Original Message From: Mazin Qumsiyeh: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://justicewheels.org
Before it was commercialized, Mother's day in the Anglo-Saxon world originated as a declaration by mothers against war and for peace. Mother's day occurs on a different date in Western Asia and also appropriately celebrates the coming of Spring- symbolisms for giving and new births. Below is the original PEACE declaration by Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) for the first Mother's Day in the West. I also share below a video tape to view on this occasion (thanks to Lysander Puccio for sending this). Like all people, I honor my mother on this day. The lessons she taught me shaped my life but this is not enough. When I was 6 years old, my first memories are of her taking clothes and food to a refugee family living in a cave on the outskirts of Bethelehem. When I was 10 year old during the 1967 Israeli invasion of what remained of Palestine, my memories are of her dissuading people from leaving. After retiring from serving 30 years as school teacher and then principal of an elementary school, she decided retirement is too boring, went back to get a BS in English and then returned to teach for a few more years. She is still active in civic affairs and she was canvassing and volunteering in other ways in the last elections in the West Bank. Like all Palestinians under Israeli apartheid system, she cannot even travel to Jerusalem or to the Mediterranean or to the Dead Sea (were I have fond memories of shoppings and picnics). That is not unusual since dozens of Palestinian mothers lost their children and some their lives delivering babies at checkpoints and apartheid wall gates. It is not unusual since Palestinian mothers lost their lives simply standing in the balconies of their homes (see e.g. the killing of Shaden Abu Hijleh, mother, grandmother, peace activist, feminist: http://www.remembershaden.org/ It is not unusual since the director of Military Intelligence, Major General Aharon Ze'evi (Farkash) once declared "Better Palestinian mothers should cry and not Jewish mothers" (see: http://www.fromoccupiedpalestine.org/node/945 ). For more on the current life and thoughts of Palestinian mothers, check out this blog of a Palestinian mother: http://a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com/ And our thoughts are with Iraqi & American mothers who suffered due to the endless wars to serve special interests. This is a letter from an Iraqi mother to mothers of Americans killed in Fallujah: http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/article.php?id=4271 On this mothers day, indeed we should honor our mothers with a hearty thank you but we do far better by honoring all mothers and implementing their original Mother's day proclamation: MOTHER'S DAY PROCLAMATION by Julia Ward Howe Arise, Then, Women of this Day! Arise, all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be of water or of tears! Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after his own time the sacred impress not of Caesar, but of God. In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects,to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlementof international questions, the great and general interests of peace."" Videotape on Mother's day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtzAwo1HU2w Mazin Qumsiyeh http://qumsiyeh.org http://justicewheels.org http://endtheoccupation.org http://academicsforjustice.org http://pac-national.org No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. 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