3
Afghan community discusses women's rights
SYDNEY — Most women in Afghanistan are no better off since the country was "liberated" by the United States two years ago, Afghan academic Dr Nazir Gul told a packed hall on March 20.
The International Women's Day event, organised by members of the Afghan New Cultural Association, was attended by more than 350 people, most of them Afghan refugees. The crowd was entertained by speeches, poetry, music and a hilarious satire written by a local temporary protection visa holder about the tensions between the backward attitudes among an older generation of Afghan men and the modern attitudes to sex equality among Afghan youth.
The hall was decorated with banners declaring, "Male domination = a sick and decayed society", "Women's bodies, women's lives, women's choices" and "Imposing the hijab = denying the personality and humanity of women".
Speakers described the brutal oppression of women that persists in Afghanistan, as tribal leaders and religious fundamentalists war for control of the country. "The Karzai government will not liberate women", said Raza, a young refugee who received loud applause. "And US imperialism will not bring democracy or human rights."
The Socialist Alliance's federal candidate for Reid, Lisa Macdonald, described the two-fold "fundamentalist" war on women who, in some parts of the world, are being forced by religious rulers back into the burqa, while in others they are being punished by imperialist governments for choosing to wear the veil.
Macdonald pledged the alliance's continuing solidarity with all Afghans struggling for full rights for women, in Australia and Afghanistan.
Tamara Pearson
Town rallies to defend local hospital
HOBART — At least 1700 people, out of a resident population of 2500, attended a March 25 public meeting in Latrobe, in Tasmania's north-west, to defend emergency and obstetrics services at the local hospital, according to the March 26 Hobart Mercury.
They packed out the Latrobe Memorial Hall to hear state Labor health minister David Llewellyn defend the March 16 decision of Mersey Community Hospital's private operator, Healthscope, to close the hospital's obstetrics department and to restrict emergency services to the hours between 9am and 4.30pm. Previously, emergency services operated 24 hours a day.
The state government has supported Healthscope's decision, justifying it on the grounds of "staff shortages".
The next day it was announced that ambulance services would be increased on Tasmania's north-west coast. However, local residents want a fully operational local hospital, not increased ambulance services to other hospitals.
The public meeting passed three motions. The first was a motion of no confidence in Healthscope. The second called for the recruitment of specialist doctors from overseas, and the third motion called for the state and federal governments to retake full control of the hospital and to run it as a training facility with upgraded services.
"Llewellyn was told he would sink into 'political oblivion' if the state government did not move in, regain control of the hospital and restore its emergency and obstetric services", the March 26 Launceston Examiner reported.
Alex Bainbridge
@PARAFILTR ON =
Student association fights bid to take away bar
SYDNEY — The University of Western Sydney's Bankstown campus is trying to expropriate the students' Bakunin Bar by insisting that the university will back a new bar license application only if the Bankstown Students Association (BSA) transfers the bar as an asset to the campus administration.
The BSA has leased the premises for the bar from the university. While the lease does not expire for another 15 years, the BSA employee who holds the bar license has left for "greener pastures".
The bar licensing authority has told the BSA that the owner of the land on which the bar operates would have to approve a new licensing application.
Transfer of the bar to the campus administration would have broken the lease the BSA holds. The university administration has not disclosed what it will do with the bar if the BSA hands it over, but BSA suspects that the premises will be turned into another a lecture hall or into administration offices.
The BSA is fighting back by keeping the bar open without serving alcoholic beverages.
Messages of protest to the Bankstown campus administration should be sent to Rhonda Hawkins, University Secretary, c/- University of Western Sydney, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith South Delivery Centre, NSW 1797. For more information about the BSA's campaign phone (02) 9772 6488.
[Rosanne Travers is an environmental officer at the Bankstown Students Association and a member of the socialist youth organisation Resistance.]
Rosanne Travers
From Green Left Weekly, March 31, 2004.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.