The Quilting Women of Gee's Bend

I am not a quilter but something about quilting always captivates me. The patches of fabrics of various patterns and colors, the handmade stitches, the “imperfect” lines and shapes. In the culture where I was brought up, traditional Chinese quilts are often used as a gift for newborns; friends and family are invited to contribute a patch of cloth with a wish for the baby. They are called Bai Jia Bei (in translation "One Hundred Good Wishes Quil"t). The quilts contains symbols of luck, energy, and good wishes. They are to be passed down from generation to generation, just like those in America.

Respecting the Earth's Mother

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“We realize there is still a long road to go down to achieve respect and dignity for indigenous women. We need to build an inclusive network that can persist over time,” says Tarcila Rivera Zea, Coordinator of the Network of Indigenous Women of South America.

Throughout the world, first peoples or indigenous peoples find their languages, cultures, values, environments and in some cases their lives under constant threat. In every corner of the world, indigenous people are among the poorest, most socially excluded and discriminated against groups. In many respects the world's natives, who account for nearly 350 million out of a global population of seven billion, remain an occupied people.

Before occupation, indigenous women held a respected role in society with regards to property ownership, decision-making as it related to the community and were in control of their bodies.

Civilisation coupled with climate change has changed this reality as women are no longer able to rely upon the elder who was the keeper of herbs to assist in health care issues. Nowadays, women are forced to seek western means of health services but due to their status of living in poor, rural and under-developed areas many perish during childbirth.

In the Congo, where indigenous people represent nearly two percent out of a population of almost four million, women are discouraged from accessing proper health facilities during childbirth due to the negative stereotypes surrounding native people. According to a recent survey, the Congolese Association for Health in Cuvette-Ouest found that of the five hundred and twenty women of child-bearing age, only eight delivered at a health centre.

Besides ill-treatment from health care workers who may view these women as being from a distant culture, high fees, lack of education and language barriers all contribute to leaving this vulnerable population to fend for themselves.

Traditionally, we were taught to honour our elders and to respect tradition. That's all lost now. Indigenous peoples are the keepers of the original law, which is the belief that we as souls are placed on Mother Earth to act as caretakers. All life including the plants, animals, sea and other human beings are our kin and should be treated as part of ourselves.

Given this reality, colonial governments have a responsibility to implement free health services, cultural sensitive training for health care workers and education in schools about tradition and reverence to those that are our global elders.

The following is a short video documenting indigenous women who have been forced from their lands.

A New Year, A New China?

This week’s new moon dawning on February 3 marks the first day of the Chinese New Year, the Year of the Rabbit.

In China, the New Year has traditionally been celebrated as a time of family reunions and thanksgiving highlighted by a religious ceremony given in honor of Heaven and Earth, the gods of the household, and the ancestors. Days before the New Year, families busy themselves with housecleaning, hoping to sweep away all the ill-fortune there may have been in the family to make way for incoming good luck.

How telling, then, that the U.S. visit of President Hu Jintao occurred in the run up to the New Year during this traditional period of housecleaning.

Thirty years of dramatic reforms have transformed China from a proverbial sinkhole of poverty into the world’s third largest economy, one projecting to bank a $280 billion trade surplus this year. Decades of massive profits have made Beijing the U.S.’ biggest creditor and have enabled China to gain a formidable foothold in economies of many sub-Saharan African countries and nations of vital significance to the U.S., such as Pakistan. Astonishingly, China is poised to keep growing at a time when its peers struggle to keep their trousers from slipping to their ankles.

Yet, while China’s international profile and economic clout grow and grow, the country continues to draw international ire for policies and practices that run roughshod over civil and political rights. Among the long list of human rights abuses, persistent gender-related discrimination figures prominently.

Socialized to believe that they have little control over their own bodies and lives and no voice in their communities or the wider nation, few Chinese women know their rights. Rural women, especially, suffer under traditional gender roles that exclude them from decision-making and constrain their educational and economic opportunities. A staggering 70 million Chinese women – more than the entire population of France – lack basic literacy skills. Held up against voluminous research demonstrating that education proves among the most expeditious pathways out of poverty, poor health, and exploitation, this error of omission offers cause for ire.