I descended from the Istanbul airport a few days ago with a grand view of the two continents of Europe & Asia and the bridge connecting them in the narrowest waterway.
In Istanbul, one is able to cross the two continents of Asia and Europe in two minutes.
The highways were strewn with tulips bursting in various hues and avant- garde colors.
The magnificent mosques, marvels of architecture are testaments to the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, once upon a time great empires of the world.
The international meetings convened by our Coalition for Sexual & Bodily Rights ( CSBR) are plots to change the world towards the promotion of sexual & bodily rights as human rights.
Our meetings start with a briefing on the political context of each of our countries.
So, we got feminist perspectives of the recent revolutions in the North African countries of Tunisia, & Egypt and recent events in Lebanon, Pakistan, Turkey, Malaysia & Indonesia.
The sense was that in these revolutions, religious fundamentalisms were not articulated; these historic events are for now just basically about a break from an old regime.
Where these revolutions will lead them still remains to be seen.
In Tunisia, a model of sorts in secularism, the feminists are afraid that they might lose the gains of the past century.
Tunisia is one of two countries in the Muslim world that has legally not allowed polygamy.
There is an apprehension that the feminist movements are narrowly seen as anti- religious fundamentalism and this is a limited reading because in reality women’s discourses are about everything oppressive.
But, the women are happy that recent revolutions in their countries have brought about a sense of citizenship and a democratic interest in politics.
In a related sense, I said that the Philippines is a veteran of people power revolutions but that after decades we are still so poor and so mired in systemic corruption.
The major lesson for the Philippines is to be able to continually harness the gains of the revolution towards the well being of our nation and the tasks are found in day to day moments & challenges which are as crucial as the challenges of a few days historic revolutions.
In turn, the Palestinian women are able to relate the issue of land and the issue of body politics.
The direction of technology in Israel is based on security.
The long standing issue of security on Palestine soil is related to what they call the “bodily geography of fear.”
There is no security for land as there is no security for women’s own bodies.
So- called honor crimes, archaic concepts are still the norm.
Honor crimes and honor killings done in the name of chastity and the false ideology that men own women’s bodies are NOT unlike our own crimes of passion in the Philippines.
Still, we are proud to say that it is to the credit of the women’s movement in the Philippines that we have re-classified rape as a crime against persons instead of a crime against chastity because rape is about violence and has nothing to do with chastity.
This is about the use of language or “naming” or “branding” in order to bring about a change in behavior through law or policy.
Anyway, for the Palestinian women, their perception of daily political oppression which they call the “politics of everydayness” is producing a backlash and it is these reactions to the oppression that will always be the impetus for big cultural changes and people power revolutions.
From Turkey, we were aghast to learn that the YOU TUBE is banned in their country.
Censorship is getting worse.
The agency in-charge of communications has recently drawn up a list of so called obscene words and has asked hosting companies to not use these words as domain names.
The justification is a law that forbids “ hosting company of websites falling under the scope of catalogue crimes ( obscenity, prostitution, sexual abuse, of children etc )…”
It is so disheartening to find these restrictions from Turkey.
It so is ironic because Istanbul prides itself as one of the European capitals of culture.
It is such a misnomer to regard culture as an artifact of past grandeur and glory because culture must be a dynamic tool for the promotion of basic freedoms such as our freedom of expression.
But, there is much scope for progressive post modern future for Turkey, not because it is a country that has desired to get European Union accession and membership since the past decade but because the people’s movements like our Coalition for Sexual & Bodily Rights ( CSBR) are seriously vigilant and passionately working to protect our basic human rights.
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