Author Archives: Theresa Wolfwood. Director, The Barnard-Boecker Centre Foundation

About Theresa Wolfwood. Director, The Barnard-Boecker Centre Foundation

Theresa Wolfwood is the co-founder and director of the Barnard-Boecker Center Foundation.

Mies, Maria & Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen. The Subsistence Perspective: Beyond the Globalized Economy. ZED BOOKS, London, UK & New York, USA.

(Original German edition: Eine Kuh für Hillary: Die Subsistenzperspektive. München: Frauenoffensive, 1997.) “The third phase of global restructuring began with the recession around 1990. It is characterized by an unprecedented penetration of all regions of the globe and all areas of life by the logic and practice of capital accumulation.” p.35 “The rise of the global market has exacerbated the plight of women.” p. 225 Maria Mies has had a profound affect on research and activism in many countries in our globalized world. The distinguished Read more [...]

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Mexican Solidarity Network. Femicides of Cuidad Juarez & Chichuahua. 2004. Mexican Solidarity Network.

This book is a devastating report on the deaths and disappearances of women, mainly of indigenous Mexican origin, who die and disappear from towns on the Mexican-USA border. These towns are full of designated tax-free zones where global factories, called maquiladoras, are a rich source of profit for the owners, mainly USA companies. The workers, most of whom are women from poor families, are over worked and under paid, have few legal or health benefits. The factories pour toxic waste into the community polluting land, water and air. 400 women Read more [...]

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Mernissi, Fatema. Scheherazade Goes West: Different Cultures, Different Harems. 2001. Washington Square Press, USA.

Mernissi bases this book on a modern interpretation and evaluation of the famous fables spun by a woman to ensure her survival; stories considered so subversive because of her success in not only surviving, but empowering her to change the mind of her absolute ruler. Thus the author believes that, "dialogue-nurturing is considered magic, because it fuels power with beauty." A heady combination that has delighted listeners and readers in many cultures for years, so her comparison of the harem of spatial confinement, a place she returns to in much Read more [...]

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Mernissi, Fatema. DREAMS OF TRESPASS: TALES OF A HAREM CHILDHOOD. 1994. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. USA, UK, Canada.

This is a memoir about life of women in Morocco living under the social and physical constraints of the harem. There are many happy moments as women live with joy and companionship within this framework. Mernissi is a wonderful writer – her descriptions of her relatives and family life are colourful and affectionate. Her carefree life ends with end of childhood; she learns of her powerlessness in this male dominated society. She is told by her female elders, “Childhood is when the difference does not matter. From now on, you won’t be Read more [...]

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Mehta, Vijay. The Economics of Killing: How the West Fuels War and Poverty in the Developing World. 2012. Pluto Press, UK.

“…the military–industrial model can be replaced by adopting equitable policies for Disarmament, Demilitarization and working for sustainable development thus ending the cycle of violence and poverty.” Mehta exposes the spiralling cycle of militarism that underlies the economic crisis that rocked the world in 2008. Mainstream economists ignore the burden and wastefulness of the military economy when they attempt to explain the economic crisis. Mehta makes it clear that we are trapped in a wasteful killing–based economy that deifies all Read more [...]

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McQuaig, Linda & Neil Brooks. THE TROUBLE WITH BILLIONAIRES. 2010. Viking, Canada.

“Today many influential progressives insist that poverty, not inequality, should be the focus and that how well the rich are faring is irrelevant.” McQuaig, Canada´s leading political journalist, always witty and perceptive, and her co–author, an academic and tax expert, show us just how narrow is the focus on poverty. We really should be looking at wealth – massive wealth because this inequality is what creates poverty. The 1% is packing in the billions at the expense of the 99% – particularly the 20% at the bottom of heap. Yes, Read more [...]

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McQuaig, Linda. HOLDING THE BULLY´S COAT: Canada and the U.S. Empire. 2007. Doubleday Canada, Toronto.

“... we are a player of some significance on the global stage, due to our reputation – partly deserved and partly undeserved – as a fair arbiter and promoter of just causes, as a decent sort of country. By lining ourselves up so uncritically with Washington, even as the Bush administration has become a renegade in the world and highly unpopular on its own home turf, the Canadian government has played a role in enabling a regime that is considered by many around the world to be the major obstacle to peace and security.” from the introduction McQuaig Read more [...]

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McNally, David. ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE: Globalisation and Anti-Capitalism. 2002. Arbeiter Ring Publishing. Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

He may be a respectable academic at York University, but what impressed me most was that this book was born in fumes of tear gas at the FTAA meeting in Quebec in April, 2002. It was there that the author, with his partner and children, in the heat of resistance, saw a beginning of a new left that would build a new global movement. McNally says, “It is written in the conviction that another world of freedom, justice and human cooperation is possible.” It is also good to read what some may consider yet another book on this subject by a Canadian Read more [...]

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McKay, Paul. Atomic Accomplice: How Canada deals in deadly deceit. 2009. Canada.

“ ´Follow the money´ is an axiom at the heart of investigative journalism…This book follows the atoms. Or more precisely, it audits the trail of Canadian fissile elements, sensitive materials, reactor sales and laboratory secrets which have abetted the global proliferation of atomic and hydrogen bombs.” Journalist Paul McKay has done his homework and reveals all in this comprehensive but easy to read exposé of our nuclear history. Add another bag of nails to the coffin of Canada´s image as “a nice peace loving country”. (Yves Read more [...]

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Mayne, Elizabeth. A Passionate Continuity. Poetry & Illustrations. 2006. Ekstasis Editions. Victoria, BC.

“My tongue tastes pleasure, The future of change. My heart aches in the slowness of history.” This excerpt from “I Speak Again” expresses the many life long passions of Elizabeth Mayne, a Victoria resident and a visual artist who turned to expressing herself in poetry ten years ago. Her continuity of sensual passion and pleasure is for some, including the publisher, a major focus of this book, both in the poems and the drawings of fragments of men´s bodies as well as poignant renditions of women´s bodies. She loves beauty but Read more [...]

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Mast, Edward & Haithem El-Zabri. NAKBA: The Ongoing Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. USA, 2008.

“…Take a stone from our house So that our descendents Will remember their way home.” Mahmoud Darwish, from the poem Your Eyes. Described as a concise guide to history and issues, this booklet packs an amazing amount of information into 40 pages. It is firstly a Palestinian history, going back 3000 years and forward to modern times, culminating in the NAKBA, the violent expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians from their homeland in 1948 — while the world stood by, helping the Israelis or completely ignoring this ethnic cleansing. 531 villages Read more [...]

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Loney, James. CAPTIVITY: 118 days in Iraq and the struggle for a world without war. 2011. Alfred A. Knopf. Canada.

“None of us can know the measure of our lives. None of us can know what our actions might seed.” James Loney was a member of Christian Peacemaker Teams, (CPT), a group that believes that pacifists should be willing to risk their lives for their principles. A commitment that has taken him and many others to dangerous conflicts in Palestine, Iraq and 1st Nations lands in Canada. The story of his captivity in 2005–6 by a small group determined to revenge the deaths of innocent members of their families by USA military in Iraq is harrowing Read more [...]

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