n
Thursday, November 17th at 7 PM, the famed Chilean
writer and activist Ariel Dorfman will join Jean Rice and other
members of Picture the Homeless at Harlem’s Riverside Church for
"Living, Writing, Breathing in Two Worlds: Dos Mundos."
Ariel
Dorfman is a novelist, playwright, essayist, journalist and human
rights activist who has written powerfully about the horrors of
tyranny and, in later works, the trials of exile. He himself was
forced into exile following the 1973 Chilean military coup. His
play Death and the Maiden, which was made into a brilliant
film by Roman Polanski starring Ben Kingsley and Sigourney Weaver,
is one of the great dramatic works of the past thirty years.
Stated Sam Miller, Organizer of Picture the Homeless’ Housing
Committee, "We are honored to co-present this event with this
amazing artist whose work tackles so many of the questions
under-girding our own work: organizing people whose basic human
rights have been violated, so they can hold accountable the
political and economic systems that oppress them."
Jean
Rice, a member of the Board of Directors of Picture the Homeless,
will speak on the connection between the US government’s support
of human rights abuses abroad and the human rights abuses that
people suffer right here in the US. He will spell out how money
diverted to propping up military governments abroad results in
human rights violations and oppression on this soil.
Rice has researched in particular the incredible sums of money
that President Ronald Reagan used to back the hugely corrupt
Pinochet regime in Chile while, at the same time, he slashed
financial aid for such things as higher education here at home.
"This had a direct impact on me in that I had to drop out of
college," Rice said. "Even worse than that was the way Reagan
destroyed the federal government's commitment to providing housing
for poor people. That was responsible for the explosion of
homelessness in the 1980’s, which is a massive human rights
tragedy."
Rice went on to say that just like the characters in Ariel
Dorfman's work who are survivors of unthinkable tragedy and are
struggling to hold power accountable, "Here at Picture the
Homeless we are concerned with the way that poor communities in
New York City, especially communities of color, have had our human
rights violated, and what we can do about it, and how we can seek
justice."
Picture the Homeless, which was founded and is led by homeless
people who refuse to accept being neglected, is co-sponsoring this
event with the Seven Stories Institute. As Gene Fellner, the
Institute’s Director, explained, they are related to Seven Stories
Press, a small independent publishing house that prints many books
by Third World authors. "These books circulate mainly in academic
settings," Fellner stated, "but now we're trying to get them out
to the people who are often the books’ subjects but very rarely
the market for them. We’re doing this because we realized that
just printing political books that are not accessible to the
people who are most in need of them is not really doing them a
service. That’s why we chose Riverside Church as our venue for
this event – to draw people from the community as well as the
University, and Ariel Dorfman straddles those lines."
The event’s third sponsor is the Fifth Avenue Committee, which
advances social and economic justice by developing and managing
affordable housing, combating displacement caused by
gentrification, and providing adults-centered education and
employment opportunities.
At this event, Seven Stories Institute will sell Ariel
Dorfman’s books at half price, and Picture the Homeless will also
sell their dynamic DVD anthologies featuring short films by
homeless New Yorkers organizing to fight for recognition of their
own human rights. Admission is free.
To get to Riverside Church, located at 490 Riverside Drive at
119th Street, take the 1 train to 116th
Street. For further information, call Picture the Homeless at
(212) 427-2499.
