Women take brunt of human rights abuse: Amnesty

In no way do I see myself as a feminist but I do feel strongly that women should be in charge of African countries for a change. To nurture peace and help heal. Africa needs mothering. By great women such as:

Wangari Maathai in Kenya

Gertrude Mongella in Tanzania

Winnie Byanyima in Uganda

Last year, Bishop Desmond Tutu said women should rule the world. Media baron Ted Turner said men have made such a mess of things, women should rule fo 100 years. Note AFPs report on the latest from London-based Amnesty International. Here is a copy:

Women and girls faced "horrific" levels of abuse in 2004 worldwide, Amnesty International said in its annual human rights review, blaming widespread rape and violence on a mix of "indifference, apathy and impunity".

From honour killings carried out by the victims' families to sexual violence used as a weapon of war, abuse frequently went unpunished and survivors were often abandoned by their own communities, the London-based group said.

Amnesty said it had sought in the past year to argue that violence against women in conflict situations was "an extreme manifestation of the discrimination and abuse they face in peacetime", notably domestic violence and sexual abuse.

"When political tensions degenerate into outright conflict, all forms of violence increase, including rape and other forms of sexual violence against women."

The annual report, covering 131 countries, noted abuse across the world but highlighted several grave examples: in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), both armed groups and UN forces are guilty of rape; in Turkey, family abuse of women is widespread; in Darfur, Sudan, gang rape is systemic; and in eastern Europe, economic need fuels the trafficking of women.

In Darfur, where a local rebellion sparked a brutal government backlash, Khartoum-backed militias have staged mass rapes, including of schoolgirls, and "frequently abducted" local women into sexual slavery, Amnesty said.

Tens of thousands of women and girls were also subject to rape and sexual slavery in the DRC, and as in Darfur, victims were often then abandoned by their husbands and families, "condemning them and their children to extreme poverty".

All parties in the ongoing conflicts in the eastern DRC have committed the abuses against women, including military and police officers, and United Nations peacekeepers charged with the protection of civilians.

The two African cases were "not exceptional", Amnesty warned.

Latin America had the highest risk of all types of sexual victimisation, according to UN report findings cited by Amnesty.

In Colombia, the group said, security forces, left-wing rebels and paramilitaries targeted women and girls to "sow terror, wreak revenge on adversaries and accumulate 'trophies of war'."

In Turkey, between one-third and one-half of all women are estimated to be victims of physical violence by their families - raped, beaten, murdered or forced to commit suicide - while the country sorely lacked shelters and legal protection for victims.

Amnesty noted some progress in Ankara, with legal reforms that recognised marital rape as a crime and did away with the possibility that a rapist's prison sentence could be reduced or annulled if he agreed to marry his victim. Still, authorities largely failed to investigate most women's complaints of abuse.

Serbia and Montenegro "remained a source, transit and destination country" for women and girls who were trafficked to the West into forced prostitution, while the problem existed throughout the poorer countries of Eastern Europe.

"With clients including international police and troops, the women and girls are too afraid to escape," Amnesty said. -AFP
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Quotation

"When our resources become scarce, we fight over them. In managing our resources and in sustainable development, we plant the seeds of peace."

WANGARI MAATHAI, of Kenya, winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize.

Gertrude Mongella - The first president of the Pan-African Parliament

At last, signs of great leadership in Africa: the remarkable Gertrude Mongella, is the highest ranking elected woman in Africa. Many refer to her as Mama Mongella or Mama Beijing.

Back in 1995 Gertrude Mongella was Secretary General of the high-profile UN conference on women in Beijing, China. Since then she's worked on women's issues at home in Tanzania and around the globe. Her goal is to lift women out of poverty and into political office so they too can shape history.

In her role today as the first president of the Pan-African Parliament, Mongella is fixing her sights on the challenges facing Africa. Addressing issues like civil war and violence, to poverty and AIDS, she's a strong believer that Africa needs to find ways to help itself. During the first African Women's Forum in Accra in January 1997, she shared her vision of leadership:

"If you want to be a leader," she said, "you have to be clear what you want and what you stand for. You must stand for principle. Principle will never let you down ... You have to be able to choose what are the principles worth dying for ... And you have to add on a little sacrifice. Leadership needs a lot of sacrifice - personal and public sacrifice."



Photo: Gertrude Ibengwa Mongella, an astute diplomat, at an official function at the US Embassy in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. At present, Mongella is a member of CCM's top decision-making organ, the National Executive Committee. She is also Tanzania's Goodwill Ambassador to the World Health Organisation, a member of the Council of The Future at Unesco and the President of NGO Advocacy in Africa.

She also serves as Special Advisor to the Economic Commission of Africa as well as a member of the AU's African Women's Committee for Peace and Development. Through an NGO she formed in 1996, Advocacy for Women in Africa (AWA), she is involved in the expansion of education in Ukerewe.

Further reading:

Via theconnection.org interview. In 1996, Mama Beijing founded an NGO called Advocacy for Women in Africa (AWA), which is based in Tanzania. See Gertrude Mongella Profile.
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A dialogue with Ambassador Gertrude Mongella, President of the Pan African Parliament

Note this interesting discussion with Gertrude Mongelia hosted by SARPN and the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference, chaired by Trevor Ncube, Pretoria, 14 September 2004.

See 'We must avoid being monkeys' Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) - September 16, 2004 - AEGiS-DMG.
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No education, no life

This is one of the most heartwarming reports relating to Chad and Sudan that has appeared in the press for a long time. It makes one want to concentrate on the future of Sudan: the children. They need an education and supplies of school materials. They need to learn how to forgive but not forget. Today, I am once again weary of reading about the mess the men in Sudan are making -- and of how Sudanese women are abused and left to pick up the pieces and keep life going.

The report dated April 27, 2005 is titled "Chadian camp lacks resources but does not skimp on school" ... the source is the UN High Commissioner for Refugees - by Bernard Ntwari In Iridimi camp - God bless them:

IRIDIMI, Chad, April 27 (UNHCR) - The ritual unfolds every time someone comes to visit. Schoolgirls and boys run up to surround the visitor and recite expressions learnt in English and French: "Hello, how are you, ok," they repeat. Some are proud to show they know how to count in English while others bombard the visitor with questions.

"Our children are going to build the future. We want to secure a good education for them so that they can help change the situation in our country later," says Hassan Mahamat Juma, one of the teachers in Iridimi camp, located nearly 65 km from Chad's border with Sudan. It is one of the 11 UNHCR camps hosting 200,000 Sudanese refugees in eastern Chad.

Since Iridimi camp opened in March last year, classes have started spontaneously on the initiative of refugee teachers. Despite the lack of resources, the education system is very well organised in the camp, where school-aged children make up about 30 percent of the 17,000-strong population. There is a school in every one of the camp's 10 zones, with young refugees attending either the central school or any of the nine branch schools.

Today, buildings are being constructed to improve schooling conditions. This has made the children very happy because their lessons, which focus on the Sudanese curriculum, help them remember their former life in Sudan. UNHCR, in collaboration with its partners and particularly the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), has decided to finance this initiative to reinforce education. As part of this plan, UNICEF has just organised a training session for teachers.

"No education, no life," says Hassan, speaking not just as a teacher but also a father.

"We are satisfied with the attitude of the parents, who have proven to be reliable partners on education in the camp," says Christine Lamarque, who oversees community services for UNHCR in Iridimi. She adds that the refugees' top concern is their children's education in the camp.

The teachers are just as committed. "Most of their requests involve the supply of school materials, rather than salary increase," notes Lamarque. The devoted teachers are willing to double their workload to ensure that all registered students receive the education they deserve.

Adam Dewad Djibrin, 13, is in the third year of junior high school. He is happy not only to have passed in the upper class, and also that his brother and little sister are registered in school. "When I grow up, I will be a teacher to educate my sisters and brothers who have stayed in Sudan," he says.

"I will be a doctor when I grow up," adds another student, Oumar Fakara.

A vocational training centre will be opened in Iridimi camp to teach young refugees practical skills like sewing, shoe-repairing or woodworking. A nursery school will also be set up to promote education for little girls. Boys, too, will get the attention they need, with a new system to be established to educate those who tend to livestock for a living and thus are unable to attend school.

Give peace a chance: Make Winnie Byanyima President of Uganda

Of Winnie Byanyima, the author of nehanda dreams blog writes:

"The overawing combination of beauty, charm and simplicity belies the person that she is: a politician who has been a thorn in the side of Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni's government for the past 10 years. She grew up with the President, fought side by side with him and married his doctor-turned-enemy. Now, she wants the President's job ..."



Photo: Winnie Byanyima via report by Lillian Aluanga May 7, 2005. Excerpt:

Winnie Byanyima is a politician who has been a thorn in the side of Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni's government for the past 10 years.

She and Museveni go back a long way. They started out as friends growing up in their native Mbarara District, fought side by side in the National Resistance Army - which she joined in 1982 - and elected leaders under the National Resistance Movement.

Posted to London as high commissioner and to Paris as ambassador, Winnie returned to Uganda apparently cured of her fondness for Museveni, and married his doctor and comrade in arms, Colonel Kizza Besigye in 1999. Besigye fought a close race with Museveni in Uganda's 2001 presidential election and lost, though many said he had won. Winnie would have been the real President.

Besigye fled into exile, fearing for his life, but his wife stayed to rally the troops that had campaigned with them.

An aeronautical engineer with a masters degree in mechanical engineering, Winnie stepped down from her position as Member of Parliament for Mbarara Municipality in February, after 10 years.

The election, last week, of her successor seemed to close - if only temporarily - the chapter of her 10 years at the forefront of national politics - and to open another to a career at the continental level as director for Women, Gender and Development at the African Union in Addis Ababa.

But Winnie will not be gone from the Uganda political scene for long.

"I took time off national politics to work for African women, but I have been receiving a lot of requests from people back home who want me to contest for the Presidency in the next election.

She stops and pensively stares into the distance.

"I am reflecting on going for the presidency. If my husband is unable to return for the next election I may go for the seat since I feel the need to respond to the expectations of the people who supported us in the last election," she says.

Her voice mellows as she talks about her husband, who was forced into exile soon after he lost the 2001 election to Museveni, an election characterised by character jibes.

Seen by many as Museveni's first credible challenger to his then 15-year hold on power, Besigye once served as Museveni's physician during his stint in the bush during the armed struggle, and retired as a colonel. He later fell out with Museveni in the 1990s after accusing the National Resistance Movement of being undemocratic and corrupt.

Winnie admits that life has not been easy for her and her five-and-a-half-year-old son, Anselm Kizza Besigye, ever since her husband fled -- first to the United States then to South Africa -- owing to concerns over his safety.

"Sometimes I get to visit and spend time with him, but it has been difficult," she says. Is she afraid that her life too is in danger considering her political ambitions?

"God is my protector and so long as I live according to the laws of the land, then I have nothing to fear," she says.

Her delicate features belie the character hardened by the upheaval of fighting in a guerilla movement that ousted the remnants of former Ugandan president Milton Obote in 1986, making history as the first force on the continent to overthrow a government that had a conventional army.

A keen listener, Winnie remains protective of her family and politely declines to discuss details of her social life. She won't talk about her experiences in the NRM at the height of the struggle either, and seems a tad irritated by the 'intrusive question'.

"No. I'm sorry I cannot get into that. I'd much rather we talk about what I do and the issues I am addressing now," she says.

She defends her position on these issues as a deliberate move to 'demystify' women in leadership positions and break the 'mental blockage' that people have had about women holding high-level positions. "There is really nothing strange or special about us. I'd rather people, especially the media, focus on what we do and the issues we address in society," she says.

Winnie's resilience has helped her to not only make a mark on Uganda's political scene, but also propelled her into the limelight for her role in gender advocacy with non governmental organisations and forceful campaign against corruption.

Winnie has many firsts, among them being the first African woman to win Zonta International's Amelia Earhart Fellowship, which would have seen her working on a project that was a precursor of president Reagan's Star Wars programme. But she went into political activism instead.

She has trained politicians, civil society activists and government officials in more than 20 African and Asian countries and served on several expert and advisory panels of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Fund for Women among others. And she has sat on numerous task forces of the Millennium Project on Gender Equality besides acting as advisor to the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development and the Washington-based National Center on Research for Women.

Winnie has managed to emerge from her husband's shadow to wage her own political battles and is now eyeing the highest office in Uganda, come the next election.

Recalling the last election as 'tough', Winnie says she largely relied on educating and sensitising the public on their rights, factors that helped her win the election in Mbarara, Museveni's home turf, despite facing stiff opposition from a candidate who was largely favoured by the government.

Financial constraints

While admitting that many women political aspirants face financial constraints, she opines that governments should address the issue of political financing by enacting laws against bribery of voters.

"Women in Africa are yet to play their rightful role in politics because they remain excluded even though they have an important role to play in political decision making," she says.

"It's important to recognise that many African women come into politics without sufficient apprenticeship."

Women, she adds, face various obstacles in the political arena, depending on their starting levels.

"They (women) should be eager to learn and acquire skills for the job instead of simply imitating the way men have constructed and handled politics over the years."

Women, she says, should critically look at the process of political decision-making and challenge those processes that are unresponsive, exclude the poor and vulnerable, lack transparency, and favour the elite.

Kenyan women

Her face lights up as she fondly speaks of her Kenyan counterparts, whom she says defied all odds to make it in politics - despite having an unfavourable political climate compared to Uganda and Tanzania.

"I have great admiration for Kenyan women in politics and it makes me proud to see some of them who are now important players in their political parties. For many years, I worked together with my sisters in Kenya and have a lot of respect for the struggles they have waged especially in the constitution making process, gender equality legislation and advancing of African women's issues on international agenda," she says.

Those that immediately come to mind include Cabinet ministers Charity Ngilu, Martha Karua and assistant minister Beth Mugo, as well as Ms Phoebe Asiyo and former Kibwezi MP Agnes Ndetei. The list, she hastens to add, is not conclusive.

"Women plough the fields and feed their families and as such have an intimate knowledge of the production processes and challenges involved," she says.

"African nations continue to lag behind since women who would otherwise be out in the fields producing cash crops, crucial for economic growth, are doing work that remains unrecognised by the national budgets and at the same time denying them the right to work and earn a living," she says.

"Women are now able to persuade their governments to make important commitments to them on protocols concerning women's rights," she says, adding that she is happy to be working at the African Union at a time when African women have raised momentum towards gender equality.

Her work continues to give her a platform, which allows her to meet women from all over the world, whom she says face almost similar challenges in their struggle for equality.

Tags: Uganda Museveni Winnie+ Byanyima Africa

Instapundit's review of BlogNashville Conference - Is big media on the run?

In his post at MSNBC titled "Big media on the run?" Prof Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit.com writes:

"Do blogs and other alternative media have traditional media organizations running scared? Some people are saying so, but I think there's more going on than fear. Still it's clear that the blogosphere is having an impact.

This past weekend I attended the BlogNashville conference at Belmont University, billed as the largest blogging conference to date. There were some representatives of Big Media organizations there, one of whom said straighforwardly "I'm here out of fear," but others of whom were looking for ways to incorporate blogs, and bloggers, into their operations."

Read full story.

Looks interesting. I'm keeping it aside to read later on. Just wanted to share it here right away. I think professional journalists have lots of reasons to fear blogland. Chewing over and pointing out rubbish in mainstream media, along with the spin, truths, half-truths, downright lies, political propaganda and character assassinations is what we bloggers, around the world, are placed to do well.
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Also today, Instapundit points out Adam Cohen's unimpressive ruminations on blog ethics in today's New York Times - and Virginia Postrel who writes in Forbes, "There's something about blogs that makes a lot of respectable journalists hyperventilate."

Heh.

P.S. Foundations can expect more scrutiny in an age of weblogs, according to this article.

Make Poverty History - Tony Blair chairs G8 summit July 6, 2005

Email just received from Patrick Kielty (pictured below):



Hello,

Over the past few months more than a quarter of a million people have sent a message to Tony Blair and asked him to make poverty history.

It's an achievable aim that has risen up the political and news agendas like never before - thanks to the actions of people like you.

But we are rapidly approaching the critical moment of this campaign - and it really is time to turn up the heat.

After last week's election result we now know for sure that it will be Mr. Blair who sits at that all-important G8 summit table in Scotland on July 6th. Last month, he said he would work "night and day" on this issue until the summit. Now he has the chance to prove it, and the responsibility to deliver.

30,000 children will continue to die needlessly every day unless he succeeds.

So please, if you are in the UK click here [outside the UK click here] and urge Tony Blair to make this his number one post-election priority.

Even if you have emailed him before, now is the time to do so again.

The countdown has begun to the biggest day ever in the fight to end poverty and we need to make sure that our message is getting through loud and clear.

Thank you,

Patrick Kielty

Dr Albert Schweitzer - The Ethic of Reverence for Life

About "The Reverence for Life" edited by Lawrence Gussman

In May, 1964, The Courier reprinted from the World Book Yearbook "Albert Schweitzer Speaks Out," a stirring report in which he writes movingly of his concern for life and its future on this earth.

He wrote of the origin of "Reverence for Life" which is the basis for his most important book, "The Philosophy of Civilization".

The following excerpts are from this report, which are more relevant today than when this article was written by Dr. Schweitzer.

From childhood, I felt a compassion for animals. Even before I started school, I found it impossible to understand why, in my evening prayers, I should pray only for human beings. Consequently, after my mother had prayed with me and had given me a good-night kiss, I secretly recited another prayer, one I had composed myself. It went like this: "Dear God, protect and bless all living beings. Keep them from evil and let them sleep in peace."

The founding of societies to protect animals, which was actively promoted during my youth, made a great impression on me. People actually dared to announce publicly that compassion toward animals was a natural thing, a sign of true humanity and that one must not hide one's feelings about it. I believed that a light was beginning to shine in the darkness of ideas, and that it would glow with ever greater brilliance.

In the closing years of the century, I continuously pondered the question: does our civilization truly possess the ethical character and energy essential to its complete fulfillment? This led me further and further into studies of civilization and ethics as they appeared in philosophical writings from 1850 to 1900. The most important philosophical writings of the time, I discovered, looked upon civilization and ethics as things we had received, things left to us, to be taken for granted and accepted as such. I could not escape the impression that an ethical system regraded as final did not demand much of people or of society. It was, in fact, an ethic "at rest."

In looking back to the end of the century, I could never understand the optimism over the achievements of the times. Everywhere, many seemed to suppose that we had not merely advanced in knowledge, but that we had reached heights in spirituality and ethics we had never attained before and would never lose. But to me it seemed that we not only had failed to surpass the spiritual life of past generations, but that we were really only nibbling from their accomplishments, and that in many respects, our spiritual inheritance was dribbling out of our hands.

On numerous occasions, I was deeply distressed when inhumane ideas, publicly pronounced, met simple acceptance instead of rejection and censure. More and more, I turned my attention to the civilization and ethics of the last decade of the 19th century. As I did so, I decided to write a thorough and critical study on the spiritual state of the times in which I lived.

Despite the mounting pressures at the hospital, I still managed to find time to reflect on our civilization and our ethical values and why they were losing their force. But now I had to tackle a more basic question: could a lasting, more profound, and more vital ethical system be brought about? The sense of satisfaction that came with my recognition of the nature of the problem did not last long, however. Month after month went by without my advancing one step toward a solution. Everything I knew or had read on the subject of ethics served only to confound me even more.

In the summer of 1915, I took my wife, who was in poor health, to Port-Gentil on the Atlantic. I brought the meager drafts of my book along. In September, I received word that the wife of the Swiss missionary, Pelot, had fallen ill at their mission in N'Gômô, and that I was expected to make a medical call there.

The mission was 120 miles upstream on the Ogooué River. My only means of immediate transportation was a small, old steamboat, towing heavily laden scows. Besides myself, there were only a few Africans aboard. Since I had no time to gather provisions in the rush of departure, they kindly offered to share their food with me.

We advanced slowly on our trip upstream. It was the dry season, and we had to feel our way through huge sandbanks. I sat in one of the scows. Before boarding the steamer, I had resolved to devote the entire trip to the problem of how a culture could be brought into being that possessed a greater moral depth and energy than the one we lived in. I filled page on page with disconnected sentences, primarily to center my every thought on the problem. Weariness and a sense of despair paralyzed my thinking.

At sunset of the third day, near the village of Igendja, we moved along an island set in the middle of the wide river. On a sandbank to our left, four hippopotamuses and their young plodded along in our same direction. Just then, in my great tiredness and discouragement, the phrase, "Reverence for Life," struck me like a flash. As far as I knew, it was a phrase I had never heard nor ever read. I realized at once that it carried within itself the solution to the problem that had been torturing me. Now I knew that a system of values which concerns itself only with our relationship to other people is incomplete and therefore lacking in power for good. Only by means of reverence for life can we establish a spiritual and humane relationship with both people and all living creatures within our reach. Only in this fashion can we avoid harming others, and, within the limits of our capacity, go to their aid whenever they need us.

It also became clear to me that this elemental but complete system of values possessed an altogether different depth and an entirely different vitality than one that concerned itself only with human beings. Through reverence for life, we come into a spiritual relationship with the universe. The inner depth of feeling we experience through it gives us the will and the capacity to create a spiritual and ethical set of values that enable us to act on a higher plane, because we then feel ourselves truly at home in our world. Through reverence for life, we become, in effect, different persons. I found it difficult to believe that the way to a deeper and stronger ethic, for which I had searched in vain, had been revealed to me as in a dream. Now I was at last ready to write the planned work on the ethics of civilization.

I began to sketch in the volume on my philosophy of civilization. The plan was simple. First, I would give a general view of civilization and ethics as set forth in the writings of the world's great thinkers. Secondly, I would occupy myself with the essence and the significance of the ethics of reverence for life.

The fundamental fact of human awareness is this: "I am life that wants to live in the midst of other life that wants to live." A thinking man feels compelled to approach all life with the same reverence he has for his own. Thus, all life becomes part of this own experience. From such a point of view, "good" means to maintain life, to further life, to bring developing life to its highest value. "Evil" means to destroy life, to hurt life, to keep life from developing. This, then, is the rational, universal, and basic principle of ethics.

We must try to demonstrate the essential worth of life by doing all we can to alleviate suffering. Reverence for life, which grows out of a proper understanding of the will to live, contains life-affirmation. It acts to create values that serve the material, the spiritual, and ethical development of man.

Early in 1923, the text of my work, now called The Philosophy of Civilization, was ready for printing. But where to find a publisher? The prospects were unfavorable. In Germany, people were raving about Oswald Spengler's fascinating and brilliant work, The Decline of the West. For Spengler, Western culture was something that had bloomed in history and was now dying. This tragic point of view was in keeping with the spirit of the time - the disillusionment and cynicism that came after World War I. In reality, Spengler had not investigated the nature of culture, but was merely describing the historical fate of a culture. How could I, in this climate, expect people to consider my views on civilization and ethics? Thus, because I lacked courage, I did not undertake to make contact with a publisher.

At that time, Mme. Emmy Martin, the widow of an Alsatian pastor, was assisting me with my correspondence. She asked to be allowed to take the manuscript along during her visit to a friend in Munich. She hoped to find a publisher there, even though she did not know any personally. While on an errand, she stopped off at the publishing firm of C.H. Beck and asked to talk to the director. A Mr. Albers introduced himself as the director's representative. Mme. Martin explained her mission. Mr. Albers glanced through the first few pages of the manuscript and said: "We take this manuscript for publication unread. Albert Schweitzer is no stranger to us."

By chance, C.H. Beck was also the publisher of Spengler's book. This is how Spengler and I met. Instead of fighting with each other, Spengler and I became friends and often amiably discussed our conflicting conceptions of culture. The Philosophy of Civilization was published in 1923. A deep friendship developed between Mr. Albers and me. It ended when Hitler came into power, and Mr. Albers took his life rather than live under a dictator.

Dr Albert Schweitzer's Philosophy of Civilisation and Ethics of Reverence for Life

Photo: Dr Albert Schweitzer in 1930

THE PHILOSOPHY OF CIVILISATION
The Ethics of Reverence for Life

The following words by Dr Albert Schweitzer are excerpted from Chapter 26 of "The Philosophy of Civilisation" and from "The Ethics of Reverence for Life" in the 1936 winter issue of Christendom:

I am life which wills to live, in the midst of life which wills to live. As in my own will-to-live there is a longing for wider life and pleasure, with dread of annihilation and pain; so is it also in the will-to-live all around me, whether it can express itself before me or remains dumb. The will-to-live is everywhere present, even as in me. If I am a thinking being, I must regard life other than my own with equal reverence, for I shall know that it longs for fullness and development as deeply as I do myself. Therefore, I see that evil is what annihilates, hampers, or hinders life. And this holds true whether I regard it physically or spiritually. Goodness, by the same token, is the saving or helping of life, the enabling of whatever life I can to attain its highest development. 

In me the will-to-live has come to know about other wills-to-live. There is in it a yearning to arrive at unity with itself, to become universal. I can do nothing but hold to the fact that the will-to-live in me manifests itself as will-to-live which desires to become one with other will-to-live. 

Ethics consist in my experiencing the compulsion to show to all will-to-live the same reverence as I do my own. A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives. If I save an insect from a puddle, life has devoted itself to life, and the division of life against itself has ended. Whenever my life devotes itself in any way to life, my finite will-to-live experiences union with the infinite will in which all life is one. 

An absolute ethic calls for the creating of perfection in this life. It cannot be completely achieved; but that fact does not really matter. In this sense reverence for life is an absolute ethic. It makes only the maintenance and promotion of life rank as good. All destruction of and injury to life, under whatever circumstances, it condemns as evil. True, in practice we are forced to choose. At times we have to decide arbitrarily which forms of life, and even which particular individuals, we shall save, and which we shall destroy. But the principle of reverence for life is nonetheless universal and absolute. 

Such an ethic does not abolish for man all ethical conflicts but compels him to decide for himself in each case how far he can remain ethical and how far he must submit himself to the necessity for destruction of and injury to life. No one can decide for him at what point, on each occasion, lies the extreme limit of possibility for his persistence in the preservation and furtherance of life. He alone has to judge this issue, by letting himself be guided by a feeling of the highest possible responsibility towards other life. We must never let ourselves become blunted. We are living in truth, when we experience these conflicts more profoundly. 

Whenever I injure life of any sort, I must be quite clear whether it is necessary. Beyond the unavoidable, I must never go, not even with what seems insignificant. The farmer, who has mown down a thousand flowers in his meadow as fodder for his cows, must be careful on his way home not to strike off in wanton pastime the head of a single flower by the roadside, for he thereby commits a wrong against life without being under the pressure of necessity. 
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Association International de l'oeuvre du Dr. Albert Schweitzer de Lambaréné

The aim of the AISL (Association International de l'oeuvre du Dr. Albert Schweitzer de Lambaréné) is to disseminate information about the life and the thought of Albert Schweitzer and to maintain his legacy.

In the house of Albert Schweitzer in Gunsbach they have a small Museum and an Archive. On a guided tour you will be introduced to the life of Albert Schweitzer

In our time, his ethic of "reverence for life" is of increasing importance.

On AISL homepage you can find information about Schweitzer and the jungle Hospital in Lambaréné, as well as references to the national fellowships and friends, to books and publications and to an international calendar of events.

To continue the work and spread the message of Schweitzer, they have many volunteers who help them. But to meet the running of all our activities they also need your help. If you are able to help them, please contact them or your national committee of friends.

In the folder news is uptodate information about the work, recently published books and infos about the Hospital in Lambaréné.

http://www.schweitzer.org/english/aseind.htm

Wangari Maathai - the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize

Kenyan ecologist Wangari Maathai is the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Quotation

"When our resources become scarce, we fight over them. In managing our resources and in sustainable development, we plant the seeds of peace."

WANGARI MAATHAI, of Kenya, winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize.
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Prabhu Ram is from New Delhi, India. He presently works as Legal Consultant-India with the Access to Essential Medicines Team of MSF (Doctors without Borders) based in Paris.

Prior assignments include South Centre, Geneva; Gene Campaign, New Delhi, and, the IPR Division of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), New Delhi, India. Prabhu has degrees in Intellectual Property Rights (NISCAIR, India) and Life Sciences (Calicut University, India).

In his blog Infoserve - a Newsblog from Asia on Biotechnology and Trade - Prabhu writes the following piece (note, his source is The Economist):

The woman who planted trees:
Wangari Maathai is sound on reforestation; less so on AIDS

THIS year's Nobel Peace Prize was awarded last week to Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan environmentalist-turned-politician, for planting 30m trees. Thanks to Ms Maathai, Kenya is a greener and more pleasant place than it would otherwise be. For this, she deserves our warmest congratulations. But what does planting trees have to do with peace?

A lot, say Ms Maathai's supporters. Conflict often springs from competition for water or fertile land. As deserts expand and populations soar, such competition can turn violent. The war in the Darfur region of western Sudan, for example, has its roots in the struggle between black farmers and Arab pastoralists over a slab of increasingly arid soil. By reforesting Kenya, Ms Maathai has made it less likely to go the way of Sudan. And the way she did it—by paying peasant women to plant seedlings in their own villages—empowers women, and so promotes peace even more.

This is a bit of a stretch. Ms Maathai's work, though admirable, is only distantly related to the prevention of war. Skirmishes over pasture are common, but there is little evidence that environmental factors cause full-scale wars. Darfur is in flames more for political reasons. A group of guerrillas rebelled against an oppressive regime, which responded by slaughtering the rebels' ethnic kin. Planting trees in Darfur would not have saved its people.

The Peace Prize is often controversial. Those who stop wars are usually politicians; sometimes the same people who started them. Henry Kissinger's award in 1973 still angers many. Today, the politician who has arguably done the most to end the world's worst wars is South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, who was instrumental in pushing Congo and Burundi from utter mayhem to shaky peace. Ah yes, you say, but he has controversial views on AIDS.

So does Ms Maathai, as it happens. As she reiterated last week, she thinks the virus was created by “evil-minded scientists” to kill blacks: “It is created by a scientist for biological warfare.” Ms Maathai also argues that condoms cannot prevent transmission of the virus. Coming from one of the first women in east Africa to earn a doctorate, Ms Maathai's views might be seen as surprising. Coming from a freshly crowned Nobel laureate, they might be considered inexcusable. [source: The Economist]