Wednesday 8 March 2017

More than a celebration (But also a renewed call for struggle for women)

More than a celebration 
(But also a renewed call for struggle for women)

A message for the International Working Womens Day



At first, this person is ought to say that International Women’s Day, or in its original name International Working Women’s Day is a day of international solidarity, of reviewing the strength, organisation, struggle, and determination of women in today's society.

However, that day is not a mere special day reserved for women alone. As contrary to the system's idea of celebrating the 8th of March as a mere commemoration devoid of its revolutionary beginnings, the International Working Women's Day is also a historic and memorable day for the workers, peasants, masses whose desire for emancipation is strengthened by the role of women in struggle against exploitation and injustice.

Sounds age old but in spite of today's modernity, age old issues prevail like those of exploitation and injustice; and most, if not all women are greatly affected by these example truths. So is the struggle to push for decent jobs, national minimum wage, an end on violence against women, and a desire for a lasting peace that's based on national and social justice.

And as people commemorate the event,  also lies a call to punish those who are behind the society’s mismanagement. That in the past, the ones who swore to defend the order has nothing clear in offering services to its constituents, if not silencing those who truly struggle for land, bread, jobs, justice, and peace.
Worse, they just leave people, especially women in its vulnerable status especially in their workplaces, such as last month's incident in a factory, wherein a survivor recounted how she workers, mostly women, including a pregnant woman jumping out of the window from the 2nd and 3rd floor.

And yet the system chose to remain aloof or express little towards incidents such as that. Obviously, that ruling system, in spite of its statements, does not cater a really serious concern, if not a real profound sense of justice to its constituents including those of women. And in fact, there are more incidents, be it minor or major that the system express little about it, thinking of it as irrelevant.
And groups like Gabriela expressed concern with its partylist representative Arlene Brosas for her part stating that while President Duterte claims to be on track in the war on drugs, it has on the contrary succeeded only in launching a war against small-time drug peddlers and users while intensifying militarism and its fascistic actions that targets activists, critics, even civilians that Duterte himself described as a "crossfire" or "collateral damage":

“The rising fascism that has spawned illegal arrests and killings, large-scale military operations and massive evacuations are attempts to derail efforts by progressive groups to steer this administration away from the dictates of big foreign businesses and oligarchs and serves only to further the implementation of anti-people neo-liberal policies.”

But in spite all these issues, the working women, like the struggling masses, understood that it wasn’t enough to protest if not pressure the legislators for pro-people laws and provisions,  for they understood that such action doesn’t bring down the cost of living nor change the setting into something just under an unjust order. Such age-old, same-old realities makes people have to change the politics of the government.

Admittingly speaking, this person sees that the current administration, in spite of its populist appeal rather end swung to what the ruling order desired for and not of the people. The bullshit people, especially women encounter today makes everyone realise that the change coming from the present order is more of retention than of realisation, that somehow compels everyone, especially women, to engage further in the task of struggle against past, present, even future exploitations and injustices, in pressuring further the current administration for just and meaningful reforms, or perhaps to put forward even further the alternative such as a society rooted on national liberation and social justice.