The Mirabals and Poll Result

This week has been another rather quiet one, holed up at home in lockdown. Mind you, the weather in Vienna these days is often so grey and gloomy that you wouldn’t normally want to venture out much in any case. So other than for the odd shopping trip, I stay indoors more or less all the time.

On Wednesday I uploaded a thematic blog post to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, as proclaimed by the United Nations in 1999. The date was chosen because it was on that day, six decades ago, on 25 November 1960, that the three Mirabal sisters, Minerva, Patria and Maria Teresa Mirabal were murdered in the Dominican Republic on the orders of then dictator Rafael Trujillo. They had been prominent members of the resistance movement against the junta, but when Trujillo had them murdered he also shot himself in the foot, as it were. No one believed the cover-up and he soon lost whatever support he still had in the outside world at that point. Half a year later he was himself assassinated by dissidents, possibly with support from the CIA. Trujillo had ruled the country for over 30 years in a ruthless kleptocracy dominated by cronyism, exploitation and brutality, including a genocidal massacre of Haitians (in 1937). Throughout his rule he was also a serial rapist, regularly “feasting” on young women (often underage virgins) brought directly to his bedroom door by his minions. So the UN choosing this date for the cause it now stands for couldn’t be more fitting. The photo above shows the monument that was erected at the site of the Mirabals’ murder in the mountains in the north of the Dominican Republic.

Meanwhile I’ve returned to writing for my main website again and the first batch of brand-new chapters, covering Brno in the Czech Republic, will soon be ready for uploading. They just need proofing and then I have to link them up in the back end. This should be finished sometime this coming week. After that I’ll turn to the other destinations I managed to travel to this year and then work my way backwards to all the other still outstanding updates and additions that had to be put on the back burner while the blog and the editing of my book took priority.

The theme poll from last Sunday is now also decided. The turnout was noticeably lower than before (I guess people have other worries right now) but the result was the most solid so far: “dark tourism & bars” won far ahead of the other contenders. So that will be posted this coming week, while the other themes will be put to the side for a while, at least until next year. Next time I’ll field a set of all-new themes.