World Issues Forum: a recap and a preview

By Chris Beswetherick
The Fairhaven World Issues class hosts weekly lectures from academics and notable stakeholders from Bellingham, Seattle and the rest of the world to inform attendees of world issues in the Fairhaven auditorium. The forum is a place to be open-minded and learn about the world. The lectures take place every Wednesday at noon in the Fairhaven Auditorium.
Cloie Chapman, administrative assistant and events coordinator for the Fairhaven College, helped organize the lecture and hopes for many attendees to increase their worldview through the talk.
“Everything we do has an impact across the world,” Chapman said. “We are all global citizens and it is important we think globally.”
The World Issues Forum is broken up into quarters and in each quarter, the professor of the world issues course chooses who comes to speak. This quarter, Hilary Schwandt, an assistant Fairhaven professor is organizing the schedule of speaker. Schwandt focuses her discussions on public health, while the other class professors Niall O’Murchu, who focuses on political topics, and Baba-Femi Akirinadez, who focuses on law diversity and international human rights, will take over for the following quarters of the year. Each teacher researches speakers to decide who would spark the most valuable discussions in the Western community.
Global LGBTQI Movements, Human Rights, and Health: Notes from the Frontlines
A summary of the lecture from October 5
On October 5, Fairhaven college invited Amie Bishop, Outright Action’s co-chair, an independent health consultant and lesbian identified woman from Seattle who came to spread awareness of worldwide LGBTQ issues and ideas and concepts for students to discuss outside of the classroom.
Schwandt saw Amie lecture at the University of Washington and later invited her to speak for the Fairhaven World Issues Forum. Schwandt worked on a project titled “Go Girls Initiative” at the Center for Communication Programs. The project attempted to reduce vulnerability of young girls to HIV. Bishop, an independent health consultant and co-chair of a LGBTQ activist group, is a credible source in teaching about global gay rights.
She began the lecture to prove to the audience how the global LGBTQ is changing and merging, in both good and bad ways. Most striking is the penalty for being queer in many countries around the world.
“Nine countries around the world still apply the death penalty for being queer,” Bishop said. “Suicide rates among the queer population are double than the straight population.”
While queer people in the world are still subject to unfair government treatment, Bishop did notify the audience of a changing pace and environment.
“There is a trend now of incredibly resilient gay rights activist groups,” Bishop said. “The Obama administration has made much progress in the movement by hiring the first ever special envoy who will help improve the lives of gays in America. [And] Botswanan gays can now vote.”
Continuing with her lecture, Bishop illuminated the listeners to real and saddening news. Many of the countries in the world who are against LGBTQ people are also violent in that belief.
In Uganda, a bill titled “Kill The Gays” was processed because of the belief people were “chronically homosexual.” There were protests from Ugandan citizens, and it caused the murder of David Kato, an important Ugandan LGBTQ activist.
The Russian government passed an anti-propaganda law which prohibits gays from protesting and assembling in group, which takes away their human rights.
“Discrimination is hazardous to one’s health,” Bishop said. “Many are frightened to seek medical help because of their sexual orientation. They can’t out themselves where they are.”
This lack of doctor’s visits, overall, worsens the health of the gay community, especially for MSMs (men who have sex with men), as MSMs are 4 to 19 times more likely to develop HIV. These men simply cannot out themselves, or they could be killed for it. Bishop stated that less than 10 percent of MSMs have access to adequate health care, largely due to discrimination.
Nathan Adero, a Kenyan human rights, LGBTQ and HIV activist who also spoke at the lecture experienced being outed in Kenya and the consequences from that. His name, address and sexuality had been posted to an online blog and Adero later found out people broke into his house, removed everything and threatened him. In Kenya, people are imprisoned for 14 years for being homosexual, so it could be daunting for the queer community to speak up.
“It’s fine though, I have to move on,” Adero said. “People like me, we cannot afford to lose that progress. We are here, we are queer and that is important.”
Adero said that in order to stay safe, but remain out, many homosexuals will wear rainbow masks that hide their face, but identify them as homosexual. The movement is not stopping.
“You have to be prepared to talk about what needs to be talked about in the community,” Adero said. “America has been a big ally in terms of resources and capacity, but sometimes when America gets involved is problematic. Years ago, we had a problem called empowerment, but in countries like Kenya, you must be strategic because if you out yourself, you are pretty much done.”
Guatemalan Women Healing Toward Justice: The Case of Sepur Zarco
A preview of the upcoming talk on October 19
The upcoming Fairhaven World Issues forum will host Psychologist Maudí Tzay during her speaking tour with Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) at noon on Wednesday October 19 to speak about sexual and gender based violence as a crime.
Fairhaven chose Tzay for her role in a sexual slavery case that closed in February. Guatemala, for decades, had been under an internal arms conflict (a civil war), and reported notably high levels of violence against Guatemalan women. The Guatemalan military was a major cause of this gender-based violence. The case Tzay worked on focused on Sepur Zarco, a military base in Guatemala, where 15 Guatemalan women had survived sexual and domestic slavery. Before this case, nothing was done for the testifiers.
Tzay works with the Community Studies and Psychological Action Team and with Women Transforming the World and The National Union of Guatemalan Women formed the “Alliance to end Silence and Impunity” to support the Guatemalan women who wound up filing the complaint against the military.
The alliance was successful in defending the 15 women. The verdict in February sentenced the former Colonel Esteelmer Reyes Girón and former Military Commissioner Heriberto Valdez Asig to 30 years in prison for the sexual and domestic enslavement of the 15 Guatemalan women. Even though the military performed these crimes in the 1980s, the fact the case ended up succeeding in favor of the testifying women is a landmark for Guatemalan equality. It sets a post-war tone so that more strides toward gender-equality can be reached. Tzay, now on a speaking tour with ECAP, will go through this case in her forum.
The worldwide media has not touched upon this event much, and Fairhaven wants to illuminate the campus to information they have not yet learned.
“The class teaches media literacy,” Chapman said. “[We want] to teach what does not get covered by the media.”
With the support from the WWU Diversity Fund, the WWU First-Year Interest Group Program and NISGUA, Fairhaven invites anyone to come listen and ask questions at the forum. The lectures will happen routinely on noon every Wednesday.