© Frank H. Jump
March 23rd, 2008:
Torture Update – U.S. Commemorative Stamps – Susan Sontag Quote
© Frank H. Jump
Here is a Sontag quote forwarded to me by David Duckworth who is preparing for a coming lecture [the 2008 National Popular Culture & American Culture Associations Conference] in which Duckworth will “discuss gay artists and the themes of detention and torture in art. I am sharing with you an excerpt from Susan Sontag’s “Regarding the Pain of Others”:
“All memory is individual, unreproducible — it dies with each person. What is called collective memory is not a remembering but a stipulating: that this is important, and this is the story about how it happened, with the pictures that lock the story in our minds. Ideologies create substantiating archives of images, representative images, which encapsulate common ideas of significance and trigger predictable thoughts, feelings. Poster-ready photographs — the mushroom cloud of an A-bomb test, Martin Luther King, Jr., speaking at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the astronaut walking on the moon — are the visual equivalent of sound bites. They commemorate, in no less blunt fashion than postage stamps, Important Historical Moments; indeed, the triumphalist ones (the picture of the A-bomb excepted) become postage stamps. Fortunately, there is no one signature picture of the Nazi death camps.”
When they (we) executed Saddam Hussein, I was compelled to do a U.S. Commemorative Stamp series on American Torture in the name of democracy and freedom. The stamp design was modeled after Nazi German Propaganda stamps from the 1930s and the images were culled from what was made available on the Internet by the news media. Since the fall of Hussein’s regime- gay and lesbian Iraqis have been systematically hunted down and executed in the streets, their homes and driven into secrecy. There was evidence of religious pluralism and gender tolerance during Hussein’s reign. Here is a glimpse of what is occurring now that Iraq has been “liberated.”
The body of Karar Oda, who was murdered in April 2006 because he was believed to have had an affair with another man. Murdered and set ablaze April 2006, Karar Oda is just one of the many Iraqis dragged from their homes by hooded militia and shot, set on fire or beheaded because they were believed to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. – Gay Lesbian Times 2006
In June 2006, Karar Oda, a thirty-eight-year-old man from Sadr City, was kidnapped by the Badr Brigade—an informal armed wing of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq—and a part of the country’s government. The Ministry of Interior presented an arrest warrant to his family. It stated that Karar was accused of homosexuality—something considered extremely immoral—and deserved to be punished by death. Karar’s burnt and mutilated body was found ten days later. – Diana Y. Vitoshka from The Modern Face of Honor Killing: Factors, Legal Issues, and Policy Recommendations
On Suffragettes & the Sisterhood of the Struggle for Gender Equity (or America’s Ten Toughest Broads)
Library of Congress (American Memory) Penn[sylvania] on the picket line– 1917. Photographer: Harris & Ewing, Washington, D.C. Created/Published: 1917 {Library of Congress (American Memory) Penn[sylvania] on the picket line– 1917. Photographer: Harris & Ewing, Washington, D.C. Created/Published: 1917}
Summary: Photograph of fourteen suffragists in overcoats on picket line, holding suffrage banners in front of the White House. One banner reads: “Mr. President How Long Must Women Wait For Liberty”. White House visible in background. Library of Congress
Below is the introduction from the Official Election Site of San Mateo County, CA. It is an excellent resource of the history of the suffrage movement, providing biographical profiles of the women who dedicated and risked their lives in the struggle for gender equality.
Reduced to its simplest definition and elevated to its highest ideal, democracy is the power of the people. The ability to vote, however, has not always been a reality for everyone in our country. It was not until 1920 (a mere 85 years ago) that the passage of the 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote. This breakthrough for social equality was the result of more than 50 years of activism by the early suffragettes. Vigils, protests, speeches, essays, civil disobedience, hunger strikes, lobbying, organizing, andevery other form of activism imaginable was used by these remarkable women; their unconventional, avant-garde, and sometimes shocking actions successfully convinced the United States Congress that our Constitution should be amended to allow women to vote. The women who made it their life’s ambition to ensure both genders the right to vote changed our country forever. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude. Every time we exercise our right to vote, we honor their lives, their sacrifices, and their mission to strengthen our democracy. – The Shape of the Future.org – Women’s Suffrage – San Mateo County
Lucretia Mott (1793-1880)
Sojourner Truth (1797-1883)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902)
Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906)
Carrie Chapman Catt (1859-1947)
Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862-1931)
Maud Younger (1870-1936)
Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973)
Mabel Vernon (1883-1975)
Alice Paul (1885-1977)
The Women’s Museum 19th Amendment Lesson Plan (PDF)
Suffrage Images on flickr
