No to Nato - No to War - 60 years are enough

From April 3rd - 5th, Strasbourg will host the summit to celebrate the 60th anniversary of NATO and to define a strategic military plan for its nuclear expansion.

Citizens of Strasbourg are under curfew. Many are obliged to show a magnetic card, assigned to them to allow them to reach their own neighbourhoods.

In addition, those who had displayed the rainbow peace flag on their own balconies or in their own windows have been forced to remove them - in accordance to a directive that arrived from the US.

Is this the security that we want?

During the last 10 years, we've seen the continual attempts of NATO to expand up to the borders of the Russian Federation - which in its turn responds with the announcement of a massive rearmament programme to start in 2011. This is the confirmation that the arms race is returning to the Cold War levels.

The European peace movements present in Strasbourg say:

“ NO to NATO - No to war. 60 years are enough”

with demonstrations, nonviolent civil disobedience and an alternative summit in which women's peace movements including the European Women in Black and many other pacifist networks are participating

The Women in Black groups in Naples and Turin have prepared documents for the summit. Click:

• Naples
• Turin

to read their contributions.

This year, world military spending is set to reach 1500 billion dollars, 45% more than in 1998. The front runners are the NATO countries, whose total spending accounts for around three quarters of global war business. The policies of the EU are ever more tightly linked to those of NATO and this feeds rearmament, militarisation, "security" policies" and the idea of "Fortress Europe”.

Italy?
According to NATO, Italian military spending in 2008 topped 30 billion dollars and according to SIPRI, on the basis of per capita spending, Italy ranks fifth in the world.

From 2006 to 2008, the increase in Italian military spending exceeded 21%. In spite of article 11 of the constitution, Italy is among those principally responsible for the increase in global military spending: an enormous quantity of public money destined to arms, military mission dressed up as peace missions, military bases, international military agreements.

Today, in the midst of the global economic crisis

There's no money:

For schools, universities, research, health care’, the environment, employment, social spending,justice .....

But for military spending YES

• For the project to built and buy 131 JSF fighter bombers (costing 15 billion up to 2026)
  
• The new US base at Vicenza (37% of the costs to be borne by Italian taxpayers.)
  

This distribution of resources, accompanied by a total silence from the media is a choice of social irresponsibility that will generate insecurity and injustice.

Security based on the military option and on repression does not reassure us. For us, security means living in a welcoming world, founded on co-responsibility, solidarity, respect, and mutual recognition. Only in this way is it possible to build peace.

Those at the top say
Peace and war
Are of different substance.
Their peace and their war
are like wind and storm.

War grows from their peace
Like the son from the mother.
He bears her frightful features.






Their war kills
What has survived their peace.

(Berthold Brecht)

The Israel-Italy military agreement violates the Italian constitution

"Italy repudiates war as an instrument offensive to the liberty of other peoples and as a means of resolving international controversies. ".

Article 11 of the Italian constitution

Is it possible to repudiate war and accept a military cooperation agreement with a state that is belligerent towards other countries, a state that for more than 40 years has used its military force to occupy and repress the freedom of the Palestinian people, a state that is now accused of war crimes and serious violations of humanitarian law ?

We say no!

So, we invite everyone to write to the President of the Republic, , Giorgio Napolitano, reminding him of his role as guarantor of the constitution and demanding the immediate suspension of the military agreement with Israel.

You can download the postcard, clicking on the images and then saving it. Send it to President Napolitano at Palazzo del Quirinale, 00187 Roma or by fax: 06-46993125.

Robbed of our voice by the violence that strikes us every day

On the day of March 8th, we women:

• Feel that we are robbed of our voice by the violence that strikes us every day, by the exclusion from work, by the impoverishment of our schools.
  
• Feel deprived of choice about our bodies, about our country, about our future.
  
• Don't want to sit by, as silent spectators, at the construction of yet another military base, at the airport of Dal Molin, which devastates our city - a UNESCO heritage site - in order to export war to other countries.
• Don't want to see our water sources contaminated, our city robbed of its last green area.
• All together, from different points in our region, from different backgrounds and with different world visions, we want to act for the good of our city.
  
  

With these words, the women of the permanent protest "No Dal Molin" extended an invitation to all interested women in experiencing their city as protagonists to spend international women's day with them first in a silent march through the streets of the city and then before the gates of the civilian airport of Dal Molin, for testimonies about war, an exhibition of photographs and a theatrical performance.

The Women in Black from Padua and Verona accepted the invitation . This year, it wasn't possible to go into the Peace Park to tend the plants , as they had done last year. . But they sang, talked, listened to the intervention by a local historian on the relationship between women and war. With coloured ribbons, they wove the message NO DAL MOLIN on the surrounding fence. Once again they met their friends from the protest, with their tenacity, their creativity, and their affection.

8th March 2009, International Women's Day

We would have liked to be here today to talk and reflect about the changes that women, in their progress towards freedom, have brought to society, at work, in the relationships between people, in their care for affections for for daily life. But that's not how it is.

Once again the 8th March is an occasion to talk about violence against women.

Despite the fact that it's already acknowledged that 90% of abuses take places in the family and that the principle cause of death for Italian women under 40 years old is violence at the hands of a partner, ex-partner, acquaintance or relative, the emergency provoked by violence against women has not produced a a public reflection on the existence of violence exercised by the male gender against the female gender or ideas about appropriate and adequate cultural interventions. Instead, it is taken by those who govern us as a pretext to create an authoritarian climate of fear of those who are "different"and to introduce repressive measures (vigilantism...) that lead to the militarisation of the territory. Ancora una volta i corpi delle donne sono tornati ad essere “cose”

We believe that this objectification of the female body is not just our problem, and that men must ask themselves profound questions about it.

If men really are concerned about violence against women, they cannot delay any longer in reflecting on themselves and their own sexuality and aggression.

Together, men and women must build new relations, in reciprocal respect for their differences, that can lead to the re-design of cities and communities that are welcoming and safe for all.

Once more, as Women in Black, we are here because we have chosen not to remain passive when faced with a ruling logic that resolves problems only with the use of force, war, militarisation and authoritarianism.

We are also here on behalf of all the women, who, in war and conflict zones, continue to take responsibility in their communities; because in every place, on a day to day basis, it is women who hold up the world.

Women in Black, Fano

donneinnero@virgilio.it

The antidote to violence is respect not control

Violence against women has its roots in a culture that considers women's bodies as men's property. It is a culture that despises women and considers them inferior, denying them their freedom and self determination.

We are once more protesting on the streets because rape is a horrible form of violence and because the clamour that has been raised by the latest terrible episodes has deliberately diverted public attention from the true roots of violence and against women to problems of security.

All statistical data confirms that most violence, including sexual assaults and murder of women (one every two days) are perpetrated within the walls of the family home by men who are known to the victim: husbands, partners, boyfriends, relatives, friends...

It is hypocritical and manipulative to assign the primary responsibility to immigrants. This does nothing other than feed intolerance and racism.

Television, newspapers and advertisements often use the feminine body in an offensive and degrading manner. Unfortunately, the current prime minister only confirms this sexist culture when he refers to women - often and with great enjoyment - using trivial and humiliating compliments.

The sexist culture that considers and represents women as inferior beings bears the primary responsibility for the violence!

To confront the drama of violence against women, we don't need urgent decrees on security, which, among other things, propose vigilante patrols, as if women were "property" to be guarded.

We are protesting to reaffirm that women's bodies cannot and must not be used in a manipulative way by anyone and that we wish to live in a secular state in which the control of one's own body, life and death are individual rights - as our Consitution clearly states.

The shame of sexist violence in all its aspects cannot be resolved exclusively by repression and more severe punishment. It is necessary to refinance and empower anti-violence centres and safe houses for women victims of violence.

But above all a profound change in the culture and in the relations between men and women is needed. Everyone must take part personally. A project and work that aim to sensibilise people from childhood on to the need for a culture that affirms respect between the sexes.

Via Vanchiglia 3 – 10124 Torino Tel. 011 8122519 e-mail casadelledonne@tin.it www.casadelledonnetorino.it

f.i.p. 3 marzo 2009

dalle donne in nero di Torino