As women around the world prepare to celebrate International Women's Day
(IWD) on March 8, the world stands on the brink of war.
In a thinly veiled grab for some of the world's most lucrative oil fields,
the US and its allies in Australia, Britain and parts of Europe, have sworn
to defend the interests of multi-national corporations against the anti-US
regime of Saddam Hussein. Caught in the middle, the long-suffering people
of Iraq are viewed as "collateral damage" by the US State Department, which
is planning an invasion of Iraq, bombing of Baghdad, and hasn't ruled out
the use of nuclear weapons.
The majority of the world's population are opposed to the looming war on
Iraq. On the weekend of February 14-16, 30?? million people world wide
marched against war. Here in Australia, where John Howard has been one of
the staunchest defenders of the US-led war, almost one million people
participated in marches, and opinion polls show a vast majority opposed to
a unilateral US war.
WOMEN AGAINST THE WAR
Women around the world are making opposition to the war on Iraq the central
theme of International Women's Day. In Australia, opposition to the war is
central to IWD marches in all major cities.
Women's groups have led a daring series of naked anti-war protests around
the world, and are at the front line in Baghdad acting as human shields. In
the United States, since November 17, "Code Pink: Women's Pre-emptive
Strike for Peace" has maintained a vigil in front of the White House in
Washington to protest against Bush's war on Iraq. Women at the site have
been fasting for days or weeks at a time. This vigil will culminate on
International Women's Day.
The war on Iraq will have a disproportionate effect on women. It will fall
to women to care for those rendered vulnerable by the war - children, the
sick and injured, and the elderly. According to UNICEF and the World Health
Organisation, over 1 million Iraqis have died since 1991 as a result of
sanctions, nearly 60% of them children. Up to 95% of pregnant Iraqi women
suffer from anaemia, and give birth to weak, malnourished children. Birth
defects have soared due to the 300 tonnes of depleted uranium from US
shells and bombs leftover from the 1991 war.
While the US and its allies pose as 'liberators of women' in Afghanistan
and Iraq, the truth is that no imperialist war can liberate women. War and
economic sanctions create poverty, displacement and dependence. In Iraq,
many women have been forced to abandon their jobs and education since the
1990 Gulf War, thereby losing their financial independence and
opportunities for future self-determination. Most women focus all their
efforts to search for enough food and clean water to ensure their own and
their family's survival.
The impending war on Iraq must be opposed by the women's liberation
movement -- not just because of its impact on women but because the fight
to place human rights ahead of corporate profit is a fight which will
advance the struggle for women's rights.
NEO-LIBERALISM: THE WAR ON THE WORLD'S POOR
The mis-named "war on terror" is only the latest manifestation of a war on
the world's poor and working people which has been taking place for
decades. The doctrine of neo-liberalism has been used by wealthy
imperialist nations such as the US, Australia, Germany, Britain and Japan
to increase the profits of multi-national corporations at the expense of
the resources and people of the third world.
Institutions such as the World Trade Organisation(WTO) are used to pressure
third world governments into free trade agreements which open up their
markets to exploitation by multinational corporations based in the first
world. Loans to poor countries from the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
are made conditional upon price increases on basic commodities, cuts to
food subsidies, privatisation of state-owned assets, and cuts to social
services. Many countries who have resisted compliance with these conditions
in the past, have found themselves on Bush's hit-list of countries who may
be harbouring terrorists.
Women make up the majority of the world's poor, and are therefore hit
hardest by these policies. Throughout Asia and Central America women are
forced to work long hours under horrendous conditions by US clothing and
shoe manufacturing companies, who reap massive profits while those women
receive as little as a dollar a day. Many women are forced to care for
large extended families without state support, forced to work overseas and
many are drawn into prostitution to make ends meet.
In Australia the Howard government has been a whole-hearted supporter of
the neo-liberal model. The privatisation of public assets, the introduction
of the GST, cuts to social welfare, public health, child care and
education, tax breaks for big corporations, and attacks on trade unions,
are all policies which increase the burden on the poor and particularly on
women. As the responsibility for caring for society's weakest members - the
young and elderly - is pushed back onto the family, women are the ones who
pick up the slack.
As a result, women are far more likely to choose flexible but poorly paid
casual work, and are less likely to be organised in trade unions.
Women in Australia, the US and other advanced capitalist countries have
benefited from the reforms won through the struggles of women throughout
the last century. However, under the neoliberal agenda many of these
reforms have come under attack.
Now even women's right to work and have a family is being called into
question, as the government refuses to give its support to the proposal for
paid maternity leave. Meanwhile, billions of dollars of public money is
being pumped into preparations for war and the racist "border protection"
strategy.
SOLIDARITY
The true liberation of women around the world, is dependent on the defeat
of the global system of capitalist exploitation, which creates war and
poverty and its replacement with a system based on the needs of people not
profit -- Socialism.
The same profit-hungry elite that will make money after the invasion of
Iraq will continue to profit from the economic and social oppression of
women around the world.
There are two great superpowers in the world today. On the one hand George
Bush's "alliance of the willing" headed by the military might of the United
States.
On the other side stands the mass anti-war movement -- people's power --
and the majority of the world's poor and oppressed, fighting to defend
human life and dignity above private profit. Women will advance their own
struggle for liberation by leading the struggle to defeat this common enemy.
www.Socialist-Alliance.org/
More inc pic.
http://www.melbourne.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=43312&group=webcast
