There is clearly a debate as to whether all publicity is good publicity. We won’t get into that here, but I lean on the side of usually, with exceptions. “Silence is Not Golden”. As I’ve written about the situation in the Congo here many times I’m going to stand on what’s been written. I am however going to pass on a initiative soaring throughout the blogesphere, in what appears to be mostly science blogs. The “oh wow rape is occurring everywhere maybe we should tell someone about it” initiative called Silence is the Enemy.

For those who cared enough over the last 4 years to delve into some of the individual situations where conflict rape is occurring and have taken up the cause, by donating time, money, or words, don’t move on yet. Many of the participating blogs are revenue producing blogs, and they are donating their June proceeds to Doctors Without Borders. The revenue is from clicks so it would be a nice thing for you to mosey on over via the links and give some of those blogs on that list some click thru.

We should not look at the Congo, or similar places where brutal conflict rape occurs, and think OMG how can this happen, without first examining what happens here in a developed, technologically advanced, highly educated and well fed country, and how our own attitudes and policies regarding rape contribute to what has been a very slow, at times seemingly useless, campaign by those such as the United Nations. We should be bothered by it. With that in mind, and remembering that in many of the countries in the world where conflict rape occurs the foreign policy in regards to the offending country is always about securing either the business interests, other best interests, or security of the country from which the policy comes, and this is often a deterrent to any change. We also shouldn’t forget that poverty, lack of opportunity and education, and the resultant lack of power, is a significant part of the problem. To that end, after working to provide basic health care, food and the necessities for existence, we need to work to provide opportunities for sustainable living, education, i.e. opportunity for socioeconomic growth to those who suffer most, and to those who want nothing more than to help themselves, as this is likely the best way to fight this scourge.

So go do some clicking, Doctors Without Borders does some fine work.

Feel free to spread the word too.

Also of possible of interest:

You can also read the recent report by Physicians for Human Rights, in partnership with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, the report documents “the ongoing abuse of women who fled the civil war in Darfur but continue to face the threat of rape as residents of refugee camps in neighboring Chad”. The report can be found at Darfuri Women dot Org in Nowhere to Turn: Failure to Protect, Support and Assure Justice for Darfuri Women.

You can read more about it in James F. Smiths pieces at the Boston Globe, and Boston dot com.
Tracking the war on women in Darfur
Boston team produces Darfur rape study

You can also view a video interview with Dr Sondra Cosby, medical services director for the Boston Center for Refugee Health and Human Rights at Boston Medical Center, she traveled to Darfur with the Cambridge based Physicians for Human Rights.

New! TEN REASONS WHY Eastern Congo is the Most Dangerous Place on Earth for Women

War on Women in the Congo – Eve Ensler

Should you just want just to donate without clicking … some suggestions:

IRC/Congo
IRC/Chad
Women for Women
Doctors Without Borders
Healing Trauma in DR Congo
Heal Africa

Once again a comments off, for your information posting.

Preferring to learn even on my time off from official academia I was able to fulfill my off-time learning quota while sipping Pinot Grigio and eating cheeses full of more fat than I dare calculate. I learned it’s not wise to enter into a conversation with a linguist while drinking, and never to tell a linguist “nouns decline and verbs conjugate” because you’ll end up in an interminable discussion on the lack of declension in the English language. If you happen to speak French and Spanish you might suffer castigation. Chastisement is at it’s most tedious when the chastiser is semi-inebriated and related to you by blood.

Tonight I turned on the computer and flicked to WAPO, a habit I’ve yet to find a cure for. I find this little piece “Ending Impunity For Rape” by Marianne Mollman, the Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch’s Women’s Rights Division. She suggests “a project for Joseph Biden and Hillary Clinton”, “ending impunity for rape”, “as rape convictions are low across the globe and not just in those failed states or third world countries with non existent justice systems”.

The comments on this op-ed are disheartening (actually they made my head want to explode), but they are a reflection of why we have so little success helping people in countries with less structured justice systems succeed in prosecuting and actually punishing rapists. In this country, a country many rely upon and hope to pattern themselves after, on WAPO op-ed we have idiots writing comments full of psycho misogynistic rage, working on some misguided rules like. “If you don’t want a man to rape you, then don’t tantalize him and don’t leave with him“.

If you want to fully realize how little hope there is for a world looking toward us to save them read the pathetic comments on that otherwise well intentioned op-ed — in one of this countries premiere newspapers. Read it and weep.

peace

I have a job interview this afternoon, actually a clarification interview I’ve already interviewed once.

I’ve put over a year in, longer if you counting internship, at the NGO. The job I’m applying for is in the public policy sector, and will work out well, as my last job was more international. My degrees will be in public policy and international affairs, so I think this is cherry. It will also allow me to spend more time working with the arts council where I’m on the board.

I will be able to walk, bike, or skateboard ( no I won’t be doing that) to work , instead of sitting in traffic for the 45 mile drive each morning, plus driving to the extra events schedules on weekends. Seriously this gas issue is disturbing.

Wish me luck.

The rest of the weekend will be for fun.

This evening I will do an OSF( Old School Friday) post and you can post along.

The rules to osf are here at Marv’s place.

The theme will be

Not Another Sad Love Song

I’m walking to my interview now.

Peace