Accent of Women

In recent years right-wing populists/extremists and right-wing Catholic as well as conservative actors have been building new alliances in several European countries around the notion of ‘gender-theory’ or ‘gender-ideology’. These groups construct ‘gender’ as a totalitarian ideology, which aims to create a new, ‘gender-less’ human, thereby attacking the institution of the family and European societies as a whole. This reading of ‘gender’, which has been developed by the Vatican from the 1990s onwards, is instrumental to forming coalitions across the right-wing political spectrum. Edma Ajonavic, Stefanie Mayer, and Birgit Sauer deliver a speech called, ‘Gender’ as Symbolic Glue for Right-Wing Actors in Europe’ at the 2nd International Marxist Feminist Conference in Vienna in 2016.

There are two significant anniversaries in the Middle Eastern/West Asian region of the world worth commemorating on Accent of Women. Two years on September 16, Jina Mahsa Amini was killed by the Morality Police in Iran, sparking the Woman Life Freedom movement there. A year earlier, in August 2021, the Taliban was ushered back into power as the whole world looked on, when the United States eventually withdrew its troops.So today’s guests are Frieda Afary, Iranian American feminist activist, and Sahar Saba, from the Revolutionary Association of the women of Afghanistan.

Prominent union leader, Chhim Sithar, who led a high-profile strike at a Phnom Penh hotel and casino called Naga World, was released from prison on Monday 19 September. She has promised to continue leading workers who are demanding better wages and working conditions. The dispute at the NagaWorld Hotel and Entertainment Complex, one of the world’s most profitable gambling centers, began in 2021 when the company laid off more than 1,300 employees, about half of them union members.The strike has drawn a violent crackdown from police and continues to this day. Cambodian authorities have claimed that the strike is illegal and the product of alleged foreign donations. But of course, the workers disagree.My guest today is Chhim Sithar, the President of the Khmer Employees of NagaWorld.

The JVP has just been elected in Sri Lanka, supposedly signalling a new Marxist era in Sri Lankan politics. But the JVP has a mixed history and politics – particularly its policies on minorities. On today’s program, we speak with academic, Samanthi Gunawardana to try to understand these developments in Sri Lankan politics.

On today’s Accent of Women, we look at the campaign to close Unit 18, a child detention wing inside the maximum-security Casuarina Prison near Perth in Western Australia. The campaign escalated in the wake of the tragic death of Yamatji child Cleveland Dodd in 2023 after he self-harmed while incarcerated in the facility. Earlier this month, it was revealed that another child detained at the Banksia Hill Detention Centre, also near Perth, had died by suicide. 3CR’s Priya Kunjan interviews Roxy Moore, Noongar lawyer, community organiser, activist and campaigner, and Stephanie McGuire, Ballardong and Whadjuk Noongar community organiser and activist. For listeners, I want to issue a CONTENT WARNING for today’s show. Today’s show mentions SUICIDE, SELF HARM, DISCUSSION OF ABORIGINAL DEATHS IN CUSTODY.

The Israeli government continues to impose strict restrictions on the movement of aid into Gaza. The complex bureaucratic process and changing Standard Operating Procedures result in food and medical supplies nearing expiration before entry. Meat and vegetables are frequently denied at key crossings. Gaza is the most dangerous place in the world for an aid worker – almost 300 have been killed since October 7, with many claiming some of these deaths occurred as a result of direct targeting.Hampering the provision of aid is a part of the genocidal campaign of Israel against not just Gaza but all Palestinians. And despite this, aid workers continue to fight to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians.My guest today is Bushra Khaledi, the Occupied Territory Lead for Oxfam International, based in Ramallah

Revolutionary Palestinian, Leila Khaled. Special thanks to Peoples Dispatch for that audio.

Mass protests broke out in Bangladesh in early July over a controversial quota system that reserved 30% of government jobs for relatives of veterans who fought in the 1971 war. But the issue over which people protested quickly expanded to include broader demands around freedom of speech and democracy. As the protests expanded, so too did the repression and in about 5 weeks of protests, as of August 2, there were about 215 deaths and more than 20,000 others injured, accompanied by more than 11,000 arrests in various parts of the country. My guest today is Taslima Akhter, President of Bangladesh Garment Workers Solidarity, and a participant and activists in this protest movement.

A wave of protests is sweeping through Kenya, since June 18. Triggered by controversial proposed tax hikes, the movement has evolved into a wider campaign for more accountable governance in the country. Some demand the entire government’s resignation. While the protesters have overwhelmingly been peaceful, they have been met with fierce police repression and brutality, including the deployment of tear gas, mass arrests of activists, and an inordinate number of disappearances, plus, over 50 people dead, My guest today is Nita Okoko, Kenyan socialist and feminist activist.

Asylum seekers and refugee boat arrivals that entered Australian waters before 1 January 2014 were subject to a different set of visa processing rules that limited their ability to seek a more permanent visa status. This group of about 30,000 people is known as the Legacy Caseload.A blanket ban was applied to individuals in this group, preventing them from having a refugee protection visa application processed unless the Immigration Minister exercised personal discretion to override the ban (known as "lifting the bar"). But in December 2022, Andrew Giles declared that 19,000 permanent residencies would be granted, leaving approximately 12,000 refugees in limbo.A group of these refugees has set up a permanent tent embassy firstly outside of Clare O'Neil's electoral office, and now, outside of the office of Home Affairs in Melbourne. I spoke with three of these Temporary Protection Visa holders, Narges, Aida and Afifa.

Palestinian Australian New Zealand Medical Association (PANZMA) was established in 2020 by a group of healthcare professionals across Australia and New Zealand, who care about fulfilling the unmet need of providing comprehensive health care in Palestine. My guest today is Dr. Bushra Othman, an Australian Palestinian surgeon who has just recently returned from a PANZMA medical mission in Gaza.PANZMA desperately needs donations to survive and to continue supporting people devastated by war in Gaza. Go to their website and donate today: PANZMA.org

With France’s political system making it to mainstream international media, owing to the near success of Le Pen’s fascist party, National Rally, this week’s Accent of Women focuses on fascism and islamophobia in France.Author, political activist and writer of French-Algerian origin HOURIA BOUTELDJA presents her critique of contemporary leftist thought and activism, undertaken from an anti-colonial perspective. She draws on her direct political experience as the founder and former leader of the Parti des Indigènes de la République movement in France, as well as her longstanding interest in the study of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, summarized in her most recent book, “Whites, Jews and Us: Toward a Politics of Revolutionary Love”.This speech is called Why White Antifascism Is not Enough to Fight Islamophobia?

On today’s Accent of Women, a different perspective on the War on Gaza and the October 7 attacks. Combatants for Peace is a grassroots movement of Israelis and Palestinians, working together to end the occupation and bring peace, equality and freedom to the are we call Palestine but others call Israel. Committed to joint nonviolence since their inception, Combatants for Peace uses civil resistance, education and other creative means of activism to transform systems of oppression and build a free and peaceful future from the ground up. Launched in 2006, Combatants for Peace is the only movement worldwide that was founded by former fighters on both sides of an active conflict. As a result, they were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 and 2018.Iris Gur is an activist from Combatants for Peace. She is Israeli, and she starts here by discussing how she was first politicised, and how she came to join the peace movement.

Two years on from the Supreme Court’s ruling in the United States that overturned the historic decision on abortion rights in the famous case called Roe v Wade, and abortions are predictably the most inaccessible they’ve been. The National Mobilzation for Reproductive Justice has been spearheading a campaign to get unions behind the fight for reproductive justice against the far right's relentless onslaught. To mark the 2nd anniversary of the Supreme Court decision on June 24, National Mobilzation for Reproductive Justice will hold a press conference in Washington DC, outside AFL-CIO headquarters, to deliver an open letter signed by 600 unions, union groups and members to the AFL-CIO, which calls on the AFL-CIO to convene a national union conference to strategise for a national fightback for reproductive rights. Today's guest is Nancy Reiko Kato, Japanese American feminist, socialist and organiser with National Mobilzation for Reproductive Justice.

On today’s show, we feature Maiy Aziz from Everybody’s Home, a national campaign to fix the housing crisis. Everybody’s Home was launched in 2018 by a coalition of housing, homelessness and welfare organisations to achieve the change needed so everybody has a safe and decent place to live.But first up, a reminder that there’s still a Genocide in Gaza. Rihab Charida - a Palestinian Film Maker speaking at a recent Belmore Park, Sydney event for Palestine.

On today’s show, we head down to one of the Stop the Ports Rallies held across Australia by Trade Unionists for Palestine to highlight the need for Australia to cease aiding and abetting the war on Palestine. In Melbourne, Victoria, trade unionists and community members gathered first at station pier then marched along the foreshore to Sandridge Beach, with the cranes of webb dock clearly in sight. The purpose of the co-ordinated nationwide action was to highlight again that maritime trade is strategic in the war on Gaza, and that workers everywhere, do indeed have the power to grind everything to a halt.Today’s guests are Reem Yunis and Mai Saif.

On the 29 April this year, our comrades in Bangladesh organised an international meeting called From Local to Global: Struggle and Solidarity. The purpose of the meeting was to talk about international organising and solidarity, in the context of major international workers events such as International Workers Memorial Day, International Working Women’s Day and of course May Day.The speakers today are Dina Siddiqi, Linda Gomaa, Nafisa Nipun Tanjeem.

Today’s Accent of Women commemorates May Day – International Workers Day on 1 May every year. The Second International designated International Workers’ Day be 1 May every year, in 1889. The date was chosen to commemorate the Haymarket Affair, a violent confrontation between police and labour protesters in Chicago on May 4, 1886, that became a symbol of the international struggle for workers’ rights. The strike at Haymarket in 1886 was about a national campaign to secure an eight-hour workday. May Day is a day of protest and action, right across the world, and this year Palestine was a major theme everywhere. On today’s Accent of Women, I bring you four speeches delivered at the May Day rally in Melbourne, Victoria – on a very frosty autumn evening.

It’s 11 years since the collapse of Rana Plaza, a building in Dhaka, Bangladesh that housed some 5 garment factories. More than 1100 workers died on 24 April 2013 but this was no accident. Workers and in fact, just about every body, knew that the building was unstable. It was built on a pond, without the correct construction permits, extra floors were added to the building illegally, and the heavy equipment associated with the garment industry all meant that the building couldn’t hold the weight of its contents.But also, on the day of the collapse, cracks had appeared in the walls of the building, and the other tenants – banks, small shops, they all closed for the day. But the garment workers were not afforded this basic safety measure. They were forced to work that day on threat of losing an entire months wages. They staged massive protests outside the building, but were eventually forced inside because of the unrelenting poverty that they are subjected to.So Rana Plaza was no accident – it was, it is, Industrial murder. 11 years on, these workers are fighting for an across the board wage increase. Their year long campaign has had some gains. Joining me today to discuss the wage case and the anniversary of Rana Plaza, I am joined by Taslima Akhter.

On this week’s show, we return take a closer look at a number of campaigns that have emerged in Australia in the wake of the genocide in Gaza. Specifically, anti-weapons manufacturing campaigns and demilitarisation campaigns.My guests today are Palestinian/Syrian woman Nathalie Farrah from Disrupt Wars and the Get Elbit Industries out of Australia campaign. And Palestinian activist, Dana Alshaer from Melbourne University Students for Palestine Action Group.