new internationalist
issue 176 - October 1987
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Sexist
demon
I thought your issue on
Masculinity (NI 175) was a
good attempt to wrestle with
the demon of sexism. It's
heartening to see NI take up
some of the challenges of
feminism in a thoughtful,
provocative way. Still I find it
hard to believe most men
would want to cede their privilege and power on the evidence
you present.
It's important to have a sense of the 'personal and political'. But that doesn't go very far unless you also examine the structural influences which shape personal behaviour. Most men, bombarded by the Rambo phenomenon, 'Ollie-mania' and widespread flirtation with militarization, will need more convincing than the worthy examples of the new man you mention.
The cult of the warrior hero provides the overwhelming context for constructing the male identity today. It is a pervasive ideology that bolsters the global political economy, capitalist and non-capitalist alike. The lie of the fast gun must be exposed in all its waste and brutality for the gentle man to be born.
Liz Martin
The Women's Press
Toronto, Canada
Bigots and
bondmaids
I wish to refute Alan Davidson's comment in NI
174 (Letters) that 'Christianity
does not have exclusive possession of the truth.' Christianity does not possess
one ounce of truth, let alone exclusive possession of it. It was invented by
ignorant bigoted priests of the Council of Nicaea in AD 325.
Christians quote from the Bible as if it had divine authority. Yet this religion has caused escalating hatred, wars and disease, because of passages in the Bible, surely inserted by evil fanatics. How about this gem: 'Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy them bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers ... shall ye buy and of their families ... and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen forever.' (Leviticus 25: 44-46).
Because the slave traders were brought up in the belief that every word of the Holy Bible was inspired by God, they honestly thought that they had divine sanction to enslave blacks.
Margaret Newson
Wetherby, UK
Holy food
Your Punchline cartoon (NI
174) was too one-sided. The
'base communities' of Latin
America know more than we
do about hunger and sickness,
but it is study of the Bible that
gives them understanding and
courage to demand justice in
the name of the God of justice.
They - and we - need food for
mind and spirit as well as body
in order to be truly human.
Alison M. Douglas
Edinburgh, UK
This world
Many Christians do stand
'shoulder-to-shoulder with the
oppressed' (Letters NI 174)
and have taken the preferential
option for the poor. To name
but a few Archbishop Romero,
gunned down by right-wing
death squads while saying
Mass in the Cathedral of San
Salvador, Father Ed de la
Torre Filipino, priest, poet and
political activist, who spent
nine years in prison under the
Marcos regime; and numerous
priests and pastors working in
Nicaragua, one of whom was
recently killed by a Contralaid mine.
Justice for the Poor is a vision which can unite us all. Let's not worry too much about claims to exclusivity where truth is concerned - perhaps these are best left until the next world!
David Morgan
Wantage, UK
Vision fuel
The moral of the Punchline
cartoon in NI 174 seems to be
that bibles should not be
offered to anyone who is short
of basic necessities. Is this
consistent with respect for
intelligent human beings? The
motives of some missionary
societies may be suspect, but
the bible itself has helped to
fuel the visions of many human
rights movements.
A. A. Barton
London, UK
Exiled voices
Your issue on Chile (NI 174)
was a truly significant and
encouraging publication both
for Chileans in exile and those
working within the country.
The space you gave to exposing
our national dilemma is a triumph for anyone persisting in
the worldwide struggle against
the Pinochet dictatorship.
In our opinion, few other publications on the Chilean struggle have been so generous. Nor is it usual for the foreign press to first travel and then write the story. Your articles bring alive the voices of our compaņeros in Chile. We sincerely hope that this will encourage the work of other committed Chileans in exile together with our European brothers and sisters in the struggle against fascism worldwide.
The Manuel Rodriguez
Patriotic Front
London Office, UK
Gleeful dodging
You assume, in your issue on
Underground Work (NI 173),
that the relationship of the
individual to the State is both
natural and inevitable, and that
it in some way presupposes
fair treatment of the citizen by
the powers that be. One of
your writers actually says: 'If
there is to be government
somebody has to pay for it'
But does there have to be
government?
I question both the justice of all governments and the principle by which my taxes can be used to pay for machines of mass destruction. The glee - and clear conscience - with which most people here avoid taxes if they can, is to do with their feeling of powerlessness in relation to government, and that is what fosters selfish competition.
M. Harper
Whitstable, UK
One-man Oman
Is it not patronizing to assume
that ordinary Omanis are not
interested in affairs of state
and to imply that all the peoples
of Arabia prefer strong leaders
to participatory democracy
(Country Profile NI 173)?
Oman is indeed united under one leader who maintains diplomatic relations with East and West But it should also be mentioned that Sultan Qaboos overthrew his own father and needed the military support of the Shah and the SAS to defend himself against those of his countrymen not recognizing the benefits of his traditional Arab-Islamic leadership.
His armed forces are still dependent on non-Arab personnel, secrecy surrounds the extent of military ties with the United States and Oman has been less than enthusiastic in supporting Arab League action against the Camp David accords. Thus he has ensured that 'Oman is run by Omanis and not by foreign powers'.
Ali Abduilab Salah
London, UK
LETS debt
Dick Racey's article on the
LET-System (NI 171) held
an inaccuracy about 'green'
dollars. The article implies
that a LETS member is free to
refuse all work while remaining free to spend 'green' dollars.
This is true, but strictly in the
short term. LETS members,
like many people, are concerned about people 'getting
something for nothing'. A
member that shows a long-term pattern of increasing
'green' dollar 'debt' will have
his LETS dollars rejected by
the other members until he
earns enough to redress the
balance.
The truly liberating nature of LET-systems arises out of the fact that they are set up independent of one - another. 'Green' dollars issued by one system are invalid in another, rendering them of minimal use to large corporations.
Scott Dawson
Victoria, Canada
Gay immunity
To dispel the myth that AIDS
is a gay disease you argue
(The Politics of AIDS NI 169)
that the disease has been
around 'from the very beginning' but that gays succumbed
more quickly than straights.
This you claim happens
because gays have poorer
immune systems through
earlier exposure to diseases
such as hepatitis. Here I get
lost Why should homosexuals
be more susceptible to hepatitis
than heterosexuals? Does this
mean anyone who has had
hepatitis is at risk during
heterosexual sex?
John M. Williams
Liverpool, UK
Graham Hancock replies: Hepatitis B is predominantly a sexually transmitted disease. Aa, prior to the AIDS epidemic, homosexuals tended to be more promiscuous than heterosexuals, they were particularly susceptible. Because Hepatitis B impairs the immunity system, people who have had it are generally more vulnerable to infections than people who have not.
Needled
You say in NI 169 that: 'In
Africa, heterosexual intercourse has long been established as the primary
transmission route - with the
number of men and women
infected being almost equal.'
But there is evidence that the widespread re-use of non-sterile needles could be the primary transmission route of AIDS in Africa. This would explain the increased incidence amongst African prostitutes and their clients. These people would be having greater contact with non-sterile needles during treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.
AIDS in Africa is wide-spread because of poverty and poor medical facilities, not promiscuity. You have done a disservice to the African people by ignoring this fact.
R. Simmons
Victoria, Australia
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The views
expressed in these letters are not necessarily those of the New Internationalist
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Margaret St Clare has been working in the Zimbabwean
countryside One change I have noticed everywhere I have been - in England, Scotland and Ireland - is that there are a lot more cars about. And most of them seem to be new. I remember mid-morning and afternoon lulls between rush hours in Edinburgh, when women shared the streets and buses at an easier pace. Those lulls are gone. At any hour of the working day, to get across the street you have to dodge between smart cars and vans. When I brought up the topic of the rolling rush hour with my parents Mum said, 'Well, there are lots of retired people like us now, driving around, doing what we're doing.' At that moment, around four o'clock on a weekday afternoon, we were driving back into the city in three lanes of traffic from a picnic tour of Fife fishing villages - now sadly dwarfed by huge offshore oil platforms awaiting commission in the Forth. She's right. The 1980s is seeing the retirement of the post-war boom generation. I wonder whether this first generation of car-owning middle class retirees will be followed by other generations? For while some of my contemporaries are already well-off financially, I and many of my friends live on more restricted means than our parents. And we look like continuing to do so, either by choice or circumstance. Perhaps we are the first generation for a long time which will not all automatically enjoy a higher material standard of living than the previous one. If so, it's a turning point. Many feel that the cake of global wealth has stopped getting bigger, if indeed it ever did. Possibly what is called expansion was in fact displacement, from the vaults of the earth into mining profits, from the independent labour of farmers and crafts people in Scotland and Africa into wages and surplus value. The process relies on putting more and more newly discovered (and appropriated) material and human resources to its own profit-generating uses: oil fields, animals, slaves, evicted crofters, Asian girls... However, unexploited sources of wealth are running out. And looking at the spectre of post-industrial poverty from my experience in rural Zimbabwe, a decisive contrast seems to be that city dwellers in the West have neither land nor subsistence culture to fall back on. Gone is the shared fanning work, all but gone are the celebrations, religious festivals, weddings and wakes. All that's left for many is TV, drink and conversation... and only one of those is free. Rural poverty is no idyll: I have seen how exhausting and health-destroying it can be. But poverty without the old social networks of mutual respect and communal enjoyment is a nightmare unimagined by most Zimbabweans I have spoken with. Back to Edinburgh and a lighter, more personal note: over the past weeks I have been to some evening events organized by friends where people have read poetry, played music and done some juggling and conjuring. The atmosphere was encouraging. As I listened to a young poet celebratingher sympathy and respect for her father I realized our feelings that evening were like the excitement of a toddler's first steps. For in Zimbabwe as in any traditional society, everyone knows a thousand songs and the dance steps to them, songs about work, liberation, faith, love, drought, struggle. People tell teaching stories with songs embedded inthem, aboutbaboons, crocodiles and wise and foolish people. New songs are worked out and new music played every day, everywhere. Here, most people believe they can't sing, far less make harmony or create new music. Made self-conscious by years of competition and perfectionism we are too shy to perform for each other. But now in Scotland in the late 1980s we are at ground zero, making up new rules and building up new habits to brighten our uncertain economic future by enjoying ourselves creatively together again. |
