MODULE 3 HERSTORY: A RECOUNTING OF YESTER YEARS. Mary Joan A. Guan and Gilbert Sape

Transcription

1 MODULE 3 HERSTORY: A RECOUNTING OF YESTER YEARS Mary Joan A. Guan and Gilbert Sape Introduction The general disempowerment of a majority of women, especially those who are part of the rural environment results in a certain apathy which makes a large majority believe that they cannot resist their current miseries. A lot of misconceptions are based in us having forgotten our past or not knowing the valour of our mothers and grandmothers. These women had been active members of resistance struggles in the past. We need to learn our herstory, i.e. the past through the eyes of women. Going back to the past makes us aware of the exploitative and oppressive policies and systems which resulted in loosing our land and putting us on this long journey towards hunger and poverty. Herstory makes us understand that our grandmothers and their ancestors did not allow oppression to be imposed on them without struggling to overthrow the shackles of bondage and slavery. We come to the wonderful realization that in actuality women have through all times been active participants with men in changing their life situation, struggling against the colonial powers and the ruling elite. It provides us hope and makes us assess and regroup our strengths so that we too start our journey on the long trodden but maybe forgotten paths of our mothers and grandmothers, to resist and take back control over our lives and lands.

2 WOMEN AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY KIT Objective To be able to trace the roots of women s resistance against exploitation and oppression. Learning Points Our problems are deeply rooted from our history. Colonialism has laid down the foundation of the present problem we have through the economic policies implemented. Such problem could be traced to the collaboration of the local elites with the colonizers. With colonization, the women s position was eroded. Women resisted the colonial powers and there were examples that could inspire us at present.

3 55 Session 1 Women From Our Past Description This session is meant to show that women have gone through oppression for generations, but have shown courage and strength to fight against oppressive forces, along with the men in her community and in her country. Time allocation Activity for Remember Her : 30 minutes Film Showing of Mirch Masala : 1 hour and 40 minutes Synthesis : 30 minutes Total session time : maximum of 3 hours Objectives By the end of the session the participants would have : 1. identified women who have resisted in the past; and 2. knowledge about the various forms of resistance and struggle our foremothers have taken. Learning points Women have always been in the forefront of struggles against oppressors and aggressors. There are various, creative and effective ways of waging women s struggles along with men.

4 WOMEN AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY KIT Activity/ies Remember her? and/or Mirch Masala film showing (100 minutes) Processing The activity Remember her? allows the group to remember and/or learn the women who offered their lives in the struggle against oppression. The facilitator will provide pieces of paper with women s names on it. Participants would be asked to pick and read out the name to the group. The group then would say whether they recognize the name of the woman or not. If yes, what is it they remember or know about her? If not, the facilitator would provide information about her identity and the struggle she fought. If this activity is not applicable, or not appropriate, or enough, the movie Mirch Masala will be shown. It is an Indian film which provides a depiction of women s resistance against the exploitation of their bodies at the hands of the British rule in India. An ample time would be given for discussion among the participants after the film. Some important points for processing both activities are: ask what their realizations were after the activity; ask what do they think of the women who were discussed; and ask if they see any similarity with their experience now. Ensure that the discussion after the activity/ies, could make them realize the important role that women play in changing their own situation. Realizations of what they learned should be drawn. Reader for Module 3 Session 1 is provided On Herstory

5 57 Session 2 Tracing The Roots Description This session will focus on the colonial history of some third world countries. The session will provide details of the various centuries when the colonial powers arrived from various parts of Europe in search of natural resources of our people such as labour, spices, cotton, and land among others. The collaboration between the colonials and elite in the colonies is discussed to show the similar patterns of exploitation and encroachment between the past and now. The patterns of globalization which are now part of the present can be seen to have been played out in a very similar context in the past. The session in essence will elaborate that appropriation and control are always carried out by the elite class to its advantage but of course it has to be resisted. Time allocation Activity : 30 minutes Lecture : 30 minutes Total session time : maximum of 1 hour 30 minutes Objectives By the end of the session the participants would have : 1. knowledge on the colonial history of their country; 2. an understanding that this historical past is shared by other countries within the region; and 3. realized that the current situation of foreign domination and local elite control is linked to our colonial past.

6 WOMEN AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY KIT Learning points Our problem is deeply rooted from our history. Colonialism has laid down the foundation of the present problem we have through the economic policies implemented. Such problem could be traced to the collaboration of the local elites with the colonizers. Activity Pick Out The Monument Plotting On The Map Processing This is to introduce the next session on colonial history. The facilitator will be showing to the group cut outs/photos of monuments which depict colonial past of the country. The participants will be asked if they recognize any of them. If so, they will be asked what they know about them. If not, the facilitator would explain the significance of the monuments. The photos should be arranged in historical sequence to facilitate flow of the discussion. As she explains that colonialism was happening within the region, the facilitator will use the map to plot out the other countries colonized by the different European countries. Please use poster (PT 3) Map of colonized countries. Poster (PT 3) for Module 3 Session 2

7 59 Lecture Notes The important things to note: that colonial powers entry and continuing presence for generations, were facilitated by the interest of our local elite; food and agricultural products such as spices from the colonies were controlled by the colonials for their own use; the colonies were source of cheap of labor, and were transported to other parts of the countries, and region to cultivate other lands occupied by the foreign powers; famine was created by the exportation of staples such as wheat to Europe; and the colonials granted lands, which were grabbed from the local peoples, to local elite as a way to pacify opposition and to win them over to their side. In explaining these points, the facilitator will use different photos and the map. She will use colored pens to trace on the map the route of the forced labor and slavery. Reader for Module 3 Session 2 is provided. The Story of Telesforo

8 WOMEN AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY KIT Session 3 Altered Lives Description This session will demonstrate how colonization has changed the lives of the communities, particularly women. With the lands shifting from the hands of the tillers to the hands of the colonizers, and the local elites who collaborated with the foreigners to preserve their own interest, the roles of women as major food producers have been systematically eroded. Time allocation Activity : 30 minutes to 1 hour Lecture : 30 minutes to 1 hour Total activity : maximum of 2 hours Objective By the end of the session the participants would have an understanding of the role of colonialism and foreign domination have in the erosion of the status and role of women in the communities.

9 61 Learning points Before the colonizers have come, the peasant families have access and control over their lands and have decisions over food production and consumption. With colonialism, ownership of land has shifted to the local elite and to the foreign powers. Before the colonizers have come, women have been playing a major role in food production. With colonization, the women s position was eroded. Activity Story Telling Processing Discuss and interpret the literary pieces (stories/ poems/ folk songs/ epics), again relating it to their own experiences. As you ask questions relating to the literary piece, lead the questioning on how women had been disempowered as time went by. Let them realize the altered arrangements that had happened among themselves that they thought had been normal all long. Emphasize that their disempowerment and altered lives had been caused by colonization. Relate their condition to what had also happened in the other parts of the region. Readers for Module 3 Session 3 are provide. Story of Kabesang Tales The Struggle of Mai Bakhtawar Poems, songs from the past

10 WOMEN AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY KIT Lecture Notes Such invasion changed our lives forever as women and as major food producers. In some countries ruled by the monarchy where our ancestors were stewards, ownership or private property was enforced by the invaders to some loyal subjects and collaborators. The foreign invaders stripped us of our identity and role as major food producers. We then played a secondary role and were just counted as part of our husbands or fathers. As the major food producers, we could no longer decide on what to plant for our subsistence but had to give in to the demands of the new landlords, our invaders and colonizers. We can no longer plant what we need or want. The foreign invaders or colonizers imposed what crops we have to grow, crops that would serve their needs not ours. They imposed that we plant a single crop also known as mono cropping instead of our usual diverse planting. In mono cropping, agricultural farms were concentrated and converted into plantations of sugar, rubber, palm, pineapple, abaca, or any crop that could give the colonizers an edge in the world market. At the same time, our countries resources, such as our forest, minerals, flora and fauna were heavily extracted as source of raw materials. Such concentration of farming caused food insecurity among our farming families. This led to famine and malnutrition. This caused massive death among families especially among us, women, and among our children. To facilitate faster concentration of control and dominance of the world market at a cheaper cost, the colonizers later on brought in their corporations, which extracted the local raw materials into high valued and refined products. The slave trade and cheap labour, which flourished for over 300 years, became a major source of the colonizers wealth creation, victimizing more women and children. We were reduced as properties of our landlords, our husbands, and our fathers that we were bartered or exchanged as slaves or as payment for the families debts.

11 63 Collaborators prolonged our agony A new breed of ruling elites, who also had vested interests, conspired with the invaders and paved the smooth implementation of the policies that put us deeper into oppression. The colonizers were able to shape local minds that would ensure the entrenchment of policies that plagued us until now. Conditioned for second place Dispossessed from our land, our families were powerless before the new landowners. And these new landowners promote a feudal culture that inculcated the concept of assigning us and our children the status of mere extensions of our men. So, the new landowners dealt only with our men in matters relating to production, ignoring our role. Our participation in field work never ceased and was essential in nature. However, as we were viewed by society as good only for the home, our participation was perceived as secondary or merely helping. Though we were pictured as mere housewives, poverty made it impossible to be so. We had to work in the fields in order to meet the family s consumption needs and its obligations toward land rent. Dictated upon by tradition and necessity to hold the family together, we as women fulfilled almost single handedly the tasks of nurse, cleaner, teacher, seamstress, wife, mother, and farmhand, amidst the most backward living conditions. In certain places, we together with our children had to spend more than 15 hours a week to look for water and fuel. And since we were placed second and a mere help to our men, only the latter as the head of the family acquired tenancy rights and could represent the family in village assemblies and activities. We were only called when topics to be discussed were extension of our house chores beautification or preparation for village celebrations. Together with our dispossessed image as major producers, the colonizers and new landowners glorify docility, unquestioning servitude, and devotion to family as necessary qualities of an ideal woman. Such feudal image building disguised the oppression we experienced. Quietly, we were shaped to fear authority and even pushed to passivity in the face of severe exploitation. Thus, such conditioning had hampered our progress and kept us isolated, marginalized and oppressed.

12 WOMEN AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY KIT MODULE SYNTHESIS As we bore the burden of exploitation and oppression, we felt the fury within ourselves; a fury that needed to be unleashed as part of the unleashing of all the oppressed against our foreign invaders. We found a vehicle for striking at the whole underpinning of such oppression through participating in the struggle. We can never be considered as mere incidental factor in the struggle for changing our society. Since we were at the very core of those who were exploited and oppressed, it was inevitable that we were at the centre of the struggle as well. We became a formidable force to break the chain of oppression. Hand in hand with our men, we took an active role in the resistance. Some of us even became leaders of the revolution. Some of us held guns to restore freedom for our countries. Others helped in tending the wounded and the sick, while there are also those who were responsible in keeping the documents and communication lines open among the freedom fighters. As we still seek genuine freedom and independence, the peoples struggle continues.