Rosemary Bechler is a Contributing Editor for openDemocracy.

Recent articles

Nobel Women's Initiative calls for the immediate release of Mairead Maguire and other Human Rights activists detained by Israeli authorities on June 29th.

David Sifry described social networking and other new forms of communication in an emergent world of public opinion as a "conversation among the people formerly known as the audience". The phrase sprang to my mind when the Today programme wrestled with explaining to itself and its audience what is inspiring about Abbas Kiarostami's latest film, ‘Shirin', recently showcased in the Edinburgh festival. Is it subversive? What are its politics? What is the people's hunger and spirit behind the insurgency? Is it on our side? The problem is that the film consists of 90 minutes of close-ups of more than 100 women, including a headscarved Juliette Binoche, as they watch a film based on a 12th-century poem by Nezami Ganjavi about a love triangle involving an Armenian princess and a Persian prince. 

"Light from a screen flickers on the women's faces; their expressions alone create the drama."  I learn more when I repair to Maya Jaggi's interview with Kiarostami in the Guardian, although I have to flap away an intrusive advertisement that informs me ‘Your opinion matters' and invites me to complete a short survey before I can proceed. Eventually, it appears that the maestro has been willing to give us a couple of clues. He has gone so far as to say that the "beauty of art lies in the reaction it causes", and that "a work of art doesn't exist outside the perception of the audience".

The fact is that this is yet another of those moments when one has to say: "They just don't get it do they?" This interesting rhetorical question has peppered political commentary in the last few weeks, most recently when the limousines drew up outside Mansion House. In politics it always carries the danger of complacency, since the people who point the finger are invariably the ‘brother' that had the ‘mote' in his eye last time around. This week one feels even more nervous using it because the onion has begun to unpeel with a vengeance as foolishly self-serving expenses claims settle around the ankles of those other ‘civil servants', BBC top management, with all around in the media ducking for cover.

At the Nobel Women's Initiative, Rosemary Bechler had the pleasure of meeting Galia Golan, a contributor to the openDemocracy debate on UN Resolution 1325. The Israeli peace activist told her why, despite the fact that the war on Gaza has alienated her from her government and fellow-countrymen as never before, she believes that the time has come for a solution.

At the Nobel Women's Initiative 2009 conference even the most devastating defeats for the forces of progress can be an opportunity to think afresh about solidarity between those who have been divided. Sri Lankan activist and feminist, Sunila Abeysekera, shares her thoughts on democracy with Rosemary Bechler.

It’s Time to Return to the Hotel Brochure

Day Three. One of the plenary speakers, I can’t remember who it was, told the delegates, ‘We are the privileged ones’. People nodded and you could see that this struck a chord. I have been wondering exactly what it meant. The most obvious reading belongs to the same family as the jesting remark made by Jane Austen’s Elizabeth when she suggests that she fell in love with Darcy when she first saw his lavish ancestral home, Pemberley.