“Perhaps the person who appreciated [Joan Hinton] the least, even less so than Fengfeng, was the guy in charge of security in the village, Wang Yuwen, the chief of police. Standing obliviously on a hill with the family, explaining seriously that there were certain things that women just couldn’t do, he suddenly found himself grabbed by the ankles and thrown to the ground.
The enormity of the loss of face that Joan caused the chief of police with her Shady Hill style wrestling technique is difficult to measure. Suffice to say that some 20 years later, when Joan and Sid returned to Dazhai to visit old friends, Wang Yuwen was still completely stone faced when the story was recounted to the amusement of everyone else in the room.”
NEW YORK TIMES
June 11, 2010
By WILLIAM GRIMES Joan Hinton, a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, which developed the atom bomb, but spent most of her life as a committed Maoist working on dairy farms in China, died on Tuesday, June 8, 2010, in Beijing. She was 88.
The cause has not yet been determined, but she had an abdominal aneurysm, her son Bill Engst said.
Ms. Hinton was recruited for the Manhattan Project in February 1944 while still a graduate student in physics at the University of Wisconsin. At the secret laboratory at Los Alamos, N.M., where she worked with Enrico Fermi, she was assigned to a team that built two reactors for testing enriched uranium and plutonium.
Mirages d’un Eldorado, un film de Martin Frigon, produit par Lucie Pageau des Productions Multi-Monde (notre maison de production): des compagnies minières canadiennes menace un écosystème fragile au Chili: dimanche le 23 mai @ 20h00 et rediffusion le 24 mai @ 23h25 à Télé-Québec http://is.gd/clcxU
Great article about Cuba in April 2010 issue of Monthly Review
I just finished the article, “How to see Socialism”, by Richard Levins in the April 2010 issue of Monthly Review and I enthusiastically recommend it to anyone who is interested in Cuba or in the building of socialism. Levins challenges readers to set aside the Western liberal lens when looking at Cuba, and invites them to see the features of a society struggling to build new relations. He offers insights which give the reader greater understanding of phenomena often criticized by visitors, even sympathetic ones, who lack the background or knowledge to contextualize what they observe or have heard.
In particular, Levins’ explanations of the functioning of democracy in Cuba, the elections, the top-down, bottom-up relationship, the consensus-building, the role of the media, of unions, of planning, reveal the accomplishments as well as the challenges facing a society in revolutionary transformation. An inspiring and stimulating read full of lessons and hope!
It is April 12 again, three years to the day that our friend Luing – Luisa Posa Dominado – was abducted by armed men, along with her companion Nilo Arado, and never heard of since. The driver of their van, human rights activist Leeboy Garachico, was shot in the neck and left for dead. For three years, there has been no news of the wherabouts of Luing and Nilo, despite the continuing protests, legal proceedings, mobilisations and campaigns for justice. Family, friends and comrades have marked her birthdays and anniversaries and have spent many tears and frustrations.
But Luing was among us once again thanks to the recent book, Pagtatagpo sa Kabilang Dulo: Panitikang Testimonial ng Desaparecidos, in which an interview done with her ten years before her disappearance by Filipino-American academic and friend Delia Aguilar was published for the first time. And we would like to share this discovery with you.
Aguilar’s introduction and description of Luing captured the essence of the revolutionary woman she embodied, and we would like to quote:
“Luing’s life has been an extraordinary one, an exemplar of dedication to the highest ideals of a people struggling for genuine independence and a more humane social order. Luing speaks for herself here in a way that is at once starkly simple and powerfully eloquent. Even so, I want to remark on her steadfast commitment, her “durabilty”, as she puts it. I asked her a rather naive question about her previous involvement in Makibaka ( a women’s organization founded in 1970) suggesting how, because of this, young women might view her as a role model. But it is neither Makibaka nor the teachers’ union nor any women’s group she has associated with that speaks to her gendered commitment. It is, instead, the complete absence of the slightest hint of self-importance in the telling of her life story that I find most compelling, something I have countenanced only in revolutionary women. This is not to speak of self-denial, or a weak sense of self. It is the opposite: here is someone – a woman, and to me this is key – who has come to an understanding of herself and the world around her in a way that has empowered her to give, and to give with neither the demands for praise or tribute nor the claims of sacrifice.”
Aguilar’s interview with Luing, revealed the accuracy of her description.
Aguilar: This label “Commander Posa”, you became a legend, didn’t you? Do you think that had an effect on women then, especially since you were in Makibaka? Does this have an effect on women today?
Luing: (laughs) this is only my impression, and I can’t really say for sure because I’m not that involved in work with women at the moment. My impression is that in U(niversity of the) P(hilippines) and in other circles around here, if they need someone brave to speak up. (…) Whenever they need to call on someone they consider “courageous” (laughs) to speak, they invite me. I have opportunities to speak to various sectors like women, the urban poor, the peasants. I’m not sure (long pause), but probably people’s initial impression is what they’d heard about me. Maybe once they see me, they realize that the myth of Commander Posa is hard to believe. (Laughs).
You see, the women who up to now have remained legends in Iloilo are the combattants; for example Teresa Magbanua, Waling-waling.
Aguilar: But that was an earlier era. For the current period it’s you.
Luing: But as for women like myself, maybe the people can see for themselves that we’re not really capable or up to that. (Laughs). Maybe it’s just a matter of durability, that I spent more years of my life inside the movement than outside.
I joined at age 16, and now I’m 44. So the greater part of my life has been in the movement. Even in my family that’s the same impression. In the beginning they were just tolerating my participation in the movement because they couldn’t do much else. They couldn’t convince me to quit. They were simply waiting for the time that I’d tire myself out. But in time I think they began to see that since I remained resolute, maybe that drew even just empathy with the cause. My guess is that if I weakened, the effect on them would have been different.
So maybe that’s the same effect on other people. It’s probably not so much the “legend” they’ve heard about, but what they see in you, that you still keep on going.”
The interview is filled with many other thoughtful insights from Luing and is a revealing reflection of the period – 1999, a period following the turmoil and change in the movement to which she devoted her life. Her interview reveals some of the lessons drawn from struggles that had rocked the movement, and the steadfastness of her own commitment.
The movement is alive and well, as this entire book shows. It is filled with testimonials, poems, tributes, stories, including the writings of Luing’s two wonderful daughters, MayWan and Tamara, along with those of the families and relatives of so many others – Leo Velasco, James Balao, Jonas Burgos, Karen Empeno – men, women who had such an important impact on those around them whose ‘life blood is trickling into people’s consciousness’, as Bebing, another friend of Luing says.
Another good friend, Aya Santos, a spokesperson for Desaparecidos, writes to her father thus: “Along the way, while searching for you, I have encountered others who are also searching for their son, daughter, brother, sister, mother, father or even both parents…. We understand each other’s feelings: we know how painful it is to long for missing parents. We share the same rage against your abductors and their bosses and this repressive system. (…) We are the children of the Desaparecidos. We are also the chidren whose parents have fought for their principles and have served the oppressed.”
Rose Arado, the wife of Nilo Arado, who was abducted at the same time as Luing, writes on their wedding anniversary: “I cannot light a dinner candle for two and embrace you tightly. This night will be cold, but I will just keep the flame of courage burning in my heart to give me the strength each day as I wait eagerly for your safe return. (…) When you opted to live a life with the oppressed, just like Luisa, you knew the consequence of being tagged a communist, terrorist, a destabiliser, a threat to the society. This is the price of being faithful to the cause of building a just and humane society. This is truly a nobel endeavour. And I have never regretted that we are together in this cause. And until that night of April 12, when some unidentified armed men forcibly abducted you and Luisa, I almost couldn’t believe that we are now starting to face the fascist attacks of this regime. (…) My love, on this day, I will make a vow to myself. I am reaffirming my love to you as my husband, as the father of DM, and as my comrade in the service of the people.”
The testimonials, most in Tagalog and a few in English, are an inspirational read and leave one filled with hope, and the conviction that the truth cannot be snuffed out by killing those that dare to say it, that on the contrary, it spreads all the more like fire or a virus. Fan the fire! Catch the truth!
Published by the group Desaparecidos and the Amado V. Hernandez Resource Center, the book, Pagtatagpo sa Kabilang Dulo: Panitikang Testimonial ng Desaparecidos, is available from those organizations and in Canada from the Centre for Philippine Concerns in Montreal.
Marie Boti and Malcolm Guy
Montréal, April 12, 2010
See our short film about Luing and the disappeared:
Congratulations go out to our dear colleague and friend, Michelle Smith, who successfully defended her Master of Communications Thesis at Concordia University on Tuesday, April 6, 2010.
Her thesis, "I’m Métis because I say that I am: Constructing Collaborative Autoethnographies" was the result of over two years research and work, and part of Michelle’s own exploration of her Métis roots. The multi-disciplinary thesis, which included an experimental film, a written dissertation, and a youth video creation workshop resulting in a series of short films by Métis students, is groundbreaking in both form and content. Her thesis committee was enthusiastic in accepting it.
Hearty congratulations to Michelle from M&M!
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Michelle Smith réussi sa défense de mémoire
Félicitations à notre chère collègue et amie Michelle Smith, qui vient de réussir la défense de son mémoire pour la Maitrise en Communications à l’Université Concordia le mardi, le 6 avril 2010!
Son mémoire, intitulé "I’m Métis because I say that I am: Constructing Collaborative Autoethnographies"(Je suis Métis parce que je le dit: La construction d’une autoenthnographie collaborative) est le résultat de deux années de recherche et de travail. Il est aussi le résultat d’une démarche personnelle de Michelle pour explorer ses propres racines de Métis. Le mémoire multi-disciplinaire incluait un court métrage vidéo expérimental, une dissertation écrite, et un atelier de formation video donné par Michelle à un groupe de jeunes Métis de Winnipeg, aboutissant en une collection de courts métrages.
Son mémoire est innovateur tant dans sa forme que dans son contenue. Le Comité d’examen l’a accueilli avec enthousiasme.
We are political activists and filmmakers in Montréal, Québec. For a number of years we have shared our thoughts and opinions mostly through our activist film making. But the films take a long time to produce and we go through such an intense rich process to make them… we thought it might be fun to share our thoughts and experiences along the way.
Joan Hinton, a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, which developed the atom bomb, but spent most of her life as a committed Maoist working on dairy farms in China, died on Tuesday, June 8, 2010, in Beijing. She was 88.
But Luing was among us once again thanks to the recent book, Pagtatagpo sa Kabilang Dulo: Panitikang Testimonial ng Desaparecidos, in which an interview done with her ten years before her disappearance by Filipino-American academic and friend Delia Aguilar was published for the first time. And we would like to share this discovery with you.