[URPE] [NYC] Brecht: Hamid Dabashi, Argentinian Kidnapping Survivor, Members of Exile Theater in Kabul, Wobblies and More

Tue Nov 29 20:59:50 MST 2005

  P L E A S E     F O R W A R D    W I D E L Y

The Brecht Forum
451 West St.  (Betw Bank & Bethune)
New York, NY 10014
(212) 242- 4201
www.brechtforum.org

1,2,3 A,C,E to 14th st.
14A,11,20 buses to Abingdon Square/12th Street
8 bus to Christopher St.
L to 8th Ave @14th st.
F,V to 14th St. B,D to W. 4th
______________________________________________________________________________________
CANCELLATION: Unfortunately MABEL WILLIAMS, who was scheduled to speak 
tonight, 11/29, (Self Respect,
Self Defense & Self Determination) is unable come to NY right now. We 
have postponed the event, and hope to reschedule in the spring. Apologies.
 _____________________________________________________________________________________
In this email:

11/30 Afghanistan:  The Narrative of a Perfect War with Hamid Dabashi  
(Anti War Wednesdays)
12/1   Surviving the Dirty War: Argentinian Torture Survivor  Patricia 
Isasa
12/2-12/4   Workshop for Community Organizers(Confronting Internalized 
Oppression in Order to Decolonize the Mind)
                   with special guest participants: Exile Theater from 
Kabul, Afghanistan
12/5   The Wobbly Show
12/6   Gujarat & Lesser Humans/Venth Chetha:   Two Films by K. Stalin & 
the Drishti Media Collective
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Wednesday, November 30
7:30 pm
ANTI-WAR WEDNESDAYS 

Afghanistan:  The Narrative of a Perfect War

With Hamid Dabashi

 >From the point of view of the US state, Afghanistan was/is a "perfect" 
war. Its success lies in the ways in which Afghanistan has been almost 
entirely wiped out of our daily conversations about war and justice, 
about imperialism and resistance. While it is true that the unceasing 
resistance in Iraq forcefully locates its occupation differently, the 
image of Afghanistan that is successfully promoted homogenizes all of 
Afghani society as Talibanesque, where no "meaningful" resistance is 
possible -- a depiction that is coupled by the image of the Afghani 
woman as an object of liberation. Afghani society, in the course of the 
war, was reduced a people without a history. This public conversation 
with Professor Hamid Dabashi will explore the ways in which such 
discourses are produced and the ways in which we in the anti-war 
movement may or may not participate in them.

 Some topics for reflection include:

What are the parallels between the mainstream feminist project of 
women's liberation and that of the US administration?

What are the similarities between the "progressive" project of ensuring 
respect for human rights and that of the United States as practiced in 
Afghanistan?

What is it that "enables" our antiwar movement in the case of Iraq and 
"disables" our movement in the case of Afghanistan? In what ways does 
this question help us understand the limits of our movement?

Professor Dabashi teaches Middle Eastern Studies  at Columbia University.

Suggested donation: $6/$10/$15
_____________________________________________________________________
Thursday, December 1
7:30 pm

Surviving the Dirty War: Argentinian Torture Survivor  Patricia Isasa

7:30 pm Patricia Isasa
8:30 pm Film screening of El Cerco, Patricia's documentary

At the time of her kidnapping in July of 1976, architect Patricia 
Indiana Isasa was 16 years old. She was her class delegate to the 
high-school Students Union in the province of Santa Fe in Argentina. She 
was taken by a commando group of the state police and was "disappeared" 
(held clandestinely) for three months. She was then taken to a military 
barracks, where she was held prisoner without trial or due process for 
two years and two months.
In 1997 Patricia initiated an investigation into her kidnappers' 
identities, still unknown to her. Thanks to her relentless research, 
today 8 people are in jail and awaiting trial, including an ex-federal 
judge, an ex-assistant secretary for security of Santa Fe, and several 
ex-policemen (one of them a graduate of the School of the Americas). All 
of them had been previously detained when the Spanish judge Baltasar 
Garzón requested their extradition to Spain. Then-President Fernando De 
La Rúa denied the extradition request; now they are awaiting trial in 
Argentina. Patricia just spoke last week at the annual vigil to close 
the S.O.A. in Ft. Benning, Georgia.

 Suggested donation: $6/$10/$15
________________________________________________________________________
Friday, December 2
5:00 - 9:00 pm
WEEKEND WORKSHOP BEGINS 

Cop-in-the-Head for Community Organizers:
A Workshop on Internalized Oppression (Confronting Internalized 
Oppression in Order to Decolonize the Mind)

with special guest participants: Exile Theater from Kabul, Afghanistan

Workshop facilitated by Kayan Irani, Esperanza Martell & Marie-Claire Picher

Friday, December 2, 5:00 - 9:00 pm
Saturday, December 3, 10:00 am - 6:00 pm
Sunday, December 4, 10:00 am - 6:00 pm

Cop-in-the-Head is a collection of Theater of the Oppressed techniques 
that use games and exercises to recognize and confront internalized 
forms of oppression, and explore power relations and collective 
solutions to concrete problems.

TOPLAB is pleased to announce that members of Exile Theater, based in 
Kabul, Afghanistan, will be guest participants in this workshop. Exile 
Theater was founded in Peshawar, Pakistan by several Afghan theater and 
cinema artists who were forced into exile when the Taliban closed the 
doors to the arts in Afghanistan. The ensemble members had been educated
with a unique blend of Soviet era theatre training and traditional 
Afghan performing arts.

Confronted with the extreme conditions of life in exile, the company 
members needed to innovate and improvise, plying their crafts in 
non-traditional and unpolished spaces. Their focus was to rehabilitate 
the theater arts in exile and, for that reason, held programs and 
performances to celebrate Afghan cultural and historical days.

Exile Theater returned to Afghanistan in June of 2003 and has since 
mounted productions there in collaboration with New York City's Bond 
Street Theatre http://www.bondst.org

TOPLAB thanks Bond Street Theatre and Exile Theater for giving us all 
this extraordinary opportunity to work together.

 Sliding scale: $125-$200
_______________________________________________________________________
Monday, December 5
5:30 pm
EXHIBIT OPENING/BOOK PARTY/PERFORMANCE 

The Wobbly Show

Co-editors Paul Buhle & Nicole Schulman - Artists Sabrina Jones, Tom 
Keough Peter Kuper, Mac Magill, Seth Tobocman & Others TBA - Music by 
John Pietaro and the Flames of Discontent.

 Reception/Exibit Opening: 5:30
featuring original art from of Wobblies! A Graphic History of the 
Industrial Workers of the World

The "Show" - 7:00 pm
This is the final New York stop of The Wobbly Show commemorating the 
hundredth anniversary of the Industrial Workers of the World. 
Participants include Paul Buhle and Nicole Schulman, coeditors of 
Wobblies! A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World, 
Daniel Gross of the Starbucks Union, artists Sabrina Jones, Tom Keough 
Peter Kuper, Seth Tobocman and others. Music by John Pietaro and the 
Flames of Discontent.

Paul Buhle is Senior Lecturer at Brown University, a member of the 
Organization of American Historians, a columnist, a journalist, and the 
author of many books including From the Lower East Side to Hollywood.
Nicole Schulman is an artist and activist on the editorial board of 
World War 3 Illustrated, to which she frequently contributes work. Her 
comics and illustrations have appeared in publications such as the New 
York Times, and are in the permanent collection of the Library of Congress.

 Suggested donation: $6/$10/$15
_______________________________________________________________________
Tuesday, December 6
 7:30 pm
FILM SCREENING 

Gujarat & Lesser Humans/Venth Chetha:   Two Films by K. Stalin & the 
Drishti Media Collective

 Gujarat In March 2002, the neo-fascist Hindutva movement in India 
unleashed a State sponsored pogropm that left more than 3000 Indian 
Muslims dead in Gujarat, India. Through interviews with survivors, this 
film reconstructs the systematic carnage unleashed on the minorities in 
Ahmedabad from 28th February 2002 onwards.
The film is a work in progress and was put together to be submitted to 
the National Human Rights Commission when it first visited Gujarat in 
the third week of March 2002. K. Stalin and the Drishti media collective 
are based in Ahmedabad, one of the prime sites of the massacre, and 
recorded the carnage even as it was unfolding.
35 minutes. Hindi, Gujarati with English Sub-titles

Lesser Humans/Venth Chetha 50 years of Independence have not changed the 
lives of the Bhangis in Gujarat, who even today continue the profession 
prescribed to them by the caste system -- manually disposing human 
excreta. This film investigates the factors responsible for the 
continuance of this often banned inhuman practice.
59 min. Gujarati, English. 1998

Suggested donation: $6/$10/$15

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