Women in black against war meet

Off Our Backs, Oct 1995 by Carola, Elizabeth

Passersby watched, eating ice cream, children in tow. A few joined in Some Gypsy children, at first more interested in playing with the balloons and running round the perimeter of the circle, stopped and joined, drawn by the energy. At the end of the hour, women brought their candles into the center of the circle to burn down together, hummed "We Shall Overcome" and the "Ode to Joy."

Women in Black is a growing, changing movement. It first started in 1987 in Jerusalem, with Israeli women's resistance to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, then spread throughout the world -- both in scope and focus. (San Francisco's Women in Black vigil primarily for the homeless, poor, marginalized women of their own city." They started wearing black to challenge the traditional southern European/Mediterranean norm for women (at home, confined and bound by mourning for dead family members), by bringing those private hues, that private process of mourning, into the public, political sphere. Stasa, one of Belgrade WIB's core organizers, calls it "an expression of the unconquered conscience." Refusing to mourn privately, refusing to disavow their rage, refusing to stay out of the public sphere. But it's a testament to the vitality of the network that the wearing of black, the silent vigils, their length and frequency, are still live, still debated issues.

As feminists and political activists, Belgrade WIB recognizes the dangers of falling into a simply "nuturant" role of cleaning up after men's wars. Balancing the necessary day-to-day emergency/crisis relief work; distributing food, helping refugees, etc. with a long-term goal and a sustainably political analysis is an ongoing issue. In the workshop, "Women's Experience of War," one of WIB's activists, Stasa, said that feminists were in a big dilemma helping war victims created by the state; "I don't want just to be fulfilling my 'motherly role' by helping women in refugee camps. That motherly role is political, and I want to challenge it."

I remembered similar debates in the women's peace movement in Britain and the U.S. 10 years ago, at Greenham, everywhere....But the issues felt more stark here in Tresnevaj. There was nothing academic or distanced in the workshops' discussions about the tension between retaining an overtly political feminist analysis, insisting on organizing against the causes of war (like masculinity and nationalism) -- and the pressing immediate need for working with the women and children on the streets, in the camps, starting to line the roads all around us.

bearing canon fodder

Also in "Women's Experience of War," women discussed the increasing threats on abortion rights. Attacks on women's reproductive freedom have often been pivotal in the chain linking militarism and anti-feminism, and the increasing hostility towards legal abortion in Serbia today is no exception. Abortion is still the main form of birth control in most of former Yugoslavia. Because of sanctions, anaesthetics and medication are rarely available. Nada, a Belgrade woman in her 70s who has been an active feminist since before the second world war, said that women are increasingly expected to "bear soldiers for the Serbian Nation," become the mothers of warriors." But, she said, "Women have to rebel against the ideology of motherhood. They will have to stop bearing children for the war."