INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

International Women's Day (IWD) is marked on March 8 every year. It is a major day of global celebration for the economic, political and social achievements of women.
Started as a political event, the holiday blended in the culture of many countries (primarily Russia and the countries of former Soviet bloc). In some celebrations, the day lost its political flavour, and became simply an occasion for men to express their love to the women around them in a way somewhat similar to Mother's Day and St Valentine's Day mixed together. In others, however, the political and human rights theme as designated by the United Nations runs strong, and political and social awareness of the struggles of women worldwide are brought out and examined in a hopeful manner.

The IWD is also celebrated as the first spring holiday, as in the listed countries the first day of March is considered the first day of the spring season.

The first International Women's Day

In 1869 British MP John Stuart Mill was the first person in Parliament to call for women's right to vote. On 19 September 1893 New Zealand became the first country in the world to give women the right to vote. Women in other countries did not enjoy this equality and campaigned for justice for many years.
In 1910 a second International Conference of Working Women was held in Copenhagen. A woman named Clara Zetkin (Leader of the 'Women's Office' for the Social Democratic Party in Germany) tabled the idea of an International Women's Day. She proposed that every year in every country there should be a celebration on the same day - a Women's Day - to press for their demands. The conference of over 100 women from 17 countries, representing unions, socialist parties, working women's clubs, and including the first three women elected to the Finnish parliament, greeted Zetkin's suggestion with unanimous approval and thus International Women's Day was the result.
The very first International Women's Day was launched the following year by Clara Zetkin on 19 March (not 8 March). The date was chosen because on 19 March in the year of the 1848 revolution, the Prussian king recognized for the first time the strength of the armed people and gave way before the threat of a proletarian uprising. Among the many promise he made, which he later failed to keep, was the introduction of votes for women.
Plans for the first International Women's Day demonstration were spread by word of mouth and in the press. During the week before International Women's Day two journals appeared: The Vote for Women in Germany and Women's Day in Austria. Various articles were devoted to International Women's Day: 'Women and Parliament', 'The Working Women and Municipal Affairs', 'What Has the Housewife got to do with Politics?', etc. The articles thoroughly analyzed the question of the equality of women in the government and in society. All articles emphasized the same point that it was absolutely necessary to make parliament more democratic by extending the franchise to women.
Success of the first International Women's Day in 1911 exceeded all expectation.
Meetings were organized everywhere in small towns and even the villages halls were packed so full that male workers were asked to give up their places for women.
Men stayed at home with their children for a change, and their wives, the captive housewives, went to meetings.
During the largest street demonstration of 30,000 women, the police decided to remove the demonstrators' banners so the women workers made a stand. In the scuffle that followed, bloodshed was averted only with the help of the socialist deputies in Parliament.
In 1913 International Women's Day was transferred to 8 March and this day has remained the global date for International Wommen's Day ever since.
During International Women's Year in 1975, IWD was given official recognition by the United Nations and was taken up by many governments. International Women's Day is marked by a national holiday in China, Armenia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

Congratulations to all WOMEN!!!

MASLENITSA

The tradition of Maslenitsa takes its roots in pagan times, when the Russian folks would bid farewell to stark winter and welcome long-awaited spring with mouth-watering pancakes, as round, yellow and hot, as the Sun itself, as well as with games, songs, dances and burning down the Winter effigy. The rites of this holiday are in this or that way associated with the send-off of winter and welcoming of spring. Maslenitsa is celebrated during the last week before the Lent, that is seven weeks prior to the Easter.

Until christening of Russia, Maslenitsa was celebrated on the vernal equinox day. The Orthodox Church, however, timed this holiday to the Lent, in order not to oppose the traditions of the Russian people (in a similar way, Christmas was timed to the winter equinox day).

Maslenitsa is amusing and mischievous welcoming of spring, which brings about enlivening of nature and bounty of sunny warmth. From times immemorial people took spring for the beginning of new life and venerated the Sun as giving life and energy to the whole creation. It was in honour of the Sun that they baked flat cakes, and after leavened dough came into use, they started baking pancakes.

Russian ancestors believed that when eating the round and hot pancakes reminding of the Sun they took in a bit of the warmth and might of the star of day.

The name of the holiday, Maslenitsa (derived from maslo, which means butter or oil in Russian) obviously owes its existence to the tradition of baking pancakes. With the help of pancakes people tried to evoke the grace of the Sun and induce it to better warming of the frozen earth. Thus, they baked those encouraging little suns of pancakes.

Besides, it was a custom in Russian villages to do various actions associated with a circle, such as, for example, going on horseback around the settlement several times, decorating a cart wheel and carrying it on a pole along the streets, and dancing the round dance (khorovod). Such ceremonies were believed to butter the Sun, cajole it and make it kinder. Hence is the name Maslenitsa.

Every day of Maslenitsa (Pancake Week) has its own name and needs certain rites.

Monday is welcoming. By this day they finished building ice-hills, seesaws and show booths. The rich already started baking pancakes. The first pancake was traditionally given to a beggar in remembrance of the dead.

Tuesday is playing. From the very morning the young were invited to chute ice-hills and eat pancakes. People would invite the kinsfolk and friends with the words: "We've got the ice-hills ready and pancakes baked , please, come and try.

Wednesday is regaling. On this day the son-in-law would pay a visit to the mother-in-law's pancakes. Besides her daughter's husband the mother-in-law would invite other guests as well.

Thursday is merry-making. From this day on Maslenitsa unfolded to its full extent. The folks indulged in all kinds of entertainments, such as ice-hills, shows, seesaws, horse-riding, carnivals, fist fights and carousals, for sure.

Friday is mother-in-law's party. Now it was the turn of the sons-in-law to invite their mothers-in-law and treat them with pancakes.

Saturday is sister-in-law's party. Young wives would invite their sisters-in-law for a feast. The newlywed was supposed to give presents to her husband's sisters.
The last day of Maslenitsa is Forgiveness Sunday, when everyone asks each other's forgiveness to be freed from sins before the Lent. In response they hear the traditional "God will forgive".

On the last day of Maslenitsa they burn down a straw effigy symbolizing winter. Thus they are sending-off winter till the next year.

The rite of burning the effigy is related to the ancient, both pagan and Christian, idea of revival through sacrifice and death; it stands for the revival of fruit-bearing powers of nature, the renewal of its life power. It appears that this pristine holiday harbours profound meaning: the birth of life through struggle, death and revival. The Christian Church, however, tried to uproot this holiday as being pagan, yet it only contrived to shift its dates and shorten the festivity span from fourteen to seven days.

So bake the sunny pancakes and let the winter burn away!

Sources:
Russian Wiki
prazdnik.by

Globalization - Part 4

The Globalization of Organized Violence

• War, military force and organized violence have been central to the globalization of human affairs for much of history, especially in the modern epoch and more recently in the Cold War era.
• By comparison with previous epochs, contemporary military globalization is remarkably extensive and intensive (measured , for instance, in terms of military diplomatic links, arms sales and global military production) for an era distinguished by the absence of empires, great power conflict and interstate war.
• Since the end of the Cold War there has been a continuing institutionalisation and (albeit uneven) regionalization of military and security affairs to the extent that a majority of states are now enmeshed in multilateral arrangements or multilateral fora for military or security matters, and neutrality no longer appears a credible defence posture.
• In comparison with previous epochs, there has been over the course of the last fifty years a rapid world-wide proliferation of unprecedented military capability and the capacity to project military power across increasing distances, including the capacity to produce and utilise weapons of mass destruction, which is both transforming the pattern of stratification in the world military order and creating new global and regional risks which require multilateral action.
• Even though the end of the Cold War has undermined the logic of the global arms dynamic, the Cold War itself ensured the accelerated diffusion of military-technological innovation across the world's major regions such that, for instance, whereas it took two centuries for the gunpowder revolution to reach Europe from China in the middle ages, it took less than five decades for India to acquire its existing nuclear capability.
• In comparison with earlier periods there has been a significant shift in the organization of defence production in the direction of more extensive and intensive transnationalization through licensing, co-production agreements, joint ventures, corporate alliances, sub-contracting, etc. Few countries today, including the US, can claim to have an autonomous military production capacity.
• The same infrastructures which facilitate global flows of goods, people and capital have generated new potential security threats for states, in the form of cyber-war, international terrorism, eco-terrorism and transnational organized crime, which are no longer primarily external or military in character and which require a combination of multilateral and domestic policy responses.
• Despite the ending of the Cold War, global arms sales (in real terms) have remained above the level of the 1960s and since the mid 1990s have continued to increase, whilst the number of countries manufacturing arms (40) or purchasing arms (100) is probably greater than at any time since the 1930s, an era of regional and global crises.
• In the post Cold War period all major arms producers have become increasingly reliant upon export markets; the imperatives driving defence industrial restructuring have intensified to the extent that regional and transregional production arrangements are being strengthened. Few states can realistically continue to aspire, as in previous periods, to an autonomous defence industrial base. This is especially so as key civil technologies, such as electronics, which are vital to advanced weapons system production, are themselves the products of highly globalized industries.

What is Globalization? - part 3

The Territorial State and Global Politics

• Conventional maps of the political world disclose a very particular conception of the geography of political power. With their clear-cut boundary lines and unambiguous colour patches, they demarcate territorial areas within which there is assumed to be an indivisible, illimitable and exclusive sovereign state with internationally recognized borders. At the beginning of the second millennium, this cartography would have appeared practically incomprehensible; even the most well-travelled civilisations would have been able to make little sense of the details of the known world today.
• Two fundamental transformations have affected the shape and form of modern politics. The first of these involved the development of territorially based political communities. The second has led to an era of emerging multilayered regional and global governance.
• The first transformation was marked by the growing centralization of political power within Europe, the sedimentation of political rule into state structures, the territorialization of politics, the spread of the interstate order, the development of forms of accountability within certain states and, at the same time, the denial of such accountability to others through colonial expansion, the creation of empires and war.
• The second transformation by no means replaced the first in all respects, although it was correlated with the final demise of empires. It has involved the spread of layers of governance both within and across political boundaries. It has been marked by the internationalization and transnationalization of politics, the deterritorialization of aspects of political decision-making, the development of regional and global organizations and institutions, the emergence of regional and global law and a multilayered system of global governance, formal and informal.
• This second transformation can be illustrated by a number of developments including the rapid emergence of international agencies and organizations. New forms of multilateral and global politics have been established involving governments, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and a wide variety of transnational pressure groups and international non-governmental organizations (INGOs). In 1909 there were 37 IGOs and 176 INGOs, while in 1996 there were nearly 260 IGOs and nearly five and a half thousand INGOs. In addition, there has been an explosive development in the number of international treaties in force, as well as in the number of international regimes, such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation regime.
• To this pattern of extensive political interconnectedness can be added the dense web of activity of the key international policy-making fora, including the UN, G7, IMF, WTO, EU, APEC, ARF and MERCOUSUR summits and many other official and unofficial meetings. In the middle of the nineteenth century there were two or three interstate conferences or congresses per annum; today the number totals over four thousand annually. National government is increasingly locked into an array of global, regional and multilayered systems of governance - and can barely monitor it all, let alone stay in command.
• The substantial growth of major global and regional institutions should be highlighted. In the context of state history the latter are remarkable political innovations. While the UN remains a creature of the interstate system, it has, despite all its limitations, developed an innovative system of global governance which delivers significant international public goods - from air traffic control and the management of telecommunications to the control of contagious diseases, humanitarian relief for refugees and some protection of the environmental commons.
• At the regional level the EU, in remarkably little time, has taken Europe from the disarray of the post Second World War era to a world in which sovereignty is pooled across a growing number of areas of common concern. Despite its contested nature, the EU represents a highly innovative form of governance which creates a framework of collaboration for addressing transborder issues. There has also been an acceleration in regional relations beyond Europe: in the Americas, Asia-Pacific and, to a lesser degree, in Africa. While the form taken by this type of regionalism is very different from the model of the EU, it has nonetheless had significant consequences for political power, particularly in the Asia-Pacific (ASEAN, APEC, ARF, PBEC, and many other groupings). Furthermore, there has been a growth in interregional diplomacy as old and new regional groupings seek to consolidate their relationships with each other. In this respect, regionalism has not been a barrier to changing forms of political globalization - involving the shifting reach of political power, authority and forms of rule - but, on the contrary, has been compatible with it.
• There has, moreover, been an important change in the scope and content of international law. Twentieth century forms of international law - from the law governing war, to that concerning crimes against humanity, environmental issues and human rights - have created the basis of what can be thought of as an emerging framework of 'cosmopolitan law', law which circumscribes and delimits the political power of individual states. In principle, states are no longer able to treat their citizens as they think fit. Although, in practice, many states still violate these standards, nearly all now accept general duties of protection and provision, as well as of restraint, in their own practices and procedures.
• Global politics today is anchored not just in traditional geopolitical concerns, but also in a large diversity of economic, social and ecological questions. Pollution, drugs, terrorism, human rights are amongst an increasing number of transnational policy issues which cut across territorial jurisdictions and existing political alignments. These require, and will continue to require, international cooperation for their effective resolution.