Women Take the Platform Against the War

Orit Sudri

On March 8, the Platform Against the War hosted female artists, poets, and activists to mark International Women's Day. Ya'arah Shehori, poet and member of the ODA, moderated the evening before an audience of seventy.

Singer Sharon Ben Ezer, newly returned from the demonstration of the million in London, opened with an anti-war song by Joni Mitchell. She closed the event as well, this time with a new song of her own, "A Hymn to the Good Ones," among them…

those who know that in the end we will pay

for the apartheid and the walls we built to stay,

those who know that we are all Arabs too,

those who aren't afraid to stand up and refuse.

Poets Efrat Mishori and Sharron Hass read from their work. Ranin B'sharat of Nazareth performed a poem by the Turkish socialist poet Nazim Khikmat. Thespians Ruti Ben Efrat and Yishai Golan acted passages from Aristophanes' Lysistrata, in which the women of Athens go on strike, denying sexual favors to their husbands until the latter put an end to the Peloponnesian War. Lysistrata has had a remarkable revival in recent days, with more than a thousand productions worldwide.

Asma Agbarieh spoke for ODA women: "The war that is now underway has a single purpose: to perpetuate the existing order, including the most reactionary, backward regimes, above all Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Katar. In these Arab kingdoms, the condition of the Arab and Muslim woman is among the worst in the world. Here the woman still lacks the right to vote. She has no identity card, because she is forbidden to show her face. By way of contrast, the Iraqi woman has the right to work, to study, to vote and to be elected. Ah, but this is not a good example in the eyes of the American regime. Bush wants us behind the veil. So does Israel. In the wake of the Oslo Accords, the movement for the liberation of Palestine was annihilated, and in its place we got unemployment, despair and poverty. The liberation of women also came to a stop. The Palestinian woman returned to her home, becoming again a baby-production plant, which in Gaza is the only kind of factory allowed.

"In this war, the Iraqi woman will pay the main price. Again we shall learn the bitter lesson we already know: the liberation of woman will not take place, if it isn't part of a wider movement. We, the peoples of the world, must liberate ourselves from the capitalist regimes that drag us into war. "

Roni Ben Efrat, a member of the ODA secretariat, also addressed the group: "Something strange has happened. We – I mean world public opinion – have fueled Bush's motivation for this war. Why? Because we refuse to recognize America's privileged status, whereas the re-establishment of this status is precisely his motive in going to war. Thus, the more we demonstrate, the more we motivate Bush to fight. We are his enemy. He must defeat us. America's power of deterrence is at issue, and he is struggling to maintain it. It's either him or us."

In concluding her remarks, Ben Efrat put the question: "Can a protest movement stop wars? Unfortunately, the answer is No. We can only stop wars if we seize the reins of power. We shall have to get control of budgets, changing them to budgets of peace. We shall have to change the system from one that functions for the sake of profit to one that functions for the common good. We shall have to translate the protest movement into political parties that are willing and able to challenge the regime itself. The way will be long. It leads through and beyond the coming war. International Women's Day is a good day to begin." n

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