Heidi Li's Potpourri

Reject trusteeship, forget about "normal politics"

"The basic cry of the [ANC Youth League] did not differ from the ANC's first constitution in 1912. But we were reaffirming and underscoring those original concerns, many of which had gone by the wayside. African nationalism was our battle cry, and our creed was the creation of one nation out of many tribes, the overthrow of white supremacy, and the establishment of truly democratic form of government. Our manifesto stated: "We believe that the national liberation of Africans will be achieved by Africans themselves. ...

The manifesto utterly rejected trusteeship, the idea that the white government somehow had African interests at heart."

Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom, p.99.

Reject trusteeship. This is the smartest phrase I have read in a long time when it comes to a fight to ending supremacy of a minority that works against the interests of a majority. Although Nelson Mandela was writing about the liberation struggle he and his compatriots waged against white supremacy in South Africa, the idea of rejecting trusteeship is going to be critical in the long walk to full autonomy for women (and anybody who is not a straight male) in our country.

Women need to appreciate that their liberation will be achieved by women themselves.

Consider each of three great emancipation/liberation struggles of the twentieth century: the fight for civil rights for blacks in the United States; the effort to end colonial rule and caste-oppression in India; and, most significantly for the post, the fight to bring democracy to South Africa. In every case there came a turning point, when the leaders of these struggles realized that they could no longer operate within a  paradigm of "normal politics". That is they realized that that for true social transformation to occur the emphasis had to be on transcendent politics, a willingness to fight from the outside, not from within.

None of these fights I just mentioned were fights directed toward ending misogyny or sexism ; women participated, but the struggles were not aimed at ending male supremacy; they were directed against other social ills and  led by men with some rather illiberal attitudes toward women. I'm not prepared to condemn these men - e.g. Martin Luther King, Jr., M.K. Gandhi, or Nelson Mandela - for their attitudes toward women. I prefer to learn from their experiences in bringing about major social change.

Mandela in particular is a source of knowledge and inspiration for anybody determined to see a vast social transformation, one in which an oppressed majority comes to the fore. Mandela's own development as a social and political thinker is a lesson in coming to understand true politics. I intend to continue to share his insights as guideposts for those of us who have found 2008-09 a time in which we realize that we cannot entrust the interests of women to preexisting institutions. We are starting almost from scratch.

I cannot pinpoint a moment when I became politicized, when I knew I would spend my life in the liberation struggle. ...

I had no epiphany, no singular revelation, no moment of truth, but a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand indignities, a thousand unremembered momements, produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned our people. There was no particular day on which I said, From henceforth I will devote myself to the liberation of my people; instead I found myself doing so, and could not do otherwise.

 Long Walk To Freedom, p. 95.

Do these words resonate with you? If so you are getting ready to move beyond normal politics - for Mandela's "politicization" was in fact a rejection of the politics as usual of his time and place; he rejected tribalism in favor of African unification, he rejected incrementalism in favor of sweeping social reform; he demanded that the people whose oppression he sought to end become empowered as both a means and end of that goal.

Let us demand the same for women. We do not need breadcrumbs from either political party - we need not beg them to protect the already withered and watered down rights to reproductive freedom that are essential to women's autonomy; we have seen the futility of supporting their favored sons in the vain hope that they will avoid employing and highlighting those who degrade and belittle women; we have seen that they will tolerate anything from a straight male regardless of the insult bestowed on women or gay men.

To be continued...

Against the subjugation of women? Resist both infighting and selling out

Disagreements about how to end injustice, and specific injustices, are as old as injustice itself. Whether one is considering the injustices of colonialism, racist domination, oppression of women...in each and every one of these areas, those who can agree in broad general principle have often found themselves disagreeing over specifics, including some major ones. To make common cause does not magically bring about harmony.

When Gandhi fought to escape the injustices of British rule, he was opposed by people who resisted his ideas about throwing over caste distinctions. When Mandela picked up arms to fight apartheid, many withdrew their support from his movement. When King sought to expand his conception of civil rights to include equal access to economic opportunities, former and potential allies turned against him.

None of these examples of fights for justice achieved perfect justice, no more than the Civil War achieved a perfect Union. But I do believe that the U.S. Civil War achieved a more perfect union. Likewise, I believe the India of today is a far more equitable place than the India of one hundred years ago, that the South Africa of today, like the U.S. of today, has achieved within the past fifty years enormous strides toward racial justice.

My own dream is that within my lifetime, I see the progress toward the good of justice for women that Gandhi, Mandela, and King got to see the toward the goods of justice they pursued in their lifetimes. They managed to see results in their pursuits even though each had to learn when to resist pressures from people who genuinely shared their vision and when to resist the lure of becoming subservient to those who offered only short term funding and enrichment rather than truly shared commitment.

Now, even as I write this, millions of men and women are freshly galvanized to make it a reality that all the world comes to see women's rights as human rights, to see woman as just as much the paradigm representative of humanity as man, and therefore to see a woman's rights as indistinguishable from any human's rights. With all that energy comes passion and motivation. But with it comes too friction and infighting. With it too comes the willingness by some to give up the chance to speak truth to power, in order perhaps, to gain power, but nevertheless at the sacrifice of a chance to speak without fear of offending.

I believe that at the end of every day, and at the start of every morning, a person needs to be able to reflect upon herself or himself, and address these questions to herself or himself: if I am fighting for justice, am I making choices that do not compromise my integrity? What can I tolerate in allies even if I cannot join wholeheartedly in every step they take? Can I broaden my toleration without selling out my convictions?

Especially in the fight against the subjugation of women, men and women must ask themselves these questions, because one of the hardest obstacles to achieving progress toward the good of justice for women is the tendency toward infighting on the one hand and selling out on the other. Fighters for the empowerment of women tend to care about all sorts of injustice and obviously have some very basic differences, including differences in sex, race, and class. These differences can lead to fissures and cracks that can render the fight for justice for women, for justice for people, very tough going. But the common interest in justice for all must be used to resist the fissures and to repair them, when possible. What cannot be repaired is selling out. Certainly, one person's "sell-out" may be another person's "reasonable compromise". Personally, I believe in the necessity to question one's own choices in such matters very closely, because it is very tempting to see oneself as the reasonable compromiser, the unifier, the one who moves beyond "unnecessary" partisanship rather than to recognize in oneself the more natural tendency in human nature toward selling out.

For my own part, I prefer to err on the side of sticking to my convictions rather than losing them in a process of mollification and conciliation. If enough other people join me in those convictions, then they and I will not have to mollify and appease: we will ultimately have coming to us those who would now have us coming to them. We will be numerous enough and bonded together strongly enough in the fight for women's rights - the fight for human rights - to the point where will we have the upper hand, both ethically and tactically.

For my own part, I would rather take ten million baby steps toward the good without losing my footing in conscience than take a great leap and risk losing my moral compass. I will march with as wide a cohort as I can - even when we disagree on some things - in the name of reaching my goals. But I will not join ranks with those who are able to take heady leaps that gain them a seat at the local powerbroker's table or a grant of some of that powerbroker's money at the price of their integrity.

If ten million or twenty million or fifty-one million people choose to baby step along with me and I with them, we will, together, make the same rate of progress as those who choose to go it more or less alone. In the fight to beat misogyny and sexism, in the fight to achieve proper representation and empowerment for women, I expect great changes. I demand great changes. I will work toward great changes. But I know the greatest shifts toward justice take years to accomplish. To stick it out, every step forward must be appreciated and celebrated (e.g. Senator Clinton's name placed in nomination even at the admitted charade of a free and open Democratic Party convention) and every step backward must be condemned and resisted (e.g. the retention of a speechwriter for the President of the United States of America who participates in boorish, distasteful and sexist party shenanigans.) Time is on the side of those who fight for justice, so long as those who fight for justice do so with patience and tenacity, and resist the parallel temptations toward selling out or excessive infighting.

Giving thanks, giving gifts, building momentum

Looking for a way to live a political life without breaking the bank? Want to spend your hard-earned money in ways that benefit multiple recipients at once? Want to begin to Salt March?

Support the White House Project - Send a Woman to the White House
Help the National Women's History Museum Build a Home in the Nation's Capital

As the winter holidays arrive, we will be giving thanks and giving gifts. The gift-giving will be, for many, curtailed due to financial circumstances. But there is a way that even those on a tight budget can give gifts that will be received with great thanks by two organizations, one focused on American women's accomplishments here and now, the other dedicated to educating and celebrating American women's achievements in the past. I think of this pair of institutions as the yin and yang of making sure that women count. Both organizations accept donations and one can join either as a member. With a bit of creativity, you can give as little as five dollars to either organization, print out the receipt (cross out the amount of money donated if you like) and decorate it or wrap it up and give it to a friend (maybe somebody with whom you are forming an SWWH group). This year, give the people you love a donation in honor of that love and in support of two groups who are helping to stamp out misogyny and sexism in favor celebration and empowerment of women.

For children, you can give the book Call Me Madame President from The White House Project shop. Or do your all your holiday shopping through the iGive portal and designate the National Women's History Museum as the beneficiary (the charitable cause you designate gets a percentage contribution based on your total purchases from cooperating merchants).

When millions of people combine financial forces, change happens. For an interesting read on the general topic, with specific reference to cause organizations mutually supporting one another, see this article, "Money Talks", by Eric L. Smith.

Why being asked tough questions helps

Last night I participated in a wonderfully stimulating panel and audience question-and-answer sponsored by Baruch College's Department of Journalism. After the panel, most of the participants enjoyed a good meal and great conversation. The discussion was lively, respectful, fun.

One of my fellow panelists, James Taranto, who most certainly does not share many of my opinions on social and economic policy, helped me clarify my thoughts about the point of conscientious objection: a reflective choice to withhold one's vote from Barack Obama while also not voting for John McCain.

I was explaining the connection between my views and M.K. Gandhi's approach to Indian independence from British rule. James asked me some interesting clarificatory questions, particularly about Gandhi's reason for caring so deeply about HOW Indians achieved self rule and not just WHETHER they did. In replying, I said that Gandhi believed that if Indians did not include members of all castes in the independence fight and if Indians engaged in violence to achieve it, India would not end up with a democracy that could work for India, indeed would not end up with a democracy at all.

James pointed out that this meant that Gandhi's position was not best characterized as the end does not justify the means, but instead was better understood as the view that the means inflect the nature of the end.

This exchange yielded an "aha" moment for me. I have sometimes couched my objection to the DNC's and the Democratic Party's approach to this year's presidential election as an objection to the view that the ends justify the means. But no, my point is better put in the terms that emerged in my exchange with James Taranto: a Democratic Party that achieves an electoral victory via the methods used to pick its nominee is not likely to be a Democratic Party that can bring the sort of changes to American politics that our country desperately needs. This year's Democratic Party has not been one of unity, hope, and transcendence of dirty politics. It has perpetuated division among Democrats, left millions in despair about the the credibility and honor of the party, and convinced many that the Democratic Party leadership expects blind loyalty rather than seeing itself as answerable to rank and file voters. A political party that does this does not seem likely to put into effect policies that will be radically different from politics as usual. Such a party seems likely to continue catering to special interests, reneging on commitments made to the electorate, and ignoring the divisions that have riven the party.

I anticipate writing additional posts as result of the Blogging the 2008 Election event at Baruch. For now, l would like to thank the organizers, my co-panelists, our moderator and all those who attended. To learn more go here. I encourage readers to check out the blogs of my co-panelists.

I have asked whether a video or other coverage of the event will be made available, and if and when it is I will let readers of this space know.