Attacking a humanitarian flotilla .... what's next?

I've been meaning to write a blog post ever since I arrived to Brazil two weeks ago, but it was only this morning when I opened my email and read about the attack on a humanitarian flotilla headed to Gaza that my fingers were moved to type. There have been many reports about the attack in both the mainstream and indy press stating that between 10 and 20 activists were killed while still in international waters. It was only a few days ago that I got an email telling of an activist colleague, Iara Lee, who would be traveling on one of the boats to Gaza ... I imagine many of you have friends and colleagues participating. One of the articles stated that another boat (than the one attacked) was flying an American flag, and yet it was a ship with mostly Turkish passengers that was attacked. I wonder if the masterminds of the attack deemed ties with Turkey the most expendable. I also wonder WTF the US administration is waiting on to condemn this action. If you would like to condemn this action, here is one way.

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It's kind of hard to go back to my general update after the aforementioned news, but I will give it a try. A member of the fD community in Egypt, Ahmad Hosni, is seeking book reviews from professionals in the social sciences, visual anthropology and visual arts fields for his book, Go Down, Moses, which has been the subject of censorship at the intersection of state theo-politics and development aid (arrghh). Please help put Ahmad in touch with folks that can help out.

Another member of the fD community, cartoonist extraordinaire Issa Nyaphaga, is asking us all to drop a few bucks for a cool t-shirt that will support a mobile health clinic in his home country of Cameroon. Come on folks, chip in!

Oh yeah, and just a couple days ago, I made a blog post titled Creative Resistance - An intersecting networks approach that tells about fD's annual network meeting and some new directions we are taking. We welcome your feedback.

There is a lot of news from other fD members as well ... such as a call for applications to Sangam House, the literary residency in Pondicherry, India that freeDimensional partners with as its hub center in Asia. Deadline is June 30th. There is a call for proposals from UNESCO's Power of Peace Network, and lastly, freeDimensional was invited to participate in a new initiative called Our Shared Factory ... it's unique ... check it out!

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I mentioned that I am in Brazil ... I came to participate in the Antidoto Symposium on Cultural Actions in Conflict Zones in Sao Paulo hosted by Itau Cultural. Check the Onda Cidada site soon for some cool independent coverage of the event. Since I was already here, I made use of the time to visit some other friends and partners - Conectas, Ja.Ca, Sacatar Institute, the HUB Sao Paulo, Soso Gallery, FAAP, Casa das Caldeiras, the Museum of Modern Art in Bahia and ultimately to visit all the great folks I met when working in Brazil last year!