Libyan Leader Losing Legitimacy

AS graduate students in social science, we would assess one’s savvy in international politics if a fellow student had read or heard of Colonel Gadhafi’s (Muammar Muhammad al-Gaddafi ) 1975 Green Book which was a socialist and nationalist political philosophy.
We first knew the Colonel who dons safari suits and sunglasses as a revolutionary who overthrew a Libyan monarchy and dreamed to unite the Arab world.
Already, he was a declared socialist before the fall of the Soviet empire.

Then, in 1976, he hosted our Tripoli Agreement or the first peace agreement between the Philippines and the Moro National Liberation Front.

Let me share how my anthropologist friend Carol Gamiao, my roomate in a University of the Philippines residence hall captures that period:

“ I remember him well for his Green Book which he brought to the Philippines – printed in the Philippines, too since I had all volumes of his little Green Book.
(My professor was contractor for his Manila workshop and promotion tour.)
Had them but did not really read seriously because it was not too coherent. It was attempt at an alternative to Capitalism and Communism – like our Revolution from the Center.
Ours was better, of course. An enlightened despot was kind of chic at that time – strong leadership in Third World – Mahathir, Marcos, etc. Reaction to US-style democracy that they said was not suited to our particular conditions as developing nations.
It was an emerging economy, new wealth with oil and all.
Like Marcos, he could have succeeded too, with vision and heart and mind.
So, in my old age, I still believe what I knew then that all revolutions need to start from within – people – individually. With vision of a great leader. Remember, we had at that time, “Sa ikauunlad ng bayan, disiplina ang kailangan…” We did not get there.

"And what else I remember is based on the stories of our dorm mate, a member of the UP Concert Chorus, who occupied a room just across our room at the dorm. Imelda Marcos went to Libya and sang Dahil sa Iyo before Gadhafi’s tent in the desert.
And then, Imelda asked him to render her a song in return.
Oh, Imelda and her wild ways. Gadhafi’s mother was very upset that some woman dares tell him what to do.
I think we were then asserting our independence from the US Bases by courting everyone that could ensure our oil supply. Them were the days.

"But the future is bleak. I dread to think about what this whole mess has in store for us all.
Al Qaeda is fighting with him?
These days, I just don’t read the news anymore – and if I do, just force myself to be positive and not contribute any more to the negativity. We’re all in this together, that’s the rub.”

In 2009, during Gadhafi’s address at the United Nations’s 64th session of the UN General Assembly where he reportedly called the UN Security Council as a “Terror Council”, the colonel, as reports indicated, wanted to put up a tent in Central Park but was allegedly met with protests.

Today, as one of the longest running rulers of the world having been in power in Libya for four decades, Colonel Gadhafi is fighting for his political life.
The recent pro-democracy protests that started in Tunisia and Egypt has spread to Libya. Given that there is a long standing movement and campaign to overthrow Colonel Gadhafi, the political protests are not really a surprise nor unexpected.
What is unexpected is Gadhafi’s holding on to power by a thread despite international pressure. Gadhafi’s crackdown on the political protests has resulted to a reported hundreds of deaths of civilians in recent days.

Any human rights activist is sure to say that Gadhafi’s crackdown against protesters resulting to deaths is a crime against humanity and is punishable under Article 7 of the Rome Statute or the law creating the International Criminal Court. It has also been reported that a religious ruling or fatwa has been issued calling for the killing of Gadhafi for the crime committed against Libyans.

This is an interface of history and biography and women’s place in this unfolding geopolitics drama is to constantly promote human rights through peaceful political reforms.
Very big words but we always start the action by naming and framing the issues.

100th International Women's Day: the Philippines

Today is about women. Today, as we celebrate the 100th International Women's Day, we pay tribute to the migrant women workers in New York who, while working in inhuman working conditions at a textile sweat shop factory, met tragic death. That was about a century ago. Today, we celebrate the gains even as we still grapple with gargantuan gaps in our goals towards gender equality.

What are we celebrating?

The Davao City government last year passed the Reproductive Health Ordinance that gave birth to the setting up of health clinics where families could access government interventions and programs related mostly to children and women’s health needs. This is an icon ordinance that should be emulated by other local government units.

To fulfill our state obligation to the elimination of discrimination, the Magna Carta of Women of the Philippines was passed in 2009. This law has legislated substantive equality in social, economic and political spheres of our lives. As such, it has provisions on women’s right to health and access to services…. “ responsible, ethical, legal, safe and effective methods of family planning….”

The Regional Legislative Assembly of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao has approved an ARMM Gender & Development Code. We are told the office of the ARMM governor will sign it into law on March 30, 2011, in celebration of the Women’s Month.

That we are able to rest assured that if we write the United Nations Cedaw Committee as victims of discrimination as defined in the CEDAW, we have their full attention. That we can invoke the Optional Protocol to Cedaw which is a separate treaty to which the Philippines is a signatory and it allows us women who have been denied access to justice at the national level to have our claims reviewed at the international level.

As a result of women’s advocacy following the communication of Karen Vertido before the UN Cedaw Committee, there is now an indication that the Philippines should develop a sexuality and violence education training program for judges and prosecutors in the Philippines. To our Congress, the UN Cedaw Committee recommends that the laws against rape in our country be reviewed and that our country allocate enough funds for enforcement.

As an acknowledgment that indeed many people around the world are killed every year because of their sexual orientation, the good news in 2010 was that the outcome of voting at the United Nations which is to protect the Lesbians, Gay, Bi-sexuals & Transgenders (LGBT) people from extrajudicial executions has been finalized in the direction to restore the reference to sexual orientation.

In a historic move last year, the United Nations created UN Women, a new single agency out of four UN bodies to promote women’s rights and their full participation in global affairs will reinforce its expression in individual countries. More importantly, this merger includes a UN budget of
$500 million a year for projects towards elimination of gender discrimination.

In closing, let me count some of the big challenges ahead of us.

A majority of our women are still poor, victims of violence and excluded from positions of power and authority.

It has been reported by various groups in a March 8 statement that “ in 2009, 71,000 Filipino women left the country to work as workers/helpers in households; they made up 21 percent of the newly hired in the top 10 job categories abroad. “

The most tragic face of our government’s deployment of workers abroad is that some of these women economic refugees are facing death in foreign lands.

The Internet & Search Engine Optimization

A writer must empathize with her audience and so I must always be attuned to what my readers want to know. Many of us were born before the Internet was invented and so this piece is for those of us who are catching up with this electronic age. So, since many of my readers are into the marketing of ideas, we might as well be well versed in knowledge management through the Internet. Knowledge management ( KM) is simply a set of systems or practices that individuals or organizations use in creating and marketing of ideas, insights and experiences.

I am now linked to a national group of bloggers and political pundits who are into electronic marketing of ideas and so let me share with you some tips. For example, how do we promote our websites? This is the concern of the webmasters or content providers which could be you. The first tip is to use keywords that are search engine friendly from the title tag to the content. Google, Yahoo and Bing are examples of search engines. Savvy webmasters are skilled in website design, menus, content management, imbedding images & videos, etc. To promote a website or a blog, a content writer must use frequently searched keywords and must be in touch with what people want to know or are frequently searching. A writer who wants to be on the first page of a search engine result, among others, must understand the concept of search engine optimization ( SEO). Good SEO ( white hat ) is simply effective marketing of the website and there are yet no laws for this. For now, the guidelines are simply that what a search engine like Google or Yahoo or Bing catalogs ( or indexes) and orders in a hierarchy of search results and ultimately publishes in the search results are the exact results that Internet users want to see.

But, keywords can also be abused by webmasters such as when popular title keywords are not represented in the content of the website or in individual pieces in the blog or website. I have also come across some gray practices in the Internet. For example, what are the ethics involved when another website uses my entire web page ? A profit oriented travel website used my non profit blog entry and all I could do was ogle at the travel website page which was imbedded with a galore of advertisements. Is acknowledgement and attribution enough? I would prefer also to be sent a copy or link or thread of the usage. In fairness, the website owner retained my byline and so perhaps it can be argued that my own website was promoted, as well.

The URL is the address of a website page and I have promoted some of my work by sharing URL links to popular websites or even popular Facebook accounts. For example, if I want to share information about peace talks then I attach the URL of my published work or the link to the popular Facebook account of the chief peace negotiator.

A likeabilty feature can also be imbedded in your website. It has been determined by a group of bloggers that a blog or website entry is likeable when it is friendly, it has relevance, have empathy and the information is ready. It has empathy when it is able to feel others or when it is able to capture what people want to know.

What do people want to know? In truth, it is really different for various audiences across generations, across social classes, across gender and sexual orientation, religion and belief systems, and various persuasions. So, the challenge is to capture what most everyone and all want to know.

When one is in the business of sharing knowledge through the Internet one will experience sheer joy when one’s work lands on page one of the search results of popular search engines.

Two Oscar Winner Films 2011 : How women are represented

WOMENWISE, Opinion Page, Mindanao Times
Best Oscar Films in 2011
Written by: Antonio , Isabelita Solamo
Wednesday, 02 March 2011

THE Oscar awarding ceremony is a must see for many of us who regard the cinema as our site of fantasy and imagination. Filming is about the real versus representation. The filmmaker is the author of a story being told on the cinema. But, stories told in cinema are also authored by many spectators through various interpretations.

I wish to review with you two films that caught my fancy in this year’s Oscar season. Let us start with the Black Swan, a film by movie director Darren Aronofsky. The story is told through the world of ballet and dance. Perfection as performed in the world of dance is something that extracts a price. That price is madness, nervous breakdown and loneliness. Nina Sayers, played by Natalie Portman is an ambitious ballerina straining to come to grips with stardom. Nina’s singular obsession as the perfect ballet dancer has led to her imbalanced development as a person. Her mental illness initially manifests as rashes that turn to wounds and eventually she experiences visions. And all these are portrayed as the so called “ price of perfection” in the climb to genius and stardom. The other price is isolation. The ballet dancer has no social skills and has not developed any friendships. Her world devolves around Erika, her smothering mother played by Barbara Hershey who relives her unfulfilled dream of being a ballet dancer through her daughter.

Peter Bradshaw of London’s The Guardian says of the movie, “ It is about fear of penetration, fear of our body, fear of being supplanted in the affections of a powerful man, love of perfection, love of dance….” My own feminist insight is to ask ourselves : Is this what we want women to do? Do we want women to be represented as fearful of success and sexually naïve? Do we want women to be represented as the gender prone to wasting opportunities and gifts?

INCEPTION

The second movie on my list is Inception written by the famousChristopher Nolan of the Knight Rider fame. This movie which is one of the current highest commercial top income earners is also already reputed to be one of the greatest sci-fi films of all time. It is mostly told from the point of view of Domm Cobb played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who is a specialized spy who can access other people’s dreams. In the story, this skill or gift is being used as a weapon of corporate espionage thievery. Cobb involves his wife in this pleasure of staying in a dream site and this led to the wife being hooked in the unreal world of dreams and ultimately led to a point where the wife decides to commit suicide in order to wake up from her dream. Cobb is charged for the death of his wife and so he has to escape as a fugitive.

While in hiding, Cobb is offered an assignment to influence the subconscious of an heir apparent to a large business energy empire. The goal is for the heir to cut his energy empire into small pieces when his old man dies. In the movie, the project is called inception or the introduction of an idea into the subconscious of another through dreams and stealing secrets that are revealed in dreams. All these “ dream stealing” is done on a flight from Sydney to New York through the introduction of a sedative that will make one dream and dream within a dream. The movie ends with Cobb reunited with his two children but it is not clear whether this is still a dream state or reality. This is a very philosophical movie about objective reality and the so – called projections of reality. In this sense, this is the ultimate movie about fantasy and imagination.

In both Black Swan & Inception, women are deployed as dead heroines. So, I am hoping for a change in this genre and how women are represented. Still and all, these two films are wonderful to watch.