'Peace tents' in the Mideast

Grassroots peace initiatives are springing up in Israel, according to an American lawyer and writer living near Tel Aviv.

"'Peace tents' have been cropping up on highways where Jews and Arabs drop in to try to resume normal dialogue," writes Helen Schary Motro in The Christian Science Monitor (10/31/00). "The first was in the northern Galilee, where some of the worst Arab-Jewish violence had taken place, including involvement of the Arab village Arrare, where two Israeli Arabs had been killed. Yet even the peace tents have not been spared random vigilante violence.

"One 'peace tabernacle' set up by the Arab villages of Tira and Taibe, in cooperation with the Jewish towns of Tzur Yigal and Kohav Yair was torched; but the next morning, activists began to rebuild it atop the ashes. Eighty-five Jews and Arabs put a joint announcement in the Ha'aretz newspaper calling for an end to violence. There are vigils, peace walks and, last weekend, a binational demonstration in the mixed-population city of Haifa."

Globalization and women's voices

A recent issue of Media and Gender Monitor reported on a group of women writers gathered in India for workshops on gender and censorship. Asked how globalization has affected women's freedom of speech, Ritu Menon of India said that "in India, we are now flooded with MTV, American melodrama and sitcoms, inane talk shows, programming that is 'global' and often has very little to do with what's happening locally, and the highlighting of the woman-as-object in addition to woman-as-consumer -- both masquerading as the liberated woman. India is obsessed with beauty pageants, with Miss World, Miss Universe, Miss Smooth Elbow, Miss Long Legs -- you name it -- via magazines like Elle, Cosmopolitan, Femina and Bride. Conservatism cloaked as commerce, commerce pretending to be free choice, while genuine freedom of choice recedes farther and farther. At least earlier we knew to whom to direct our protest. Now, it's a distant corporate entity and, even though we may know the name, we have no access to it. The only real choice left is to switch off. Tune out. And continue to protest."

Sanja Sarnavka of Croatia spoke about women's need "to find mechanisms of preserving our identity and authenticity" in the face of media onslaught. Quoting the statistic that "almost 80 percent of the total news flow emanates from West-based major trans-national agencies," Sarnavka noted "a considerable threat of homogenization, and the loss of self-perception, as well as a loss of independent perceptions of the world."

Patricia Flores of Bolivia reported that "globalization has commercialized media and this has resulted in more sexism and sensationalism. In Bolivia we are recipients of endless talk shows from Peru, Argentina and the U.S.A.

"These involve mostly women, ranging from young girls, teenagers, mothers. Issues that are raised on these talk shows, like domestic violence, become almost topics of entertainment as they are exploited to the limits of scandal and sensationalism. In the present climate, women's voices are heard only when what they say can be distorted and sensationalized, when what they have to say helps to increase ratings."

'Don't kill your first patient'

Ads featuring Bill Maher of "Politically Incorrect" are being placed in student newspapers at medical schools that continue to use dogs and other animals in labs. Telling students, "Don't kill your first patient," the ads explain that more than half of all North American medical schools have dropped animal labs from their curricula in favor of better, less expensive teaching alternatives.

According to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which is spearheading a campaign to end the use of live animals in medical training, just 46 of the 126 U.S. medical schools continue this practice. PCRM is most strongly targeting UCLA, Boston University, St. Louis University, the University of Colorado and the University of California, San Diego. PCRM asks that letters be sent to these schools asking them to replace live animal labs with modern, more humane alternatives. They are also looking for volunteers who live near the schools to distribute literature. For more information, call 202-686-2210, ext. 329.

Belgian sustainability

Belgium recently announced a comprehensive sustainable development plan based on goals set at the 1992 U.N. Earth Summit in Rio de Janiero (Grist Magazine, 10/25/00). The plan includes a goal of increasing the number of organic farms in the country by 60 percent a year for the next four years, with the aim of having at least 4 percent of the country's agricultural land farmed organically. By the year 2010, it also aspires to cut energy consumption in the country to 10 percent below 1990 levels, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 7.5 percent, and provide 2 percent of the country's power through renewable energy, while gradually phasing out nuclear power.