At-Home with Lepa Mladjenovic

Open Floor for Discussion

We have created a dedicated thread in Conversations for discussion to conclude this At-Home. Please join us if you would like to express your comments or questions about Lepa Mladjenovic’s presentation, to share information, or to get updated news and announcements related to elections in FR Yugoslavia or other issues of concern to women—particularly lesbians— in the Balkans and around the world.

Join in discussion

---

Resources and Links

Publications by Lepa Mladjenovic

Links

Credits and Thanks

Thanks to photographer Lisa Kahane for her photo above of Lepa Mladjenovic together with Joan Nestle and journalist Laura Flanders, taken in Bluestockings women’s bookstore in New York City last June. The image is © 2000 Lisa Kahane.

Thanks to photographer Lieve Snellings for her photo of Women of Tuzla, Sarajevo and Mostar and for her dedicated labor making other digitized graphics available to us. Lieve’s work can be seen online at The Eye of the Low Countries.

Initially written as an email to Joan and other friends, “Again in August” was first published (in a slightly different version) on 18 August 2000 at NewsTrolls.com. “The First Feminist Billboard in Belgrade” was published by NewsTrolls on 15 September 2000.

Women in Black - New York
Silent Vigil for Peace

We stand in silent vigil in front of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue between 41st and 42nd Streets in Manhattan every Wednesday from 5:30-6:30 pm. Come join us. Please wear black.

On October 10th, four members of Women in Black – Gila Svirsky (Jerusalem), Kate Rafael (Berkeley), Ronnie Gilbert (San Francisco) and Indira Kayosevic (New York) – joined with Amy Goodman in a roundtable discussion about our work around the world and questioning currently being conducted by the FBI in northern California. Hear it in RealAudio on Democracy NOW! in Exile.

Here’s our flier from October 10, 2001:

We stand for peace and tolerance . . .

In the aftermath of the terrible attack on New York and Washington on September 11, we urgently call on all those with responsibility and authority, in our national governments and international institutions, to step back from war.

Our hearts go out to those people who have lost family and friends, and our deep sympathy to those injured. Those who perpetrated the violence must be brought to justice under international law.

But we strongly believe the urge to vengeance must be resisted. A war waged by the US and its allies will cause the death of many innocent people, will de-stabilize many governments and societies, and its longterm effects on relations between countries and regions of the world will be disastrous.

Terrorism cannot be defeated by such means. We have to ask why so many people around the world have felt mixed feelings in response to the suffering of the USA. While poverty and hunger, injustice and exploitation, are experienced by so many, and the policies of the rich countries are seen as contributing to them, genuine despair will sometimes turn to desperation, and will fuel terrorism.

We urge all political and military authorities, national and internatinal, to turn away from strategies of war and combine their efforts in seeking strategies for an inclusive, just and equal global society. Without that, we will never see peace.

Signed by

Women in Black, London	Women in Black, Edinburgh, Scotland
WLUML, Women living under the Muslim Law, France	Women in Black, New York
Women In Black, Mendocino, California	Women in Black, San Francisco, California
Women for peace Switzerland and the group from Basle, Switzerland	Grupos de Mujere, Zaragoza, Spain
Peace Group, Denmark	Inizjamed (Mediterranean Cultural Initiative) Malta
Women in Black, Toronto, Canada	Mujeres de Negro, Seville, Spain
Mujeres de Negro, Madrid, Spain	Donne in Nero, Bologna, Italy
Sabrang Communication, Mumbai, India

                         Women In Black
Women In Black-New York stand in silent vigil to protest war, rape as a tool of war, ethnic cleansing and human rights abuses all over the world. We are silent because mere words cannot express the tragedy that wars and hatred bring. We refuse to add to the cacophony of empty statements that are spoken with the best intentions yet may be erased or go unheard under the sound of a passing ambulance or a bomb exploding nearby.

Our silence is visible. We invite women to stand with us, reflect about themselves and women who have been raped, tortured or killed in concentration camps, women who have disappeared, whose loved ones have disappeared or have been killed, whose homes have been demolished. We wear black as a symbol to mourn for all victims of war, to mourn the destruction of people, nature and the fabric of life.

Women in Black is an international peace network. Women in Black is not an organization, but a means of mobilization and a formula for action. Women in Black vigils were started in Israel in 1988 by women protesting against Israel’s Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Women in Black has developed in the Italy, Spain, United States, England, Azerbaijan and in FR Yugoslavia, where women in Belgrade have stood in weekly vigils since 1991 to protest war and the Serbian regime’s policies of nationalist aggression. Women in Black New York have been standing in solidarity with the women of Belgrade since 1993.

For information, please visit our website at http://womeninblack.net or call Indira at (212) 560-0905. E-mail 074182@newschool.edu to get on our mailing list. See also http://wib.matriz.net/.

Donations may be sent to P.O. Box 20554, New York, NY 10021, and should be made payable to RACCOON, Inc., with WIB in the memo line.