What the Ladies Have to Say
Voices of Women Activists in Palestine, Indonesia, and the Philippines
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TW: human trafficking, war, homophobia, violence
First published in 2006, this features interviews with female activists throughout the countries of Palestine, Indonesia, and The Phillipines. They converse about U.S. imperialism, feminism, oppression, solidarity with each other, and prisoners.
What the Ladies Have to Say is a zine I found at a local art center near me.
This was interesting in that it gave first hand accounts of what was happening in Palestine, Indonesia, and The Philipines from people working in activism at the time. While the information is from 20 years ago, it is still relevant today and, in fact, more important than ever. It also gives a first person point of view, a ‘on-the-ground’ view of activists working on these disparate issues.
From gender issues, to human trafficking, sexuality, violence against oppressed peoples, and genocide (please read the tw and be kind to yourself!), this collection brings people first. For American readers, there also is a question of what we can do to help at the ends of each interview.
Here’s a link to a document of fundraisers by LTP!
Further reading:
I wanted to recomend another zine but I haven’t read that many so if you have any reccomendations I’d love to hear them.
Quotes:
“Trafficking is not just an aberration of migration. It is actually a very political issue, because it speaks about the conditions of women. It’s very much a gender issue too because, much more often than not, the person being trafficked is a woman, or a child.”
“I believe that our struggle is your struggle, and your struggle is our struggle… It’s not just the struggle of Indonesian people, but of many people all over the world who support our struggle in Indonesia.”
“Or, if you have a little token lesbian side love story, one of them always conveniently dies in the end… there is a real need to change the perceptions, put a face to who we really are, what we really do.”
“First of all, they can stop calling us, or thinking of us as, terrorists, people who love blood, and they can start to think of us as.. not victims.. But to think of the Palestinian people as fellow human beings. But I’m calling for a position that takes into account a diginified life for the Palestinians… So this is what I’m asking the American people to do, and to stop supplying Israelis with weapons that they use against Palestinian people.”