Vinie Burrows, Kassahun Checole, Imani Countess, Jennifer Davis, Kenyon Farrow, Silvia Federici & George Caffentzis, Haymarket Books, Jean & George Houser, Chaz Maviyane, Liz Mestres, Matt Meyer & Meg Starr, Sonia Sanchez, Bill Sutherland & Marilyn Meyer invite you to attend the
War Resisters League’s 44th Annual Peace Award
Stubborn Hope: Celebrating the Ongoing Struggles for Justice and Peace in Southern Africa
Honoring the Work of Dennis Brutus, Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), and Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ)
September 18, 2009 · 6:30 pm Judson Memorial Church 55 Washington Square South · New York City
WRL will honor the work of Dennis Brutus, WOZA, and GALZ both by hearing about their vital campaigns and activities and sharing food and conversation, as we further weave our movements and celebrate our victories.
We will enjoy an African dinner at 6:30, followed by a program and award ceremony at 8:00 including poetry by Fungai Maboreke, Mahina Movement and Vinie Burrows, Shona music of Zimbabwe by Mbira New York and songs by member of the Freedom Singers, Matt Jones.
We will also give the Grace Paley Lifetime Achievement Award to WW II conscientious objector, longtime WRL member and Pan Africanist leader Bill Sutherland.
Tickets are $44 ($22 for low income, unemployed, senior, students)
About the Awardees:
Dennis Brutus was an anti-apartheid activist from within South Africa beginning in the 1960s and played a leading role in the international sports boycott that led to South Africa’s ban from the Olympic Games. An award-winning author, he fled the country after serving a jail term for his political activity and was eventually granted political refugee status in the United States, where he worked as professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. A champion of many causes, he most recently has been an outspoken campaigner against neoliberalism and globalization, teaching at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Center for Civil Society.
Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) was founded in 2003 to provide women from all walks of life with a united voice to speak out on issues affecting their day-to-day lives. Empowering female leadership and community involvement in pressing for solution to the political and economic crisis currently facing Zimbabwe, WOZA has called for “tough love” based on the principles of strategic nonviolence. With a national membership of over 70,000 women and men, WOZA has defined tough love as a “people power” tool that “any community can use to press for better governance and social justice.”
Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) was formed in 1990 to provide gay men and lesbians in Zimbabwe with a network to facilitate communication within the gay community. Gaining international attention some years later when the government of Robert Mugabe banned the group from a prominent Pan African book fair, GALZ has always emphasized the importance of understanding that “sexual rights are human rights.” Working closely with other human rights organizations, the women’s movement, AIDS initiatives, and regional associates, GALZ is working around integrating gay rights with the other basic human rights for which Zimbabwean civil society is currently battling. GALZ members edited the book Unspoken Facts: A History of Homosexualities in Africa; GALZ also serves on the Council of War Resisters’ International.
For more information about the Peace Award please visit our website, www.warresisters.org, or call 212.228.0450
War Resisters League | 339 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012 | 212.228.0450 | wrl at warresisters.org |www.warresisters.org
***
STUBBORN HOPE:
Celebrating the Ongoing Struggles for Justice and Peace in Southern Africa
The War Resisters League’s 44th Annual Peace Award Dinner honoring the work of Dennis Brutus, Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), and Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ)
Friday, September 18, 2009, 6:30 pm Judson Memorial Church, New York City
As Dennis Brutus sat in his prison cell on South Africa’s notorious Robben Island, he penned the poem “Stubborn Hope” as a way of broadcasting to the world that the struggle would go on, even from behind bars. In the very same cage that had housed Mahatma Gandhi in Johannesburg's Fort Prison, and again later with colleague Nelson Mandela in an adjacent room at Robben Island, Brutus pledged his life to resistance and poetry and has been combining both ever since. The War Resisters League is pleased to bestow our annual Peace Award on Dennis Brutus, Women of Zimbabwe Arise, and Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe—all demonstrating with stubborn hope the idea that lasting liberation and peace will come for all people.
War Resisters League 2009 Peace Award
To Dennis Brutus, South African Poet and Freedom Fighter Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) and Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ)
PROGRAM
Music
Mbira New York
Welcome Imani Countess and Matt Meyer
Presentation of Grace Paley Lifetime Achievement Award to Bill Sutherland Accepted by Rachel Sutherland-Phillips
Conversation with Dennis Brutus via Videophone Kassahun Checole and Jennifer Davis
Music Matt Jones
Presentation of WRL Peace Award to Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe Accepted by Kenyon Farrow
Poetry Fungai Oliver Maboreke
Presentation of WRL Peace Award to Women of Zimbabwe Arise Accepted by Sadie Healy
A Word About the War Resisters League Liz Roberts
Music and Poetry Mahina Movement
Statements from Supporters
Poetry Vinie Burrows
Presentation of WRL Peace Award to Dennis Brutus Accepted by Dennis Brutus (video)
Closing
The War Resisters League Peace Award
Intended to honor an organization or person whose work represents WRL’s radical nonviolent platform of action, the award was first given in 1958 to Jeannette Rankin, the only congressperson to vote against U.S. entry into both world wars. Subsequent awardees have included civil rights activists Bayard Rustin and Bob Moses, political folksingers Odetta and Pete Seeger, poet-priest Daniel Berrigan, military resisters from both Gulf wars, and Fernando Suarez del Solar of Military Families Speak Out, along with groups like Vietnam Veterans Against the War and the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques. Speakers at Peace Award events have included Nobel laureates Martin Luther King Jr. and Pearl S. Buck, poet Allen Ginsberg, and labor organizer A. Philip Randolph.
The War Resisters League affirms that all war is a crime against humanity. We are determined not to support any kind of war, international or civil, and to strive nonviolently for the removal of the causes of war, including racism, sexism, and all forms of human exploitation.
War Resisters League 339 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012 (212) 228-0450 www.warresisters.org