Taslima Nasrin - Poet, Feminist, Humanist

This morning I've been reading through The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry, and I've come across a woman whose story and work I have to share with you, especially since I had very little to post on International Women's Day (hopefully I can redeem myself here).

Anyway, Taslima Nasrin was born in Bangladesh, where her novel Shame was banned by the government, where fundamentalists called for her execution for blasphemy, and where conservative mullahs offered rewards for her murder (McClatchy, 401). She eventually fled to Sweden, where she continues to live and write.

On her website Nasrin defines herself as "a physician, a writer, a feminist, a human rights activist, and a secular humanist." And indeed, she's received much support from the International Humanist and Ethical Union, and in 1994 the European Parliament awarded her the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. In other words, she's damn cool, and her poetry definitely reflects that.

Here's a poem from her site, titled "Mosque, Temple":

Let the pavilions of religion
be ground to bits,
let the bricks of temples, mosques, guruduaras, churches
be burned in blind fire,
and upon those heaps of destruction
let lovely flower gardens grow, spreading their fragrance.
let children's schools and study halls grow.

For the welfare of humanity, now let prayer halls
be turned into hospitals, orphanages, universities,
Now let prayer halls become academies of art, fine art centers,
scientific research institutes.
Now let prayer halls be turned to golden rice fields
in the radiant dawn,
Open fields, rivers, restless seas.

From now on, let religion's other name be humanity.

-------------------------------------------------------------

And another, titled "Happy Marriage":


My life, like a sandbar,
has been taken over by a monster of a man
who wants my body under his control
so that, if he wishes,
he can spit in my face,
slap me on the cheek,
pinch my rear;
so that, if he wishes,
he can rob me of the clothes,
take my naked beauty in his grip;
so that, if he wishes.
he can chain my feet,
with no qualms whatsoever whip me,
chop off my hands, my fingers,
sprinkle salt in the open wound,
throw ground-up black pepper in my eyes,
with a dagger can slash my thigh,
can string me up and hang me.

His goal: to control my heart
so that I would love him;
in my lonely house at night
sleepless, full of anxiety,
clutching at the window grille,
I would wait for him and sob;
tears rolling down, I would bake homemade bread,
would drink, as if they were ambrosia,
the filthy liquids of his polygynous body
so that, loving him, I would melt like wax,
not turning my eyes toward any other man.
I would give proof of my chastity all my life.

So that, loving him,
on some moonlit night
I would commit suicide
in a fit of ecstasy.

------------------------------------------

She has lots more on her website, which I highly encourage you to visit.

International Women's Day

Hi. I write this with tired eyes, and an even more tired brain. Evelyn and I are both getting over a cold, so the past couple days have been lethargic... I have been able to put some time into my school work, at least, but that's about it. I'm just. so. tired. But, I have to post something, because today is International Women's Day, "a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future. In some places like China, Russia, Vietnam and Bulgaria, International Women's Day is a national holiday."

The official website has some great information, resources, and more, including women's art and stories.

I think it's definitely important to take time to recognize the achievements of the women's movements (which men are a part of and affected by!) in our own country and throughout the world, especially at a time when women's rights, especially in our own country, are being threatened more and more. And for more on that, see this article: International Women's Day: Hold the Champagne.

Thanks for making it through my terribly written and uncreative post. I'm off to eat a pretzel with cheese and crawl into bed to watch House with J, and maybe The Office too.

Minnesota Blog for Choice

Hi everyone. If you're interested in reading more of what my guest blogger Kira has to say, you can follow her at Minnesota Blog for Choice, a blog she's running as part of her internship with NARAL. Here's a snippet from what NARAL represents (my emphasis):

The mission of NARAL Pro-Choice Minnesota is to develop and sustain a constituency that uses the political process to guarantee every woman the right to make personal decisions regarding the full range of reproductive choices, including preventing unintended pregnancy, bearing healthy children, and choosing legal abortion.

A somewhat related personal anecdote comes to mind . . . when I was pregnant with Evelyn, someone from my partner's family sent us a check for $100 - an amount this person says he/she usually donates to the national Pro-Life campaign each year but was sending to us this year instead. With the check came a card that said (again, my emphasis), "Thank you so much for choosing life."

It almost makes me chuckle. Almost.

Guest Post: Under the Hill by Kira Welle

Kira Welle is a Winona State University senior and new intern for NARAL (National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League). I've had the pleasure of working in and through many English classes with Kira (in fact, the first project we ever worked on together was bringing awareness to the importance of comprehensive sex education for America's youth...), and now I have the pleasure of sharing her post regarding Minnesota's Pro-Choice Lobby Day 2011, which took place just this past Wednesday, Feb. 23. Please, enjoy, and feel free to comment as always. (and sorry the font is kinda goofed up - copying and pasting does that, sometimes).

"Under the Hill"

Because I happen to be an English major, bibliophile and cynic (not to mention a lobbying neophyte) I may have read too much into the location of Pro-Choice Lobby Day in the Minnesota State Capitol: underneath a staircase in a space known as the Great Hall. Even if you haven’t had the chance to read any of the seven installments of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, it’s pretty common knowledge that the boy wizard lived in the broom cupboard under the stairs in his aunt and uncle’s house. He’s, well, he’s different, so that’s where he’s hidden. I cannot shake the feeling that us reproductive rights activists, us crazy hippie liberal lobbyists were perhaps sequestered, herded into this anteroom so as not be fully acknowledged, the Pro-Choice elephants in the room.

Regardless of however unsavory our opinions or our group, I am nonetheless indescribably heartened to be counted among the 200something men and women who showed up today. We came in passionate defense of Choice and in vehement indignation of current legislative attacks at both the local and national levels threatening it. And who else came to stand with and support us? None other than our newly elected Governor Mark Dayton, who in a gracious and brief speech assured us he has long-maintained the belief that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare” and would exercise the authority of his office so that Minnesota law reflects and upholds this credo.

Running on caffeine, adrenaline, a steady stream of carbohydrates courtesy of Bruegger’s Bagels and a considerable amount of rage, we broke off into our discussion sessions. Each session —Faith-Based Communities, Intergenerational Voices, Communities of Color, Greater Minnesota— aimed to create a dialogue on why they value the right to Choice, how to argue for the protection of Choice and how the unique circumstances of those who consider themselves members of these groups are affected respectively.

Gimme Intergeneration Voices, please. I wanted to hear the “old ladies,” as they called themselves and what they thought of the state us pro-choicers find ourselves in today compared to where they started, pre-Roe v. Wade. In talking, we found some lingering tensions between Choice advocates young and old. While my generation revels in the advent social networking, our paltry voting record fails to convey our angry Tweets and Facebook updates. Previous generations organized, marched, chanted and damnit, did they vote. Really though, we all depend on one another; we cannot risk further marginalization of our gender because of in-fighting. Have we come a long way? Yes. Do we have a long way to go? Given the recent epidemic of legislative lunacy over the past few weeks, hell yes.

For the sake of me not yanking my hair from scalp, here is a brief overview of some anti-choice bills currently making headlines.

Live from Georgia and coming to a state near you if we aren’t careful. Government or Gynecology? “According to this law, any human intervention other than delivering a living fetus is a crime….It allows an exception for spontaneous abortion [otherwise known as a miscarriage] but only if there is no human intervention involved.” Enter the Uterus Police: a task force “to investigate miscarriages [requiring that] any time a miscarriage occurs, whether in a hospital or without medical assistance, it must be reported and a fetal death certificate issued. If the cause of death is unknown, it must be investigated.” So, THESE are those jobs the GOP was talking about…

To be fair, this bill has been indefinitely benched, and rightly so: Killing Abortion Providers as Justifiable Homicide. Guess which state thought this up? South Dakota, yes, THAT South Dakota.

This one just goes without saying. Horses Can't Vote, But Need Birth Control? “Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) introduced the amendment, which would control the population of wild horses and burros as an alternative to the costly practice of capturing the animals and holding them in pens….The amendment would modify the budget to bar ‘funds made available by this Act [from being] used for the gathers and removals of free-roaming wild horses and burros, except for the purpose of fertility control.’” (Insert off-color pun about women not being allowed to ‘screw like wild horses’).

Bringing it back home to Minnesota, here is the latest. It's Not Enough That Women Should Be Banned From Affordable Prevention, Reproduction and Abortion Services, Now They Should Be Banned From Equal Pay, What's That? They Already Make 75% Of Their Male Colleagues' Salaries? Doesn't Matter.

The anti-choice political movement is showing its true colors this session: brown and green. Dirty money. This issue translates religion, party affiliation, sex, race and occupation just as the economic downturn has hit hard, though not as indiscriminately. I come away from Pro-Choice Lobby Day 2011 with the conclusion that both sides are arguing effectively with money at the core of their defense.

The anti-choice majority, who not only have power but money behind said power, may not be able to overturn Roe v. Wade but mock a woman’s legal right to make the private decision to get a safe abortion from a medical professional by chipping away at her financial rights (and now her very financial means) to fund the procedure. They don’t stop there. They defund the programs like Planned Parenthood that seek to prevent the need for abortion by way of education and contraception. I pointed this out to my state senator and even he expressed confusion at the hypocrisy of it all, but that he was anti-choice and quite ignorant of the issue altogether. Because this is his first term I want to give him the benefit of the doubt but, remember how cynical I am, I sensed disingenuousness, condescension. I overheard many other lobbyists experience similarly brusque behavior, sometimes outright hostility.

Our minority is severely underfunded and I am left to wonder how legislators can take nothing from nothing under the guise of budget-balancing. The organizations like NARAL, Pro-Choice Resources and many others who sponsored our event do amazing work in the reproductive rights community and there is no money for them. I could just spit. What makes me most hopeful is that the face of pro-choice revealed its beautifully diverse self to lawmakers today as well. Kelli Clement, “one righteous lady” said NARAL-Minnesota executive director Linnea House, represented the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice at the rally in the rotunda.

She stressed, yelled, “I am pro-choice because of my faith, not in spite of it!” Her voice, and those like it are crucial to defending Choice so that the majority is made aware of how many different constituencies they seek to alienate, and that said alienation breeds contempt and anger. Quoting Joan Baez, Kelli reminded us all that “action is the antidote to despair” and then asked, “Are you going to organize your anger? Are you going to vote your anger? Are you going to nurture your anger? Nurture your anger with love, always love.”

When I seethe with anger and cry at the government-perpetrated attacks to my body and to all women, I remember that I love this movement for every opportunity secured and every victory defended on my behalf.

Almost time....

....to come back home to the snow.... I'll be home tomorrow night, and Here and Now blogging will be back to its regular schedule (which is incredibly irregular, I know). My mind is kinda fuzzy today- Evelyn stole my early morning from me by waking up at 5:30 and not going back to sleep until a few minutes ago. I tried so hard, and she was so crabby :( So I had extra coffee but it's just made my head spin....

But, my first back-home post will be quite the treat, for me as well as you. It'll be a guest post from a friend/feminist/writer/WSU classmate/etc. etc. etc. (we share many similarities, including wild hair), on her experience at the Pro-Choice Lobby Day at Minnesota's State Capitol yesterday.

Until then, here are some lovely lines from a Margaret Atwood poem, "Sor Juana Works in the Garden":

Time for gardening again; for poetry; for arms
up to the elbow in leftover
deluge, hands in the dirt, groping around
among the rootlets, bulbs, lost marbles, blind
snouts of worms, cat droppings, your own future
bones, whatever's down there
supercharged, a dim glint in the darkness.
When you stand on bare earth in your bare feet
and the lightning whips through you, two ways
at once, they say you are grounded,
and that's what poetry is: a hot wire.
You might as well stick a fork
in a wall socket. So don't think it's just about the flowers.
Though it is, in a way.

[....]



*this is only the first third or so of the poem

Young People Taking a Stand (insert smiley face)

A few days ago a Facebook friend who also resides in Minnesota shared this link with me - a story about two Champlin Park High School seniors, Desiree "Dez" Shelton and Sarah Lindstrom, who'd been elected by the student body as one of seven couples on the royalty court for the school's "Snow Days." When the two girls were elected, school officials decided to change the procedure for how couples enter the pep rally - instead of walking in as couples, as has been the school's tradition, the students would be each be escorted by a parent or favorite teacher.

Ummmm, what? Here's more:

A district spokeswoman said the Champlin Park High School principal didn't want the young women to walk in together because he feared they would be teased, but the lawsuit said denying them that opportunity was discrimination and an infringement of their First Amendment rights. The Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Center for Lesbian Rights filed a lawsuit Friday afternoon on their behalf.

Anoka-Hennepin schools spokeswoman Mary Olson said the women said they weren't comfortable walking in with a male student. Principal Michael George was concerned about the reaction of other students to a lesbian couple walking in together, Olson said, so on Friday the district decided the royal court would arrive individually or accompanied by a parent or favorite teacher.

"We believe we have come up with a better practice that is more tolerate and acceptable to all students," Olson said, adding that the traditional method assumed students were heterosexual while the new system makes no assumptions at all.

Sam Wolfe, a lawyer for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said that wasn't good enough. "The intent is really clear," he said. "The district does not want the same-sex couple walking in together."

But, the lawsuit said, walking into together was precisely why Shelton and Lindstrom campaigned to be elected by their peers in the first place. "Their intention was to make a political and public statement about gender roles" and lesbian and gay students, the lawsuit said.

Well, the next day . . .

. . . in federally mediated talks, school officials relented. The two sides agreed that members of the royalty court would be escorted by anyone meaningful to them, regardless of gender or age.

And this past Monday afternoon the two young women entered the pep fest as a couple, holding hands, wearing matching black suits and pink ties, to a cheering audience, and even a standing ovation:

"It felt amazing," said Shelton, adding that she was too nervous to notice dozens rise to give her a standing ovation as she walked in with Lindstrom. "I think we were too focused on getting to the stage."

If there were any boos, they were drowned about by supporters. "I feel so much better," Lindstrom said while surrounded by friends after the rally.

Sarah's mother, Shannon Lindstrom, camera in hand, joined the other mothers of children in the royalty court after the rally.

"They had a lot of courage," she said Shelton [sic] and her daughter. "Look how far we've come."

Fuck yeah.

You Can Help This Woman

Via aziasaidwhat, please sign:

Petitions by Change.org|Start a Petition »