Awesome Woman: Faith Bandler

Today's Awesome Woman is FAITH BANDLER, an Australian activist who has lived an iconoclastic life and has been a lifelong civil- and women's-rights leader.

In a review of Marilyn Lake’s biography of Faith Bandler, Faith Bandler, Gentle Activist, Lyndall Ryan writes:

...the subject is full of contradictions. She is not Aboriginal, but as a woman of colour she has devoted most of her adult life to removing legal discrimination against Aboriginal people. She is not a white woman, but she has led a middle-class life as the wife of an engineer on Sydney’s North Shore. She is not a member of a political party but she has been a political activist for over fifty years. She is Australian born and bred, but has always felt an outsider in mainstream Australia. She is not a historian but she has published four books about her family’s origins and about the struggle to win a ‘Yes’ vote in 1967. 

Bandler was born on September 27, 1918 on a banana farm in New South Wales, to a father who had been "blackbirded" (kidnapped and forced into slave labor) in 1883 from his native island in what was known as the New Hebrides, and an Australian-born mother of Indian and Scottish descent. During the Depression she left high school and went to work as a milliner. But when World War II brought the opportunity for women to serve in the Women's Land Army, she gained a consciousness of the inequities dealt to the Aboriginal people, particularly Aboriginal women who earned a fraction of what other women were paid.

Ryan continues to list Bandler's very unusual (for a woman of color in Australia) relationships, travels and pursuits:

After the War, she lived a cosmopolitan life in Kings Cross, where she had a long affair with a Finnish sailor, took music lessons to improve her fine singing voice and learn the importance of a public presence on the stage, and studied at WEA classes to overcome her lack of education. Her political involvement with the Left enabled her to travel to Europe in 1951 to attend a major cultural youth festival. In this formative period of adulthood, she gained a very sophisticated understanding of herself sexually and politically. In 1952 she married Hans Bandler, a Jewish refugee engineer from Vienna. It proved an enduring partnership, based on shared political beliefs and a great love of classical music and gardening.

In 1956, when their daughter was two years old, Faith used her middle-class security to become a fulltime political activist, determined to eradicate discriminatory laws and practices against Aboriginal peoples.

 From 1956 to the early 1970s, Bandler was a major influence, spokesperson and figurehead in the fight to gain full citizenship rights for the Aboriginal people. As general secretary of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders , Bandler led the campaign for a constitutional referendum to remove discriminatory provisions from the Constitution of Australia. In 1967, after the federal government had agreed to hold a referendum on the Aboriginal question, Bandler was appointed New South Wales campaign director, a position she fulfilled with energy, skill and enthusiasm. By the time the Referendum was won in May 1967, Faith Bandler had become a major public figure.

As the Black Power movement developed into the early 70s, being black but not Aboriginal was now a disadvantage, and Bandler "retired" from the Aboriginal struggle to begin researching, writing about and campaigning for the rights of South Sea Islander Australians. This was an even more challenging political feat, since she not only was fighting to overturn the false historians who claimed that "blackbirded" Islanders were in fact voluntary indentured servants, but she was also ostracized by the Aboriginal Rights community who had become influenced by a separatist Black Power ideology. Finally, in the year 2000, the Queensland government offered a measure of official recognition to the South Sea Islanders when it conducted a ‘recognition ceremony’ at Parliament House in Brisbane -- largely due to Bandler's research, writing and publicizing of the cause.

Bandler has also written and co-authored many books, including two histories of the 1967 referendum, an account of her brother's life in New South Wales, and a novel about her father's experience of blackbirding in Queensland.


In 1975, she traveled to Ambryn Island, the land of her father's birth from which he had been kidnapped 92 years prior. In 2009, she was appointed as a Companion of the Order of Australia (a sort of Australian "knighthood").

In interviews about her personal evolution as a political activist, Faith Bandler expresses a deep gratitude and strong consciousness of the influence of other women who served as her mentors and motivators.

Sources:

National Museum of Australia http://www.indigenousrights.net.au/person.asp?pID=954

Australian Humanities Review (Lyndall Ryan's review of Marilyn Lake's book) http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-May-2003/ryan.html

Australian Biography (Australian government site) http://www.australianbiography.gov.au/subjects/bandler/

Further links available at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_Bandler

[My Awesome Woman posts were first written for and published to a closed Facebook group, and are republished here.]

He did not act alone

"In the face of inhumanity, we have to be more human. Because there is only this one world, brutal and beautiful, and we only have one fragile life to make our difference in the world we all share as home." ~~ Erik Abild, coordinator for Myanmar and the Occupied Palestinian Territories at the Norwegian Refugee Council, in Al Jazeera.

Photo by Jens Rost

My thoughts:


(1) The terrorist was not Muslim.

(2) The terrorist's mental illness and hatred was fueled by anti-Muslim rhetoric and right-wing extremism that cast anyone involved with the Labor party as some kind of devils.

(3) If you go around spewing rhetoric and hatred against any group of people, if you go around calling any group names or blame any group for your condition or for the local, national or global state of affairs - based only on their nationality, religion, gender, sexual preference, age, race, etc. - I consider you guilty by association. I do. You are guilty. You stoke the fire that sets guys like this one off. Do not let yourself off the hook, this person did NOT "act alone".

Multi-generational homelessness

This man has been sitting in the same spot for a few days on East 4th Street near First Avenue in Manhattan's East Village, my neighborhood. He asks for nothing but I noticed him scraping the sides of a jar of something dark, chocolate spread perhaps, with a spoon.

He does not ask passersby for anything, does not initiate interaction. Yet when I asked him if I could take his photo he engaged with me quite readily. He was clearly not a wino or addict, and does not show overt signs of any mental illness.  I gave him the change from my pocket (and would have given more if I could). I told him he is beautiful, because he is.

The next morning on my way to the supermarket, with my two dogs in tow, he was still there. Still scraping the same jar. I picked up a jar of "Vitamin Water," an apple and a pear, with him in mind. On the way back I said, "I have some things for you." Again, in his absolutely accepting and gentle manner, he simply smiled and said, "Oh, good!" I asked him how his teeth are doing, are they strong.

"I don't have too many left," he said.

"OK, then, the apple is out, but can you eat a pear?"

"If it's soft," he answered, "but I have a grater in my bag, I can grate it up!"

I gave him the pear, the drink and some slices of bread from the bag I had just bought for my daughter and me, thinking how organized and skillful a homeless person he is to have a grater in his bag.

"So what are you doing out here?" I asked.

He shrugged slightly. "I'm homeless."

"Where  do you stay in the winter?"

"I  stay outside. I have warm blankets in my bag." (In New York City winter temperatures are at or below freezing for months.) Again I thought, "What a skillful man."

"No family? Where do you come from?" I expected to hear that he has drifted here from elsewhere.

"From Inwood."

"Uptown?"

Yes, he answered, he comes from that neighborhood, on the northernmost end of Manhattan.

"Well," he clarified, "I was raised in Inwood but my family was homeless, too."

My sweet new friend petted my dogs for a bit. I had to move along. "You take care out here," I said.

"Oh, I will! I do!"

Awesome Woman: Nadia Al-Sakkaf

Today's Awesome Woman is Nadia Al-Sakkaf, a Yemeni woman who, in 2005 after her father was murdered, took over as editor and publisher of the Yemen Times, the country's  first and most widely read independent English-language newspaper. As painfully demonstrated by her father's fate, this position in the ongoing political protest in Yemen -- protest that was first started by a woman -- entails extreme risk. But Al-Sakkaf does not stop at publishing a newspaper that dares to report on government oppression and violence, she also actively initiates and supports efforts aimed at improving the lives of Yemeni women. And she uses her newspaper as a platform for activism.

Al-Sakkaf travels out of country on the conference and speaker circuit and, while she could easily obtain residency in any number of Western countries, she returns to her homeland to continue upholding the principles of free speech and to advocate for women and others. While she was in Washington, D.C. in March, 2011 she was interviewed by Judy Woodruff of PBS.

Yemen today is in a very unique situation. The process was started by a woman and a number of women. And, alongside with men, they managed to lobby the students in the streets.

And the women are also part of the support group of these protesters. They bring them food and blankets. And they -- I have seen a woman throwing hot water on soldiers when they were trying to attack the protesters from her window.

So, we need not forget the role of women in this magnificent time of Yemen.

Al-Sakkaf was the very first recipient of the Gibran Tueni award bestowed annually by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) for, "attachment to freedom of the press, courage, leadership, ambition, and high managerial and professional standards."   Indeed, she has become a strong voice in the call for the Arab media to mind its own store rather than merely complain about the international press, to balance its coverage, to play the critical role that no one but the press can play in a fair-minded society, and to improve its pitiful record at reporting on the many human rights abuses -- both political oppression and the traditional practices that victimize women.

From the WAN page where Al-Sakkaf's 2006 award is documented:

She considers the Yemen Times to be a newspaper with a mission: it should not only criticise the government but also furnish solutions. Editorially, she focuses on raising the newspaper's general standards, with a strong focus on human rights, gender issues and women's rights....

Ms Al-Saqqaf has made it a priority to raise the professional standards of the journalists working at the newspaper and to improve the competence of female journalists in Yemen. Legal education is among upcoming projects for the staff, as well as training in how to report on scientific developments.

In her biting article, "Arab media: To lead or to follow?" posted on the Arab Media Community web site in 2008, Al-Sakkaf wonders why her newspaper was the only one in Yemen to take up the case of Nujood Ali, the 10-year-old girl who fought her way out of a marriage to a man more than three times her age, until it became a huge story in the Western media. And she never misses a chance to encourage women to become full partners in Yemeni public life, and to exercise their voices via the media. When she received the Tueni award she said, "This is recognition of Yemeni journalists generally and especially Yemeni women working in the media. This should encourage them to grow and not give up."

This month, Al-Sakkaf spoke at TEDGlobal. "How did you, then, make the decision and assume the responsibility of running a newspaper -- especially in such times of conflict?" asks the interviewer.

"Well, let me first warn you that I am not the traditional Yemeni girl."

Nadia, you can say that again. You are not the "traditional girl" anywhere!




[My Awesome Woman posts were first written for and published to a closed Facebook group, and are republished here.]

Awesome Women: Lisa Shannon and Fartun Abdisalaan

The Awesome Women of the Day are Lisa Shannon and Fartun Abdisalaan, who together are working to improve the lot of women in Mogadishu, Somalia, which was "recently named one of the five worst places to be female" and is a place where few on this earth would choose to visit, never mind work. They are being honored today for risking their lives and giving up Western comfort in order to advocate for the human rights, health, safety, opportunity, education, and well-being of women in one of the hardest hit places on the planet.

Lisa Shannon, center and in black, and Fartun Abdisalaan Adan, in blue directly behind her,
surrounded by participants in the new organization Sister Somalia,
which helps Somali victims of gender-based violence.

In an article penned by Shannon, "In Mogadishu: A Lifeline For Somali Rape Victims"
in The New York Times this week, she leads off:

“Why did you come here when no one else does?” The African Union communications director asked us over dinner at its compound in Mogadishu. Good question. We were warned against it, especially by war-zone regulars. It’s been called the most dangerous city—or place—on earth. In fact, we had to delay our trip for two weeks due to multiple suicide bombings and riots inside the area controlled by Mogadishu’s transitional government (TFG). So, why go? I gave the short answer, “We’re supporting a local social entrepreneur in launching a sexual violence hotline.”

But the real answer was more complicated. Somalia bothers me. The 1993 Black Hawk Down incident was tragic not only for the loss of United States servicemen, but because many experts credit this loss with a shift in American public sentiment and policy toward mass atrocity in Africa. In effect, we collectively flipped off our empathy switch, approaching African crises like Rwanda, Congo and Darfur as “Operation Not Worth It.” But no country has been more written off than Somalia. And in Somalia, no group has been more written off than women.

Abdisalaan's husband, Elman, was a human rights worker who was murdered in 1996. After escaping to Canada to raise her children there, she returned to Mogadishu in 2007 to continue his work and is the founder of the Elman Peace and Human Rights Center. Counseling and other services are provided to the survivors of gender violence, the nearly universal female genital mutilation practiced in Somalia, and all sorts of struggles the women endure due to the chaos and conflicts in their country.

And then there is Al-Shabab. The radical, militant Islamic group linked to Al-Qaeda rules 90% of central and south Somalia with utter impunity. Not only do they abduct and imprison through forced marriage, terrorize and gang rape. If women complain, they are often accused of adultery and speaking against the brotherhood, punishable by death. The execution methods of choice: Stoning or beheading.

Abdisalaan founded Sister Somalia, a program in collaboration with Shannons' new organization, A Thousand Sisters, which offers the only sexual violence hotline in Mogadishu, provides counseling, business startup advice, and also works to move survivors and their children away from their attackers. "Each woman who walks through the door will also receive a letter from a 'sister' abroad," writes Shannon. "We hope to raise $120,000 per year to make it happen. How is a broke activist like me planning to pull this off? Just like every stage of my journey with Congo, I don’t know exactly. But I’m betting we can find at least 1,000 Americans who would welcome the opportunity to show up for women in Somalia, through writing a letter or giving at least $10 per month."

[My Awesome Woman posts were first written for and published to a closed Facebook group, and are republished here.]

Awesome Woman: Christiane Amanpour

The Awesome Woman of the Day is Christiane Amanpour (born January 12, 1958), a broadcast journalist well known around the world for her coverage of major conflicts and world events since 1990, as international correspondent at CNN for years and currently as anchor  of ABC's This Week.  Amanpour has navigated war zones, built an unparalleled network of worldwide connections, excelled in a hugely male-dominated profession, and gone face-to-face with world leaders fearlessly asking the hard questions. And she has also on many occasions taken the risk of breaking the "neutral journalist" mold by reporting from her own point of view and expressing her own conscience, in defiance of the old meme that if a reporter has a personal opinion on a situation they must keep it to themselves. She is brassy, outspoken, and brave.

Amanpour was born in London (or, by some accounts, in Tehran) to an Iranian father and British mother. She spent her early years in Iran, receiving an elite education as her family was among the privileged class under the Shah's regime. Her family emigrated to England on the eve of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. In England, Amanpour attended the New Hall School, the country's oldest Catholic school that has educated girls since the year 1642. She then traveled to the United States to study at the University of Rhode Island, and graduated summa cum laude in 1983 with a degree in journalism.

Very soon after graduating, she was hired as an entry-level desk assistant on CNN's foreign desk in Atlanta, Georgia (1983) and gained rapid recognition and major opportunities early on. After an assignment covering the Iran-Iraq war, by 1986 she was transferred to Eastern Europe to cover the fall of Soviet Communism, and she remained in Europe into 1989 reporting on the democratic revolutions on that continent. Her achievements landed her a role as a correspondent for CNN's New York bureau, and very soon afterward she was shipped out again to serve as CNN's foreign correspondent covering the Gulf War as it commenced in Iraq.

Amanpour quickly gained recognition and notoriety for her gutsy style of journalism, for her bravery in the field (even parachuting into conflicts), for her poise and incisiveness when interviewing officials and leaders, and for allowing herself to occasionally report quite emotionally on difficult events. After the Gulf War she was promoted to the position of being CNN's chief international correspondent (a position she held until she departed CNN in 2010), and she was sent to cover the Bosnian War.

Deftly moving between the field and arranged interview, on worldwide live TV in perhaps her most famous moment she challenged President Clinton (on his own "Global Forum" show) regarding U.S. policy on the Bosnian war. Locking eyes with him across the satellite signal, she asked one of the most ballsy questions in the history of broadcast journalism:

Mr. President, my question is, as leader of the free world, as leader of the only superpower, why has it taken you, the United States, so long to articulate a policy on Bosnia? Why, in the absence of a policy have you allowed the US and the West to be held hostage to those who do have a policy - the Bosnian Serbs - and do you not think that the constant flip-flops of your administration on the issue of Bosnia set a very dangerous precedent and would lead people such as [North Korean president] Kim II Sung or other strong people to take you less seriously than you would like to be taken?"

An angered Clinton responded coldly, "No, but speeches like that may make them take me less seriously than I'd like to be taken. There have been no constant flip-flops, madam." This exchange is worth watching -- Amanpour has it posted to her Facebook page. To cut Clinton a break, he did pretty well at recovering from her unsettling challenge. Also, near the end of the program Clinton returned to what she had said. "That poor woman has seen the horrors of this war, and she has had to report on them... She's been fabulous. She's done a great service to the whole world on that. I do not blame her for being mad at me. But I'm doing the best I can on this problem from my perspective."

Amanpour fell under some pretty strong criticism after this broadcast, and was accused of lack of objectivity -- many felt she was reporting too emotionally and that she had an agenda in favor of the Bosnian Muslims and was biased against the Serbs. Amanpour explained in a 1996 article in Quill that the Serbs denied CNN and other Western media better access to the territory they controlled, and she believed the Serbs did themselves an "incredible disservice."

Also in that article, Amanpour answers in response to the charges of bias: "The very notion of objectivity in war becomes immensely important... I have come to believe that objectivity means giving all sides a fair hearing, but not treating all sides equally. Once you treat all sides the same in a case such as Bosnia, you are drawing a moral equivalence between victim and aggressor. And from there it is a short step toward being neutral... So objectivity must go hand in hand with morality."

Since that time, Christiane Amanpour has covered wars, conflicts, genocides, strife, political upheavals, and other heavy aspects of the human story around the globe, before settling in to anchor studio-based work towards the end of her time at CNN and now at ABC. She has scooped some of the hottest political interviews in recent history. But whether working in the field with bombs exploding all around her, or sitting at a desk in the United States, she gets to the heart of the matter, engages people, and does not shy from the most important job in journalism -- holding politicians' feet to the fire while demanding answers to the uncomfortable questions.

---

Personal footnote: I met Christiane Amanpour, who was friends with an Iranian co-worker of mine, for a brief moment in 1990 when she was about to depart to cover the Gulf War. She had come to say goodbye to my co-worker. I was introduced, and was bowled over by the woman's aura without even knowing who she was. As a fly on the wall witnessing the exchange between her and my friend, I learned some private details that I will not share here, but I can say that in order for Amanpour to accept her first war zone assignment, she was braving not only the potential dangers of the gig, but also faced going through significant personal changes. She was truly stepping off a cliff, and doing so with her characteristic (but not callous) moxie, which explained for me the energy that shimmered all around this awesome woman.

Awesome Woman: Wilma Mankiller

Today's AWESOME WOMAN is Wilma Mankiller (November 18, 1945 – April 6, 2010), American Indian activist and chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1985 to 1995. Mankiller grew up with her 10 siblings on a land allotment in Oklahoma, in squalid poverty.

In the 1960s Mankiller lived in Oakland, California, with her husband, had two daughters, and attended college. In 1969 she joined the Native American activist movement and participated in the 19-month-long occupation of Alcatraz Island. The stated intention of the Occupation was to gain Indian control over the island for the purpose of building a center for Native American Studies, an American Indian spiritual center, an ecology center, and an American Indian Museum. After the occupation was forcibly ended by the U.S. Government, Mankiller volunteered for five years for the Pit River Tribe.

In 1977, Mankiller divorced her husband and moved back to Oklahoma with her daughters, in hopes of helping her own people and began an entry-level job for the Cherokee Nation. By 1983, she was elected deputy chief of the Cherokee Nation, and when the chief took a position in Washington D.C. in 1985, she became the first woman to assume the role of Chief of the Cherokees.

Contrary to the traditional inclusion of women in tribal leadership, the Cherokee nation at the time was a very male-dominated power structure. Wilma Mankiller worked within that structure to achieve great progress for the tribe. She spearheaded community development projects such as tribally owned horticultural operations, plants that got defense department contracts, and building a hydroelectric facility. She leveraged U.S. policies to gain every possible advantage for her tribe, and paved the way for the government-to-government relationship the Cherokee Nation has with the U.S. Federal government. During her 10-year stint as Chief, she created reasons for Cherokee people to rejoin their Nation, and increased the population from 55,000 to 156,000.


Mankiller lived through a near-fatal car accident and multiple grave health problems. Largely due to health reasons she resigned as Chief in 1995 and became a teacher at Dartmouth College. Upon her passing in April, 2010 from pancreatic cancer, President Obama said:


"I am deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Wilma Mankiller today. As the Cherokee Nation’s first female chief, she transformed the Nation-to-Nation relationship between the Cherokee Nation and the Federal Government, and served as an inspiration to women in Indian Country and across America. A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, she was recognized for her vision and commitment to a brighter future for all Americans. Her legacy will continue to encourage and motivate all who carry on her work. Michelle and I offer our condolences to Wilma’s family, especially her husband Charlie and two daughters, Gina and Felicia, as well as the Cherokee Nation and all those who knew her and were touched by her good works."

My Awesome Woman posts were first written for and published to a closed Facebook group, and are republished here.

Awesome Woman: Annie Oakley

The Awesome Woman of the Day is Annie Oakley (1860 - 1926). She was an American sharpshooter whose talent in this traditionally male sport led her to become a long-time star in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. She was the first coast-to-coast famous American woman, famous of her own accord and not via marriage or birth circumstances.

Born Phoebe Ann Mosey in Pennsylvania to Quaker parents - her mother was 18 and her father was 49 -  Oakley was put into a "poor farm," where she was taught to sew and decorate, after her mother was twice widowed and could no longer care for all of her children. But she was not to remain confined to this classic female employment for very long!

Annie had begun hunting at age 6 and sold the game to help support her mother and siblings, and by age 15 had paid off the mortgage on her mother's farm. She had a natural gift for marksmanship, and by the age of 21 had won serious props for her shooting talent, helped a hotelier win a high-stakes bet, and met her soon-to-be husband, the man who lost the bet, all in one day. From Wikipedia:

During the spring of 1881, the Baughman and Butler shooting act was being performed in Cincinnati. Traveling show marksman and former dog trainer Francis E. Butler (1850–1926), an Irish immigrant, placed a $100 bet per side (roughly equivalent to modern US$2,000) with Cincinnati hotel owner Jack Frost, that he, Butler, could beat any local fancy shooter.

The hotelier arranged a shooting match between Butler and the 21-year-old Oakley, to be held in ten days in a small town near Greenville, Ohio....

After missing on his 25th shot, Butler lost the match and the bet. He began courting Oakley, and they married on June 20, 1882.

Annie Oakley, for all the stature and respect she earned during her many years touring and becoming increasingly famous, stood only five feet tall. She had a long and very successful career as a performer, traveling abroad to many countries and even performing for the Queen Victoria. She was truly an almost super-human sharpshooter. Her most famous trick was to repeatedly split a playing card, edge-on, and put several more holes in it before it could touch the ground, while using a .22 caliber rifle, at 90 feet.

In 1894 Oakley's fame led her to star in one of Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope films, The "Little Sure Shot" of the "Wild West," an exhibition of rifle shooting at glass balls, etc. that can be viewed on this Wikipedia page.  In 1901 Oakley was injured seriously in a train wreck, and endured temporary paralysis and five spinal operations. She tamed her career down for a bit, left Buffalo Bill's traveling show and began starring in a play that was written especially for her, The Western Girl. Oakley played the role of Nancy Berry and used a pistol, rifle and rope to outsmart a group of outlaws.

Oakley set a new kind of role model for American woman and did her share of work to promote self-respect and equal recognition in society for the country's females.

Throughout her career, it is believed that Oakley taught upwards of 15,000 women how to use a gun. Oakley believed strongly that it was crucial for women to learn how to use a gun, as not only a form of physical and mental exercise, but also to defend themselves.

She also had written to President McKinley when the war with Spain was on the horizon,  "offering the government the services of a company of 50 'lady sharpshooters' who would provide their own arms and ammunition should the U.S. go to war with Spain." Oakley continued to perform here and there, and to set records, into her 60s, but she also was known for her philanthropy and support for women's rights. At age 62 she hit a hundred clay targets in a row from 15 yards. After a bad car accident soon thereafter, which forced her to wear a brace on one leg and to spend a year and a half in recovery, she again set records at age 64 in 1924.

In 1925, Annie Oakley died of pernicious anemia. It is said that her husband (Butler still!) was so crushed by her death that he stopped eating. He died 18 days later. It is also said that it was discovered after her death that she had given her entire fortune away to her family and to charities.

My Awesome Woman posts were first written for and published to a closed Facebook group, and are republished here.