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#womensliberation

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One of the best depictions of the Spanish Revolution and Civil War of 1936-39, and IMO, one of the best cinematic depictions of revolution period, Libertarias. Showing the anarchist 'Free Women' who fought on the frontlines against the fascistic Nationalist army uprising, side by side with their male comrades.

TW: Violence and Sexual Violence

archive.org/details/libertaria

"And don't you ever stand for that sort of thing. Someone ever tries to kill you, you try to kill'em right back.

Look, wife or no, you are no one's property to be tossed aside. You got the right, same as anyone, to live and try to kill people. I mean ... you know ... people that are ...

... That's a ... that's a dumb planet."

Mal Reynolds, #Firefly, s01e06

Continued thread

Nguyễn Thị Bình is a granddaughter of the Nationalist leader Phan Chu Trinh. She grew up in a land that had been under French rule since 1858. The country’s resources were plundered, & the people exploited as cheap labour & reduced to grinding poverty. So determined were the French to maintain their colonial hold at any cost, they collaborated in power-sharing with Japanese #fascist #occupiers who brought horror & starvation from 1940-1945.

Despite this, led by the #VietMinh Front, people of Vietnam triumphed in the #AugustRevolution of 1945 & the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam (DRV) was declared on September 2nd. Democratic elections took place in January 1946 but French troops, with the open support of the US & Britain, attacked the new Viet Minh administration in the south of the country & the #WarOfResistance against #France began.

Binh studied French at Lycée Sisowath in Cambodia & worked as a teacher during the #French #colonisation of Vietnam. She joined #VietnamCommunistParty in 1948. Upon joining, she immediately began work as a #grassroots #AntiColonial organiser. From 1945-1951, she took part in intellectual protest movements against French #colonists. She was arrested & jailed between 1951-1953 in #Saigon by the French #colonial authority in Vietnam. She was repeatedly interrogated under torture & sentenced to death but was reprieved & released in very poor health in 1954.

Upon release from prison, Binh went north to work in #Hanoi for the National #WomensUnion. Her job took her to many localities where she witnessed first-hand the impact of #colonialism & the French War on ordinary people & especially women & children.

1954 was a year of victory for the Vietnamese army. The defeated French were forced to sign the #GenevaAccords recognising the independence, sovereignty & unity of Vietnam. The country was temporarily split in two at the 17th parallel, with the French moving to the south from which they would withdraw, while the Viet Minh went to the north. A general election for the government of a united country was to follow within 2 years.

But it never happened. The #USA came centre stage to ensure that the Accords were never implemented. Driven by strategic interests in the region, it made sure that Vietnam stayed divided – preventing an election that would have swept Ho Chi Minh to power with 80% support, while bankrolling & controlling the reactionary #regime of Diem-Nhu south of the 17th parallel. This regime violently suppressed all opposition, executing of thousands of Viet Minh supporters & condemning hundreds of thousands to concentration camps and prisons.

In response, the NLF (for liberation of South Vietnam & unification) was formed in 1960. Nguyen Thi Chau Sa was assigned to the Foreign Affairs Section of its Re-unification Committee & given the name Nguyen Thi Binh (Peace). From 1962 onwards, her high-profile diplomatic work, took her across the world. She represented the aspirations of the people of Vietnam in every country & forum she visited, while the world’s strongest #imperialist power made all-out war on her small country.

During the #VietnamWar, she became a member of the #Vietcong Central Committee and a vice-chairperson of the South Vietnamese #WomensLiberation Association. In 1969 she was appointed foreign minister of the Provisional #Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam. A fluent French speaker, Bình played a major role in the #ParisPeaceAccords - an agreement that was supposed to end the war & restore peace in Vietnam.

She was expected to be replaced by a male Vietcong representative after preliminary talks, but became one of the group's most visible international public figures. During this time, she was famous for representing Vietnamese women with her elegant & gracious style, and was referred to by the media as "Madame Bình". She was also referred to as the "Viet Cong Queen" by Western media.

After the war, she was appointed Minister of Education of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam from 1982-1986; the first female minister ever in the history of Vietnam. Binh was a member of the Central Committee of Vietnam's Communist Party from 1987-1992. She was the Deputy Chair of the Party's Central Foreign Affairs Commission & Chair of the National Assembly's Foreign Affairs Committee. The National Assembly elected her twice to position of Vice President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam for the terms 1992–1997 & 1997–2002.

Bình has authored several op-eds, including a one on the state newspaper Nhân Dân in which she voiced concerns that the current personnel policy of the Communist Party of Vietnam have allowed some "incompetent and opportunistic" individuals to enter the party's apparatus. She also criticized the Party's focus on increasing membership at the expense of "quality."

From March 2009-2014, she served as a member of the support committee of #RussellTribunal on #Palestine.

Madame Bình became a source of inspiration & namesake for Madame Binh Graphics Collective, a #RadicalLeft all-women poster, printmaking, & street art collective based in NYC from 1970s-1980s.
Many Americans in the #AntiWar movement were proud to wear T-shirts printed with the portrait of "Madame Binh". By then, she had become a symbol for female soldiers of the legitimacy of Vietnam's efforts.

Madame Bình has been awarded many prestigious awards & honours, including the Order of Ho Chi Minh & Resistance Order (First Class). In 2021, President of Vietnam Nguyễn Xuân Phúc awarded her the 75-year Party Membership Commemorative Medal.
To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam, the Government of Vietnam commissioned the official portraits for 12 former foreign ministers from 1945-2020. Nguyễn Thị Bình was included among them as the only South Vietnamese foreign minister & the only woman.

Ref: Nguyen Thi Binh". Northeastern Dictionary of Women's Biography (3rd ed.). Boston: Northeastern University Press. 1999. ISBN 978-1-55553-421-9

Ref: Triantafillou, Eric (3 May 2012). "Graphic Uprising". The Brooklyn Rail. 

Ref: russelltribunalonpalestine.com

Ref: Hy V. Luong (2003), Postwar Vietnam: dynamics of a transforming society, Rowman & Littlefield, ISBN 0847698653

Social media all abuzz about about goofy 2003 high school yearbook photo of JD Vance (then JD Hamel) in boy's bathroom with three girls pretending to pee at urinals. thedailybeast.com/jd-vance-pos
Historical context for younger folks: iconic 1971 photo by photographer Elizabeth Richter showing two men and a woman at men's room urinals, often referred to as "Urinal Brigade", a feminist / women's liberation movement statement. collections.museumca.org/?q=co

The Daily Beast · JD Vance Poses in Bathroom With Three Girls at Urinals in Unearthed PhotoBy Owen Lavine

I recently read "The Revolutionary Science of Marxism-Leninism" by J. Sykes, published by #FRSO (Freedom Road Socialist Organization) and I found it to be an excellent entry-level text to #ScientificSocialism. It's very approachable and easy to read for any leftist and, I believe, is quite persuasive in it's argument for embracing #DialecticalMaterialism and #HistoricalMaterialsm as primary ways by which to understand and change the world. Sykes also describes the #Leninist form, organization, and inner-process of a #communist party and how that can be an effective strategy for seizing and maintaining working-class power (the #DictatorshipOfTheProletariat) as we advance into the #socialist stage of human development. Those are perhaps the most commonly expected and basic topics, but he also delves into the #MarxistTheoryOfKnowledge, #PoliticalEconomy, #Imperialism, the #NationalQuestion involving the oppressed nations within the US, #WomensLiberation, and #QueerLiberation. I think this is a must read for anyone who considers themselves on the #Left and desires a deeper understanding of our world!

Idaho well on the way to criminalizing interstate travel in aid of minors seeking abortion without parental permission. This bill is pure patriarchal misogyny, aiming to enhance the authority of men in the household at the expense of the the freedom and wellbeing of young women. forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/ #AbortionRights #Women #WomensLiberation #patriarchy #Misogyny

ForbesIdaho Abortion Bill Could Be First Ban On Interstate Travel For ProcedureBy Alison Durkee

A Texas lawsuit vividly shows how abortion bans cause women excruciating pain and even death. Plaintiffs argue that the Texas law inequitably deprives women of the rights to life and liberty without due process of law, contravening the state constitution.

Tough to read about the preventable suffering endured by the women who brought the suit, but absolutely necessary to face it. This link provides gift access: wapo.st/3SZVJwI #Women #WomensLiberation #AbortionRights

The Washington PostDetails in a lawsuit against Texas’s abortion ban shock the conscienceBy Jennifer Rubin

One of my favorite images from the fight for national suffrage for women in the US, taken in 1917, outside the White House. Lucy Burns, co-founder of the National Woman’s Party, and Dora Lewis, hold a banner claiming Woodrow Wilson is lying to Russia’s envoys by claiming the US is a democracy when it denies suffrage to millions — all women. Burns died in 1966, which I mention to highlight how recently women gained any political rights in the U.S. at all. #history #women #womensLiberation

Replied in thread

archive.org/details/africanwom

African Women in Revolution by Wunyabari O. Maloba

Topics
#Africa, #Africanhistory, #antiimperialism, #armedstruggle, #antiblackness, #anticolonialism, #nationalliberation, #Algeria, #Kenya, #GuineaBissau, #revolution, #Mozambique, #Angola, #Zimbabwe, #SouthAfrica, #history, #feminism, #decolonisation, #womensliberation, #guerrillawarfare, #genderhistory

"This book is an ambitious, extensive and detailed analysis of the roles played by African women in seven revolutionary movements in post World War II Africa. The revolutionary movements covered in this book occurred in: Algeria, Kenya, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. The book describes and analyzes the nature and impact of women's participation in these revolutionary movements. How did these revolutionary movements define women's liberation? What is the linkage between feminist theories of liberation and national liberation? Did the national liberation movements betray women? And what has been the fate of the original commitments (and impulses) toward women's liberation and gender equality?"

Internet ArchiveAfrican Women in Revolution : Wunyabari O. Maloba : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet ArchiveThis book is an ambitious, extensive and detailed analysis of the roles played by African women in seven revolutionary movements in post World War II Africa....