Olivera Simic

Beyond Vengeance, Beyond Duality: A Call for a Compassionate Revolution

barbara — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

A former trial lawyer, Sylvia Clute became disheartened with the prevailing justice system and began her search for new approaches to justice. In her compelling book, Beyond Vengeance, Beyond Duality, she calls for a compassionate revolution that is based on the “Oneness” or unity of life. Clute offers a new vision of a legal system and its criminal and civil litigation gaps, and explains the failures of the justice system and other institutions that are based on a philosophy of dualism which pits “us” versus “them," “winners” versus “losers," and “insiders” versus “outsiders." She makes a strong point by underlying that we should not see ourselves as separate entities struggling for dominance over each other, but rather as a per of a larger, compassionate “oneness."

In Beyond Vengeance, Beyond Duality, Clute calls for a holistic approach to justice while exploring distinctions between oneness v. duality, power v. control, duality v. polarity. She explains oneness as the container which holds certain human experiences such as trust, transparency, generosity, reconciliation, forgiveness, healing, restoration, faith, hope, compassion, security, and peace. On the other hand, duality holds different experiences—suspicion, secrecy, divisiveness, judgment, attack, revenge, retribution, greed, jealousy, insecurity, and war. Any aspect of life can be constrained within the small container of duality, or it can be transformed to reflect the all-inclusive container of Oneness.

She offers rather new approach to the basic foundations of restorative justice, called “unitive justice,” which promotes inclusiveness, aims for healing and reconciliation, and desires relationships that are harmonious, equitable, and peaceful. It is the exact opposite of punitive justice which is grounded in fear and separation and based on the idea that punishment is a deterrent to crime. These new approaches to justice are not limited to the lawyers only, but to all people active in “addressing the unfairness of laws that sustain social ills-like poverty, homelessness, and discrimination." Clute sees positive signs of change in the Green Movement, conscious capitalism, peace building and conflict resolution, and restorative justice.

At the end of her book, Clute offers a number of thoughtful and provocative questions suitable for group discussions which are based on each chapter. Beyond Vengeance, Beyond Duality will be of interest to all people interested in social justice issues, in particular restorative justice.

Written by: Olivera Simic, October 30th 2010

Son Preference: Sex Selection, Gender and Culture in South Asia

admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Natvej K.Pureval

Berg Publishers

Son Preference is one of the most compelling insights into the issue of sex selection I have read. Written through a scholarly yet personal lens, the author takes reader through the narrative and complexities of culture and gender in South Asia. She brings together key debates on the subject by assessing and critically engaging with existing literature in the field and providing new insights through primary empirical research.

Natvej K.Pureval’s work covers a broad range of social science discussions and draws upon textual and ethnographic material from India. With her work, Pureval invites more studies into the field of sex selection that would raise more questions about the normative backdrop of son preference issue. While son preference is not a new phenomenon, and has existed historically in many parts of Asia, it has recently become an issue of not only local but also global dimensions. The phenomenon exemplifies the gendered outcomes of social power relations as they intersect with culture, technologies, and economics.

While the literature on son preference and sex selection has been primarily concerned with understanding it as a practice, resistance and opposition to it have been more or less analytically ignored. Pureval, thus, examines policy and official anti-female foeticide activism and anti-sex selection movement that has emerged across national boundaries and involves not only feminist activists but also people from health sector and wider society. She also draws on young women thoughts and articulations, which make significant contributions to the understanding of recent and ongoing trends. Pureval demonstrates that women’s voices and attitudes towards son preference are by no means unitary and static, but rather shifting and changing.

Son Preference will be of interest to students, academics, and anyone interested in this contentious issue surrounding gender inequity and sex selection. It provides a valuable addition to the existing literature on this highly sensitive topic, and proposes new directions for ethnographic research and analysis.

Written by: Olivera Simic, July 28th 2010

You Don't Play With Revolution: The Montreal Lectures of C.L.R. James

admin — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Edited by David Austin

AK Press

This accessible and engaging collection presents eight never-before-published lectures by the celebrated Marxist cultural critic and anti-colonial scholar, C.L.R. James, who played an important part in the international socialist movement. James’ collection demonstrates his expertise in various fields, from Caribbean history and the Haitian Revolution, to Leninist political philosophy to Shakespeare. He has defined and popularized the autonomist Marxist tradition in the United States and Canada. You Don't Play With Revolution is a collection based on a series of lectures delivered by James during his stay in Montreal in 1967 and 1968 when he was invited to contribute to the practical work of people devoted to revolutionary change in Canada and the Caribbean. Thus, James’ work not only embodied his vision of the creative power of ordinary people who shape history, but the ways they do so and document their struggles. James strongly believed that without the involvement of the mass population politics is destined to fail.

This collection is significant because it provides essential, and previously lacking, information about James’ work with Canadian students and West Indian intellectuals in the late 1960s. It also includes a series of letters James exchanged with the West Indian university students who made these lectures possible, in addition to two seminal interviews with James during his stay in Canada. Those interested in social movements and, more specifically, James’ work, will find this collection to be a great contribution to existing scholarship.

James’ work is relevant to revolutionary politics today, while opening the window into the particular cultural moment in which James’ work took place. I recommend it to both the novice and the expert who wants to learn more about James and his stunning insights. As Austin summarily puts it, “James not only remind us that ‘another world is possible’ is real, but also help us to chart a course toward creating this new world in present.”

Written by: Olivera Simic, June 7th 2010

Offending Women: Power, Punishment, and the Regulation of Desire

admin — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 16:02:00 +0000

By Lynne A. Haney

University of California Press

In Offending Women, ethnographer and sociologist Lynne Haney takes readers on a journey into “a world that few people would otherwise have access to”: the everyday reality of the lives of incarcerated women. She introduces readers to incarcerated mothers who are housed together with their children and serving terms in community-based prisons, a type of facility that is becoming increasingly widespread in the US. Haney uncovers the complex layers of control and contestation in these institutions, as well as the relationship of dominance and power that characterize them. The book analyzes the practices, programmatic narratives, and effects of two state prisons in the US, and offers ethnographic and theoretical insights into how programs like these work. Haney's primary aim is to explain how the treatment of imprisoned women has changed over the past decade.

Haney finds that these “alternative” prisons, contrary to their stated goals, often disempower women by transforming their social vulnerabilities into personal pathologies. She exposes the complex gendered underpinnings of methods of control and intervention used in the criminal justice system and links that system to broader discussions of contemporary government and state power by asking why these strategies have emerged and what forms of citizenship they have given rise to. While the intentions of the state were to "empower" and "enhance self-reliance," Haney suggests they instead push women into a state of disentitlement.

Offending Women uncovers two fundamental ways in which states of disentitlement operate: through the narrowing of woman’s needs and the regulation of women’s desires. Enriched with vivid images and details on incarcerated women’s lives, this book reminds us of incarcerated women's social realities. All of them faced poverty and experienced neglect, abandonment, and restricted access to social support. The fact that they not only survived histories of abuse, but managed to keep their familial bonds intact is outstanding. Offending Women acknowledges and honors these women's survival in a social system that promotes their demise.

Written by: Olivera Simic, April 18th 2010