“We dwell in many homes on earth, the dearest is the place of birth.”
By Theresa Wolfwood
This poetic sentence was one of many which Wadad Cortas´s father recited. He instilled in her a love of the Arabic language, Arabic culture and a deep love of her birth place. Her parents also believed in the education and rights of women. Cortas was well–educated and widely travelled. She was a perceptive observer of her own and other worlds; fortunately she recorded many of her reflections and memories that became the substance of this memoir.
Wadad Read more [...] Author Archives: Theresa Wolfwood. Director, The Barnard-Boecker Centre Foundation
Cortas, Wadad Makdisi. A WORLD I LOVED. 2009. NATION BOOKS, NY, USA.
“We dwell in many homes on earth, the dearest is the place of birth.”
By Theresa Wolfwood
This poetic sentence was one of many which Wadad Cortas´s father recited. He instilled in her a love of the Arabic language, Arabic culture and a deep love of her birth place. Her parents also believed in the education and rights of women. Cortas was well–educated and widely travelled. She was a perceptive observer of her own and other worlds; fortunately she recorded many of her reflections and memories that became the substance of this memoir.
Wadad Read more [...] Comments Off on Cortas, Wadad Makdisi. A WORLD I LOVED. 2009. NATION BOOKS, NY, USA.
Filed under Book Reviews, Wadad Makdisi Cortas
Corry, Stephen. TRIBAL PEOPLES for tomorrow’s world. 2011. Freeman Press Publication. UK.
“First they make us destitute by taking away our land, our hunting and our way of life. Then they say we are nothing because we are destitute.” Jumanda Gakelebone, Botswansa
Stephen Corry is the director of the UK based organization, Survival International; the group and he are committed to supporting indigenous, tribal peoples all over the globe. Corry has decades of experience as an anthropologist and a rights defender and he is passionate about his tribal friends. To learn more and to join this organization see: www.survivalinternational.org
When Read more [...] Comments Off on Corry, Stephen. TRIBAL PEOPLES for tomorrow’s world. 2011. Freeman Press Publication. UK.
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Cook, Jonathan. BLOOD AND RELIGION: THE UNMASKING OF THE JEWISH AND DEMOCRATIC STATE. Pluto Press, 2006. London, UK.
This book presents the background information that plainly shows that Israel´s much promoted image as a “benevolent democratic state” no longer has credibility at home or globally.
There are many reasons for this including the treatment of the Palestinian minority who live behind a ´glass wall´. Cook writes, “The glass wall like –like the “iron wall” is designed to intimidate and silence its captive Palestinian population; but unlike the iron wall it conceals the nature of the subjugation…”Thus Israel has tried through Read more [...] Comments Off on Cook, Jonathan. BLOOD AND RELIGION: THE UNMASKING OF THE JEWISH AND DEMOCRATIC STATE. Pluto Press, 2006. London, UK.
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Collen, Lindsey. THE RAPE of SITA. 1995. Heinemann Publishers. UK.
It starts with a poem full of questions that resonated in my thoughts as I read this wonderful story and forced me to examine my own behaviour and actions.
“What action for you
...Will this act
Would be moral
Make history progress
Would be true
Or allow us
Would be good
To slip back
Would be right?
Into the mud of the past?...”
Recently I ´met´ Lindsey Collen on a conference call and although I knew her interesting letters in New Internationalist, I was not aware of her novels. I immediately found Read more [...]
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Collen, Lindsey. MUTINY. 2002. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, UK.
This is another gripping story of women from the Mauritian writer of The Rape of Sita. If that book was in lush forest colours, this tense drama, set in a prison as cyclones approach, is stark black and white overshadowed by a sky of deep intense mauve of the impending tempest. The tension builds inside as the cyclone nears outside.
Three women are thrown together in a gaol cell. At first, suspicious and unfriendly to each other, they gradually develop friendship and support. They talk about their varied experiences; not too different from Read more [...] Comments Off on Collen, Lindsey. MUTINY. 2002. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, UK.
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Cockburn, Cynthia. The Space Between Us: Negotiating Gender & National Identities in Conflict. ZED books, London, UK and New York, USA. 1998.
Case Studies of how women in major conflict zones, in Ireland, Israel/Palestine and Yugoslavia have come together to work together peacefully.
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Coates, Ken. EMPIRE NO MORE! …and the Lion and Wolf shall cease. 2004. Spokesman for the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, UK.
This morning on radio, I heard a USA government lawyer proclaim the intention to grant no rights to foreigners in the USA, warning us we may be subject to detention without any contact, food deprivation and various forms of abuse, even if we are in the transit area of an airport. She ended her speech with the blatant statement (lie) that the USA does not torture.
I felt a chill as I realized I may never again see my friends in the USA who are too frail to travel, that I cannot visit or meet with the many committed activists who are trying Read more [...]
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Clarke, Tony. Inside the Bottle: An Expose of the Bottled Water Industry. 2005. The Polaris Institute, Ottawa, ON.
Inside The Bottle: An Expose of the Bottled Water Industry tells us that bottled water is relatively new to Canada - it was introduced by the big corporations, like Nestle, from Europe. Then the cola companies, seeing their sales of sugary soft drinks stagnate as a result of health concerns, got into this profit able market. They had the great advantage, Clarke says, of already owning the facilities and having almost free access to municipal water (just like us, they can take it from the tap!) In Canada, 20% of drinking water is now bottled; its Read more [...] Comments Off on Clarke, Tony. Inside the Bottle: An Expose of the Bottled Water Industry. 2005. The Polaris Institute, Ottawa, ON.
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Churchill, Ward. A LITTLE MATTER OF GENOCIDE: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas 1492 to the Present 1997. City Lights Books, USA.
Churchill, an enrolled Cherokee, is an activist in the American Indian Movement, a professor and a prolific author of many books and articles on the aboriginal peoples of the Americas. This book is well documented and has exhaustive references and bibliography.
His main thesis is clear and unequivocally stated: the crime of genocide does not belong to any one group, that is has been perpetrated on many groups from Armenians to Romas and that the longest enduring genocide has been against the native peoples of the Americas. This genocide is denied Read more [...]
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Chomsky, Noam. Hegemony or Survival: The Imperialist Strategy of the United States. Metropolitan Books. NY, USA. Several editions, subtitles & publishers.
I don’t often review a best seller, but that is what this book by Chomsky has become recently. Although well known to political activists and students of political thought around the world, Chomsky, prolific and active as he is, has never been a popular best seller. That has changed with Hugo Chavez recommending this book to the world at the UN General Assembly.
He said. “It’s an excellent book to help us understand what has been happening in the world throughout the 20th century, and what's happening now, and the greatest threat looming Read more [...] Comments Off on Chomsky, Noam. Hegemony or Survival: The Imperialist Strategy of the United States. Metropolitan Books. NY, USA. Several editions, subtitles & publishers.
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Chambers, Carole. Still Life Under The Occupation. & Echolocation. 2002. Thistledown Press. Saskatoon, SK 1988. Quadrant Editions. Toronto, ON & 2002. Thistledown Press, Saskatoon, SK.
“…any every tide teaches the lesson/impressions of water on sand/and then erases it/ to make this garden/you must stay here.”
from Garden in sand. P 19 - Still Life under the Occupation.
The best of poetry is rooted in place and passion; for Carole Chambers her passion is the place. She lives and writes on an island off the east coast of Vancouver Island. Hornby Island is a very special place of sea and ever changing sky and lush green and secret crannies. I live there part time and first met Carole at her day job in the post office. She Read more [...] Comments Off on Chambers, Carole. Still Life Under The Occupation. & Echolocation. 2002. Thistledown Press. Saskatoon, SK 1988. Quadrant Editions. Toronto, ON & 2002. Thistledown Press, Saskatoon, SK.
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Carter, Laurel Anne. The Shepherd’s Granddaughter. Groundwood Books. 2008. Toronto ON.
“…My name, Amani, means wishes/ but I have only one. /My blood is mixed with/ the soil of our land/ and I will never leave.”
Written for students in Grades 7–8 this is the story of a girl who wants to be a shepherd in Palestine where education is esteemed and girls are not expected to watch sheep in lonely pastures. But Amani prefers the pastures to classroom and the company of her dog to urbanized school girls. The story reveals the conflict within a family; religious, gender and traditional roles are all part of the story. But after Read more [...]
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