- Edith Rubinstein, a Belgian Women in Black, raises some important criticism of the conference in her “Complaint of a Woman in Black”.
As preamble, I would like to say that the rather severe criticisms that I'm going to express about the international conference of Women in Black in Jerusalem (August 12-16, 2005) do not restrain my admiration for the work of the organizers who did everything to accommodate us under the best possible conditions, and the critiques expressed about personal encounters do not diminish in the slightest my esteem for them -- I'm thinking in particular of Luisa Morgantini, who has brought a very important contribution to the network of Women in Black.
But the negative effects may also play their role in learning from which we may benefit in organizing future conferences.
However, as a Woman in Black, I still have a bitter taste in my mouth from the derailing of this conference in which I have not found the normal functioning of the network.
The conference was significantly marked by:
- a distressing lack of democracy;
- manipulation by actors exterior to the network.
I. a distressing lack of democracy
While thinking back over it, I told myself that the conference had been a victim of its own success. The organizers, who had been successful in regrouping participants in three nearby hotels in the Old City, were obligated to find a place sufficiently large to hold the 700 participants during the plenaries, and the solution which they found put into motion perverse effects that went on to gravely impede the democratic proceeding of the conference. It favoured the contemporary tendency towards consumption: One consumes conferences as one consumes rock concerts or ready-made meals in a supermarket, i.e., passively. More specifically, this solution caused an enormous loss of time because of the sacrifice of all the evening gatherings for the work of the conference. (The little evening activities, however enjoyable, should have been concentrated in a large, festive and relaxed gathering.)
Normally, the first plenary would have taken place on the first evening of the conference, which was a day lost.
The consequences were the following:
- The audience had practically no time to express itself. Expression of participants allows to recognize women who speak and to create contacts.
- We were not kept informed on the workshop reports.
- The final declaration was read at the end of the conference without our being given time to consider it.
- All that is known about the drafting of this declaration is that it was formulated by eight women (Israeli, Palestinian and international), among them the Israeli, Debby Lerman (and the others? -- who are they and how were they chosen?), based upon discussions and workshop reports.
The need to catch the bus by 6:00 p.m. had a second consequence: the post-plenaries have always been extremely important times in this kind of meeting: a time when women meet to discuss among themselves what's just been said and to break down the anonymity that separated them. Often out of these informal discussions is born an alchemy for the creation of other groups and other topics of discussion.
This system transformed the participants into docile sheep.
Perhaps that's why this conference did not go beyond the stage of describing situations instead of the hoped-for conference of political discussions allowing us to envisage alternatives. Also absent was any theoretical discussion about the WiB network itself. Throughout the conference, I regretted the absence of Corinne Kumar, who would have been able to give a new spark to Women in Black with her reflections on a new political imaginary, which had been sent to everyone but which few women had read, despite its great relevance, showing the weaknesses of E-mail relations that are solely virtual.
II. manipulation by actors exterior to the network.
Since transparency was not one of the qualities of this conference, it's often from rumours that one learns strange things that impeded the credibility of the network, which affects me enormously.
We knew already from Gila that the Palestinian woman had threatened to leave the conference if the workshop dedicated to lesbianism was held. The suppression by stealth of this workshop from the program, without any previous debate with the network assembly is unprecedented. As feminists, and as Women in Black, our first solidarity should go to women, and it is incomprehensible that the Israeli women, perhaps pressured by a feeling of culpability, could have accepted this diktat, probably inspired by the leaders of Fatah, without referring it to the whole network.
The fact that some Palestinian women presented themselves as being opposed to homophobia in their discourse seemed to me to be more evidence of a dual discourse among Palestinian women than of opposition to the workshop's cancellation.
This kind of event puts the whole network in danger!
Personally, I did not at all appreciate the launching of the conference by a young Palestinian woman with well-covered hair who chanted a chant in Arabic without translation.
According to Rebecca (in my workshop, I think) Turkish and Pakistani (or Iraqi?) women were not invited, at the demand of the Palestinian women. And in rethinking it later, it seems to me that there were very few Muslim women other than Palestinians at this conference. Was it by fear of hearing Muslim feminist voices?
Then there was the trip to Ramallah. It was soon learned that the Palestinian women had voluntarily decided not to invite Israeli women to Ramallah. Theoretically it was prohibited by the Israeli government for the Israeli women to go to Ramallah, but it would not have been the first time that some would have braved this prohibition!
I also had the impression that there were very few Palestinian women present in the assembly hall at this meeting, although one of them tried to persuade me to the contrary.
The welcoming address could have been spoken by any member of Fatah. It even rendered homage to the "martyrs," which did not exactly correspond to our positions. The Palestinian Women's Center appealed to one man, in a meeting of women, to explain (very competently, but that's not the issue) the perversity of Israeli policies: It was evident that only a man could explain something so complicated to “simple women”.
I was shocked by the off-hand manner in which the Charter of Women for Human Rights was transmitted: It was unrolled and then closed back up and that was the end of it, although the circulation of this charter moved along by hundreds of thousands of women around the world is an important event. Moreover, the following day, Yvonne Deutsch launched an appeal to create an alliance with the World March of Women, a call that went without discussion or results.
Then, while leaving the meeting-place, I encountered Luisa Morgantini, who was carrying a little funeral wreath inscribed: "the women of the world." And the pieces fell into place for me: She was headed to Arafat's tomb, and I wondered by what right I found myself associated with this demonstration of homage.
And we, international members of Women in Black, with only a few exceptions, went to render homage to a man, a symbol of Fatah!
Finally, according to Marie-Françoise, in the village of Bil'in, Luisa Morgantina met with a man from Fatah whose face was covered. Apparently he wanted some provocation on the part of Women in Black in the encounter with Israeli soldiers. Apparently Luisa refused and sounded the retreat.
I also wondered about the omnipresent role of Luisa Morgantini in this conference. She spoke in the introductory plenary, and subsequently presided over the homage to Hagar, which is the most pertinent role to attribute to her. Then she was seen everywhere in Ramallah and in Bel'in, and finally she gave instructions during the demonstration at the checkpoint north of Jerusalem. What disturbs me in this attitude is that Luisa -- for whom I feel sympathy because she's at once combative and fragile -- was that she was wearing two hats, one of a subversive through her activity as a Woman in Black, the other institutional in her role as representative to the European Union, and that must necessarily involve dilemmas. And I think that happened a little at the conference.
If anyone asked me what most of the speakers talked about, I'd have difficulty responding.
In contrast, from the several informal conversations that I've had, I've learned three lessons:
- I met two Irish women who worked in a women's center and who had never heard of Giuliana Sgrena, an event [sic] which received widespread media attention. I was a little astound.
- I spoke with a French group of Women in Black and what stood out most clearly was that, in fact, they didn't know very well the values defended by Women in Black. Perhaps in their pro-Palestinian struggle, they had been seduced by the form of protest. This leads us to the necessity of speaking of Women in Black.
- The day of my departure, I chatted with an American who had also been at Massa, in Italy [at the Women in Black international conference held in Marina da Massa, Italy, in 2003]. I told her how astonished I was that the roles of the U.S. and of Bush as well as the war in Iraq had received so little attention in the conference. She replied that in fact the Americans didn't know each other and that she intended to raise this issue within the network when she returned home. The U.S. women are suffering from major trauma as a result of the strange and worrisome events taking place in their country. This leads us to the need for more free time.
So here you have it, I've said my bit . Whoever wishes may respond, modify, critique or complete this statement.
With great feelings of friendship, Edith
