For Thursday's Class: Online readings from the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees http://www.unhcr.ch/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home

To locate articles:
1. use search bar at top of UNHCR page to enter article names –
2. Must turn in notes for these readings – Bring notes to class

• “In the black man, the force of desire, of appetite, of wanting is played out, and in the white woman, an awareness of vulnerability, weakness, mortality, fear can be lived. Through the forms of these two imaginary figures the memories of infancy and the knowledge of the body return to haunt the mind which would erase them” (166)
• “The chauvinist has used the idea that he is superior as a justification to enslave and exploit the other, whom he describes as inferior” (161)
• Desire to believe culture more powerful than nature/ mind over body
• Fear and want construct a dilemma in his mind and he is at war with himself 167
• Minds desire to escape the truth (of his body) 162
• Cannot face the truth that he despises himself 162
• The racist mind and the misogynist mind are really only one mind, a mind trying to escape the dark, ‘feminine: self 72
• “Almost everywhere that one finds a virulent form of racism, one also finds an idea of traditional roles oppressive to women. This was as demonstrably true in the American South as it was in the Third Reich, and as it always is in reactionary political movements” (172)
• Pornography = separate mind from body, drive emotion out; pornography ultimately punishes sexuality 196
• Crisis in man’s mind and ideology of pornography: pornography teaches rape. For the violence of the mind’s feeling must b shaped. The man terrified of himself must be given symbols through which he many continue to deny part of himself. In the midst of his private terror, culture must give him an enemy. (176
• “Whether the chauvinist mind expresses itself through racist propaganda or through pornography, its delusions are not innocent. For the mind which believes in a delusion must ultimately face reality. And because the chauvinist desperately needs to believe in his delusion, when he is faced with the real nature of the world, he must act. He must force the world to resemble his delusion . . . his body, or the reality of the other, or the force of nature, will eventually speak to him and tell him the truth that he has buried, he is driven to reshape the world to his madness and silence the voices he fear. Ultimately, the chauvinist must face a crisis in his delusion; ultimately, he must be violent” (168)
• This structure of mind “is woven into the very language of our culture and into all its institutions, habits, visions. The delusion shaped by this mind is a mass delusion and touches us all” (167)
• The chauvinist mind has always been terrified of cultural achievement in the despised other. For to serve his delusion, he must keep nature and culture separate. Thus he hates the idea of the educated black or the articulate woman.
• Desire to possess that which he has denied is a part of himself 193
• On a fundamental level, pornography is an express of self-hatred 194
• German propagandists flooded Poland with pornography before the German army invaded that nation. Eros = whole mind/ body, emotion, desire, feeling

From Carolyn Nordstrom’s “Visible Wars and Invisible Girls, Shadow Industries, and the Politics of Not-Knowing”

• In Mozambique . . . “A group of European men were making and marketing pornographic films. Their actions came to light when the dog they were forcing one girl to have sex with mauled her. She was unceremoniously dumped a hospital. The doctors at the hospital were unable to save the child. The hospital staff, and those they called in to witness the atrocity, were outraged. They petitioned the government to treat this as a formal crime; and the government representative were equally outraged. Yet no reports hit the presses; no formal court proceedings took place. Officials associated with the Embassy who counted the pornographers as countrymen stepped in to quiet the situation. Leverage was effectively applied. The major offenders were quietly escorted out of Mozambique without any reprisal. The crime was hushed. And the networks that existed to produce these films was not exposed to public or judicial scrutiny. It was left intact. This point is an important one: atrocities such as using war orphans for pornography do not rest on a few men making a few films. They function as part of a large transnational network of production, distribution, exploitation, and financial gain. They represent an international industry, a multinational non-corporation, no matter how illegal it is. . . .
  • Forcing a girl to provide physical or sexual labor involves a host of adult industries that are often defined as legitimate; cooks to cook for the girls, landlords who own the property where girls are forced to labor, airlines and shipping lines, officials who arrange transport for undocumented workers internationally, immigration officials who turn a blind eye, doctors who treat the girls. Vendors who sell them, and so on through a host of actors and profiteers. All of these many related enterprises are central to the existence of child labor.
• We want to say that violent pornographers are an aberration, an illness, not of “me” and “you” and “us”. But “pornography is a multi-billion dollar a year industry world wide. – the men who were making the pornography in Mozambique came from Europe. The needed equipment, air transport, supplies and start-up wages. They were financed and outfitted. Once in Mozambique, they needed assistants to procure the girls and to set up filming facilities, to feed and house all involved, and to run interface with the authorities. They needed editing equipment and studios. They needed production facilities to make distribution copies. And they needed people to distribute these; people to pack and transport films to various destinations worldwide; people at those destinations to wholesale and retail these products, and people to advertise to potential customer, and legal consultants to keep them out of prison. This is a complex and integrated transnational system. And as far as multinationals go, the sex industry as a whole is one of the larger and more powerful ones
• Would we as readily find the physical and sexual abuse of girls in war if child prostitution did not flourish in many countries. If domestic physical and sexual violence were not common, and commonly accepted, throughout the world? The prostitution of children is a multi-billion dollar a year industry , which gives us some indication of the numbers of adults who are NOT outraged a the sexual exploitation of children.
• A review of the 160 foreigners arrested in asia or sexual abuse of children between 1992 and 1994 showed the accused to be: 25% American, 18% German, 14% Australian, 12% British, and 6% French -- all told, 65% Western!!!