yesterday night sahar and i spoke with sarah in beirut. super active super alive. in the face of israeli bombing and the absence of a government the groups and networks she’s connected to began to organise the relief work in their neighborhood. in more than 20 schools, for more than 8000 people, numbers growing by the hour. a sense of empowerment in making a difference, grassroots politics “taking over” – obviously very fragile but also contagious. don’t stop protesting over there in the west, in the states, she insists.<\/p>\n
we know – but how. the demo at the israeli consulate in SF felt all but empowering or making a difference. one must be connected to others to do something in any case, and in santa cruz there doesn’t seem much to connect to. (we regularly cross people, like in our own house, that haven’t heard about this war.) i’m drawn to europe and the networks and ways of navigating that i’ve know for so long. i decide to begin posting on the nextgenderation list, knowing well that it’s not a place where one can take for granted that people find it necessary to respond to the violence and injustices of this war. it seems precisely a good reason to do so. the overwhelming question of how to create and affirm networks and political connections that are capable of acting in times and wars like these…<\/p>\n
the global action day demanding the end of the death penalty for homosexuality in iran, on the 19th – the day on which the two teenagers were hung in Mashad last year. sahar had send me an informal statement by the lgbt section of the Human Rights Watch with an elaborate and nuanced argumentation of what makes this action day politically problematic. the HRW piece is actually much softer than some of us would call these lgbt – and feminist – politics that either willfully position themselves within the belligrent clash of civilisations paradigm or chose to ignore or not see the geo-political context which we’re inevitably part of, wether we like it or not. there are no witnesses, as they say, only participants. another overwhelming question of how to create a “not in our name” resistance among our feminist and lgbt networks and friends…<\/p>\n
wars on all sides. connecting the dots.
\ntrying to recognize where we are in those dots,
\nand what can be done from there.<\/p>\n
meanwhile the grassroots organizing in beirut that sarah is part of yesterday night sahar and i spoke with sarah in beirut. super active super alive. in the face of israeli bombing and the absence of a government the groups and networks she’s connected to began to organise the relief work in their neighborhood. in more than 20 schools, for more than 8000 people, numbers growing by … Continue reading “wars”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nhas a blog with more info: sanayeh reliefcenter<\/a>
\nhelp out if you can.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"