The fate of women in times of war has always been considered something a non-issue, buried as it was, and made banal as part and parcel of the lot of civilian population in general, since women were non-combatants. But looking at more recent conflicts we can no longer pretend that women are in a home front of sorts, as opposed to soldiers in battle, because there is no home front anymore, and women are now right in the middle of armed (...) conflicts, as, for instance, in Algeria and in Bosnia. (shrink)

In its effort « to reconsider the sexist and racist biases that lead to ignore the fundamental role played by migrant women in our society s, this collection of articles stresses both the invisibilization and the ethnicization of the work performed by migrant women, as it is inscribed within the sexual division of labor. The analyses provided here cover various European countries, Spain, France, Italy.

The urgency of today’s conjuncture calls to us in a number of ways : to develop planetary citizenship and the solidarities it implies ; to promote and help those subjectivities which gain autonomy in the processes of resistance and alternative construction ; to develop myriad transveral encounters ; and finally not to hand the planet over to destructive forces of all kinds.

Facing israelian intransigent Ilan Halevi explain the failure of Oslo’s agreement, from the first intifada to the second. The archaic structure of Israel in front of pluriethnic and multi-denominational society, holds only because the society defines as being in war. There is only an international intervention which can prevent, the risk to pass of hundred deaths to thousand deaths... This intervention is necessary, only because it can realize for the Israeli opinion which it is impossible to settle question by force. (...) The Israelis do not stop saying « we shall not negotiate under the fire », but Palestinians always knew that they are making peace, under the fire, colonial and military violence never broke off. (shrink)

This book by Anne Le Huérou, Aude Merlin, Amandine Regamey and Silvia Serrano reinscribes the Chechen conflict within the continuity of Russian colonization , within that of a Sovietization out of which the nationalist movement originally grew, within the immanent needs of the Putinian regime and within the complexity of the interactions between Islam, resistance, solidarity, identity and the fear of extermination. It focuses in particular on the role of women, including of the “kamikaze” women who tragically illustrate the change (...) in nature of the resistance. The book is published at a moment when it is urgent for Europe not to repeat in Chechnya the inconsequent reflexes it adopted during the wars in the ex-Yugoslavia. (shrink)

Résumé Le sort des femmes dans les guerres a toujours souffert du non-dit, il se trouvait en quelque sorte enfoui, banalisé dans le sort général des civils puisqu’elles n’étaient pas combattantes. Mais on peut dire que dans les derniers conflits, les femmes ne font plus partie d’un « arrière », par opposition aux combattants du front, car en fait il n’y a plus d’arrière, elles se retrouvent désormais de plein pied dans la guerre (en Algérie et en Bosnie, notamment).

Women in black » of Jerusalem appeared during first Intifada. Every Friday, Place of France in Jerusalem-Fast their posters « End of occupation » say clearly in English, in Hebrew and in Arabic their refusal of the politics of occupation of territories, which there is no possible peace without the occupied territories are returned and constitute a Palestinian State. As Mothers of the May place which inspired them their tenacity paid: they became symbolic of the nonviolent resistance of the women (...) in a situation of injustice. The other groups of women in black built up themselves, through the world, in Colombia, Italy. Spain, USA.. (shrink)