Eerder gepubliceerd op 10-2-2013 op de blogsite van ATRIA – Kennisinstituut voor emancipatie en vrouwengeschiedenis door Ineke van Mourik (bibliothecaris).
Wereldwijd gaan a.s.donderdag 14 februari, op Valentijnsdag, vrouwen, meisjes en mannen die met hen sympathiseren dansen om aandacht te vragen voor geweld tegen vrouwen en meisjes. Een biljoen vrouwen wil Eve Ensler op de been krijgen. Dit wordt misschien wel de grootste demonstratie ooit gehouden tegen het grootste onrecht dat er bestaat.
De cijfers liegen er niet om en degenen die die cijfers bagatelliseren hebben poep in hun oog of hebben er blijkbaar belang bij de hoogst verontrustende cijfers te negeren. Gisteren bekeek ik het Youtube filmpje van 37 minuten waarin Eve Ensler haar keynote speech (NOW conference 2012) uitsprak. Het is een van de meest indrukwekkende speeches die ik ooit heb gehoord. Er zijn fragmenten in de speech die andere beroemde speeches zoals die van Martin Luther King en Obama kunnen evenaren. Een jaar oud is de toespraak, maar voor mij nu al een historisch hoogtepunt van de vrouwenstrijd.
Ik citeer hierbij enkele fragmenten in het Engels die ik uitgeschreven vond op het internet. Maar bekijk vooral de Youtube film.
Fragmenten uit de speech
We are rising because the time has come. Because we have waited too long, worked too hard, built and rebuilt and built again, and frankly I don’t want to be doing the same thing over and over when I’m 85. We’ve opened shelters and hotlines, campaigned for rights, fought for legislation, and then fought for the same legislation again and again, protected our sisters’ choice and our sisters’ bodies.
We are rising because we are done convincing and cajoling, arguing and arranging, accommodating and acquiescing.
We are rising because the future of the earth is at stake and the world economy is at stake and our right to determine our identities and destinies. The future of the body, of the earth and the bodies of women, are one and the same.
We are rising for and with the native and indigenous women who have suffered multiple violations of culture of land and bodies.
We are rising because we refuse to be pushed back to the Dark Ages where women had no control over their uteruses, vaginas, desires, sexuality, reproduction, or health.
We are rising because we are over a tiny particular group of powerful men who are unable even to say the word vagina having the chutzpah to attempt to regulate and determine our vaginas.
We are rising because 1 out of 3 women on the planet is raped and beaten, 1 out of 5 women on college campuses is raped, and 1 out of 4 teenage girls are abused.
We are rising because we are over girls being trafficked and sold and reduced and objectified.
We are rising because we are sick and tired of women being on the frontlines of every revolution from Tahrir Square and being pushed to the back at the moment of victory, marginalized and disappeared.
We are rising to stop the War on Women in America, Congo, Sudan, Haiti, Egypt, Guatemala, name a place.
We are rising to tell religious leaders and governments that the time has come to direct their energy to feeding, healing, housing the people rather than obsessing about our vaginas.
We are rising so the marginalized majority steps into equality, voice, and power.
We are rising because we are over the overregulation of women’s health clinics and women’s bodies and vaginas when those same overregulators do nothing to protect those same women when they get pregnant, when they get raped, unemployed, or sick and need moral and financial support.
We are rising because we are over those who pretend to care about our personhood and then cut funding from Planned Parenthood, which makes the health of our personhood possible.
We are rising because we are over brilliant, passionate remarks by women being called tantrums, and outspoken women being called crazy, slut, inappropriate, and lacking decorum simply because they disagree.
We are over rape culture, rape mentality, and rape jokes.
We are rising because we are over people not understanding rape is not a joke, and over being told we don’t have a sense of humor when most women I know are really fucking funny. We just don’t think an uninvited penis up our anus or vagina is a laugh riot.
We are rising because we are over 1 woman out of 3 in the US military who defend this country getting raped by their so-called comrades.
We are rising so women can stop being silent about rape because they are made to believe it’s their fault or they did something to make it happen or it’s really not that bad.
We are rising for the Violence Against Women Act to finally pass and be done once and for all! The destruction…of women is the destruction of life itself. No women, no life.
We are rising because we are over some powerful men pretending this deep love of fetuses or babies and life when really it’s a guise for their terror of our sexuality and power. If you cared so much about life, you would never ever consider letting a woman die rather than performing an abortion. You would ask the lifegivers, the women themselves, what they need and want, and you would honor their decisions and trust their decisions and believe that they were thought out carefully, with depth, because that’s how women are. And you would maybe even worship their vaginas, you would cherish the word vagina and know there’s nothing dirty or disgusting about the place where all of life comes from.
We are rising because we are over people talking about the weight of our bodies rather than responding to the weight of our ideas.
We are rising and we are calling the good men to rise with us. There are plenty of good men. You live with us, make love with us, father us, befriend us, brother us, get nurtured and nurtured and mothered and eternally supported by us, so why aren’t you standing with us? Why aren’t you driven to the point of madness and action by the rape and humiliation and censoring of us?
V-Day 2013
Het begon allemaal met het woord vagina en het grote succes van de Vagina Monologen vanaf 1994. Eve Ensler reisde met haar stuk de wereld rond en dat leidde in 1998 tot de lancering van V-Day op Valentine’s day, een gebeurtenis die uitgroeide tot een wereldwijde beweging die tot doel heeft het geweld tegen vrouwen en meisjes te stoppen. De beweging vergaarde meer dan 85 miljoen dollar voor programma’s om vrouwen hun kracht terug te geven.
Dit jaar is het motto van V-day:
One In Three Women On The Planet Will Be Raped Or Beaten In Her Lifetime.
One Billion Women Violated Is An Atrocity.
One Billion Women Dancing Is A Revolution.
Op de vraag aan Eve Ensler waarom dans wordt gebruikt als een middel voor protest, antwoordde zij: dans is de grootste vorm van revolutie. En zij citeerde daarbij de beroemde uitspraak van Emma Goldman: “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be in your revolution.”. Dansen is een uiting van kracht en uitdrukking van ons diepste zelf.
Donderdag a.s. om 15.00 uur in Amsterdam, dansen op de Dam: waar wachten we nog op?
