Democracy Now! March 27, 2002

Program Title:
Democracy Now! March 27, 2002
Series Title:
PRA Archive #: 
PZ0450.128
Description: 

Part 2 of "Did the 74th Annual Academy Awards really open any doors?" US pressure Indonesia crack down on terrorists : UNs role in the annexation of West Papua New Guinea by Indonesia nearly four decades ago : Arab summit lies in ruins as Arafat is fenced in : report from journalist ROBERT FISK

9:01-9:06 HEADLINES STORY: RAIDED: THE FBI DESCENDS ON 14 NORTH VIRGINIA GROUPS ALLEGING TIES TO SO-CALLED TERRORISTS An ad-hoc group of Muslim organizations has accused the Bush administration of racial and religious harassment. They are citing the Justice Departments call for more than 3,000 foreign nationals to submit to so-called voluntary interviews. They are also outraged that federal agents raided some 14 Muslim organizations and homes in West Virginia and Georgia last week. GUEST: DR LOUAY SAFI, International Institute of Islamic Thought CONTACT: www.iiit.org 9:06-9:07 ONE-MINUTE MUSIC BREAK 9:07-9:20 ARAB SUMMIT LIES IN RUINS AS ARAFAT IS FENCED IN Arab leaders met in Beirut today to endorse a Saudi initiative for peace with Israel. But the summit has been severely damaged by the absence of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah II. Moamer Kadhafi of Libya and Saddam Hussein of Iraq are also absent. Israel banned President Arafat from attending the conference on Tuesday. Hours later, the Palestinian leader announced that he would not attend the summit because Israel had threatened to bar him from returning to Palestine. The leaders of Egypt and Jordan soon announced they would not attend either. Meanwhile, two military observers from an international force stationed at Hebron in the West Bank were shot and killed while driving down a Jewish settlers' road, apparently by Palestinian gunmen. The two victims were the first members of this unarmed force to be killed. GUEST: ROBERT FISK, reporter for the Independent, based in Beirut. 9:20-9:21 ONE-MINUTE MUSIC BREAK 9:21-9:40 BREAKING THE HOLLYWOOD RACE BARRIER: DID THE 74TH ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS REALLY OPEN ANY DOORS? Yesterday on Democracy Now! we began a long and sometimes heated discussion about race, representation, and the entertainment industry. The discussion came just a day Halle Berry became the first African American woman to earn an Academy Award for best actress. She won for her role in Monster's Ball, in which she played a grief-stricken mother who becomes involved with her husband's racist executioner. Just minutes after her big win, Denzel Washington won the award for best actor for his role as a corrupt LA cop in the movie "Training Day. It was only the second time in Oscar history that an African American man had won that award. The first was Sidney Poitier, who was also honored at this years Oscars for his brilliant and barrier-breaking career in film. Well, we continue now with our discussion of Sundays Academy Awards. Did they really open any doors? And what kind of alternative does the world of independent film really offer to mainstream Hollywood? We begin with actress Ruby Dee, a pioneer in the struggle to break down Hollywoods race-barrier. GUEST: RUBY DEE, stage, film and TV actress, published novelist, poet and columnist for the "Amsterdam News." Dee won acclaim on Broadway in Lorraine Hansberry's ground-breaking "A Raisin in the Sun" in 1959, and went on to work with Sidney Poitier in several films and Broadway productions. She played Mother Sister in Spike Lees "Do the Right Thing" and the soft-hearted mother in Lees "Jungle Fever. Dee and her husband and frequent co-star Ossie Davis are longtime activists in the civil rights movement. GUEST: DR. CLARA RODRIGUEZ, Professor, Department of Sociology &Anthropology, Fordham University. She is the author of Latin Looks: Images of Latinos and Latinas in U.S. Media and Changing Race: Latinos, the Census and the History of Ethnicity in the United States. GUEST: MICHELE WALLACE, feminist scholar, author, and professor of English at the City College of New York. She is the author of the ground-breaking "Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman," which was published in 1979. She was just 26. Other books she has written since include Black Popular Culture, and Invisibility Blues. She also has a forthcoming book with Duke University Press called Dark Designs: Race, Gender and Visual Culture. GUEST: RICHARD WESLEY, assistant professor of screenwriting and playwriting in the Department of Dramatic Writing at NYU. He wrote the screenplay for Saturday Night and the followup film Lets Do It Again, both starring Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby. GUEST: ARMOND WHITE, Film critic, New York Press. He is formerly head of the New York Film Critics Circle. He is the author of The Resistance: Ten Years of Pop Culture that Shook the World 9:40-9:41 ONE-MINUTE MUSIC BREAK 9:41-9:58 A CAMPAIGN IS LAUNCHED BY HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS TO INVESTIGATE THE UNS ROLE IN THE ANNEXATION OF WEST PAPUA NEW GUINEA BY INDONESIA NEARLY FOUR DECADES AGO First the United States began pressuring Pakistan. Then it was the Philippines. Now it is Indonesia. According to recent articles in various newspapers, the US is trying to press Indonesia into closer cooperation with its so-called war on terror. In exchange, the Pentagon is pressing to end the embargo on military weapons sales to Indonesia. That embargo was achieved by human rights groups working throughout Indonesia to end the years of violence by the military regime. Meanwhile, as the Whitehouse pressures Jakarta to clamp down on so-called terrorist groups, a delegation of Indonesian human rights activists has arrived in New York to urge the UN to help end the Indonesian occupation of West Papua New Guinea. West Papua was taken over by Indonesia in 1963; in 1969, it was formally annexed in a fraudulent vote organized by the Suharto regime. The referendum was supported by the US and later ratified by the United Nations. Now Indonesian rights groups are asking the UN to reverse its acceptance of that vote. GUEST: CARMEL BUDIARDJO, Director of TAPOL, The Indonesia Human Rights Campaign. She is a former political prisoner in Indonesia and has worked for human rights there for more than 30 years. A few years ago she won the Right Livelihood Award, the alternative Nobel Peace Prize, for her activism. CONTACT: www.tapol.org, www.etan.org, MUSIC: 6-400 YEARS by The Wailers from Catch A Fire (deluxe edition-CD) 20-MATERIAL WORLD by Tracy Chapman from Crossroads 40-SUPERIMPOSITION/KAFI by Paranoise from ISHQ End-WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED by Blowback From Blowback:TrackIII 9:58-9:59 OUTRO AND CREDITS

Date Recorded on: 
March 27, 2002
Date Broadcast on: 
March 27, 2002
Item duration: 
59 min.
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Distributor: 
WPFW; Amy Goodman, host. March 27, 2002
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