to submit poetry, stories or journal entries on experiences of incest and sexual abuse for a new anthology. Deadline is Nov 30. Please send hard copy or work on IBM disk with SASE to Sister Vision Press, PO Box 217 Stn E, Toronto, Ont, M6H 4E2. HERLAND Herland, an annual feminist film and video festival in Calgary, invites film and videomakers to submit works for their next festival. Herland encourages works by new film/video makers, by Albertan film/video makers, and by First Nations women and women of colour. Send a copy of work for preview on 1/2" format with a short artist statement and biography to: Calgary Status of Women Action Committee, 319-22312th Ave SW, Calgary, Alta, T2P 0G9. For more info, call (403) 262-1873. Deadline is Sep 15. CALL FOR ARTWORK The Vancouver Women's Bookstore is seeking submissions for its storefront display of visual art and literature by women. Paintings, photographs, and mixed media works are requested for entry. Previously exhibited women are also encouraged to submit work. The bookstore offers support and window space (7'x3'x1.5') for accepted participants. For more info, call 684-0523. WOMEN'S RIGHTS The Winter 1995 issue of Canadian Woman Studies/les Cahiers de la Femme is committed to an exploration of women's rights as human rights. Invited are essays, research reports, true stories, poetry, cartoons, drawings and other artwork. Deadline is Nov 30,. Write or call as soon as possible indicating your intention to submit your work. Canadian Woman Studies, 212 Founders College, York University, 4700 Keele St, North York, Ont, M3J 1P3; tel (416) 736-5356; or fax (416) 736-5700 (ext 55356). RESOURCE LIBRARY In Visible Colours Film and Video Society requests donations of any books, magazines, videos and articles on a range of issues for its resource library. IVC is involved in producing workshops, and presenting screenings of films and videos by women of colour and First Nations women. For more info, contact Claire Thomas, In Visible Colours Film & Video Society, #115- 119 W Pender St, Van, V6B 1S5; tel or fax 682-1116. BLACK GIRL TALK We are young Black women, age 14 to 24 years, who want to talk, to write, to hear each other. Here's your chance to join us and publish yourthoughts. We want: poetry, stories, journal entries, photographs, drawings. Themes: family, relationships, friends, sex, love, racism, religion, sexuality, politics. Deadline is Sep 30. Send your work to: Black Girl Talk, Sister Vision Press, PO Box 217, Stn E, Toronto, Ont, M6H 4E2. For more info, call (416) 533-2184. SISTER VISION ANTHOLOGY Sister Vision Press is calling for submissions to the First International Anthology of Lesbian and Gay People of African Descent. Sister Vision is seeking testimonies, short stories, essays, photographs, recipes, illustrations, interviews, and poetry crossing boundaries of culture, language, geography, history, identity and gender. Deadline is Dec 15. Send submissions to Sister Vision, PO Box 217, Stn E, Toronto, Ont, M6H 4E2. IDENTITY A call for submissions for the anthology, ...But where are you really from: Writings on Identity and Assimilation in Canada. Essays, personal narratives, articles, commentaries and poetry are wanted which will examine issues around identity and assimilation in Canadian society. Submit in duplicate with a SASE to Hazelle Palmer c/o Sister Vision Press, 19-1666 Queen St E, Toronto, Ont, M4L 1G3. Tel: (416) 691- 5749. Deadline is Nov 30. PEER COUNSELLOR TRAINING Battered Women's Support Services will be offering Group Facilitator, Peer Counsellor/ Advocate training in the fall of this year. If you are interested in working with battered women as a volunteer at BWSS and would like to be consideredforthetraining program, call 687- 1868for an application form. Deadline is Fri, Sep 2. THE RAMAYANA RETOLD The Public Dreams Society has created The Ramayana: A South Asian Story and Shadow Play Activity Resource for educators of children. The package includes a storyline, cultural and historical information, ten shadow puppets, complete instructions for puppet and stage construction, and helpful tips for educators and new puppeteers. This package will be available in Sep. For more info, call 879-8611. GENERAL PRACTITIONER Joan Robillard, MD, General Practitioner for all kinds of families is located at 308-2902 W Broadway, Van, V6K2G8, phone 736-3582. SHIATSU WITH A DIFFERENCE For pain relief, stress management or as a complement to therapy, Astarte's focus on body-awareness will help you gain insight and toolstofurtheryourhealingprocess. Call Astarte Sands 251 -5409. TTY SERVICES Battered Women's Support Services now offers TTY services for deaf and hard or hearing women. The BWSS TTY number is 687-6732. TTY hours: Mon-Fri, 10am-5pm. NAC MOVES The National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC) has moved to: #203- 234 Eglinton Ave East, Toronto, Ont, M4P 1K5. Tel: (416)932-1718 and fax (416)932- 0646. TRAINING PROGRAM Dexter, Wallace & Associates is inviting women to apply for its 21 -week computerized office skills training program for office workers. The course is free and includes computer skills, on-the-job-training and career placement. Info meetings will be held Tues and Thurs Sep 6-22,10am at 948 West 7th, Van. For more info, call 731-3116. MANITOBA WAC The Manitoba Women's Advisory Council has moved to #107-175 Carlton St, Winnipeg, Man, R3C3H9.Tel: (204)945-6281 and fax: 945-6511. COWGIRLS 'N GHOST TOWNS Winter holiday for lesbians. Come this winter to sunny and warm Arizona. Travel by van with a small group of cowgirls like yourself to see Arizona's Old West, ghost towns, Spanish mission, Native American ruins, spectacular scenery, and the cultural legacy of Mexico, Arizona's southern neighbour. Tour includes accomodations in upscale or historical hoterls, horseback riding and cook- outs, Sedona jeep tour, and 'Welcome to Arizona" reception with local lesbians. Eight departures Nov-Feb. A special invitation is extended to Canadian lesbians. Out'n Ari- zona Dept 85285. Tel: (800) 897-0304. TRANSITION HOUSE TRAINING The B.C/Yukon Society of Transition Houses is looking for trainers for its upcoming sessions for front line workers to be held in early in Oct. The training sessions will be in 4 modules of 4 days each and will be held in at least 4 different locations around the province. All trainers are invited to apply in writing by Sep 5. Resumes must list training you have previously delivered. A strong understanding from a feminist perspective on the issue of violence against women is required, and transition house experience is a definite asset. For further info, contact the B.C./ Yukon Society of Transition Houses Tel (604)669-6943, fax (604)682-6962. DYKE HOUSEHOLD We are two dykes looking for third (dyke) to share our east end house. Rent $400. Available Sep 1. Call 254-9332. DESH PARDESH Desh Pardesh has moved to a home away from home. Their new address is: The Darling Building, #607-96 Spadina Ave, Toronto, Ont, M5V2J6.Tel: (416) 601-9932 and fax: (416)601-9973. RHYTHM WOMYN DANCING With the moon returns us to the ancient wisdom of the body and its natural cycles. Using movement, music writing, meditation and ritual, we deepen our self awareness and awaken the power of our sacred sexuality. An experiental 10 week workshop beginning Sep28 Call Ahava at 264-1449. Blessed be. LYNN MATHERS MSW I am a registered social worker and therapist in Maple Ridge/Abbotsford. I have a general private practice working with individuals, couples, families and groups. I have experience with addictions, grief, sexual and physical abuse, infidelity, pregnancy loss and general life concerns. Fee: $70-$86 per hour. For appointment call 463-3026 or 852-4818. VILLA HERMANAS Villa Hermanas, an all women's Caribbean beachfront guesthouse, is sadly closed. We had an armed break-in at the villa in April and no longer feel the house can be the safe, open sanctuary ft was. So, with sadness, we are putting the villa up for sale. We'll miss all you wonderful women. Barb and Stronach. LEGAL CLINIC FOR WOMEN Battered Women's Support Services and UBC Law Students Legal Advice Program areco-sponsoringfreelegalclinicsforwomen to be held alternative Tues, from Sept 20 to Nov 15. For more info orto make an appointment, call the UBC Law Students Legal Advice Program at 822-5791. DATING VIOLENCE RESOURCE Battered Women's Support Services has revised its publication, Dating Violence, A discussion guide on violence in young people 's relationships. It includes exercises, notes on the law and resources. The guide is $3.50 per copy plus postage, and can be ordered by calling BWSS at 687-1868, or writing to BWSS, Box 1098, Postal Stn A, Vancouver, BC.V6C2T1. PHILIPPINE WOMEN CENTRE RAFFLE Win a trip for two to the Philippines! Help support ongoing programming at the Philippine Women Centre by buying some raffle tickets. Draw date is Nov 19. Fortickets, call PWC at 322-9852. FEMMES FRANCOPHONES Aimerais-tu donner de ton temps pour aider au developpement de services pour les femmes francophones violentees de ta communaute? Aimerais-tu participer a une formation qui te donnerait les outils pour le faire? Si oui, nous attendons impatiemment ton appel. Reseau-Femmes est un organisme provincial sans but lucratif, travaillant aux changements sociaux et economiques qui assureront I'egalite et Pequite aux femmes francophones de la province. Telephone: 736-6979 poste 332. SEPTEMBER 1994 23 LIBRARY PROCESSING CTR - SERIfi! One year D Cheque enclosed D$20 + $1.40 GST □ Bill me Two years D New D$36 + $2.52 GST □ Renewal Institutions/Groups D Gift D$45 + $3.15 GST □ Donation Name. If you can't afford the full amount for Kinesis