Thursday, November 09, 2006

Announcing our blog

Here is the email I sent to friends and supporters announcing our blog. Props to Jen for building it!

Hi Folks,

As most of you know, I will be participating in a human rights monitoring mission to the Philippines soon (I will be there November 7th-25th). Theobjective is to support to work of the people's organizations there indocumenting, exposing, and opposing the politically motivated killings and disappearances that have severely escalated since 2001. (For more info,please visit stopthekillings.org). The host organization is Karapatan, aFilipino human rights organization.

It will also be an amazing opportunity for me to learn from these incredibleorganizations that, despite the repressive conditions, have built a people'sresistance that is extremely strong. I will be able to bring this learning back with me to my organization, Grassroots Women(www3.telus.net/grassrootswomen), to keep building toward our goal ofbuilding a movement for genuine women's liberation from within "the belly of the beast" of imperialism in the north.

The perspective that this mission carries emerges from the tradition ofgrassroots organizing that I am proud to be a part of--we see human rightsnot as something neutral or a matter of concern only for the Third World, but rather as inseparable from the broader calls of all people's movementscalling for national and social liberation. As such, a major focus will beon exposing and opposing the complacency or tacit support that the Canadian state offers in the face of this shocking pattern of killings anddisappearances.

We will have limited internet access while we are there, but we hope to beable to maintain a blog to keep our friends and supporters updated about our activities. It's empty now, but we hope to start making postings as soon aswe arrive:http://humanrights-philippines.blogspot.com/You can post comments there if you like, or just keep us in your thoughts and wish us strength.For those of you that are in Vancouver, we will be giving a public reportback about the mission on December 10th. Watch the blog for more details.

Makibaka hwuag matakot! (Struggle, don't be afraid!)

Love and solidarity,Merryn

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