One Billion Rising

At the end of 2012 and the start of 2013 I started my own website www.itsokaytobeangry.com which told my story and compared that to what happened to a beautiful woman in India. There was a blog too, but now I couldn't get into it. Why? I have contacted Blogger but haven't yet had a response, so this blog is here and should be read by every person who supports One Billion Rising.

What is One Billion Rising? According to the OBR website, it had started in 2012 and the first OBR dance was in 2013. They said: “One Billion Rising is the biggest mass action to end violence against women in human history. The campaign, launched on Valentine’s Day 2012, began as a call to action based on the staggering statistic that 1 in 3 women on the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. With the world population at 7 billion, this adds up to more than ONE BILLION WOMEN AND GIRLS. On 14 February 2013, people across the world came together to express their outrage, strike, dance, and RISE in defiance of the injustices women suffer, demanding an end at last to violence against women.”

Four years ago, at the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013, I started a One Billion Rising dance group in Brisbane to get people involved in OBR around the world. The intention of the group was raising knowledge in public on 14 February. Valentine's Day here is usually romance. We were trying to turn it to understanding abuse. Ours was a very small dance group: only 30-odd turned up for the strike dance in Brisbane's Queens St Mall, but it went down so very well. We had our pics taken at the end of the Queens St Mall and we felt as if we had won against the world – or at least a part of Brisbane – for the OBR.

Later that year I was also involved in the Vagina Monologues, an excellent play written by Eve Ensler, which raised knowledge about how women are abused. It was real. I met some people who had danced in OBR with me, and other who became friends.

Around that time I had already started the One Billion Rising Brisbane Facebook page, which still exists and has 244 followers. If I had attended to that then maybe it would have grown, but I had a stroke, with aphasia, nearly 3 years ago and I haven't done anywhere near as much as I should have. I asked in a public message if there were any followers who would take over this page, but no response.

This year, 2017, was celebrated at midnight as the end of 2016, an extremely bad year for so many people. Yet I can't see ahead for 2017 because, for me, there are too many things happening throughout the world which will continue to happen – and will get worse. Australia has been writing from Centrelink to beneficiaries about what they owe, when the beneficiaries know they don't owe. Too many people in this country committing suicide. Too many politicians have been kicked out of the front bench – and all of them should resign. Too much abuse against women. Too many work safety injuries and death. Too many pensioners robbed by the government when their own

politicians just make money. And more... and more.

In the USA the President-elect, Trump, should never have been elected. What I see that happened – anger about how poor people are really living – is very similar to what happened in Australia as One Nation was elected, even though Hanson is no better than Trump and nothing will ever get better. UK last year voted Brexit, Prutin from Russia cares very little at all about the rest of the world, nuclear weapons are growing alarmingly between governments who are supposed to be running their country for their people, and far too many TPPAs.

Two countries, China and India, between them have one third of the entire population of the planet. Where does that leave us, those who protest against abuse against women, coal mining, break-down of the Barrier Reef, water issues, politicians, health, education et al et al et al?

One Billion Rising is a very valuable protest against abuse, but as the world population grows alarmingly, as the majority of people in control of this planet are male, as women in every single country throughout this sad growth have no control over their true futures, how do we look forward? I know that protests will still happen from OBR, protests against us will still happen from anti-OBR, but what else will happen? Will this protest, which I am still very proud of, keep happening? Will the abuse which happens against women throughout the world actually stop? If not, why? Why??

Does anyone – any man who is against rape, abuse, mistreatment – read this? Would any of those men have danced with us in 2013? Are you dancing this year?

OBR acknowledges each event throughout the world, and there is one here in Brisbane at the Powerhouse at New Farm, run by Vulcana Women’s Circus, WaW Dance, BDVS and Nia Australia. I hope there are many people who will go to this, many people who will write about it, share it, talk to people about it.

I hope that Brisbane will dance for OBR.