Feminism & war conference condemns U.S. imperialism

Some 1,000 women and men, including many young people, defied torrential rain to fill the chapel at Syracuse University Oct. 19 for a forum that kicked off a conference on “Feminism & War.”

Left to right, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Berta Joubert-Ceci, Nellie Bailey, LeiLani Dowell. Photo: Jenna Lloyd

Featured speakers that night included antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in the war against Iraq, and anti-militarist author Cynthia Enloe. The crowd applauded when Sheehan said President George W. Bush is a war criminal who should be locked up and never see the light of day.

During the question and answer session, those in the audience, including working-class individuals, expressed deep frustration with the war. One young man asked: “I work two jobs and my mother works three. How do we stop the war?”

The conference, which continued through Oct. 21, addressed that question with a combination of academic and activist panels and speakers. Plenary speakers included prison abolition activist and former Black Panther Angela Davis; former African National Congress member Patricia McFadden; and Margo Okazawa-Rey, who had just returned from a year of working in the Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling in Palestine.

Professor Shahnaz Khan of Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada, presented a comprehensive view of how Afghan women’s lives had worsened catastrophically since that country’s secular socialist government was overthrown in 1979 through CIA machinations.

Academic panels ranged from presentations on anti-militarist organizing to sessions on feminism and disability in wartime, as well as the effects of neocolonial and imperialist occupation. In a focused discussion group, women of color veterans spoke out for peace; they were joined by male veterans as well.

Activist panels included representatives from local Syracuse organizations, including from Vera House, the domestic violence and sexual assault shelter, and from the local Muslim, African American, and Latin@ communities.

Particularly well received was the panel called “Every Bomb Dropped on Iraq Falls on U.S. Cities.” Speaking on the impact of imperialist war on women within the United States were Nellie Hester Bailey of the Harlem Tenants Council, Berta Joubert-Ceci of the International Action Center-Philadelphia, and LeiLani Dowell of FIST—Fight Imperialism, Stand Together. The panel’s title was based on a phrase from the 1971 Riverside Church speech by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Every bomb dropped on Viet Nam falls on Harlem.”

Anti-war political currents present included Code Pink, Global Women’s Strike, Gold Star Families for Peace, the International Action Center (New York and Philadelphia), School of the Americas Watch, United for Peace and Justice, and Veterans for Peace. An antiwar rally organized by the Syracuse Peace Council drew 200 people on Oct. 20 outside the conference venue.

An ad hoc committee presented the conference with a call to “End U.S. Wars Now!” The statement read in part: “The pretext of ‘the rights of women’ has been and is being used by the current U.S. administration to justify its wars of aggression. We, participants at the 2006 Feminism and War conference ... condemn the neocolonial, racist, and imperialist wars launched by the U.S. ... We are in solidarity with all who are suffering from the consequences of U.S. and U.S.-funded military aggression.”

The 450 conference attendees overwhelmingly endorsed the call to action.

Minnie Bruce Pratt was an organizer of the Feminist & War conference and a speaker in its closing session.