Happy Ridvan to the Baha'is around the world. I love this period of the year, and am taking pictures of my Ridvan roses, in full bloom in the dining room and bedroom, while waiting for the real spring to occur outside my window.

This morning, though, I want to refer you to another link for anyone who is really into movies (which is probably most of the known universe). My daughter has decided to write reviews...short and fun to read. Her other blog, already in my favourites at right, is also terrific reading. Enjoy.

A few weeks ago, my cousin sent me a link to a talk. I followed, listened, and discovered a whole new world of exciting and inspiring presentations. The site is TED. I have listened to talks from scientists, educators, entrepreneurs, authors, and comedians (well, not quite, but a couple of the talks are quite funny). I warn you, going to this website can get addictive. I was immensely moved by Isabel Allende, inspired by Dave Eggers and Sir Ken Robinson, and awed by two or three of the science presentations. Do yourself a favour; take the time and have a look.

Remarks by Stephen Lewis, Co-Director of AIDS-Free World, delivered at the
10th Annual V-Day Celebrations, New Orleans, LA 4:00 pm CDT, Saturday, April
12, 2008

Today is a day that has largely --- and rightly --- been given over to Dr.
Mukwege and his astonishing and heroic work in the Congo. Driving the work
is the endlessly grim and despairing litany of rape and sexual violence. All
of us assembled in the Superdome, talk of V-Day and the Vagina Monologues;
in the Congo there's a medical term of art called 'vaginal destruction.' I
need not elaborate; you've heard Dr. Mukwege.

But suffice to say that in the vast historical panorama of violence against
women, there is a level of demonic dementia plumbed in the Congo that has
seldom, if ever been reached before.

That's the peg on which I want to hang these remarks. I want to set out an
argument that essentially says that what's happening in the Congo is an act
of criminal international misogyny, sustained by the indifference of nation
states and by the delinquency of the United Nations.

Dr. Mukwege and others have said time and time again, the current saga of
the Congo has been going on for more than a decade. It's important to
remember that it's a direct result of the escape of thousands of mass
murderers who eluded capture after the Rwandan genocide , thanks to the
Governments of France and the United States, by fleeing into what was then
called Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, The wars and the
horror that followed have been chronicled by journalists, by human rights
organizations, by senior representatives of the United Nations
Secretary-General, by agencies, by NGOs internationally and NGOs on the
ground, by the UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs, by the Security Council,
and in the process, accentuated and punctuated by the cries and the pain and
the carnage of over five million deaths.

The sordid saga ebbs and flows. But it was brought back into sudden, vivid
public notoriety by Eve Ensler's trip to the Congo in July/August of last
year, her visit to the Panzi Hospital, her interviews with the women
survivors of rape, and her visceral piece of writing in Glamour magazine
which began with the words "I have just returned from Hell".
Eve set off an extraordinary chain reaction: her visit was followed by a
fact-finding mission by the current UN Under-Secretary General for
Humanitarian Affairs who, upon his return, wrote an op-ed for the Los
Angeles Times in which he said that the Congo was the worst place in the
world for women. Those views were then echoed everywhere (including by the
EU Parliament), triggering front page stories in the New York Times, the
Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and a lengthy segment on 60 Minutes
by Anderson Cooper of CNN.

Largely as a result of this growing clamour against the war on women in the
Congo, and the fact that Eve Ensler herself testified before the Security
Council, the United Nations resolution that renewed the mandate for the UN
Peacekeeping force in the Congo (MONUC as it's called) contained some of the
strongest language condemning rape and sexual violence ever to appear in a
Security Council resolution, and obliged MONUC, in no uncertain terms, to
protect the women of the Congo. The resolution was passed at the end of
December last year.


In January of this year, scarce one month later, there was an "Act of
Engagement" -- a so-called peace commitment signed amongst the warring
parties. I use 'so-called' advisedly because evidence of peace is hard to
find. But that's not the point: the point is much more revelatory and much
more damning.

The peace commitment is a fairly lengthy document. Unbelievably, from
beginning to end, the word 'rape' never appears. Unbelievably, from
beginning to end, the phrase 'sexual violence' never appears.
Unbelievably, "women" are mentioned but once, lumped in with children, the
elderly and the disabled. It's as if the organizers of the peace conference
had never heard of the Security Council resolution.

But it gets worse. The peace document actually grants amnesty --- I repeat,
amnesty --- to those who have participated in the fighting. To be sure, it
makes a deliberate legal distinction, stating that war crimes or crimes
against humanity will not be excused. But who's kidding whom? This arcane
legal dancing on the head of a pin is not likely to weigh heavily on the
troops in the field, who have now been given every reason to believe that
since the rapes they committed up to now have been officially forgiven and
forgotten, they can rape with impunity again. And indeed, as Dr. Mukwege
testified before Congress just last week, the raping and sexual violence
continues.

The war may stutter; the raping is unabated.

But the most absurd dimension of this whole discreditable process is the
fact that the peace talks were "facilitated" - they were effectively
orchestrated -- by MONUC, that is to say, by the United Nations. And perhaps
most unconscionable of all, despite the existence for seven years of another
Security Council resolution, number 1325, calling for women to be active
participants in all peace deliberations, there was no one at that peace
table directly representing the women, the more than two hundred thousand
women, whose lives and anatomies were torn to shreds by the very war that
the peace talks were meant to resolve.

Thus does the United Nations violate its own principles.

Now let me make something clear. In the nearly twenty-five years that I've
been involved in international work, I've been a ready apologist for the
United Nations. And I continue to be persuaded that the United Nations can
yet offer the best hope for humankind. But when the United Nations goes off
the rails, as is the case in the Congo -- as is invariably the case when
women are involved -- my colleagues and I, in our new organization called
AIDS-Free World, are not going to bite our tongues. There's too much at
stake.

What makes this all the more galling is that in many respects, the UN is the
answer. Those of you who intermittently despair of ending sexual violence
should know that if the UN brought the full power of its formidable agencies
to bear, tremendous progress would be made, despite the indifference of many
countries. But therein lie these cascading levels of hypocrisy.

You heard today about the collective UN campaign to end rape and sexual
violence in the Congo . twelve agencies united in this common purpose.
But with the exception of some magnificent UNICEF staff on the ground, about
whom Ann Veneman, Executive Director of UNICEF has every right to be proud,
the presence of the other UN agencies ranges from negligible to
non-existent. This is all largely an exercise in rhetoric. Even the UN
Population Fund, ostensibly the lead agency in the Congo, is pathetically
weak on the ground, and on its own website talks of the problems of funding.

It does induce a combination of rage and incredulity when the UN tries to
pawn itself off as the serious player in combating sexual violence when the
record is so appallingly bad. In fact it could be said --- indeed, it needs
to be said --- that the V-Day movement and Eve, relatively miniscule players
by comparison, have probably done more to ease the pain of violence in the
Congo than any one of eleven UN agencies. Who else, I ask you, is building a
City of Joy so that the women who have been raped can recover with some
sense of security and, become leaders in their communities?

Is there an answer to this collective abject failure of the international
community to protect the women of the Congo? There sure is, and the answer
sits right at the top, and the answer is the Secretary-General of the United
Nations.

I don't know who is advising the Secretary-General on these matters, but
he's being led down a garden path soon to be strewn with ghosts that will
haunt his entire stewardship, and leave an everlasting pejorative legacy. I
know how the UN works; I've been an Ambassador to the UN for my country, the
Deputy at UNICEF, an advisor on Africa to a former Secretary-General, and
most recently a quote/unquote 'Special Envoy'. In the incestuous hotbed of
the 38th floor of the United Nations secretariat, where sits the
Secretary-General, critics are scorned, derided and mocked. And exactly the
same will happen to me. But I want all of you to know here assembled that it
need not be.

If the Secretary-General were to exercise real leadership against sexual
violence, instead of falling back --- as his advisors have suggested --- on
statements and rhetoric and fatuous public relations campaigns, he could
turn things around. What in God's name is wrong with these people whose
lives consist of moving from inertia to paralysis?

The Secretary-General should summon the heads of the twelve UN agencies
allegedly involved in "UN Action" on violence against women and read the
riot act. He should explain to them that press releases do not prevent rape,
and he should demand a plan of action on the ground, with dollars and
deadlines. He should equally summon the heads of the ten agencies that
comprise UNAIDS and demand a plan of implementation for testing, treatment,
prevention and care for women who have been sexually assaulted, with
deadlines. I'm prepared to bet that UNAIDS has never convened such a
meeting, despite the fact that the violence of the sexual assaults in the
Congo creates easy avenues in the reproductive tract through which the AIDS
virus passes. Dr. Mukwege talks of increased numbers of HIV-positive women
turning up at Panzi.

The Secretary-General, taking a leaf from Eve Ensler, should insist on a
network of rape crisis centers, rape clinics in all hospitals, sexual
violence counsellors, and Cities of Joy right across the Eastern Congo .
indeed, across the entire country. The Secretary-General should demand a
roll-call, an accounting of which countries have contributed financially to
ending the violence, and in what amounts, plus those who have not, and then
publish the results for the world to see so that the recalcitrants can be
brought to the bar of public opinion (How's this for a juxtaposition by way
of example: over the course of over a decade, the UN Trust Fund to end
Violence Against Women has triumphantly reached $130 million. The United
States spends more than $3 billion/week on the war in Iraq).

But there's more. The Secretary-General should launch a personal crusade to
double the troop complement --- that is, MONUC --- in the Congo. The
protection provisions in the new so-called peace accord, for women, cannot
be implemented with the current troop numbers, large though they may seem.

And finally, the Secretary-General should pull out all the stops in getting
the United Nations to agree that the Congo is the best test case for the
principle of the "Responsibility to Protect". This principle was universally
endorsed by Heads of State at the United Nations in September of 2005. It's
the first major contemporary international challenge to the sanctity of
sovereignty. It simply asserts that where a government is unable or
unwilling to protect its own people from gross violations of human rights,
then the international community has the responsibility to intervene. That
responsibility can be diplomatic negotiation, or economic sanctions, or
political pressure or military intervention . whatever it takes to restore
justice to the oppressed.

Responsibility to Protect was originally drafted with Darfur in mind .
it's equally applicable to the Congo. We have to start somewhere.

The Secretary-General has a tremendous challenge. He has the opportunity,
and the wherewithal, and the influence, and the majesty to save thousands,
perhaps hundreds of thousands of women's lives, physically and psychologically.
And once the process began in earnest in the Congo, it would spread to all
dimensions of violence against women everywhere.

To whom else is such an opportunity given? The Secretary-General of the
United Nations has said that violence against women is one of the gravest
issues of our time. Well if that's the case, surely he can understand that
speeches aren't enough. And if he truly believes what he says, then let him
stake his tenure on it. I believe that the struggle for gender equality is
the most important struggle on the planet: Ban Ki-Moon should say to the 192
countries that make up the United Nations:

"Either you give me evidence that we're going to prevail in this struggle or
you find yourself another Secretary-General."

"Ah," people will say, "Lewis has finally lost it." I don't think so.
We're talking about more than fifty per cent of the world's population,
amongst whom are the most uprooted, disinherited and impoverished of the
earth. If you can't stand up for the women of the world, then you shouldn't
be Secretary-General.

Alas, I guess I know whether that will happen. We've already had signals.
Last fall, in an unprecedented initiative, a High-Level Panel on Reform of
the United Nations recommended the creation of a new international agency
for women. The recommendation was based on the finding that the record of
the UN on gender has been abysmal. If that agency comes into being, headed
by an Under-Secretary General, with funding that starts at $1 billion a year
(less than half of UNICEF's resources), and real capacity to run programmes
on the ground, issues like violence against women would suddenly be
confronted with indomitable determination.

The women activists on the ground, the women survivors on the ground, the
women activist-survivors on the ground would finally have resources and
support for the work that must be done.

But the creation of the new agency is bogged down in the UN General
Assembly, caught up in the crossfire between the developed and developing
countries. The Secretary-General could break that impasse if he pulled out
all the stops. He and the Deputy-Secretary General make speeches that give
the impression they support the women's agency, but in truth the language is
so carefully and artfully couched as to gut the agency of impact on the
ground, in-country, were it ever to come into being. Again, the advisors
read the tea leaves in a soiled and broken chalice.

This weekend has been filled with hope in the struggle to end violence
against women. Thoughtful, decent men have come to the fore on this very
platform, and women from so many countries have made the case for sanity in
words that are moving and compelling in equal measure. I have chosen to link
the Congo and the United Nations because as Eve said at the outset, the
Congo is the V-Day spotlight for the coming year, and the United Nations can
truly break the monolith of violence. We just have to apply unceasing
pressure so that the issue is joined rather than manipulated.

I don't have Eve's rhythm and cadence. But I cherish a touch of her spirit,
a lot of her anger and a microscopic morsel of her trusting love, commitment
and courage that will one day change this world.

I think my body doesn't know what time zone it lives in any more; I keep waking up an hour or two before my alarm clock, then can't get back to sleep. So I am typing as the sun rises over the Okanagan, and it's quite lovely to watch the hills come alive, so to speak, with light wash over the muted greens and browns of pre-Spring Summerland. This morning, just as I was waking, about five, there was a siren on the highway, just a long stone's throw from the house. I can hear the Highway 97 traffic quite a bit, when I tune into it, and this morning it seemed like someone was being rushed, an ambulance in all probability, from one place to another, and I wondered at the cycle of life and death...not for the first time. I am so keenly aware, as I get older, of my own parents' health and well-being. They are in their late seventies. Dad is pretty well but my mother is physically not strong. There's a beautiful story in my forthcoming book from elders around the world, from a woman named Jeannette Coffey, about her parents, "The Hawk and the Butterfly", and when I read it (which you can when the book comes out), I think of my own parents and their connection of spirit. They have been married now for almost 53 years and sometimes, although they are very different, I find the connection between their souls almost like a visible spiritual line of light. One of my sisters is becoming more attuned to spirit at a number of levels, and is beginning to see auras...and although I have not had this experience, sometimes I just feel like the connection between my parents is auric. Can you say that? And as a Baha'i, I believe that the distance between this world and the next one is very, very short; it's all around us, just as the womb world to the world we live in. So I can't help but reflect on how much I enjoy having my parents still in this world with us, but know that when the time comes for one or another to pass, nothing can break that stream of light that flows between them. And I wonder if it will be like that for my husband and me, as we grow older. Our jokes are already old, and our habits; but maybe these next years are the ones for our spirits to become more and more attuned, as we gradually retire to our garden and greenhouse and solarium (there, a wish list sent out to the universe!) ...and maybe the distances between all of us are simply a state of mind. Maybe? No, surely.

Something about early spring mornings makes me glad to be alive, and glad to love and be loved. Today I shall seek out spring flowers.

I haven't been posting often in the last while but in the last few days I've been sorting through photos and I like this one (my copyright, btw). When he was here visiting in February, my friend Fraser bought me a dozen roses. My favourites are white but he bought me a mix of colours and they lasted a long time. I got several lovely pictures. This one is one of the loveliest, I think....very Georgia O'Keeffe, of course, but I can't paint it. Wish I could.

Have I recommended my current best reading? I know that EWS pops in from time to time to check out recommendations, so here is one: Dr. Norman Doidge's The Brain That Changes Itself. I am delighted to find that many of the things I am learning about the soul and its connection with quantum physics also find confirmation in a lot of the things being learned about brain anatomy. There's a wonderful prayer in the Bahá'í teaching, the Short Healing Prayer, and I find that its first line forms almost a mantra in my mind and spirit: "Thy name is my healing, O my God." That's it, isn't it, in a nutshell: if we are connected, body, mind, spirit, to the Creator and healing, then the truth of another of Baha'u'llah's reassurances becomes plain to me: "Nothing but that which profiteth them can befall my loved ones." I think it's a very eastern concept being translated to the western mind, gradually, through meditation and through a deeper understanding that we are not isolated. If we view suffering and tests in life with a gratitude for the richness of experience which they offer, rather than bemoaning or bewailing our fate, and are grateful for the opportunity to grow, it brings a particular joy, almost a submission, which is quite unusual for those of us in an individualistic society which views winning, competition, and assertiveness as greater victories than giving our hearts to the collective spirit of unity that is all around us.

Some of these ideas have been percolating through various DVDs I've been watching, too, probably most particularly the biopic of Leonard Cohen, I'm Your Man, which includes some wonderful covers by several musicians previously unfamiliar to me. I promptly bought the soundtrack. My nephew, Tim, who is a complete groupie for both Cohen and Bob Dylan (the latter, btw, just won a Pulitzer Prize, yay), and who is a wonderful musician in his own right, would be proud of me...but there's something about the crack in the world letting through the light idea, in Cohen's song, that I find quite moving. Not to mention Alleluia. Oh Oh Oh. The cracks in the physical universe allow us to see through to light, to spirit...yes, Leonard, I think I get it. Thank you.

I also heard, for the first time today, Sarah McLachlan's song from the new version of the film of Charlotte's Web, I think called "Ordinary Miracles." I was looking for a spring song for my drama production for my grade 5/6 class...and started with Hayley Mills' version of the Pollyanna song, "I'm as happy as a little clam." Sometimes, actually, I am.

I have received a lovely message from a woman in Ireland who has been reading here. Thank you!

I also want to suggest to some of you that you might find my poetry blog of interest. I keep it separate: it's www.heatherpoet.blogspot.com and is less about news and more about literary observations. Today I posted a poem, with permission, from a woman serving at the Baha'i World Center: the environment inspired her muse, and my goodness, what a muse it was!

My most recent reading deserves a plug, especially for any of you in education. I am reading a book I picked up at the airport on the way back to the Okanagan (which is supposed to be beginning its spring but it's still a little chilly. No snow though, unlike the Gatineau...) Anyway, the book is The Brain That Changes Itself by Dr. Norman Doidge. It's very, very good. He discusses the history of a variety of experiments in plasticity, and their implications for healing and for helping people in education with various learning challenges. I have decided to apply the ideas to my knees: pain, apparently, is a memory as much as it is a reality. I know that I have been 'favouring' my knees since I sprained them a decade ago, and it seems to me that if I could retrain my brain, I could use the knees more effectively. I need to require my brain to be able to move the knees properly, and without fear. I have been trying the downstairs motion, the one I fear the most, and the pain is less than I might have thought, but for sure the fear is a worse enemy than the knees themselves. I think. I'll keep you posted.

Serendipity often brings the right book at the right time, no?

More anon.