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sarah.lindon@opendemocracy.net's blogSarah LindonSome technical news. We are having trouble with the comments function on this blog. At present it is unmoderated, which means anyone can post a comment, anonymously, any time. Unfortunately this also allows "spammers" to automatically post large amounts of irrelevant material into this space, making the blog - and the openDemocracy site as a whole - unstable. So to prevent the site crashing, we are closing the comments temporarily, until we can reinstate them with pre-moderation, which will require comments to be approved before they appear, and thus stem the flow of spam. Comments will be back in the new year - apologies to those of you who were hoping to read or make them before then. 22 - 12 - 05
Sarah Lindon'Securing a Just and Sustainable Peace' (Noeleen Heyzer, unifem.org, 27/10/05)"Women know the costs of war — what it means to be displaced, to be excluded from public life, and to be regarded as less than full citizens. They know the realities on the ground, and what needs to be done to address the injustices of war and to prevent relapse into conflict. They can be, and must be, part of the solution for lasting peace." UNIFEM's Noeleen Heyzer outlines challenges for the UN on women, peace and security. Read the rest of this post... 02 - 11 - 05
Sarah LindonRead and listen to statements from the 5th anniversary of Resolution 1325 in New York. (peacewomen.org).............................. 'How does change happen?' (awid.org, 30/10/05) The AWID International Forum on Women's Rights and Development concluded in Thailand yesterday. Find out what they have been thinking and talking about. .............................. Read the rest of this post... 31 - 10 - 05
Sarah Lindon'Security Council urges protecting women in war, empowering them as peacemakers', (UN news centre, 28/10/05) Find out what the Security Council has to say about Resolution 1325, five years after its adoption. Benin is the 14th country to ratify the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. One more country is needed to bring it into force - and there are unconfirmed reports that Togo has become that 15th. (pambazuka.org, 27/10/05) 28 - 10 - 05
Sarah LindonThanks to Tim Symonds at Shevolution for sending this suggestion regarding the UN Human Rights Committee:Take a look at the list of Human Rights Committee members and you’ll quickly note that only 3 (France, USA and Sweden) are women, out of the 18 members, i.e. 16%. There will be a meeting of State parties in New York in 2006 to replace 9 of the current members whose 4-year terms expire December 31 2006 (though members can be re-elected if nominated). Britain’s representative Sir Nigel Rodley is Professor of Law and Chair, Human Rights Centre, University of Essex. His term on the Committee is completed at the end of 2008. The American member Ruth Wedgwood ends her term December 31 2006. Read the rest of this post... 28 - 10 - 05
Sarah LindonMen and boys suffer from lack of sexual and reproductive rights through inadequate access to information, services and care, but women and young girls of childbearing age are more vulnerable to sexual assaults and reproductive ill-health. Reproductive health issues, rights and services that affect populations in conflict and post conflict situations, are the focus of part 16 of the IA and WWP Toolkit. 24 - 10 - 05
Sarah LindonI promised Cindy I would elaborate on Judith Butler’s lecture “On being beside oneself: on the limits of sexual autonomy”, and why I think it is relevant to her post about the cultural sphere. (The lecture is published in this book.)To recap: she was concerned with how gendered and sexualised people outside the mainstream challenge mainstream understandings of women, peace and security, and how film and web interventions break past conventional understandings of where politics occurs. She also raised the issue of “what women stand for”. (I think the idea of how a woman “looks presidential” on TV is interesting here, how a fictional TV show might impinge on real politics, in fact how “reality TV” affects lived realities…) Read the rest of this post... 20 - 10 - 05
Sarah LindonDiscussion of women presidents is in the air and on the air. This autumn a new American TV show called Commander in Chief stars Geena Davis as the first female American president. 19 - 10 - 05
Sarah LindonThe UN sends "Peace Support Operations" to conflict zones worldwide. The 6th part of the Toolkit explains how their work can affect and involve women............................. "Root Causes: An Interview with Wangari Maathai" (Dave Gilson, Mother Jones, 05/01/05) Wangari Maathai's work has drawn together environmentalism, feminism, democratisation, and human rights advocacy. Here she talks about sowing the seeds of democracy in Kenya. Read the rest of this post... 10 - 10 - 05
Sarah LindonThis morning, Inge was on Woman's Hour on Radio 4 here in the UK, talking about why women's rights are essential for democracy. You can find out more and listen to the discussion over the internet, here. 07 - 10 - 05
Sarah LindonAfter yesterday’s calls and messages from family, friends and colleagues, this morning I arrived to messages from openDemocracy’s friends and readers around the world. Many voiced sympathy and solidarity. A number expressed more complex – and sometimes less generous - emotions. So far, they come from Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, New Zealand, Palestine, South Africa, Spain, the UK, the US and Venezuela. Isabel Hilton’s letter, published in the afternoon, and the accompanying evening email, “Letter from wounded London”, attracted much support but also concern. Read the rest of this post...08 - 07 - 05
Sarah LindonThis report from Addis Ababa on recent brutality in the Ethiopian capital "done in the name of democracy" came in late yesterday through Glenn Brigaldino (an oD reader and writer). It has been posted elsewhere too but Glenn wanted to make sure the report and its call for international attention reached oD's democracy-minded readership. Yesterday (June 10,2005), the brutal security forces of the TPLF arrested a lot of people who are suspected of being supporters of the opposition parties. The security forces arrested these young men by breaking into selected houses of those who had supported or organized people to support the CUD and UEDF (Coalition for Unity and Democracy and United Ethiopian Democratic Forces). A lot of people are missing in Addis Ababa these days and most of the arrests are carried out at night by cutting off electric light in the areas selected for the mission... Read the rest of this post...15 - 06 - 05
Sarah LindonA new sin has sprung up in France: "papolatrie", or pope worship. Today's IHT describes the debate sparked by the government marking the pope's death. "The government is giving the impression that it is an advocate for one religion, and that religion is Catholicism. And that's an abuse of power," argues Yves Contassot of France's Green Party. 62% of French people describe themselves as Catholic, the article notes, "but the country also is struggling to shore up its secular identity after banning religious symbols from schools, including Muslim headscarves, Jewish yarmulkes and large Christian crosses". Read the rest of this post...08 - 04 - 05
Sarah Lindon"The Pope is many things, but one of them is the last emperor." Slugger O'Toole picks up a piece from The Irish Times today. "The Roman Empire still haunts the church's structures of authority, with the Pope as Caesar and the Conclave as the Senate." Fintan O'Toole asks, "Can [the Catholic Church] lay the ghost of the Roman imperium and become something other than a male gerontocracy?" In our online debate about democracy and the Catholic Church, Bridget Mary Meehan offers a feminist, participative, egalitarian alternative to the closed Conclave at the Vatican. Read the rest of this post...05 - 04 - 05
Sarah Lindon"unbiased scrutiny of speeches, interviews and
manifesto pledges - informing public debate by creating a popular
resource for an information-hungry electorate." 30 - 03 - 05
Sarah LindonInflammatory graffiti has begun to appear on the walls of Baghdad saying, "Arabs out of Iraq" and "We back the government - Arabs go home", The Independent (UK) reports. New strict residency rules to detain and expel foreign Arabs, suspected of aiding the insurgency, have triggered both protest and support. Foreign Muslim fighters in Iraq are a familiar story, but the focus on foreign Arabs is new. Targeted groups include Palestinians, Sudanese Arabs, Syrians, Saudis, Egyptians, and even Chechens and Iranians. The LA Times observes: "For those who have lived here for years, the xenophobia is painful. Most Arabs came for work, often with proper papers." Read the rest of this post...24 - 03 - 05
Sarah LindonThe issue is no longer whether multiculturalism is a good thing, it seems, but what sort of multiculturalism is best. On the Today programme this morning, Keith Vaz, former Europe minister, and professor John Kay, economist, turned to cooking metaphors. So, fondue or salad? Or both? Perhaps our debate The Strange Career of Multiculturalism can help with the words and theories, the tastes and smells. And if you're after models for migration, check out People Flow. 24 - 03 - 05
Sarah LindonJust in: participants in the Madrid Conference on Terrorism, Democracy and Security have drawn up recommendations about the role of the internet in democracy, which you can read here. The document, The Infrastructure of Democracy, states: "truth emerges best in open conversation among people with divergent views". Read the rest of this post...10 - 03 - 05
Sarah LindonIf you haven't yet peopled a meeting to discuss democracy and terror on 11 March, and you're in London, how about peopling this one? It's open to all and you don't need a ticket. "Democracy and Terror" A panel debate on the first anniversary of the Madrid bombings to reflect on the human cost of terror and consider a just, democratic response. With Richard Norton-Taylor, Steve Crawshaw, Alex Colas, Marcus Gerhardt, Dominic Hilton, Douglas Murray.
openDemocracy and The Grimshaw Club invite you to join them at LSE, 6-7.30pm. 10 - 03 - 05
Sarah LindonWell, the longest on openDemocracy for sure. A discussion, prompted by the BBC's The Power of Nightmares TV series, which has ranged far and wide over months, in marathon style, reached a momentous 1000 posts on 4 March. The thread's initiator David Thompson commented: " 08 - 03 - 05
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