so I was doing a little research on the Gurkha question

[iverglas]

Okay, the Gurkha question isn't really a feminist/women's issue. ;) If you're interested, though:

http://www.boloji.com/analysis2/0228.htm

I wanted to know a bit about the source I was reading, which seems to be from/about India, so I browsed around, and happened on the "woman" section. I just thought some might find it refreshing to read some stuff there. Keep in mind that the writers' first language is often a dialect of English different from ours!

http://www.boloji.com/women/index.htm

Just a taste of the contents list:

Women

With all her rich cultural antiquity, diversity and heritage, India has also been a country that has suppressed her women. It is ironic to say the least, because Indians have always worshipped their country as a “janani” or mother. On the one hand they worship this mother, and on the other they disregard their sisters, daughters, mothers, and wives. Articles on these pages discuss issues concerning women.

Who Says Girls Should Be Secretaries Not Scientists? by Mehru Jaffer
Deliver the World: Invest in Mothers by Elayne Clift
For Women It's Back To Basics by Rajashri Dasgupta
No Woman Fights To Become A Prostitute by Shobha S.V.
Cry, Daughter, Cry ... by Nupur Basu
The Mummy Returns: Back to Work Too Soon by Neena Bhandari
Sexual Harassment at the Workplace: Implement the Guidelines by A. Pandey
Michelle Obama: America's Next First Lady by Elayne Clift
Who's Afraid of Sexuality, Asks Orissa's Virginia Woolf by Eliza Parija
Daughter-in-Law by Prem P Verma
The Second Shift ... by Soma Guru
Politics of Discourse: Feminism as a Global Epidemic by Wazhma Frogh
The Cultural Designation of Feminism: Theory and Praxis by Dr. Nandini Sahu
Why I, a Feminist, Prefer Obama by Elayne Clift
A Happy Period by Swapna Majumdar
A Woman's Point of View by Pavalamani Pragasam
Indian Women Cry Just To Be Born by Prashant K. Nanda

If anybody lights on one they find particularly worthwhile or provocative, do say something about it!

[iverglas]

1. okay, so I was doing this research on the Gurkha question

You see, a big issue has arisen in the UK regarding the right of residency to be granted, or not granted, to the Gurkhas of Nepal who have served in the UK military for generations. It's essentially a horrible little remnant of colonialism. The UK actually recruits inside Nepal's borders. The Gurkha troops are paid/pensioned less than Brits, the Gurkha officers are lower in the pecking orders than the Brit officers, etc.

The article I linked to above explains it all. It also had this poem by the author of the article, a poet and creative writing professor (a man).


A GURKHA MOTHER
(Death of a Precious Jewel)

The gurkha with a khukri
But no enemy
Works for the British Gurkhas
And yet gets shot at
In missions he doesn't comprehend.

Order is hukum,
Hukum is life
Johnny Gurkha still dies under foreign skies.
He never asks why
Politics isn't his style

He's fought against all and sundry:
Turks, Tibetans, Italians and Indians
Germans, Japanese, Chinese
Argentinians and Vietnamese.
Indonesians and Iraqis.
Loyalty to the utmost
Never fearing a loss.

The loss of a mother's son
From the mountains of Nepal.

Her grandpa died in Burma
For the glory of the British.
Her husband in Mesopotemia
She knows not against whom
No one did tell her.
Her brother fell in France,
Against the Teutonic hordes.
She prays to Shiva of the Snows for peace
And her son's safety.
Her joy and her hope
Farming on a terraced slope.

A son who helped wipe her tears
And ease the pain in her mother's heart.
A frugal mother who lives by the seasons
And peers down to the valleys
Year in and year out
In expectation of her soldier son.

A smart Gurkha is underway
Heard from across the hill with a shout
'It's an officer from his battalion.
A letter with a seal and a poker-face
"Your son died on duty," he says,
"Keeping peace for Her Majesty
The Queen of England."

A world crumbles down
The Nepalese mother cannot utter a word
Gone is her son,
Her precious jewel.
Her only insurance and sunshine
In the craggy hills of Nepal.
And with him her dreams
A spartan life that kills.


Glossary:
gurkha: soldier from Nepal
khukri: curved knife used in hand-to-hand combat
hukum: Befehl/command/order
shiva: a god in Hinduism



So I thought I'd look him up a bit, and found this 2007 article he wrote about women and abortion in Nepal. It's a little out of date, since there has been yet another change of government, and there have been some changes in the law on abortion. It still makes interesting reading.

http://www.amchron.com/articles/view/19048

What it Means to be a Woman in Nepal
Satis Shroff
January 17, 2007

‘Due to the lack in clarity in Nepal’s Law, many Nepalese women have been victimised on the ground of spontaneous abortion, whether it was a simple miscarriage or abortion caused by the heavy manual labour on the part of the woman. The women of Nepal cannot defend themselves because of the lack of definition of abortion,’ says Singh B. Moktan, the director of PAM Nestling Home (PAM= Prisoners Assistance Mission).

What is needed is a mobilisation of women in Nepal, the USA, Europe and the world over in fighting this ancient, archaic practice of the Rule of Garbhabat. Despite the fact that democracy has dawned in Nepal and different political parties are allowed, and more and more Nepali women have professions, are politically active and take part in demonstrations, the male population still dominates Nepalese politics and the plight of women hasn’t changed much. The tourists in Kathmandu and along the trekking-trails, flock to Nepal to see the Himalayas and take pictures of its rural women and children for mellow home-slide-shows, amid relatives and neighbours.

The benefits of democracy and westernisation haven’t caught up with the majority of the Nepalese women as yet. According to a survey published by the United Mission to Nepal about the psycho-social situation of rural Nepali women belonging to five ethnic groups (Brahmins, Chettris, Sheras, Tamangs, Rais and Newars) the from Solukhumbu-district and Kathmandu Valley, 56.9% of the mothers live in miserable living quarters. 52.3% live in two-room apartments and 33% have no worldly possessions. The average age of marriage lies between 15 to 19 years, and 22.8% don’t have a son. 68.8% of the husbands are alcoholics, 41.7% of the mothers suffer from depression. Whether arranged marriages can be ideal or not can be judged from the fact that in 44.2% of the marriages there are problems, quarrels and inconsistency, 7.4% marriages are disrupted and 44.2% of the partnerships are wrecked.

... The fact that the Nepalese woman suffers in society is deeply rooted in the social system and the anachronistic and discriminatory, patriarchal, Hindu Civil Code (Muluki Ain) which was formulated under the reign of a king named Surendra Bikram in 1853. It was modified by King Mahendra (the father of the present King Gyanendra) in 1963. If a Nepalese woman gives birth to a still-born child she is charged with infanticide on the evidence of a denunciation, without so much as a gynecological examination, and sentenced by the rule of Garbhabat, which is the Nepalese word for: destruction of life. The Nepalese Civil Code was made in a dark age of Nepalese history during which another form of social and cultural values were prevalent. Though the winds of change have swept in the Nepalese kingdom, the Code still remains unchallenged as far as the poorer section of the Nepalese population is concerned.

Many women who miscarry hide the evidence by not going for medical treatment and this can lead to infertility or even death. The Nepalese Code assumes that every pregnancy that fails due to natural causes is the fault of the mother --in effect, a deliberate attempt to abort the pregnancy, and it’s horrible to see a woman hauled off to jail as a criminal on top of the personal tragedy of the loss of a child that may have been longed for. It is possible for influential Nepalese women to get away with abortion without much fuss in the male-dominated Nepalese society.

How the other half lives.


http://reproductiverights.org/en/document/abortion-in-nepal-women-imprisoned

[ismnotwasm]

2. This is interesting

(Most of it is a good read, actually and
I knew/know absolutely nothing about Gurkha's BTW. I can see why it's interesting. For some reason it reminds me of the of how the Hmong people were treated)
From

The Cultural Designation of Feminism:
Theory and Praxis
by Dr. Nandini Sahu

"Radical Feminism is a rather recent concept that argues in favor of the sexual liberty of women. The different forms of social oppression upon women are basically the outcome of the sexual oppression. Woman is generally accepted as the weaker sex, the second sex. It is a neo-Freudian theory; Fred believed that “The crucial problem of modern life is sexuality.” The heart of women’s oppression is her role as a child bearer and rearer. Writers as Ti Grace and Alkinson and Shulamith Firestone do not believe that woman’s oppression consists in her lack of political or civil rights. Neither do they support Marxists who classify women in the society in a lower class. Rather the radical feminists require a biological revolution for women, a liberation form fundamental inequalities in sex through developed technology and artificial reproduction. The prototype role of woman as a child production machine should be challenged, renovated by the state making her equal with the male. “The situation of a woman is that she – a free and autonomous being like all creatures – nevertheless finds herself living in a world, where men compel her to assume the status of the other.”

I was re-reading Shulamith Firestone recently-- "The Dialectic of Sex; The Case for Feminist Revolution"-- published in 1970, (my book is falling apart, got it in a second hand store. I can read it in 3 physical parts.) and still radical as hell. Although I understand her why she reached her conclusions--she's very clear-- to breakdown all relationship/social/cultural and economic systems as we know them, I find value in some of them, and I personally don't have the courage to challenge them as she did.

She does say "Pregnancy is barbaric"-- Fucking word.


I wish I could find a poster of her diagrams somewhere.

On a side note, I was reading my Firestone book before it became a three parter around a year ago in a park and a young man came up to me and gave me this name, Silja Talvi. ("I saw what you were reading, and I thought you'd be interested" he said)

http://www.seattlepi.com/books/342957_moment11.html

I think I posted about it at the time, and I still haven't read her book, with all my good intentions dammit.