To All My Aussie Friends: HELP Needed to Assist a Battered Woman Trying to Regain Custody of her Battered Child, from the Abuser-Father

[image is from here]

6 June UPDATE:

Here is a similar story, not hers, but one that has been published which raises similar issues of atrocity and lack of justice for women and children of men who are terrorists in their homes:

http://mamaliberty.wordpress.com/2010/05/30/how-far-abusers-will-go/

Could anyone in Australia, or anyone who is very familiar with resources for women in Australia, please post here the names and contact information for ANY and ALL Feminist and Women's Organisations, Groups, Support and Legal Resources for Women dealing with custody, immigration, domestic violence, and racism and misogyny in the white male supremacist court system.

A white Australian man who is a batterer/abuser of a woman and child has custody of the battered woman of color's child, "their" child. She is working to get this child safely out of his custody, into hers. She is safely away from him, but the courts, so far, have placed the abused girl in his control.

THANK YOU. The sooner you can get this to me, the sooner I can get the information to her. Any information would be GREATLY appreciated.

On Writing Off (And NOT Writing Off) White Radical Lesbian Feminist Sheila Jeffreys

 [photograph of Sheila Jeffreys is from here]

What is missing from much supposedly "intelligent critical thinking" that white men are so renowned for accomplishing, is the capacity, it appears, to even engage with ideas that critique patriarchy at all. Radical political thinkers' work has limitations: like that of Noam Chomsky, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Gilles Deleuze. But I know academic white het men who have mental orgasms reading and discussing their ideas and perspectives (seemingly endlessly) on political and social reality. "Limitation" is endemic among white radical men's writing especially when considering and centering the perspectives of political philosophers who are women--Indigenous women, lesbian women, and women of color, for example. I do not know of one single (not one) white het man who has read Yurugu, by Dr. Marimba Ani. I know of no white men who have concerned themselves with the work of Patricia Hill Collins. Or Mary Daly. (Amazon won't even list her books on their "Mary Daly Page"!) Or Winona LaDuke.

Or Sheila Jeffreys. (Amazon also cannot seem to figure out how to list all of Jeffreys' work on their "Sheila Jeffreys Page".) I do know a few men who have read and appreciated the work of Audre Lorde and Andrea Dworkin, although I question the extent to which they comprehend the meaning of the writings or appreciate the complexity of the authors' ideas.

There is a blatant double standard and gross misogynist (and also racist) and anti-lesbian bias I find among "academically trained" white het male and white gay and queer men. And I've never it seen adequately challenged by other white men. Whole academic fields, disciplines, courses, and seminars, as well as community organising and resistance, are built upon the severely flawed ideas of Great White Het (and Gay) Men. But when the "great thinker" is a woman, in this post focusing on one white radical feminist lesbian woman, she is generally dismissed by most white men for no legitimate reasons at all that some inane dismissive remark like "she hates men". This concern for "writers who hate a gender" doesn't seem to stop the allegedly brilliant white boys from pondering the intellectual efforts of pro-patriarchal misogynists.

In the cases of writers like Mary Daly and Sheila Jeffreys, white boys typically and predicktably take one bit of something either writer once wrote, use that as "representative" of ALL of her ideas, and rid themselves of the necessity to engage thoughtfully with the bulk and main points of the work, the philosophies, the political challenges to patriarchal (male supremacist) harm, privileges, entitlements, and power. I find this to be true among men of color as well. Men of color will expect white women to read the philosophical and political works of great men of color, but let a white woman hand a man of color a book by Daly or Jeffreys and watch the look on their faces. It is more or less like the look on white men's faces. This wouldn't be because men don't want to deal with their patriarchal methods of harming women, with male privileges, entitlements, and power, would it?

You have one guess whose interests are served by men writing off radical lesbian feminists of any color. (The answer sounds and looks a lot like the word "MEN's".)

See the video below for a THOUGHTFUL discussion on the matter of reading the work of Sheila Jeffreys. I challenge white men and men of color to be at least as thoughtful and considerate in their readings of her work as they are of their much adored Great Male Thinkers. And, yes, that will mean men will have to start by reading her work with masculinist defenses checked before opening the front cover.

Peace With Criminals, War With People: a Statement from RAWA on the Puppet Afghan Regime Supported by U.S. Force

 

[image is from here]

Eight and a half years and counting 

is hardly the life of a mayfly, 

but the graphic image above makes a point 

I've rarely seen made so graphically.

This is a news release may also be linked back to by clicking on the title below.

RAWA, June 1, 2010

Peace with Criminals, War with People!

Statement of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) on “Consultative Peace Jirga”

By inviting criminals like the Taliban, the leaders of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s party and other “Jehadi leaders” to be part of a “Consultative Peace Jirga,” Mr. Karzai is committing yet another treason against the Afghan people. Like any puppet, anti-people ruler, he initially compromised with all the murderers associated with April 27th 1978 (former Russian puppets) and April 28 1992 (the Northern Alliance warlords) and installed them in key posts of his government. He then went to the extent of assigning the two most notorious warlords Karim Khalili and Qasim Fahim as his vice presidents. Now, he calls the Taliban and Hekmatyar party terrorists “Afghan sons” and tries to either share power with them, or offer them the opportunity of asylum and amnesty to their leaders in any country of their choice. He is also offering jobs to their gunmen so he can prolong his mafia-style rule with ease of mind.

A known terrorist from Hekmatyar’s Islamic Party called Farooq Wardak has been awarded the responsibility of running the Jirga. Additionally, the delegates from Hekmatyar’s blood-thirsty party in Kabul were received like showbiz celebrities with local Afghan media being offered in their service. The infamous criminals Mullah Wakil Ahmad Motawakal, Mullah Zaef, Humayun Jarir, Abdul Hadi Arghandewal, Sabaoon, Mullah Rocketi and many other such terrorists of the Taliban and Islamic Party have had their reputations sugarcoated in the past few years. All these things not only illuminate the true nature and goal of this Jirga, but also constitute an insult to our people who have sought their liberation in the prosecution and punishment of Khaliqi, Parchami, Jehadi and Taliban criminals, but instead still feel the heavy load of these brutal enemies on their wounded bodies.

Without receiving a green light from their US masters, the puppet government of Afghanistan could never raise a hue and cry about this “Consultative Peace Jirga.” It could also not consider making peace with the Taliban and Islamic Party assassins while they are apparently still on the “Black List” of the US government. This in itself proves that the US doesn’t just want a puppet government, but also a stable and efficient government to easily change Afghanistan into a strong military base in Asia, extend its grip on the oil and gas of the Central Asian Republics and maintain its supremacy in competition with rivals such as China and other regional powers. For the US and allies, the deeply criminal, treacherous, anti-democracy and anti-independence essence of this puppet regime has no significance at all. Apart from a handful of sold-off intellectuals of Afghanistan, this reality is crystal clear to even our children that the claim of the US about bringing “democracy” and “women’s liberation” to Afghanistan was the biggest lie of the century. In fact, it was even more striking than the claims of the US about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and more comic than its pretence of having an opposition to fundamentalist bands and governments.

At the height of a piercing outcry over a “Peace Jirga,” the Taliban intensified their inhuman brutalities by killing school children, teachers, men, and women of Kabul and other cities, but Karzai and his spokesmen expressed with detestable indifference that, “Inshallah, with national unity soon we will emerge from these problems”! If their own sister, mother or daughter were raped, killed publicly or torn to pieces by suicide bombings, would they still call these killings “problems” they have with Taliban, their “disaffected brothers”? But considering the power-lust and impunity of the ruling mafia, they may still not call the Taliban criminals, and their acts as crimes, because despite having some differences, in the final stage they regard themselves from the same ranks and deem it necessary to become united in order to run the state machinery in front of people’s wrath. Both the Taliban and the ruling mafia know well that the day US/NATO occupation forces leave Afghanistan; all the tribes of Afghanistan will consider unity amongst themselves to topple their bloody rule.

While the US is trying to unite its lackeys through the “Peace Jirga” and other means, it is afraid of unity and integration among Afghan people. Therefore, through its puppet government and Northern Alliance agents, the US is trying hard to sow disruption and animosity among the different tribes of Afghanistan. For example, in Behsood and Daimirdad they inflamed fighting between Hazaras and Nomads and similarly in Northern Afghanistan among Tajiks, Pushtoons and Uzbeks so they can continue the occupation of a divided and disarrayed nation.

The so-called intellectuals of Afghanistan who directly or indirectly hope that the Taliban will end the US occupation, are carving a dark mark of history on their forehead. They are like those who rely on the US and the bloodthirsty Iranian regime to emancipate them from the yoke of the Taliban. If such people are not foolish, then they are spineless because they neither remember the marks of the Taliban flogging our mothers, sisters and fathers nor the beheading of our children and poor women (in the name of rooting out “spies”), or the spraying of acid on innocent school-girls. If they believe that by relying on tribal issues, corruption, and looting of the puppet regime they can find an argument for their support of the brutal Taliban, then by what trick can they ignore the ISI-born nature and medieval mentality of the Taliban? Can they point out any example anywhere in the world of such an anti-democratic and anti-women group dominated by drug lords and dependent on the intelligence agency of a foreign country that dares to struggle for independence and liberation? The intellectual supporters of the Taliban are possibly agents of the US CIA and other agencies who by upholding the Taliban and calling them a “resistance movement” want to pave the way for their joint domination with President Karzai and the “National Front” mafia.

In the past, through the meddling of Zalmay Khalilzad and Hamid Karzai as representatives of UNOCAL, the US dealt with the Taliban and pumped tens of millions of dollars into their pockets. Today if the Taliban once again comes to power, the US will easily “work” with them and prefer their bloody and suffocating rule of Afghanistan to an independent, pro-democracy and pro-women’s rights government, because the US counts on them as the most loyal group to safeguard its interests in the region. The Taliban also will not forget that the US was their creator, trainer and mentor through Pakistan’s ISI god-fathers.

The current conflict between the US, Taliban, and Northern Alliance is in fact a family matter between them which will be solved sooner or later. When that happens, the ranks of friends and enemies of our people will become clear and the illusion spread by pro-Taliban, pro-April 27 and April 28 treacherous intellectuals will be countered. Under such conditions, it is the duty of pro-independence, pro-democracy and pro-women’s rights intellectuals to increase their organized efforts for a coordinated uprising of our people against all traitors to Afghanistan.

Let the puppet mafia government of Karzai bring together all its agents in the “Peace Jirga” and similar ridiculous shows and by organizing luxury meetings, dance over the dead bodies of our innocent people, but the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), alongside the aggrieved Afghan people thinks that such deceitful games mean throwing salt on the wounds of our people caught in the US/NATO bombings, insecurity, poverty, unemployment and desperation all over Afghanistan.

Shame to the “Peace Jirga” of criminals with criminals!
Neither USA, Nor Taliban and the National Front murderers!
An independent and democratic Afghanistan!

URL for news «Peace with Criminals, War with People!»

http://www.rawa.org/rawa/2010/06/01/peace-with-criminals-war-with-people.html