Chapter Three

It is International Women’s Day 2010, forty years after the Report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women. A generation has passed, my generation. In some ways, there has been a revolution in the status of women since that time. 

Yesterday when I heard that Stephen Harper was suddenly taken with a desire to promote maternal health as the key issue for the G8, I have to admit to being perplexed.  I don't think I've ever heard Harper talk about women's issues. Behind the scenes his government, which of course means him, has not only cut funding to most women's groups and the most progressive NGOs like Alternatives and Kairos but have eliminated the word "equality" from their women's bureau.  Harper is no doubt that most anti-feminist PM we have ever had.

With the horror in Haiti, we could all use some good news that we will not hear about from the mainstream media.  On Thursday January 21, Aymara elders and Indigenous people from across Bolivia and the Americas will gather at the inauguration of  Evo Morales as leader of Abya Yala, the Indigenous name meaning Our America.  On the following day, he will be inaugurated as President of Bolivia for the second time.   Up until Evo's regime, Bolivia was the second poorest country in the Americas after Haiti. 

In all the midst of the tremendous and welcome attention to  the climate change conference in Copenhagen little attention has been given to a miraculous development in the Global South.   Not only has Evo Morales won an overwhelming majority as President of Bolivia but his party, the Movement towards Socialism (MAS) has won 2/3 of the Senate and a strong majority in the House basically destroying the strength of the right-wing parties.

On December 6, Bolivia will hold a general election where Evo Morales, the first Indigenous President in the Americas will no doubt be re-elected.  His party the MAS has recently released an election programme that Susan Harvie has kindly summarized and translated.  Bolivia is reinventing democractic socialism.  They are in the process of creating a plurinational state with equal rights for all nations and people, redistributing land, free health and education for everyone, what they call a pluri-economy that includes public, private, co-operative and communitarian.  In four years of power they have eliminated illiteracy, reduced extreme poverty by 6%, insituted a senior's pension for the first time, nationalized hydrocarbons and achieved a 6.5% economic growth.  They are showing at a government that acts in the interests of the majority really can succeed and that an alternative is truly possible.  The full list of achievements and election platform for the next four years is below:

Felipe Stuart is an old friend and comrade who went to Nicaragua in the 1980's but unlike many revolutionary solidarity activists, he stayed and became a citizen and a member of the FSLN.  He is writing with considerable knowledge about the coup in Honduras

Another visionary in ending the scourge of industrialization and solving the problems of climate change is Evo Morales, President of Brazil.  In a recent speech to the UN he outlined ten points for solving climate change.  They are republished below:

By Evo Morales Ayma, President of Bolivia

On Sunday June 7 at the corner of Bloor and Spadina in Toronto , there will be a vigil to honour  Dr. George Tiller, who was known as the doctor of last resort in the pro-choice community.  Dr. Tiller was murdered by a homegrown right-wing terrorist in the U.S.  But don't think that anti-choice violence is only a problem in the U.S.  Terror is a way that part of the the anti-choice movement has tried to prevent abortion provision for a long time.  Below is a column I wrote more ten years ago about the threat facing abortion providers here in Canada.  Numerous female columnists have written about the issue in Canada and the US.  My column originally appeared on the CBC web site

I first met Rosalia a couple of years ago at an environmental demo in front of City Hall in Toronto.  She and two other  indigenous women from South American women were holding a Wipala, the flag I came to know as a symbol of the struggle in Bolivia.  As I was speaking, I talked about the meaning of the Wipala .  They were delighted that I knew what it was and came to talk to me afterwards.  Later we worked together in the Toronto Bolivia Solidarity and always had warm sisterly relationship.  Below very near her death, she is at a small rally to honour the Stolen Sisters, aboriginal women murdered and disappeared in Canada.  She was an amazing activist in many ways.  Most powerfully she always brought an indigenous feminist perspective to all our events, explaining the deeper meaning of whatever we were discussing.  She fully participating in the struggles she found in her adopted country as well as organzing solidarity with the struggles in Latin America.  She brought a wisdom and richness to our events that will be greatly missed. She was an extraordinary woman.

Day before yesterday still in a bit of a reverie after more than 24 hours without television, radio or newspapers in my friends' beautiful house in the bush near Victoria I was awakened on the ferry into Vancouver by an astonishing call.  Sandra Martin from the Globe and Mail asked me, "Judy, is it possible to be a feminist and be anti-war?"  What?