Women in Black
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Women in Black is an anti-war organization, thought by many to be a left-wing political group, though many members claim that the organization is beyond ideology and in fact not political at all. Estimates say there are about 10,000 members world wide. Though there is no agreement upon constitution between the various segments world wide, all members believe that male violence against women in domestic life and war are connected.
The first group was formed by Israeli women in Jerusalem in 1988, following the outbreak of the first Intifada (Palestinian uprising). Shocked by what they considered serious violations of human rights by Israeli soldiers in the Occupied Territories and considering the situation of military occupation of one people by another as the root cause, the women decided to hold a vigil every Friday in central Jerusalem, wearing black clothing in mourning for all victims of whatever side and holding signs with the slogan "Down with the Occupation".
The idea of regular weekly vigils seems to have been inspired by the example of the "Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo", in Argentina. (Some of the Jerusalem founders had originally immigrated to Israel from Latin America.)
The initiative soon spread to various other locations in Israel, with women standing weekly in main squares of cities or at junctions on inter-city highways, sometimes needing to face sexual taunts and insults by right-wingers and occasional physical violence. As was decided early on, the movement did not adopt any formal program other than opposition to the occupation. Local groups were completely autonomous in deciding such issues as whether or not to open participation to men as well as women, and there were many shades of political difference from one place to another.
At the peak of the Intifada there were no less than thirty vigils in different locations throughout the country. The number dwindled sharply after the Oslo Agreement in 1993, when it seemed that peace with the Palestinians was at hand, and picked up again when violent events proved that hope to have been premature.
The first vigils in other countries were started in solidarity with the Israeli group, and took up the Israeli-Palestinian issue directly - often involving Jewish women who felt critical of the policies of the Government of Israel. Soon, however, such groups took up a variety of local social and political issues, and the idea spread fast.
Especially notable were the Women in Black groups in the various fragments of the former Yugoslavia, which in the 1990s confronted the tide of rampant nationalism, hatred and bloodshed, often meeting with violence from nationalists and persecution by police. In Serbia, Slobodan Milošević devoted several speeches to attacking them, calling them "witches" among other negative words.
The world-wide Women in Black is still going strong more than twenty years after its inception, and while each group is free to pursue its own goals and activities, they keep in regular contact via e-mail and the Internet and hold annual international conferences. The movement has been growing in the United States since the 2003 invasion of Iraq which is an important issue for many members of the movement. Some chapters of the movement also encourage men to participate, though the movement still consists mostly of women. Their most important tactic still consists of standing together periodically in various public places in their communities, usually in complete silence.
