In Honour of International Women's Day

March 8 is the day we celebrate International Women’s Day, a day to honour and acknowledge the importance of the women in our lives and to reflect on the importance of those who, thanks to their selfless contributions, have made the world a much better place in which to live. This year the celebration falls on the first day of the work week, but that does not confer a day off for all of the working women of the world, it merely provides the day upon which the occasion is to be observed; alas, International Women’s Day does not – as of yet – command the same level of celebratory spirit as Thanksgiving Day or Memorial Day, though it is surely at least as important, particularly when you consider the significance of what is being celebrated.

If the importance of an event is tied to its historical background and what it commemorates then International Women’s Day should be held as one of the major observances on the calendar; it is a day that celebrates only a small sample of what women have strived to accomplish since its inception in the last century in their quest to preserve the species which could not exist without the pains of their labours. It is only through the anguish of women’s labour and the pains that they have endured throughout the ages that has allowed for the development of our modern society and continues to allow for the very existence of our lives today.
Without the struggles that women have endured, often at the risk of their very lives, we would be living in a society where civil rights was far from being the fulfilled dream that it has become in many parts of the world, and the struggle continues. Without the struggles of women, without the constant vigil that they keep at the eternal flame of hope for generations yet unborn, the chance of our civilization escaping the turmoil that has become its constant threat would be, at best, minimal. Women fight for civil and human rights for the simple reason that they understand that true equality only exists when everyone is treated with dignity and respect and are truly equal: anything less is the equivalent to the continued enslavement of all humanity, regardless of race, colour or creed. Without full equality for all men and women, without ensuring that all peoples are provided the opportunity to be self-determinate in the selection of who they shall be governed by, and without the right to access quality health care and education, the work of women and the symbol of what International Women’s Day is all about will continue to stand as a beacon of hope for the future.

The day shall come when the things these brave women struggle for becomes the cause of everyman for we shall realize that their struggle is our struggle; we shall recognize that what we call women’s issues are not that, they are things that men fought for in their unions at the turn of the twentieth century, but memories of labour solidarity are often precariously short, particularly when it is in the best interest of those in power to cultivate an atmosphere of amnesia. When the labour unions fought for their right to exist and to negotiate their first contracts they had to face the ‘scabs’ and strike-breakers who were sent in by management to break their will, to drive them back to work for less than what they had been making before they became ‘organized’, but that was not acceptable. By sticking together – by struggling for their rights as exploited employees – the unionized employees of the United States and Canada won such dramatic concessions from their bosses as the ‘right’ to have a forty-hour work week, the ‘right’ to have an un-paid coffee break (sometimes two) of fifteen minutes, the ‘right’ to have an unpaid lunch of thirty minutes, and sometimes the ‘right’ to even have a pension after working for twenty-five years or more.

In tribute to International Women’s Day I could easily create a list of a number of women whom I look up to and admire for their contributions to various fields of study, the arts, politics, and life in general, but such a list would fall pathetically short of fully expressing the breadth of the respect and appreciation that I feel for a group of people that I consider to be amongst the greatest to have lived. It is a list that, were I to produce it, would include several dead notables, not the least of whom would be Rosa Parks for the role she played as a young women in the civil rights movement in Montgomery, Alabama. No list would be complete without the inclusion of such extraordinary women as Clara Schumann, George Sands, and Marie Curie.

Of course, there is no way that this tribute could end without acknowledging the most important woman in the world: she is the woman from whose life mine own began. My mother marched on Washington with Martin Luther King, Jr., and was active in the civil rights movement in the United States before moving to Canada in 1967, the year before I was born. Her struggles for the advancement of ‘the cause’ did not end after marriage or becoming a mother; if anything, having a child made her all the more cognizant of the need for change. After the United Nations declared 1975 the International Year of the Woman my mother was a member of a grass-roots group called ‘Women Helping Women’ that took the ‘struggle’ to the street and sought out practical solutions to the issues facing women during bleak economic times.
The times have changed, thus the struggle continues.

Killing G.I. Joe

There is a movement afoot; a coordinated effort to convince Hasbro to kill G.I. Joe. This time I'm in favour of the killing for this is no mere soldier we are talking about: G.I. Joe is a tool to shape the minds of children as they practice the 'games' of war with the additional components that Joe has access to thanks to the clever folks at Hasbro. They provide more than a clear picture as to what Joe is going to be doing: this soldier is NOT going to Haiti do distribute humanitarian aid, this soldier is going to war. He's gonna' get some.

Is that really what children need to be playing with in a time when violence is only getting worse? In a time when there are real wars going on is it not reasonable to think that children should be engaged in activities of peace - activities that do not have anything to do with maiming and destroying the lives of others - if only as a 'game' or 'for pretend'. War is not 'for pretend', it is perhaps the most real experience that any individual will experience, if they are lucky enough to survive. We glorify the actions of 'war heroes' and veterans, but often fail to remind everyone - especially the youngest - that war is NOT glamerous: it violates the dignity of person and right of all, and condemns those involved to a nightmare that may never end. War is as real as it gets: there is no 'pretend' about it. G.I. Joe has no place as a toy for children.

It is not difficult to imagine that we become as adults what we practice as children. Those who spend their time with a violin in their hand or sitting patiently at a piano will often find themselves in a career in music or otherwise engaged in creative activities while some of the kids who were athletically inclined are now being watched by the world as they perform at the Vancouver Olympic Games, where the best of the winter athletes have gathered together for what is supposed to be the greatest peaceful exhibition of winter sports.

How difficult is it to imagine that there is a great deal to say here about the 'nurturing' environment and how it influences what happens to children involved in activities that aim the energies of the child into a more destructive direction? Can it be so hard to accept that the kids who grow up playing the violent games, particularly the video games that flood their consciousness with thousands of violent images every time they play their 'game' and 'role playing' games, where they pretend to be characters in the action, can often result in these children growing up to become anti-social adults who have difficulty relating to the rest of the world? Violence begets violence as surely as eating nothing but McDonald's will leave your body diseased and on the road to an early death (as demonstrated in the documentary by Morgan Spurlock).

If the saying 'you are what you eat' is true how much more the expression 'you are what you play'? Can you imagine what Gandhi did as a child? I can't believe that he played with guns and pretended to stage small wars with his toys. What about Nelson Mandela? While imprisoned for his desire to live as a free man in the nation he was born in he did not spend his time growing bitter or being consumed with hate; he read poetry, studied to improve himself, and - most importantly - perfected his ability to forgive and preach and teach his inspirational message of the importance of reconciliation for the future of South Africa. That doesn't sound like the type of guy who grew up playing with a G.I. Joe.

Children may want a toy because a friend of theirs has one or they have seen it on television, but parents have to realize that getting a child everything that they want is not necessarily the best way to make their child happy - and it certainly isn't the best thing for the child. Rather than succumbing to the pressures (from children and advertising) to purchase violent toys parents can take the first step by offering alternate venues for their children to exercise their playtime in creative, peaceful ways.

If enough people stop buying the G.I. Joe doll because it becomes something that no longer fits into the vision of what should be marketed to children then one thing will surely happen: Joe will not return from his last mission. He will be declared KIA and be pulled from the shelves. That day cannot come soon enough.

Stealing Babies for Jesus

Image © by Ben Heine
The tragedy of the January 12th earthquake in Haiti is still producing heart wrenching stories that challenge our very abilities to comprehend the most elemental components of human behaviour. The most recent story to raise the hackles of those who vigilant enough to care is that of a group ten Southern Baptists from Idaho who have been detained in Haiti after attempting to take 33 children into the Dominican Republic as ‘orphans’. The only problem was that the Americans not only didn’t have papers for any of the children, some of the children were not orphans; some being old enough to explicitly state for themselves that they were not in fact orphans, something that some might call a minor issue and which others might call the ‘illegal trafficking of children’.

Read the entire story here.

The thing that frightens me the most about this story is the casual disregard that these individuals have shown for the law of a land in turmoil. Rather than trying to work within the system – to use their talents and abilities to help rebuild the demolished Haitian system – they instead chose to circumvent it, believing that the easy route was the best route, without questioning the legality or the morality of their choice. They certainly weren’t concerned about the fact that some of the children that they assumed needed to be ‘rescued’ were, in essence, being kidnapped. If this is the state of contemporary Christian missionary work, God help those who are being ministered to; do they now have to be concerned about where their children are while the missionaries take them to school?