SOCIAL JUSTICE

By Mona Shahab, Social Justice Coordinator

Whole Earth Festival not only symbolizes the free-spirited celebration of life through music, art, and festivities, but is also an opportunity to bring awareness to the deep rooted issues in our current social back drop. In order to manifest change in our global community it is imperative that we awaken ourselves to the social movements and struggles around the world, in an attempt to eradicate the divisive boundaries of class, ethnicity, and religion and recognize our commonality as human beings above all else.

The following are some of the educational booths present at the festival, each promoting social and political awareness:

The Socialist Worker’s Party is an organization that is centered on educating the masses about working class struggles all around the world, while organizing and strengthening worker’s unions. The party works to build a strong labor party, as an alternative to Capitalist parties and will be promoting social change through pamphlets, books, newspapers, conversation and other forms of educational information.

Emancipation of Women (Rahai Zan) is a televised project broadcasting in Farsi via foreign satellite television to countries all over the globe. The show, Rahai Zan strives to empower women’s rights activists in Iran and throughout the Middle East through interviews, and news of social and political movements. The program has been successful in educating the Iranian and Farsi-speaking community about the situation of women under fundamentalist Islamic law, while connecting activists inside and outside Iran to spark change especially among students and youth.

Box on the Wall Acupuncture is a collaboration of social justice and health & wellness. It is a socially conscious health care system that provides diagnosis, life-style balancing and healing treatments to patients. It empowers the patient with the ability to choose the amount of payment in confidentiality. It is a moral put into practice so that all serious and dedicated patients will be served as needed regardless of economic status. In this way both doctor and patient get to honor and serve one another in a system of healing sustainability.

Central Valley Anarchist Collectives have participated in social education for the festival in the past. Their main purpose is to distribute social and political literature and disseminate ideas pertaining to the creation of an alternative society run along the lines of cooperation, ecological respect, and mutual aid, while dispelling myths about direct action. The organization will be providing information and awareness through pamphlets, books, conversation and interactive workshops on resistance to ecological destruction.

Rob Roy is running for City Council, and centers his booth on motivating a student movement in order to promote representation at a city council level. He will be conveying his message through music, encouraging voter registration, providing button making machines and speaking publicly about his campaign.