Entries from The WIP Contributors tagged with 'Politics'
Climate Refugees: The Human Toll of a Changing Planet
by Jessica Mosby - USA - The world’s weather is changing and millions of people will be displaced. This tragic reality is captured in the new documentary film, Climate Refugees. Without engaging in the divisive global warming debate, director and...
Of Art, the Sacred and the Secular: India’s Debate over Painter M.F. Hussain
by Aditi Bhaduri - India - A debate gripping much of India’s urban middle class has been the controversy surrounding renowned painter M.F. Hussain. Considered India’s Picasso, he received the country’s second highest civilian award – the Padma Vibhushan. But...
The Shame of Honor:
Global Activists Resurrect the Voices of the Dead
by Mandy Van Deven - India - Asma. Rukhsana. Zakia. Duaa. Fereshteh. Somayeh. Heshu. Samera. Amneh, Zahra. Semse. As an investigative journalist, Rana Husseini had no intention of shifting careers to become a human rights activist until she was given...
Kashmir’s Economy Feels the Effects of Climate Change
by Nusrat Ara - Indian-administered Kashmir - After the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) admitted to a major mistake in its 2007 report, which asserted the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035, skeptics and opponents alike went on...
A Brave New World: Women as Architects of Peace
by Katharine Daniels Executive Editor & Founder, The WIP This past weekend I was invited to keynote the Global Women’s Conference at CSU Fullerton. It was a great opportunity for me to reflect on the journey that we’ve been on...
Violence Breeds Violence: “Afghanistan without bombs and burqas”
by Wazhmah Osman - Afghanistan/USA - Today Afghanistan finds itself in a state of collapse and at the center of a powerful network of global terrorism. Kabul is a city filled with anxiety, insecurity, instability, trauma, and uncertainty; lost souls...
Jeopardizing Children’s Health: Indian Markets Overrun with Toxic Toys
by Lesley D. Biswas - India - The annual Bidhannagar Fair at Kolkata’s Central Park is a swarm of enthusiastic children and their parents. Amidst the tangle of toy vendors and the squeaking and jarring sounds of their toys, seven-year-old...
“Deeply Divided”: Sri Lanka through the Eyes of Adele Barker
by Mandy Van Deven - India - During the year she taught Russian literature at the University of Peradeniya in Kandy, Sri Lanka, Arizona University professor Adele Barker found herself more comfortable in the role of perpetual learner than educator....
Afghanistan: Vultures in the “Graveyard of Empires”
by Wazhmah Osman - Afghanistan - While reports of systemic corruption and fraud are just beginning to surface in the international press as Western governments are becoming aware of it, this is old news to local Afghans. They know that...
Defending Human Rights in Colombia is a Deadly Job
by Moira Birss - Colombia - “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid,” Jorge tells me. “Your right to freedom disappears - you have to limit your movements and activities.” I would be afraid, too; Jorge and...
Another 5 years of Karzai: An Afghan-American Perspective from Kabul
by Wazhmah Osman - Afghanistan/USA - I was born in Kabul, Afghanistan during the good years, in the early seventies. Among my fondest memories is walking to and from school holding the hand of my stylish mother who was then...
Grassroots Climate Justice Groups Work for Results in Copenhagen
by Brittany Shoot - Denmark - Copenhagen is an odd mix of frustrating inertia and vigilant protest as week two of the COP15 UN climate conference at the city’s Bella Center continues in tandem with Klimaforum09, the people’s summit, and...
Video Testimonials Document Politically Motivated Sexual Violence in Zimbabwe
by Abigail Wendle - USA - According to the Zimbabwe Rape Survivors Association, during last year’s highly contested presidential election an estimated 2,000 women and girls were the targets of politically-motivated sexual violence in Zimbabwe. State-sanctioned groups under President Robert...
India Braces for US Pressure on Afghanistan and Kashmir
by Aditi Bhaduri - India - As US President Barack Obama commits a troops increase in Afghanistan and a recognition of the “good Taliban,” and as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton paves the way for India’s nuclear energy program, many...
There’s Something In The Air: Copenhagen Prepares for COP15
by Brittany Shoot - Denmark - Copenhagen has been buzzing with activity the last two months. After the Olympics committee met here in October with a slough of American cameos from Oprah and the Obamas, the city quickly switched gears...
Stripping Burlesque of Whiteness: Brown Girls Burlesque Take Center Stage
by Mandy Van Deven - India - Known for its bawdy sexual humor, over-the-top characters, and underlying social criticism, Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales set the stage for the satirical theatrics which came to be known as burlesque. During its...
The “democratic evolution” of the Kurdish Question:
Turkish and Kurdish Mothers Campaign for Peace
by Dr. Emel Baştürk Akca - Turkey - “We mothers, whose hearts are burning, have come together so that there will be no more pain. We do not want our children to die.” These words belong to Nurten Ekinci, a...
India Ramps up Nuclear Power with Help from the United States
by Priyanka Bhardwaj - India - At the insistence of the United States, India has been granted global “nuclear exception” status despite being a non-signatory on nuclear non-proliferation treaties, such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban...
Workplace ”Mobbing”: EU Integration Pushes Macedonian Labor Law to the Surface
by Natasha Dokovska - Macedonia - "I have 15 years seniority over the human resources officer and the highest level of education. Eight years ago, I was the head of the department, but in the last two years I have...
Burma VJ: Reporting From a Closed Country
by Jessica Mosby - USA - Burma (also known as Myanmar) is a closed country, literally. Since the 1962 military coup, few outsiders have even entered the Southeast Asian country. News reports are scarce and often unreliable because the news...
Modern Malaysia Grapples with Islamization
by Mahi Ramakrishnan - Malaysia - Eight years ago I followed the Muslim religious authorities, dubbed the morality police, on a raid in Malaysia's federal capital, Kuala Lumpur for an article I was writing on the religious body and its...
This Way Up: A Meditation on Growing Old Along the Israeli/Palestinian Border
by Jessica Mosby - USA - Growing old in a nursing home is rarely an enviable fate. For the Palestinian Christian residents of the Catholic–run Our Lady of Sorrows nursing home, old age is particularly disheartening. Located in East Jerusalem,...
Looking into the Toilet: Potty Politics
by Mandy Van Deven - India - What do former U.S. Senator Larry Craig, women in Victorian England, and transgender activists have in common? Toilets!...
The Struggle for Survival in Zimbabwe: The Political Tug of War Continues
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - There have been many obstacles that threaten the already shaky power sharing agreement between the ZANU PF and MDC political parties, stalling much needed progress in Zimbabwe. Convincing the donor community to assist or...
Refusing Silence, Rejecting Simplification:
Kenyan Activist Philo Ikonya Battles Corruption
by Shailja Patel - Kenya - And they asked him: Why do you sing? And he answered, as they seized him: I sing because I sing And they searched his chest But could only find his heart And they searched...
Cambodia: Defining Peace in Order to Build Peace
by Pushpa Iyer - USA - At the entrance to the eerily preserved torture rooms in Tuol Sleng (the genocide museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia), there is a sign bearing the face of a distinctly Cambodian man who is laughing....
Are Women Politicians in India Really Shattering the Glass Ceiling?
by Shreyasi Singh - India - The UNDP’s Human Development Indices 2008 gives India a rather embarrassing rank in its crucial Gender Development Index (116th out of 157 countries). But, for many of us tracking politics in India today, the...
Using Twitter: from Conversation to Community
by Charukesi Ramadurai - India - “First day in Parliament. From the sublime (the historic Central Hall for the Cong legislators meeting) to the bureacratic (8 forms to fill)!” - 12:17 AM May 19th from TwitterBerry One of India’s newest...
Argentina’s Collective Memory:
Challenges in Accepting a Violent Past
by Saskia van Alphen - Argentina - The current Argentinean government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has made Justicia or human rights one of the main items on its political agenda, so much so that it aims to judge and...
The Battle to Stay Alive: Surviving in Zimbabwe by the Mercy of God
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - It has been a year since I last wrote for The WIP and it’s really good to be able to share what has been happening in our country. Every weekend for the past eight...
Empowerment for Peace: Afghanistan’s Unlikely Presidential Candidate
by Abigail Wendle - USA - When Hamid Karzai became Afghanistan’s first democratically elected president in 2004, the new government established a constitution that proclaimed equality for men and women, promising to enforce international standards of human rights. But throughout...
Will NATO Agree to Stabilize Afghanistan?
by Patricia DeGennaro - USA - This year, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization celebrates its 60th birthday. President Obama will take his first European trip since the presidential campaign to meet NATO’s twenty-six members. While there, he’ll have to pinch...
“Promoting self-help, not sympathy”: Kashmir’s She Hope Disability Centre Provides Support for a New Life
by Nusrat Ara - Indian-administered Kashmir - “Keep Guns Outside, Please.” The brightly-colored sign on the gates of She Hope Disability Centre is a reminder of Kashmir’s ongoing conflict. Sami Wani, the young manager, smiles when asked about the instruction....
Cultural Stigma and Myth: Disabled Women in Kenya are Vulnerable to Sexual Violence
by Rosemary Okello - Kenya - In the face of escalating of sexual violence in Kenya, women with disabilities are more vulnerable than ever. A recent study by the Federation of Women Lawyers in Kenya (FIDA-K) - a women’s rights...
In Search of Home: Kashmiri Hindus Dream of Their Ancestral Lands
by Aditi Bhaduri - India - It has been a momentous year for Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. It began with the state government’s controversial transfer of land to the Hindu Shri Amarnath Shrine Board, and ended with the just concluded...
The Rise of the Right: Europe’s Solution to Immigration
"Austria has inhaled enough people - we are full."
by Handan T. Satiroglu - Turkey / Western Europe - Not too far from the Baroque palaces and Gothic cathedrals that made the city of Vienna famous, a group of jubilant men and women are packed into a café. Glasses...
No Time for War: A Call for Peace Amid Rising Nuclear Tensions between Pakistan and India
by Zubeida Mustafa - Pakistan - Peace activists in Pakistan and India are attempting desperately to be heard above the din raised by warmongers – elitist by all counts and claiming to be patriotic as well – in the wake...
Argentina’s Space for Memory Opens Its Doors in Former Clandestine Detention Center
by Saskia van Alphen - Argentina - The terrain of the Escuela Mecánica de la Armada (the ESMA or Navy Mechanics School) has been open to the public for a year now. Once one of the biggest detention and torture...
Pray the Devil Back to Hell: Liberian Women Bring Peace to their War-Torn Country
by Jessica Mosby - USA - The recent history of Liberia is bloody. Valuable natural resources, corrupt leaders, ethnic conflicts, and thousands of displaced people led to 8 years of conflict during Liberia’s two civil wars (1989-1993 and 1999-2003). Many...
Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story
by Jessica Mosby - USA - I vividly remember the 1988 presidential election, or more accurately the months of campaigning that led up to the election. At the time, my family did not have cable television and all that was...
Kashmiris Seek Closure and Justice for the Missing on the International Day of the Disappeared
by Afsaana Rashid - Indian-administered Kashmir - As the world observed the International Day of the Disappeared last month on August 30th, Asima Mohi-ud-Din attended a silent protest rally organized by the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP). For...
Muslims Reach Out to Hindus During This Year’s Amarnath Yatra in Kashmir
by Afsaana Rashid - Indian-administered Kashmir - At a time when it is very difficult to find people willing to extend the hand of human kindness to those practicing a different religion, Muslims living in the Kashmir valley have set...
A Different Kind of Birthday Party
by Shenali Waduge - Sri Lanka - At only a year old, would a child know that she was in front of a cake attempting to blow out something called a candle? When my daughter turned one she was pretty...
Violence Touches “each family living in Kashmir”
by Afsaana Rashid - Indian-administered Kashmir - Kashmir’s ongoing armed conflict over the past two decades has had physical, cognitive, emotional and behavioral consequences for everyone living in the valley. Although no official figures exist, everyone agrees there has been...
Niger Delta Crisis: Women and Children of the Creeks Pay High Price for Nigeria's Oil
by Remi Adeoye - Nigeria - There is stiff opposition to the proposed Niger Delta Summit slated to be held in Abuja, Nigeria. The Delta’s most prominent militant group, known as The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta...
Strategies for the Crippling of a Nation: Mugabe’s Ruthless Cling to Power
by Katharine Daniels & Sarah McGowan - USA - Sunday’s news that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai had withdrawn from the Zimbabwean runoff race spurred international media coverage and outrage on a crisis that has been raging for years. According to...
Zimbabwe Introduces Special Banknotes as Inflation Soars
by Lelety Mabasa - Zimbabwe - Always faithful in shocking the world, Zimbabwe has scored yet another first, and as usual, for all the wrong reasons. • Basket case: A fruit seller in Harare hunts for change. •It seems that...
Mugabe Wages Retribution Campaign After Losing the Election: Hundreds Flee for “Safety”
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - In the early hours of April 25th, Tariro Gweru and her husband Wellington awoke to a deafening knock on their bedroom hut. Wellington says he identified the frantic voices of his two friends, Simon...
No Election Results But a Recount Begins: Mugabe Uses Violence to Reverse the People’s Will as MDC Calls for a Work Boycott
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - "The moment the people stop supporting you, that's the moment you should quit politics." These were the seemingly reasonable and even wise words President Robert Mugabe used in the Highfield suburb of Harare, Zimbabwe’s...
US Leadership Expert Michael Maccoby Discusses Which Candidate Is Best Suited for the Presidency
by Eva Sohlman - Sweden - What kind of leader does tomorrow’s America need? And who among the presidential candidates is best suited to meet the challenges that the next leader of the world’s superpower will face? These are some...
Election Fever Grips Zimbabweans as Prospects for Change Are Near
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - Tinashe Choruma and his wife Irene live in the suburb of Epworth here in the capital, Harare, where many of city's poor reside. The housing is poorly constructed - some homes are made from...
A Current between Shores: Womanhood and Marriage
by Rose-Anne Clermont - Germany - “Love one another but make not a bond of love: Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. . . Stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple...
Divided Opposition: Huge Betrayal for Activists Who Have Suffered for Change
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - On March 11th, 2007, 64 year old Sekai Holland woke up unusually early. She was restless and anxious because of the scheduled protests that her party was going to go ahead with against the...
Mugabe's Opposition, the MDC, Refuses to Be Crushed
by Lelety Mabasa - Zimbabwe - There was chaos and pandemonium at Harare’s city center on January 23rd, as thousands of ordinary people came face-to-face with the wrath of the police’s riot squad, who were summoned by Zimbabwe’s aging President,...
A Current between Shores: Dictatorship & Democracy
by Rose-Anne Clermont - Germany - January 30th marks the 75th "anniversary" of Hitler's rise to power. Today, appropriately, we begin a nine-part series by Rose-Anne Clermont conceived as "Parallel Histories from Different Worlds." The series begins with the early...
Free from Mugabe’s Grip, Zanu PF Split Is the Only Chance for a Better Zimbabwe
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - In my last article I wrote that the situation here is so dire that many Zimbabweans, including myself, can now only pray for divine intervention to rid us of this dictator, Robert Mugabe. Based...
Benazir Bhutto: India’s View of What Was Lost by Her Death
by Neeta Lal - India - While Benazir Bhutto’s tragic assassination has rudely jolted Pakistan – a country already torn asunder by political instability and terrorism – it has also had a strong resonance across all of Asia especially in...
According to Harold Bloom, “What we are seeing is…the fall of America”
by Eva Sohlman - Sweden - Harold Bloom, Yale literature professor and cultural critic, is one of America’s most prominent and provocative intellectuals. Unabashedly, he has always spoken up for what he calls “the fight for truth and beauty” making...
Mugabe Mobilizes Veterans to Help Seize 2008 Presidency: Freedom Is the Next Casualty
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - In Zimbabwe 2007 closed on a very sad note. December was a very eventful month: it was President Mugabe’s busiest and most desperate month, as he fought to stamp out the criticism of his...
Child Rights Activist Betty Makoni “Lights Up the Dark" for Abused and Disadvantaged Young Girls
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - “The stories we listened to made us bleed inside, the genital wounds we later had to help nurse evoked us, the long distances we traveled every day and night to educate girls on their...
Germany’s Political Debate on the Role of the Family
by Vera von Kreutzbruck Germany • Hamburg boasts pint-sized anti-Nazi graffiti. Photograph by Photocapy. •The prominent German talk show host, Eva Herman, has been in the eye of the storm ever since she praised Hitler’s promotion of motherhood in a...
Businesses in Zimbabwe Are Forced to Cut Prices in Half - Mugabe’s “Plan” for Skyrocketing Inflation Backfires
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - Most of us here in Zimbabwe thought he was joking when we first heard President Robert Mugabe tell the public that his government was going to "pounce on greedy businesspeople" because they were increasing...
Can the Struggle for Philippine Democracy Be a Lesson to Burma?
by Imelda V. Abaño Philippines The bloody military crackdown in Burma (also known as Myanmar) was bound to happen. Some people called it "pure democracy" as hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters joined with 10,000 of the Buddhist monks the...
As the Power Supply in Zimbabwe Becomes Unreliable, Families, Industry and the Economy All Suffer
by Lelety Mabasa Zimbabwe Vongai stumbles into the house and fumbles as she pulls her room key from her bra. After she struggles with the lock for several minutes, the door finally creaks open. She slips into the room, trying...
Mugabe Has Turned the Zimbabwean Army & Police Against Their Own People: It's No Place for Cowards
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - As I write this piece, a soldier is in critical condition at the army hospital after residents from the notorious suburb, Mufakose attacked him and three of his colleagues for "harassing innocent civilians". It’s...
Argentina’s Elections: Another First Lady Has an Excellent Chance of Becoming President on Her Own Merits
by Vera von Kreutzbruck Germany/Argentina • Sept 12 - Austria: Cristina Fernández de Kirchner meets with Austrian chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer. •Unless there is a dramatic and highly improbable last-minute shift in the voter polls, the 28th of October will prove...
In a Landmark Case, Former Philippine President Joseph Estrada Gets Life in Prison on Corruption Charges
by Imelda V. Abaño Philippines • Anti-Estrada protestors in 2001. Photograph by Imelda V. Abaño. •"It is a political decision…I am innocent!" cried the 70-year-old already ousted Philippine President Joseph Estrada after he was convicted of corruption on a massive...
Interception of Communications Act Sparks Debate and Fear: Zimbabwean Human Rights Activists Up in Arms
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - • Harare, Zimbabwe. Photograph by Gary Bembridge. •The recent passing of the Interception of Communication Act, signed into law by Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe on August 3, 2007, has sparked much debate and inspired...
Defiant Cont Mhlanga’s Latest Play Banned But He Vows To Continue with Protest Theater
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - Hopefully, readers may remember the piece I wrote for The WIP in May 2007 about prominent Zimbabwean playwright Cont Mhlanga, and the premiere of his most recent and controversial play yet, “The Good President.”...
Systematic Abuses of Women and Children in Zimbabwe's Women's Prison Stirs Up a Hornet's Nest
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - In 2003, gender activists from the Zimbabwe Women Writers group published a book entitled A Tragedy of Lives: Women in Prison in Zimbabwe. It revealed shocking human rights abuses in the country’s prison system....
Mugabe's Forcible "Clearance" of 2.4 Million of His Own People in Operation Murambatsvina: A Tragic Legacy, Two Years Later
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - • A woman cries amongst her possessions. Photograph by Fidelis Zvomuya. •My conscience has not let me rest since I last visited the small mining town of Bindura, about 90 kilometers outside Harare, Zimbabwe’s...
Open Letter to the Next US President: Get Tougher on Mugabe's Despotic Government, But Send Aid for the Suffering Zimbabweans
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - “When elephants fight, it is the grass which suffers.” – African Proverb The Zimbabwean government introduced an ambitious Antiretroviral Drugs (ARVs) program in 2004, but Ropafadzo Kondo, who tested HIV positive in 1999, got...
Zimbabwe’s Planned National Indigenization and Empowerment Bill: Disaster for the Country’s Economic Infrastructure
by Lelety Mabasa - Zimbabwe - Reeling under severe economic hardships which have earned it the world's highest monthly inflation rate, Zimbabwe is to be dealt yet another blow as far as foreign investment is concerned. The impending disaster will...
The Role and Influence of the US President in Germany
by Vera von Kreutzbruck Germany The next president of the United States of America will undoubtedly play a major role in the international arena – as all US presidents have in past decades. But the important question is how much...
Zimbabwean Broadcasting Cameraman Abducted by State Security Agents and Beaten to Death
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - On March 30, 2007 Zimbabwean journalists here woke up to sad and disturbing news: Edward Chikomba, a former cameraman with the government-run Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (the country’s only television station), had been abducted from...
Women Power in the Philippine Elections
by Imelda Abaño Philippines On May 14, 2007, as the Philippines is scheduled for national elections. For this year's general mid-term elections, 87,000 candidates are running for 17,000 national and local positions, which include all of the 250 seats in...
Riveting New Play, The Good President, Boldly Satirizes a Government That Victimizes Its Own People
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - Zimbabwean theatre lovers have had something to talk about for the past two weeks. Cont Mhlanga's riveting new play, The Good President, premiered here in Harare, Zimbabwe, on April 12. This politically charged satire,...
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