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Hip Hop Summer Events 2014 - July 14th thru 20th
Hip Hop Summer Events 2014 – July 14th thru 20th
Hip Hop Summer Events 2014 Brought to you by Tools Of War
Through July 26 Born in the Bronx Exhibit Tools of War True School NYC Park Jams – every week through September! Aug. 23: DMC US Finals New York City
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July 14, 2014 Monday UZN SCREENING: NYC
5:30pm doors. Event 6pm-10pm. “The Spook Who Sat By The Door” + Tribute For Sam Greenlee. @…
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Hip hop at its finest.
Got to see some of the legends play a a couple sets over in crotona park today. The "Tools of War" jam was hella righteous. On top of that DJ MURO showed up a dropped a killer set! It was good to open the public up to more than just an American style of hip hop. The King of diggin did his thing man.
Tools of War grassroots Hip Hop Newsletter + Event Listings Dec. 15 - 25, 2011
Here are some you may find of interest to you. Thanks to Christie Z & Jorge Fabel Pabon of Tools of War for providing us with the Info plus support Them. Click on their logo for more info.
December 17, 2011 Saturday
NYC - THE RICKFORD INSTITUTE ALL STAR CLASSIC GROUP PHOTOGRAPHY
8pm-11pm. TheGoodLife! will be opening their Ricky Powell curated photography exhibition at Milk Studios. This art show features work by Joe Conzo, Jamel Shabazz, Martha Cooper, Charlie Ahear, Henry Chalfant, Glen E. Friedman, Ricky Powell, Sue Kwon & many more! Milk Studios 450 West 15th St New York, NY 10011 Music by: Stretch Armstrong, Jasmine Solano, DJ Smoke L.E.S. & TJ Mizell wearethegoodlife.com Sources: Brooklyn Bodega and Joe Conzo
PHONTE & 9TH WONDER: CHICAGO 9pm show. Plus Rapsody & Median, and Proh Mic. $20. 21+. Abbey Pub 3420 w. Grace St. Chicago IL anirecordings.com
DJ JAZZY JAY @ MIC MADNESS: BKLYN
6pm-4am. VIP Hall 745 Ralph Ave betw. Sutter Ave and East 98 Brooklyn NY. 6pm-? $25 adv. MC and Dance competitions too.
See flyer. Source: DJ Jazzy Jay
DEC. 17/18: UNITED STYLES 7: BOSTON
5 on 5 B-Boy/B-Girl Battle for $10,000. Dec. 17: 2-7pm. $15. Hibernian Hall 3rd Fl. 184 Dudley St. Roxbury, MA 02119 Dec. 18: 12:30pm-10pm. $25. Boston Center for Art (The Cyclorama) 539 Tremont St Boston, MA 02116. Source: DJ Lean Rock. More info at floorlords.com or event page
WORLD OF BETTERS: MIAMI FL
DJ battle feat. Neglect, Concept and Gravel. MC battle feat. LMS, Surgeon General, Knowledge Medina and Thousand. B-Boy/B-Girl crew battle feat. Ground Zero Crew, Illmatik Phlow, Flipside Kings and Mind 180. Graff writers: Spen, Tragek, Jar and more. Livestreaming from 1-2pm. WorldofBetters.com
Giving away over $100,000 for the top 100 people that submitted "Betters" through the course of the past 2 months. Henderson Park Miami - click here for location. Source: Cros 1
LADIES LOVE PROJECT: POP UP SHOP Toofly, Junkprints, Good Wood NYC, Marka 27, and others! 12-8pm. Free! The Brecht Forum 451 West St (betw. Bank & Bethune) NYC 10014. brechtforum.org Source: TOOFLY info
DJ ROB SWIFT: SWITZERLAND
L'Amalgame: Avenue des Sports 5b Case Postale 46 1400 Yverdon-les-Baines, Switzerland djrobswift.com
AMIR SULAIMAN: MELBOURNE AUS
7-10pm. $35. Fundraiser for East Africa. Melbourne University, Carrillo Gantner Theatre, Sidney Myer Asia Centre , Cnr Swanston Street and Monash Road , Melbourne. more info
PARRANDA NAVIDEÑA: BRONX
8pm. Featuring Felito Felix Y El Trio Los Antares, Odilio Gonzalez "El Jibarito de Lares," José Miguel Class "El Gallito de Manatí" and Yerbabuena. Celebrating Jíbaro Style! $45, $35, $25 | Children 12 and under, $10. Lehman Center 250 Bedford Park Blvd. Bronx. 4 or D to Bedford LehmanCenter.org.
THE BIG SHOUT: EL GRITO GRANDE: NYC
2PM. 15th anniversary of Poetas Con Café. Host: Roger Cabán. FEAT. Bobby González, Carmen D. Lucca, Jesús Papoleto Meléndez, Prisionera Jamás, Mariposa and Sery Colón with Musician Nicky Laboy. Poet's Den 309 East 108th Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues) El Barrio, Manhattan 212-427-1445 eastharlempresents.org. Source: Panama Alba
DJ FELIX HERNANDEZ: NYC
8:30pm-4am. Roseland Ballroom 239 W 52 St., near B'way, NYC. Classic Soul, Funk, Disco, Salsa, 60s, 70s, 80s. $25-$30-$35. Tickets now available at classicSoul.com.
DJ J.MALLS @ TIMEBOMB: PITTSBURGH
5-8pm. Timebomb 200 S. Highland Ave. Pittsburgh PA Info
STEVIE D (FORCE MDs) B-DAY: HARLEM
10-4am. $20 before 12am. Harlem Lanes 126 St. 7th Ave, NYC! More Info
CLASSIC MATERIAL: PITTSBURGH PA The Rawkus Edition. $5. 18+ 10pm-2am w/ DJ's Selecta & SMI. Shadow Lounge 5972 Baum Blvd. Pittsburgh PA. more info
DJ PETEY COMPLEX: BROOKLYN
11pm-4am. FREE! Enids 560 Manhattan Ave corner of Driggs Brooklyn, G train to Nassau or L to Bedford. More info
DIABLO FEST NYC 2011: NYC 2pm. All Ages. $15 day of. Murphy's Law, Skarhead, Lordz Of Brooklyn, Apathy + Reef The Lost Cauze + Slaine (performing as a group), Darkside NYC, ILL-Roc Soldiers, Rebel Matic, Rick Whispers. Santos Party House 100 Lafayette St. (betw. Walker & White St) Manhattan NYC. santospartyhouse.com
December 18, 2011 Sunday
WU-TANG CLAN: NYC
Doors at 7pm. Show at 8pm. Feat. Method Man, RZA, GZA, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, U-God, Inspectah Deck, and Masta Killa. 16+. bestbuytheater.com
PROJECT BLOWED ANNIV.: SAN FRAN
9PM-1AM. 17th Anniv. w/ Freestyle Fellowship, Abstract Rude, Medusa, Longevity, Tabernacle MCZ. All Ages. @ Slim's 333 11th St San Fran CA. Source: DJ Ren trueskool.com
LOS PLENEROS DE LA 21: NYC
La Gran Fiesta Navideña @ 3 pm $12-$15 Taino Towers - Crystal Ballroom 240 E. 123rd St E. Harlem NYC 10035. Info HarlemOneStop.com
DJ TONY TOUCH: NYC 9pm-4a. Santos Party House 96 Lafayette betw. Walker & White NYC. santospartyhouse.com FunkBoxNYC.com
END OF THE WEAK: NYC 8pm-12am: $10. Club Pyramid 101 Ave A, btwn 6th/7th NYC. F to 2nd ave. L to 1st ave). Come early to sign Open-Mic list. EndoftheWeak.com
PROTEST LOWES: BROOKLYN
1pm-3:30pm @ 118 2nd Avenue Brooklyn, NY.
1. Sign the petition and spread it around: signon.org 2. Visit our Website: lowesboycott.com 3. Invite everyone you know! facebook event page
CHARAS/EL BOHIO HOLIDAY PARTY: NYC
12pm - Rally at Tompkins Square Park. 12:30pm - Proceed to CHARAS 605 East 9th St (bet. aves. B & C) NYC. General Assembly & performances by members of Great Small Works, Hungry March Band, Rev. Billy & the Church of Stop Stopping. The Peoples Mic and kid friendly activities including face painting, dance, and art making! Bring a dish or an activity to share! CHARAS served the low-income, activist, and artist communities of LES for over 20 years, providing artist's space, performance and gallery space, afterschool programs, workshops, English classes and meeting space for countless neighborhood organizations. In 1999, despite a community use restriction & widespread opposition, the building that housed CHARAS was auctioned off to private developer Gregg Singer, who immediately moved to evict them. After a hard fought battle, CHARAS was evicted on December 27, 2001. The building, still zoned for community use, has sat vacant and derelict ever since. It's time CHARAS gets their community center back! Source: Panama Alba
Ongoing
OCCUPY WALL STREET facebook page occupywallstreet.org occupywallst.org nycga.net occupytogether.org
Rest in Peace: Special One of Conscious Daughters
"Thank you for your prayers and condolences. We are very sad to have lost our sister, Karryl Smith to complications from a blood clot. We have set up a memorial fund so the family can give her a beautiful home going. She meant so much to so many people. No contribution is too small, as she also has a son who will need to be cared for. Anything you can do will help, and will be appreciated. Donate online with PayPal: [email protected] Or mail your donation to: McNary - Morgan - Greene & Jackson 3630 Telegraph Ave Oakland, CA 94609 (510) 848-1238 Attn: Karryl Smith Funeral Fund. Please make checks and money orders payable to: Karryl Smith Memorial Fund. Thank you for all of your support and well-wishes!"
December 19, 2011 Monday
DJs BOOGIE BLIND & BREAKBEAT LOU: NYC
9pm-1am. Camaradas El Barrio 2241 First Ave. E. Harlem Info
DEC. 19 & 20: JOHN WATERS: NYC
Doors at 6pm. Show at 8pm. Tickets $39.50 in advance, $45.00 day of show. B.B. King 237 West 42 St. NYC. bbkingblues.com
OPEN MIC MONDAYS: NYC
Open mic for all art forms. Hosted by Olivia Custodio. Sign-ups are at 8pm, show at 9pm. No cover, one drink minimum. The Nuyorican Poets Café 236 E. 3rd St. betw. Aves. B & C LES NYC. nuyorican.org
THRU DEC. 30: LADY PINK: EVOLUTION NY
Woodward Gallery 133 Eldridge St NYC 10002. 212.966.3411. woodwardgallery.net
December 20, 2011 Tuesday
DJ TONY TOUCH: NYC
Toca Tuesdays! Sutra 16 First Ave. betw. 1st & 2nd St. NYC 10009. Trains: F or V to 2nd Ave sutranyc.com
DIGABLE PLANETS: BROOKLYN
F. Stokes, UGO Crew. Doors: 6:00 pm / Show: 8:00 pm $10. 21+. Brooklyn Bowl 61 Wythe Ave betw. N. 11th & 12th St. Brooklyn NYC. L to Bedford. G to Nassau brooklynbowl.com
December 21, 2011 Wednesday
ERIC ORR INSTORE: QUEENS NYC
10am-10pm. FREE! Special guest DJs all day. I DJ NOW Queens NY 181-24 Horace Harding Expressway, Fresh Meadows, NY 11365. Live streaming at cutcafe.com more info
DJ CLARK KENT, GETLIVE & FATFINGAZ: NYC
Good Music Wednesdays! 11pm-? 21+. $10 before 1am. $20 after. Santos Party House 100 Lafayette St. (betw. Walker & White St) NYC. santospartyhouse.com
BROOKLYN BODEGA & ROCKSMITH: NYC Holiday Party from 6-11pm. Special last minute shopping deals by Rocksmith. Music by DJ Fat Fingaz and DJ Run P. 21+. FREE. Sweet & Vicious. 5 Spring Street. NYC. 4,5,6 to Spring or J to Bowery. Source: Marilyn Alonzo. brooklynbodega.com
RDACBX LAST MINUTE GIFT PARTY: BRONX
7pm-11pm. FREE! Vendors selling arts and crafts, exclusive and original screen printed shirts, Baked Goodies, Clothing, CDs, DVDs and Vinyl & more! Performances Rebel Diaz Arts Collective 478 Austin Pl. 2nd Fl Bronx NYC. more info
BACK TO OUR ROOTS:
ART ON SUBWAY MAPS: NYC
Through Jan. 31, 2012. Azucarera Gallery 414 W.145 st. (basement level) bet. St Nicholas & Convent Harlem NYC. Artists include: See TF, KR1, Eric Orr, King Bee, Duro, CJ Statch, Sirnutso, Bilroc, James Top, Part1, Atom, BG183, Poes, Archer, Doms, Scratch, Casp1, Lask, Klass,Vase, Stem ynn, KC, Elan, Jesus Saves, Slone, Phetus 88, Spar, Blaq88, Duke9, Med, LSD3, Jean, Denelle, Mastron, Demer, Alive5 & Henry Chalfant. Photography presentation by Jamel Shabazz. James Top. [email protected]
December 22, 2011 Thursday
DJ QUESTLOVE: BROOKLYN
Doors: 10:30pm. Show: 11pm. $5 adv. $7 day of. Brooklyn Bowl 61 Wythe Ave betw. N. 11th & 12th St. Williamsburg NYC. L to Bedford. G to Nassau brooklynbowl.com
DJ PETEY COMPLEX: BROOKLYN
11pm. FREE! Calexico Carne Asada, 645 Manhattan Ave off Bedford, Brooklyn. G/Nassau facebook.com/peteycomplex
THRU MAR. 31: HER WORD AS WITNESS: BK
Brooklyn-based photographer, Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, presents an exhibition of portraits of women writers of the African Diaspora. FREE. Skylight Gallery - 1368 Fulton St between Brooklyn & New York Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11216, A/C train to Nostrand. restorationplaza.org. Event Page
December 23, 2011 Friday
HIP HOP LEGENDS @ BB KINGS: NYC
Cold Crush Brothers, Crash Crew, Kurtis Blow, Rob Base, Joeski Love, DJ Hollywood and more! Hosted by Funkmaster Flex . Doors at 10:30pm. Showtime @ 11pm. $20. B.B. King Blues Club & Grill 237 West 42 St. NYC. bbkingblues.com
JAMES BROWN TRIBUTE: FLAMING EMBERS
11pm - 4am. FREE! Live Set from 9 piece band: The Flaming Embers!! Celebrating the music of James Brown & related artists with all vinyl selections from DJs: Mac McRaw, DJ Format, Rob Life, Bobby Boucher, Matt The Hat, Scratchy Muffin & Second Hand Dan. The Green Door Store, Trafalgar Arches, Lower Goods Yard, Brighton, BN1 4FQ, under Brighton railway station. Vinyl Veterans. more info Source: DJ Mac McRaw
7TOSMOKE: DENVER CO
7-11pm $7. Categories: Bboy/Bgirl 7toSmoke + MC 7toSmoke!
All info + competitor's vids. Non-marquee names only - this is for the next hungry ones! All of Denver's finest Hip-Hop + commUnity will be in attendance. Guerrilla Garden Space 3821a Steele St., Denver, CO. No Easy Props 7toSmoke Tour page: facebook.com/NEP7toSmoke Source: B-Girl Asia One
BROOKLYN DELIGHT: NYC
11pm-4am. DP One, DJ Peace & WildChild from Stomp, $10.(Ladies free 'til 12am), Deity 368 Atlantic Ave.(btwn Hoyt St & Bond St), Brooklyn, 11217. F,G to Bergen St. A,C to Hoyt St. or B,Q train to Atlantic Ave. Source : DJ Peace
GOOD FRIDAYS: NYC GetLive, DJ Soul, Max Glazer, Micro Don, & Special Guests
11pm-? Tammany Hall 152 Orchard St. tammanyhallny.com
TIPICA 73: NYC
6pm. Classic Salsa! Leather Lounge 454 West 128th St. & Amsterdam Harlem NYC HarlemOneStop.com
December 25, 2011 Sunday
DJ TONY TOUCH: FUNK BOX: NYC 9pm-4a. 21+. $5 before 10pm. Santos Party House 96 Lafayette betw. Walker & White NYC. ssantospartyhouse.com FunkBoxNYC.com
END OF THE WEAK: NYC 8pm-12am: $10. Club Pyramid 101 Ave A, btwn 6th/7th NYC. F to 2nd ave. L to 1st ave). Come early to sign Open-Mic list. EndoftheWeak.com
Jorge Fabel Pabon Contact: [email protected] Jorge FABEL Pabon by Erol Gurian photo of Fabel by Erol Gurian Rockin' at 5 Points 2010.mov Rockin' at 5 Points 2010.mov Through Dec. 16: NYC Teaching Movement at NYU's Tisch School - Experimental Theatre Wing on Mon., Wed. & Fri. NYU Students Only
April 16-20: Arizona State University
Original Article
Human wrongs
Sam Feast
Discuss the claim that 'sexual contact almost inevitably goes hand in hand with other forms of cross-cultural contact and is an integral part of colonization and exploitation.’ A case study in specific relation to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In 2002 a volcano which sits next to the lakeside city of Goma in The Democratic Republic of Congo erupted. Mount Nyiragongo spewed hot ash and lava over tens of miles, more than 10,000 homes were engulfed and destroyed and parts of the city which were packed with displaced peoples from other areas are still today covered in the rock from the eruption. But this catastrophic act of nature is not the worst thing that has happened to the region, far from it in fact. Greater destruction has come from more than a decade of complex civil war in which millions have died. The reasons for this continuing war are as complex as the war itself and trying to determine who is fighting whom and for what reason is a difficult task. From 1885 to 1908, the territory we now call the Democratic Republic of Congo was a colony personally owned by King Leopold II of Belgium, it was he who pioneered a forced-labour system that was quickly copied in French, German, and Portuguese colonies nearby. His private army of black conscript soldiers under white officers would march into a village and hold the women hostage thereby forcing the men to go into the rain forest for weeks at a time to harvest lucrative wild rubber. “The women taken during the last raid…are causing me no end of trouble,” a Belgian officer named Georges Bricusse wrote in his diary on November 22, 1895. “All the soldiers want one. The sentries who are supposed to watch them unchain the prettiest ones and rape them.”SOURCE?
More contemporary examples have come to public attention since the year 1999 when neighbouring countries Uganda and Rwanda financially supported rebel forces who fought for Laurent Kabila, a semi Marxist leader who over threw the Congo dictator Mobutu Sese Seko who ruled from 1965 to 1997. Soon after the rebellion, fragile relationships between the nations broke down and by 2000, in alliance with the corrupt government in the nation’s capital Kinshasa or with the exploding number of private militia, seven separate surrounding nations had troops fighting in Congo each funded by local warlords fighting over territory in the mineral rich east of the nation. Although the foreign soldiers have now left the war torn nation, no reliable government has ever been set up. The self proclaimed leader Kabila was assassinated by his own guards in 2001 and his son (although questions have arisen as to whether he is his natural son or a step son) himself a former child soldier Joseph Kabila Kabange, took control and has remained President since 2006.
In The Democratic Republic of Congo, a country plagued by decades of violence, the United Nations reports that since 1998, 5.4 million people have been killed in the ongoing civil unrest[1], rivalling the holocaust. Beneath this horrific statistic lays a more dramatic and under reported reality. In Congo it is more dangerous to be a woman or civilian than a soldier. In the past decade rape has become the weapon of choice on all sides of this complicated conflict. It is a weapon that is cheaper than bullets, needs no training to execute and is guaranteed to leave any community subservient and or destroyed.
The following is a quotation from Hedges that defines conflict and the dehumanisation effect war has.
“ War breaks down long-established prohibitions against violence, destruction, and murder, and with this often comes the crumbling of sexual, social, and political norms as the domination and brutality of the battlefield is carried into personal life. Rape, mutilation, abuse, and theft are the natural outcome of a world in which force rules, in which human beings are objects.” (Hedges, 2002 p. 103) War is a force that gives us meaning.
Hedges talks to the transition of war from the battlefield into the social realm, I would argue that this is certainly the case in The Democratic Republic of Congo.
The problems facing this geographically vast country run deep but they are all to similar when considering the country’s colonialist past. As with many countries where there is constant civil war, control of natural products are often the catalyst for unrest and human rights atrocities. In some countries diamond conflicts have been the source of civil war, however in Congo it is control of minerals. Sexual violence in Congo is often fuelled by militias and armies warring over "conflict minerals." These are ores that produce tin, tungsten, and tantalum, the so called "3 Ts". Gold is also in abundance in East Congo. Armed groups from Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda finance themselves through the illicit conflict mineral trade and fight over control of mines and taxation points inside Congo. But the story does not end there. Internal and international business interests move these conflict minerals from Central Africa around the world to countries in East Asia, where they are processed into valuable metals, and then onward into a wide range of electronics products. Consumers in the United States, Europe, and Asia are the ultimate end-users of these conflict minerals, indirectly we inadvertently fuel the war through our purchases of these electronics products. Rebel leaders as well as Congolese army officials reportedly organize mass rapes as a reward for their troops and as part of their looting of villages. The violence helps rebels assert control over mining areas. Sexual contact seems to come as a bi-product to this ongoing feud, as with previous Belgian occupation, sexual contact has been used to assert power and also given as a reward. This co modification of the female body is, I would argue that historically and today land, minerals and now people have all been taken from the region by foreign invaders, now from that same extracting blueprint both Congolese nationals and foreign visitors have continued the theme. Margaret Wallstrom, a UN official, recently stated in a conference addressing the problem that “Rape in war and conflict is a cheap, effective and silent weapon and it is used exactly to terrorize and put fear in a whole society," INSERT SOURCE.
The sexual abuse of women in war is nothing new. Rape has long been tolerated as one of the spoils of war, an inevitable feature of military conflict like pillage and looting. What is new about the situation in Congo is the attention it is receiving and the prolonged nature of the process. The recognition implies that rape among other crimes is being used as a deliberate military tactic to speed up the process of ‘ethnic cleansing’. According to a recent report by UN investigators, rapes are being committed in ‘particularly sadistic ways to inflict maximum humiliation on victims, their families, and on the whole community’.INSERT SOUCE(The Warburton Report, European Community 1993.) In many cases the intention is to ‘deliberately to make women pregnant and to detain them until pregnancy is far enough advanced to make termination impossible’. Women and girls aged anything between 6 and 70 are being held in camps throughout the country and raped repeatedly by gangs of soldiers. Often brothers or fathers of these women are forced to rape them as well. If they refuse, they are killed. Stories like this although horrific are all too similar to what the Congolese endured a century ago. Rape was then also considered the right of armies, and then, as now, was how brutalized and exploited soldiers took out their fury on people of even lower status – women.
The colonial past of this region of Africa among others has indeed led to the fracture of morality and of human rights as we know it in the west. Although colonisation is over, land ownership and exploitation of resources, two main elements of colonisation, are still taking place. Women and, to a lesser degree men have become another material to exploit, not for sexual pleasure but for overall power through fear. This is what fuelled occupation in the area’s colonised past and the fact that it is occurring on such a large scale today, I would argue is because the nation as a whole has taken these teachings from foreign invaders and incorporated them onto their own citizens. Extreme war rape, by its definition, refers to regularized, war-normative acts of sexual violence accompanied by intentional serious harm, including physical injury, physical and psychological torture. Kidnap and, all too often, murder are also prevalent. Perpetrators intentionally harm their victims by means such as penetration with foreign objects and substances; multiple and sequential raping (including longer-term sexual enslavement) and multiple rapes (gang-raping); and amputation, stabbing and cutting (including carving symbolic or territorial markings on the women’s body). Perpetrators commit psychological torture by a number of methods, but among the most brutal are raping (and then sometimes kidnapping or killing) family members in front of other family members, or forcing family members to rape other family members. Although the risk to women does vary with their group status, extreme war rape is inflicted on women of all ages, ethnicities, and classes. It typically occurs in homes, streets, detention facilities, border checkpoints, and refugee camps. In the case of The Democratic Republic of the Congo, where one of the most complex and violent conflicts today rages, the situation is dire. As reported by the Women for Women International (WWI) in 2005, “For nearly a decade, women in the Eastern Congo have endured unimaginable acts of sexual cruelty, leaving them shamed, abandoned by their families, shunned by their villages, and ignored by the world” (See “Postcards from the edge” www.omagazine.com).
Individual cases of rapes are numerous, both male and female bodies being subjected, age being of little concern to the perpetrators. Although the region has a troubled past, lack of social order and morality can also be blamed for such happenings. I would argue that cross cultural contact when mixed with military ruthlessness is at the heart of the matter. For example it could be argued that women in Congo and Africa are subjugated and effectively made second class citizens. The women’s lack of social standing is magnified when measured against the military. This regimented institution with an ideology grounded in violence and misogyny with a regime that promotes aggressive behaviour in men, devalues women, degrades “ femininity” in men and or nations, it consequently views the raping of women as part of the spoils of war, certainly in Africa and previous conflicts waged by “First World” countries. I would also argue that misogyny and discrimination, combined with the targeting of women’s low social, economic and political status in places such as Congo worsens during conflict or times of stress, making women even more vulnerable to violence and exploitation during such periods. Cross-cultural comparisons or a focus on developing and transitional or “Third World” countries show that women suffer most in civil conflict [2].
Universally, militaries are regimented and male dominated, this is reflected in the war rapes of Congo, sex has also been unevenly gendered towards the male, the male in Congo has all the power, the woman consequently has none. In no country is it necessary to “invent” misogynist cultural beliefs or practices. That is, virtually all countries have sizeable sexist and racist factions that can be called up, modified to suit particular purposes, and used time and again. Similarly, racist and religious groups also exist across cultures, making it more likely that minority and indigenous women will suffer doubly when corrupt authorities take over whether during war or peace. Importantly, gender discrimination and inequalities are universal, though they may take different forms. At the same time, no two countries in Africa are culturally the same, and intra-societal beliefs and practices in Africa, and the neighbouring countries drafted into war can vary considerably. I would argue that although different factions conduct differing methods of war and rape, they each create a “trademark” which is associated with different rebels or Congolese army groups. Targeting women’s low political and economic status has become universal in Congo as in other civil wars. For it is women whose social obligations and greater vulnerabilities during civil wars form the context of a general pattern of internal collapse. Women’s role in African and Congolese culture make them easy targets and valuable as a source of domination and overall power. Current interest of today’s civil armed conflicts as local, intra-state disputes between tribes or ethnic groups ignores the legacy of colonial oppression and effects of power within relationships between government and local peoples.
Gender inequality in developed as well as developing countries shapes and is reflected in multi-national or western policies and actions that promote or at least tolerate discrimination and violence against women. Globalization and modernisation has contributed to instabilities in today’s civil-war-torn African countries. Multi-national and global funding agencies put pressure on these struggling countries to privatize and liberalize their economies, and to take out global loans that burden them with un-payable debt. More established nations such as the United Kingdom and the United States of America recommend that countries implement structural adjustments, which include cutbacks on social services thus emphasising women’s caretaking responsibilities. Additionally, development and aid agendas set by western countries and the global organizations they head, often privilege men. For example, in spite of the fact that women do most of the agricultural labour in most developing countries such as Congo , global or western loans and the provision of advanced agricultural equipment more commonly go to men (or farming operations headed by men) rather than to women. Development policies have also encouraged debt-ridden countries to build up their tourist industries, a strategy that almost always insures the build up of sex tourism and local sex industries. The trafficking of women and girls into the sex industry, either across borders or from rural to urban places within a country, is typically violence enforced. The rapidly increasing sex trafficking industry serves as an outlet into which corrupt officials or local warlords can sell women and girls they have kidnapped and held. This enforces Altmans theory that cross cultural contact cannot exist without sexual contact. The outsourcing of female labour in general, a strategy many countries have used to increase revenues also puts unprotected female migrants at an increased risk of violence. Plagued by domestic troubles and by external, often western-led exploitations or invasions, developing and transitional countries are vulnerable to calls for “Anti West” sentiment and adherence to “traditional” ways. Emerging reactionary leaders who promise a return to peace and order claim to have the support of local populations. Whether through religion-based fundamentalism or semi-secular nationalism, the call is typically for a return to one leader, one state policies, characterized in part by repressive controls on women. Here I would argue, lies the main problem. Patriarchal and racist colonialism is eventually replaced by globalization, featuring neo-liberal economic policies, foreign to the country, that exploit developing nations while promoting democratic politics alien to the nation and gender equality that is supposed to be governed by corrupt inept officials, and such globalization is often met with resistance because of the dominance of warlords and the lawlessness of regions that occurs due to the huge landmass and un- regulated flow of goods, this re-instates pre-modern ways, actions and attitudes toward women. Uprisings are forged and the whole process starts again.
[1] http://www.enoughproject.org/blogs/congo-death-toll-rivaling-holocaust
[2] http://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Knowledge/30754226-EN-2.4.3-NKURUNZIZA-TUNIS.PDF