Ms. Que Banh#MonochromeMonday
#Portrait from my Iranian photographer friend, Jam. 2009. Tribute to Marlene Dietrich.
#monochrome #BWphoto #AsianMastodon #PeopleWithDisabilities #WomenOfTheResistance #Antifascist #Feminist #Environmentalist #Anarchist
I'll be 51 years old, on February 3rd, 2026. I don't feel my age đ
Photo is of me, paralyzed at #RefugeesCamp & me as an adult, decades later.
#WarSurvivorsForPeace #BornInSaigon #TeochewViet #AsianMastodon #WarRefugee #WarChild #VietnamWarSurvivor #PeaceActivist #PeopleWithDisabilities #PolioChild #Survivor #monochrome #BWphotos #DisabledWomen #Empowerment #GenX #Antifascist #NotATerrorist #WomenOfTheResistance #anarchist #WeWillOvercome #PTSDAwareness #ChildrenOfWar #POCWomenFightBack
Look - I've only been on Mastodon/Fediverse since 2022. I'm a non-techy person who has been perpetually online since early 90s. There's never been a fully safe space for an outspoken, disabled POC person like me - in any online community. Even going back to Usenet days - I was a minority. Every single SM I've been on has been majority white folks. Same with the Fedi. We need more diversity everywhere - online & offline.
I'm not leaving this platform due to being a minority. I'm staying & will fight for my presence & for fellow marginalized POC presences. I have always had to fight, almost my entire life - for space & to be included as a visibly disabled POC woman who is loud as heck with issues close to my heart & soul.
I can't remember when I didn't have to fight for that. My experiences here now are vastly different than in 2022. I still get some racist jerks who do their cowardly racist shit. I'm not letting those racist fuckers run me off here. FUCK THEM. I'm staying & they can go fuck off.
#POCVoices #PeopleWithDisabilities #MarginalizedVoices #WomenOfTheResistance #POCWomen #FuckRacism #NotLeaving
Last year.
Wearing my Last Stand for Ancient Forests & LANDBACK bandana gifts from fellow #AntiColonial #activists.
I was on my way to a meeting to organize convoy supplies & recruit volunteers to go to Northern BC to support some Indigenous land defenders/water protectors.
#AsianMastodon #Antifascist #PeopleWithDisabilities #WomenOfTheResistance #Decolonization #DecolonizeYourMind #AntiCapitalist #AnarchoSocialist #Anarchist #Environmentalist #Humanitarian #Volunteer #POCWomenFightBack #NotATerrorist #selfie #portrait #monochrome #BWphoto #WarSurvivorsForPeace #JusticeForAllOppressed
Melchora Aquino (January 6, 1812 â February 19, 1919) was a #Filipino revolutionary. Aquino was known as "Tandang Sora" (tandang means "old") because of her old age during the #Philippine #Revolution (1896-1899). She was known by Philippine revolutionary soldiers as Tandang Sora, an acknowledgement of her wisdom & seniority. She was considered a Filipino counterpart to British nurse, Florence Nightingale. She was also known as the "Grand Woman of the Revolution" & "Mother of Balintawak" for her contributions.
Aquino was born on the feast of the Epiphany & named after Melchior, one of the Three Wise Men. She was the daughter of peasants, Juan & Valentina Aquino & she never attended school. Yet, she was literate at an early age. Also talented as a singer. She performed at community events & at Mass for church. She was often chosen for the role of Reyna Elena during the "Santacruzan", a big pageant commemorating Empress Helen's finding of the Cross of Christ, celebrated in the #Philippines in May.
Her husband, Fulgencio Ramos, a cabeza de barrio (village chief) died when their youngest child was 7 & she was left as a single parent for their 6 children. Tandang Sora continued life as an hermana mayor, active in celebrating fiestas, baptisms & weddings. She worked hard to give her children an education. She became a self taught nurse & her medical services helped to save many lives during the Philippine Revolution.
Aquino operated a store, which became refuge for revolutionaries. In 1896, when she was 84 years old, the Philippine revolution began. Her store served as a make-shift hospital where she provided medical care for sick/wounded revolutionists. She also provided food, shelter, encouragement, and prayers for the soldiers, even hosting 1,000 men in her homeâs yard during the Cry of Balintawak. Secret meetings of the #Katipuneros ( #AntiColonialism revolutionaries) were often held at her house. She & her son, Juan Ramos, were present in the Cry of Balintawak & witnessed the tearing up of the cedulas(Spanish issued ID papers).
When the #Spaniards learned about her activities & her knowledge to the whereabouts of the Katipuneros, she was arrested by guardia civil on August 29, 1896. She was held captive in the house of a cabeza de barangay of Pasong Putik, Novaliches. Then transferred to Bilibid Prison in Manila. While in prison, she was interrogated & refused to divulge information. She was deported to Guam, Marianas Islands by Governor General RamĂłn Blanco. In Guam, she & a woman named Segunda Puentes were placed under house arrest in the residence of a Don Justo Dungca.
After the United States took control of the Philippines in 1898, Tandang Sora, like other exiles, returned to the Philippines in 1903. She later became an active member of the Philippine Independent Church.
She died at her daughter Saturnina's house in Banlat on February 19, 1919, at the age of 107. She received full state honors after her death. After years of being unnoticed for her efforts in the revolution. Her remains were first interred at the Mausoleum of the Veterans of the Revolution at the Manila South Cemetery. These were then transferred to the Himlayang Pilipino Memorial Park in Quezon City in 1970 & finally at the Tandang Sora National Shrine in 2012.
Ref: "The Tandang Sora bicentennial". Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines. February 26, 2021
Ref: Doran, Christine (1998). "Women in the Philippine Revolution". Philippine Studies. JSTOR 42634272
https://www.jstor.org/stable/42634272
Ref: https://filipiknow.net/surprising-facts-about-melchora-aquino/
Ref: Kirstin Olsen, ed. (1994). Chronology of women's history. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 9780313288036
Ref: Augusto V. de Viana, "In the Far Islands,: The Role of Natives from the Philippines in the Conquest, Colonization and Repopulation of the Mariana Islands. 2004.
Ref: Isagani R. Medina, "Melchora Aquino Wife of Fulgencio Ramos," In: Women in the Philippine Revolution, Rafaelita Hilario Soriano, ed. Quezon City: Printon Press, 1995.
Photos are from Wikimedia Commons.
#AsianMastodon #TootSEA #SouthEastAsiaHistory #PhillipinesHistory #ColonialismInAsia #FilipinoRevolutionaries #WomenOfTheResistance #RevolutionaryWomen #FilipinoWomen #FilipinoHistory #PhillipineRevolution #GlobalSouth #AsianHistory #HistoricalFigures #AsianWomen #AsianRevolutionaries #Nurses #NurturingAsResistance #SoftPowerStrength
Nguyá» n Thá» BĂŹnh is a granddaughter of the Nationalist leader Phan Chu Trinh. She grew up in a land that had been under French rule since 1858. The countryâs resources were plundered, & the people exploited as cheap labour & reduced to grinding poverty. So determined were the French to maintain their colonial hold at any cost, they collaborated in power-sharing with Japanese #fascist #occupiers who brought horror & starvation from 1940-1945.
Despite this, led by the #VietMinh Front, people of Vietnam triumphed in the #AugustRevolution of 1945 & the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam (DRV) was declared on September 2nd. Democratic elections took place in January 1946 but French troops, with the open support of the US & Britain, attacked the new Viet Minh administration in the south of the country & the #WarOfResistance against #France began.
Binh studied French at Lycée Sisowath in Cambodia & worked as a teacher during the #French #colonisation of Vietnam. She joined #VietnamCommunistParty in 1948. Upon joining, she immediately began work as a #grassroots #AntiColonial organiser. From 1945-1951, she took part in intellectual protest movements against French #colonists. She was arrested & jailed between 1951-1953 in #Saigon by the French #colonial authority in Vietnam. She was repeatedly interrogated under torture & sentenced to death but was reprieved & released in very poor health in 1954.
Upon release from prison, Binh went north to work in #Hanoi for the National #WomensUnion. Her job took her to many localities where she witnessed first-hand the impact of #colonialism & the French War on ordinary people & especially women & children.
1954 was a year of victory for the Vietnamese army. The defeated French were forced to sign the #GenevaAccords recognising the independence, sovereignty & unity of Vietnam. The country was temporarily split in two at the 17th parallel, with the French moving to the south from which they would withdraw, while the Viet Minh went to the north. A general election for the government of a united country was to follow within 2 years.
But it never happened. The #USA came centre stage to ensure that the Accords were never implemented. Driven by strategic interests in the region, it made sure that Vietnam stayed divided â preventing an election that would have swept Ho Chi Minh to power with 80% support, while bankrolling & controlling the reactionary #regime of Diem-Nhu south of the 17th parallel. This regime violently suppressed all opposition, executing of thousands of Viet Minh supporters & condemning hundreds of thousands to concentration camps and prisons.
In response, the NLF (for liberation of South Vietnam & unification) was formed in 1960. Nguyen Thi Chau Sa was assigned to the Foreign Affairs Section of its Re-unification Committee & given the name Nguyen Thi Binh (Peace). From 1962 onwards, her high-profile diplomatic work, took her across the world. She represented the aspirations of the people of Vietnam in every country & forum she visited, while the worldâs strongest #imperialist power made all-out war on her small country.
During the #VietnamWar, she became a member of the #Vietcong Central Committee and a vice-chairperson of the South Vietnamese #WomensLiberation Association. In 1969 she was appointed foreign minister of the Provisional #Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam. A fluent French speaker, BĂŹnh played a major role in the #ParisPeaceAccords - an agreement that was supposed to end the war & restore peace in Vietnam.
She was expected to be replaced by a male Vietcong representative after preliminary talks, but became one of the group's most visible international public figures. During this time, she was famous for representing Vietnamese women with her elegant & gracious style, and was referred to by the media as "Madame BĂŹnh". She was also referred to as the "Viet Cong Queen" by Western media.
After the war, she was appointed Minister of Education of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam from 1982-1986; the first female minister ever in the history of Vietnam. Binh was a member of the Central Committee of Vietnam's Communist Party from 1987-1992. She was the Deputy Chair of the Party's Central Foreign Affairs Commission & Chair of the National Assembly's Foreign Affairs Committee. The National Assembly elected her twice to position of Vice President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam for the terms 1992â1997 & 1997â2002.
BĂŹnh has authored several op-eds, including a one on the state newspaper NhĂąn DĂąn in which she voiced concerns that the current personnel policy of the Communist Party of Vietnam have allowed some "incompetent and opportunistic" individuals to enter the party's apparatus. She also criticized the Party's focus on increasing membership at the expense of "quality."
From March 2009-2014, she served as a member of the support committee of #RussellTribunal on #Palestine.
Madame BĂŹnh became a source of inspiration & namesake for Madame Binh Graphics Collective, a #RadicalLeft all-women poster, printmaking, & street art collective based in NYC from 1970s-1980s.
Many Americans in the #AntiWar movement were proud to wear T-shirts printed with the portrait of "Madame Binh". By then, she had become a symbol for female soldiers of the legitimacy of Vietnam's efforts.
Madame BĂŹnh has been awarded many prestigious awards & honours, including the Order of Ho Chi Minh & Resistance Order (First Class). In 2021, President of Vietnam Nguyá»
n XuĂąn PhĂșc awarded her the 75-year Party Membership Commemorative Medal.
To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam, the Government of Vietnam commissioned the official portraits for 12 former foreign ministers from 1945-2020. Nguyá»
n Thá» BĂŹnh was included among them as the only South Vietnamese foreign minister & the only woman.
Ref: Nguyen Thi Binh". Northeastern Dictionary of Women's Biography (3rd ed.). Boston: Northeastern University Press. 1999. ISBN 978-1-55553-421-9
Ref: Triantafillou, Eric (3 May 2012). "Graphic Uprising". The Brooklyn Rail.
Ref: https://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com/en/about-rtop/patrons.html
Ref: Hy V. Luong (2003), Postwar Vietnam: dynamics of a transforming society, Rowman & Littlefield, ISBN 0847698653
#AsianMastodon #Vietnam #VietnameseRevolutionaries #ColonialResistance #Communist #VietnameseHistory #AsianHistory #SouthEastAsia #Viet #Geopolitics #USWarOnVietnam #LongLiveVietnam #VietnameseSovereignty #LearnHistory #TootSEA #WomenOfTheResistance #Changemakers #Feminist #TrailblazingWomen #WomenWhoChangeTheWorld #VietCongWomen #DebunkingUSLies
Nguyá» n Thá» BĂŹnh (born 26 May 1927), also known as Madame BĂŹnh & Mother of Vietnam, is a South #Vietnamese #revolutionary leader, #diplomat & #politician. She became internationally known for her role as the #VietCong (NLF)'s chief diplomat & leading its delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. She later served in the government of reunified Vietnam after the Fall of Saigon & became the country's Vice President in 1992. She is the first woman in Vietnamese history to be appointed a cabinet minister.
Nguyen Thi Binh was the only woman to sign the Paris Agreement on Ending the War & Restoring Peace in Vietnam on 27th January 1973. South Viet Nam was liberated on 30th April 1975 & the two parts of Vietnam were finally brought together in 1976 as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
In her memoirs, she said: âMy own life, in concert with the life of our nation, has helped me understand that seizing political power and demanding independence were extremely difficult, particularly when opposing colonialists and imperialists. However, maintaining political power and building a nationâŠis much more difficult.â
At Hanoi Peace Conference in November 2022, she stated:
âHaving suffered numerous sacrifices, pain and loss during decades of struggle against foreign aggression and for peace, independence and freedom, the people of Vietnam deeply appreciate the value of peace,â she told those gathered. Warning that the danger of wars, including a nuclear catastrophe, is greater than ever before, she stressed the vital importance of ârallying and uniting peace forces and movementsâ to halt aggression and build a world of peace and justice for all.
Ref: Nguyen Thi Binh. Northeastern Dictionary of Women's Biography (3rd ed.). Boston: Northeastern University Press. 1999. ISBN 978-1-55553-421-9.
Ref: Brigham, Robert K. (2011). "Nguyen Thi Binh". The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History (2nd ed.). ISBN 978-1-85109-961-0
Ref: Hy V. Luong (2003), Postwar Vietnam: dynamics of a transforming society, Rowman & Littlefield, ISBN 0847698653
#AsianMastodon #Vietnam #VietnameseRevolutionaries #ColonialResistance #Communist #VietnameseHistory #AsianHistory #SouthEastAsia #Viet #Geopolitics #USWarOnVietnam #LongLiveVietnam #VietnameseSovereignty #LearnHistory #TootSEA #WomenOfTheResistance #Feminist #VietnameseWomen #RevolutionaryWomen
For 22,000 #Vietnamese & some #Cambodians, #CĂŽnSÆĄn Island was literally the last stop on a journey that began with their arrest & incarceration on the mainland. Their crime? Resisting #ForeignInvaders du jour & fighting for their countryâs independence & unification. In addition to execution, causes of death included disease & torture.
The French built the CĂŽn ÄáșŁo prison complex in 1861 to hold #PoliticalPrisoners and handed it over to the South Vietnamese government in 1954. It was a political Alcatraz on steroids, with #inhumane living conditions, barbaric torture methods, no escape and, for many, no survival. The US & its client state collaborators honed this hell on Earth to #dystopian perfection.
SĂĄu was sent to 3 jails before being shipped to CĂŽn SÆĄn Prison, because the French didnât have the courage to carry out her death sentence on the mainland at a time when it was against #ColonialLaw to execute woman. She was the only female prisoner held by the French on CĂŽn SÆĄn.
Like other Vietnamese who died for the cause of independence, SĂĄu, a national heroine who is celebrated in theater & song, was elevated to the status of ancestral spirit. Every Vietnamese city & town has a street named after her, as are many schools. She embodies the spirit of millions of Vietnamese throughout history, including soldiers of the First & Second Indochina War, who sacrificed everything, their youth, their health, their love, their personal happiness, & their lives, so that Vietnam could become a unified, sovereign nation.
âThe lekima flower in full bloom, we are reminded of a heroine who died for future generations. The young lady so full of vitality fought against our enemies with firm spirit & even death could not force her to yieldâ. The song echoes in the mind of everybody who visits HĂ ng DÆ°ÆĄng cemetary in CĂŽn ÄáșŁo district, BĂ Rá»a-VĆ©ng TĂ u province. Vo Thi Sau, the #heroine mentioned in the song, was #executed by the #French #colonialists at the foot of Chua mountain in the early morning of January 23, 1952. 60 years later, her immortal patriotism & sacrifice still shine in the heart of every Vietnamese person, particularly those who live on #ConDao island, once called âhell on the earthâ. (Ref: VOVWorld)
The 20-hectare HĂ ng DÆ°ÆĄng cemetery holds the graves of more than 20,000 martyrs, including #revolutionary #martyr LĂȘ Há»ng Phong, patriot Nguyá» n An Ninh & #hero Cao VÄn Ngá»c. Visitors are moved to see grave after grave, some named, some unnamed, stretching over the hill. Vo Thi Sauâs grave, set in gravel & soil shoveled by her fellow prisoners, lies in section B.
Sister Sau was already a legend when the ship carrying her docked at Con Dao island in 1952. At the execution, she refused to be blindfolded, wanting to admire the motherlandâs landscape & sing until her last breath. Many families on Con Dao island have set up altars to worship sister Sau, whose legend has become eternal in Vietnamese hearts.
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VĂ” Thá» SĂĄu (1933 â 23 January 1952) was a #Vietnamese schoolgirl who fought as a #guerrilla against the #FrenchOccupiers of #Vietnam, then part of French #Indochina. She was captured, tried, convicted & executed by the French #colonialists in 1952. She was the first woman to be executed at CĂŽn SÆĄn Prison.
Vo Thi Sau was no ordinary schoolgirl. She was just 14 when she tossed a grenade at a group of French soldiers, killing one & injuring 12 before escaping into a crowded market. A few years later, in 1952 aged just 19, she was executed by a French firing squad.
Minutes before her death, a priest asked if she wanted to confess & she simply replied: âI only regret not finishing destroying all the colonists and people who betrayed this nation.â She then demanded her captors take off her blindfold: âNo need to cover my eyes, I want to look at this beloved country for the last time and I have the courage to look directly at your muzzle.â She refused to kneel & calmly sang âTien Quan Ca,â the then national anthem of North Vietnam, before she was shot dead. Her last words were reportedly âDown with the French Colonialists, long-lasting independence Vietnam, long-live President Ho.â Bold & fearless, Sau has been seen as a #heroine & #martyr, beloved by her country ever since.
https://chaohanoi.com/2020/04/21/vietnamese-schoolgirl-revolutionary-fighter/
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Badass women of Vietnamese history: Vo Thi Sau
Vo Thi Sau was no ordinary schoolgirl. She was just 14 when she tossed a grenade at a group of French soldiers, killing one and injuring 12 before escaping into a crowded market. A few years later, in 1952 aged just 19, she was executed by a French firing squad. Minutes before her death, a [âŠ]
Natural born for #ColonialResistance âïž
