"My integrity and self-esteem are intimately tied to my lifelong identification with the oppressed, and my belief that if humanity is to flourish in the future it is essential for the strong to respect the global rule of law as much as the weak. At present, we have a global law that does not treat equals equally; the weak are held accountable, while the strong enjoy impunity. This represents law without justice, inviting charges of hypocrisy and double standards." Professor Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, who was recently deported from the country by the Israeli authorities.
It seems to me that it is more often than not the war criminals, the economic crooks and the bigots who ask for forgiveness and forgetfulness in the interests of 'peace'. This Christmas season we should remember that tolerance, and peace on earth belongs to those of us who pursue peaceful lives, who show not only genuine remorse for our wrong-doings, but make amends, and who open our minds and our hearts to fellow humans close and far who are suffering in this period. The crooks may pull faces, telling us we are too serious, that we should move on, that we should feel sorry for them, indeed, and order us to join the party and be merry and not to spoil the fun and enforced optimism by being angry. Or they may deflect criticism of their cruel and inhumane practices by making personal attacks. They are able to do so because they believe themselves to be all-powerful; the will of the international community to bring them to be justice is in their eyes non-existent. When Richard Falk when to South Africa in 1968 as an official observer he recalls, 'I was struck at the time by the sincere failure of "decent" white South Africans to realize the misery and humiliation of the apartheid system although it was part of their immediate surrounding.' And yet Falk cautions the pessimists among us: 'do not assess prospects of a successful outcome for the oppressed side by the current apparent relation of forces. An oppressive order is likely to appear all-powerful until it is on the verge of collapse.'
So angry we should be. We too want peace, but not on the criminals' terms and not at the expense of acccountability and the restitution of justice. So this Christmas we do NOT forgive:
- George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfield, Colin Powell, and Condi Rice. If you are still in any doubt why, read here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marjorie-cohn/cheney-throws-down-gauntl_b_152211.html?view=print
- Tony Blair. Thought his crimes had been forgotten, think again: http://www.redress.cc/global/dhalpin20081218 and http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/mar/28/iraq.freedomofinformation
- All groups and individuals that humiliate, exclude, harm and kill women in the name of religion and culture
- All groups and individuals that incite violence, spout racial and class/caste bigotry in the name of purity and nationalism
- Mugabe, who has destroyed not only his country, but the hopes of many in Southern Africa, as are the leaders of the ANC in South Africa
- The leaders of theocracies the world over who deny citizens access to decent family planning in the name of 'preserving life'
- The apartheid Israeli state and military who, with the support of the US and Europe and, sadly, many Arab countries, are perpetrating a slow genocide of the Palestinian people imprisoned inside the Gaza strip.
These are just to mention a few who will contribute to more misery this Christmas and who will very likely sit down to peaceful meals with their families, regardless.
There will be no peace on earth without justice!
Happy Christmas/holidays.
Elly @ SA
Wednesday, 24 December 2008
Tis the season to be angry!
Friday, 12 December 2008
Show some Rahma
Recently I've been moved by a series of advertisements run by a Saudi campaign entitled Rahma, which is part of Full Stop Advertising’s corporate social responsibility drive. They depict the abusive treatment of domestic workers in Saudi Arabia and remind employees that mercy will be shown to those who themselves show mercy in their daily lives. A particularly striking video shows a group of glamourous hijab-wearing women enjoying a meal together; while the behaviour of the hostess towards her guests is welcoming and gracious, her attitude towards her Asian maid is cruel and very far from gracious. As women we should be particularly aware of the worth and dignity of those that wash our clothes, clean our floors and cook our meals. Many of our mothers performed that role for their families, even if some of us are now priviledged enough to hire people to do these important jobs. If we are to accuse the rest of the world of anti-Arab feeling, then we should acknowledge that in the Arab world there is much snobbery as well as an ugly racism towards those considered somehow socially, culturally and racially inferior. In an excellent recent article by Mona Eltahawy we learn just how narrow is many people's idea of religious observance and piety: an Egyptian woman who identifies herself as a religious Muslim, persecutes and publically humiliates a Sudanese girl. None of us can say we are ignorant of these forms of discrimination, and all of us have a responsibility to step up, as did Mona, and put a stop to practices that demean and degrade us all as humans.
Postscript: There is also an excellent discussion of the campaign over on MMW; Krista asks whether the term 'mercy' is appropriate when what we are talking about here is justice for the individual. Justice is not bestowed by the powerful on the powerless, as mercy can be said to be. I think, however, that we should understand the word, rahma, in its complete sense; rahma, and even mercy in the Christian sense, is not the same as the magnanimous gesture of a king or the pardon of a judge. Rahma/mercy is the highest form of love towards a human being. As I once read, Love is mercy, it is not a democracy. This is not to disparage democracy, it is simply to point out that while we squabble over what is 'fair' and 'equal' and 'just' as we inevitably do, rahma is a clear duty of us all. We must be merciful because we are all in desperate need of mercy in our lives, for none of us can protect ourselves entirely from misfortune and injury (physical or emotional); every society I am aware of has developed with a power dynamic that makes many of us vulnerable to attack - take the family on the microcosmic level: an older sibling is put in a position where the abuse of power is so easy. While we are children, our parents can tell the older sibling to stop treating the younger one unfairly, but as we become adults and that power structure remains in place, the elder one who has engendered the loyalty and love of the younger one, must now be merciful, and not abuse his or her priviledged position. Yes, the younger one seeks justice in the long-term, but in the meantime they require mercy.
Monday, 1 December 2008
Kind enemies and hateful friends
On Saturday, I was fortunate enough to attend a lecture at SOAS, London, on the grave injustices of the ongoing and illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine. On the panel were revisionist Israeli historian, Illan Pappe, author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Gideon Levy, journalist at Haaretz, whose weekly column on the occupation, The Twilight Zone, is like a smack in the complacent face of the liberal and fundamentalist Zionist alike, and Karma Nabulsi, an Oxford academic and a former PLO representative. I will not go into detail here about the aspects of the occupation each panelist threw further light on, except to say that no matter how much I think I know about the 41 year occupation, and the events of the 1948 Nakba, my sense of outrage is never blunted.
Three weeks ago, an article appeared in Haaretz by Levy entitled, Let's hope Obama won't be a 'friend of Israel' . Levy made the very simple, but rarely heard, point that friends that do not criticise you for your mistakes, and in the case of Israel, fail to condemn your contempt for international law and human rights, are not true friends: "When we say that someone is a "friend of Israel" we mean a friend of the occupation, a believer in Israel's self-armament, a fan of its language of strength and a supporter of all its regional delusions. When we say someone is a "friend of Israel" we mean someone who will give Israel a carte blanche for any violent adventure it desires, for rejecting peace and for building in the territories."
Such a friend is hateful: Israel's greatest friend, Bush, "let it embark on an unnecessary war in Lebanon. He did not prevent the construction of a single outpost. He may have encouraged Israel, in secret, to bomb Iran. He did not pressure Israel to move ahead with peace talks, he even held up negotiations with Syria, and he did not reproach Israel for its policy of targeted killings." While Israel and Israelis may at present believe that this friendship protects them from terror, it does quite the opposite. America (and the UK's) economic and military support of Israel ensures that year by year its enemies multiply and their rage intensifies. Meanwhile Israeli society has achieved a state of chilling moral bankruptcy with its total insensitivity to the suffering of millions of its close neighbours, the Palestinians, that can only have been possible through the Israeli media and military's sixty-year long project to dehumanise the inhabitants of historic Palestine, forcing into exile huge numbers of people who to this day have no right of return, and rounding up, relocating and caging others - as if they were herds of animals - behind walls and checkpoints in shrinking bantustans.
Photo of Gideon Levy via arendt-art.de
I was struck by Levy's subversion of the idea of friendship that had featured so heavily in the recent, carefully staged, American election 'debates'. The two vice-presidential candidates tried to outdo each other in their expressions of love for Israel, and ended up bonding over their shared admiration for this failed state - an occupying power that is to date in contravention of over 100 UN resolutions, has no internationally recognised capital and no agreed borders (to name just a few of its failures). With friends like these, who needs enemies, as the saying goes... Levy has predictably been branded a self-hating Jew, in other words an enemy of the Israeli people and the Jewish State, as if his words and not their deeds were imperiling them. Yet Israel is his home and as much as he is heckled for speaking the truth, he has no intention of leaving. My impression is that he would rather stay and see it become a pluralistic nation-state with rights for all its citizens regardless of race or creed. He has, unfortunately, little reason for optimism at present.
Israel needs kind enemies such as Levy.
The Muslim world also needs such 'enemies'.
When discussing Islam, Muslim-majority countries, Muslim communities and individuals in the same breath as women's rights, many individuals, writers, activists and organisations both within the 'community' and without are branded Islamophobes, enemies of Islam, traitors, and so on. I would never deny that Islamophobia exists, just as my extensive reading of literature about the holocaust and the politics of Europe that lead up to this horrific mass-persecution and killing of innocents, would ever allow me to deny that anti-Semitism exists. And yet should not the true friend of Muslims, of Islam and of governments of Islamic lands be the first person to point out injustice, hypocrisy, cruelty, stupidity and the spreading of false and malevolent ideas, wherever he or she sees them? The 'hateful friend', in contrast, is like the courtier that shields a king from the cruelty and humiliations inflicted upon his subjects, and from their growing discontent, until, too late, he advises 'his excellency' of his kingdom's descent into civil war.
Friday, 28 November 2008
An Islam that punishes, hates and fears others?
Excellent article by ZAINAH ANWAR
Via The Star Online
SHARING THE NATION
Sunday November 2, 2008
The way to deal with the grievances and injustices over the years which have resulted in open and ugly contestations is not to silence the debate but to sit together and find solutions.
WHY is there an obstinate obsession to regulate Muslims in every aspect of our lives: What we do, what we say, how we dress, where we go, who we hang out with, how we celebrate our festivals and the festivals of others, and now how we maintain our health and well-being?
Yet another fatwa to regulate our lives is about to be issued, this time on the practice of yoga. I take yoga classes. It makes me feel calm and flexible and teaches me to breathe efficiently. Most importantly, it keeps away my lower back pain. I feel good after every yoga class. Now this source of my well-being is about to be declared haram. Should l consider joining my neighbours in their daily morning qigong exercise at the playground? But I bet qigong will probably be next on the ever-expanding list of the forbidden for Muslims.
I know so many Muslims who do these exercises to keep healthy because of ill-health and stressful living. Many cancer survivors and heart patients find yoga and qigong essential to their healing process. The breathing, meditation and physical exercises in yoga all have scientifically proven health benefits. Hanging in the balance: Many Muslims practise yoga to keep healthy because of ill health and stressful living.
And I know Muslims who say practising yoga has enhanced the depth of their daily prayers. And yet, there are those who speak in the name of Islam, who have not done a minute of yoga in their lives who claim to know the destructive effects of this exercise. And in order to save our souls lest we deviate from the straight path, they tell us yoga is haram. Little do they realise that it is they who are turning Muslims and people of other faiths away from Islam with their intolerance, ignorance and extremism.
For many Muslims, the warning that Islam is constantly under threat is getting to be very tiring. Who are the enemies of the religion? Are they real or largely imagined? Why the grim determination to focus on an Islam that punishes, hates and fears others?
Recent events confirm this. The first Muslim woman Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi was banned from giving public lectures in the country. Then came the fatwa on tomboys. Now yoga is likely to be the next victim. It would seem as if those in authority are determined to damage our image as a country of moderate Muslims.
How odd this all seems. While one arm of government sells Malaysia abroad as a Muslim country that is progressive, democratic, peaceful, stable and respectful of all cultures and religions, other arms of that same government seem bent on undermining that message.
For those who support the Opposition in the belief that Pakatan Rakyat stands for liberation and moderation, Zulkifli Noordin’s outburst in the Dewan Rakyat on Oct 23 and his subsequent interview with Mingguan Malaysia were shocking and chilling at the same time.
Some bloggers are begging Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to sack the MP and let him join Umno, while others think Umno deliberately withdrew an election petition to declare the Kulim Bandar Baru result null and void, knowing that Zulkifli would be a liability to the PR image-building exercise.
Set mindset
Zulkifli declares himself puzzled why Muslims are not supporting him. He does not understand why Khalid Samad, the MP for Shah Alam and a fellow Muslim, criticised his speech in Parliament. He accused Khalid of prioritising party interest above Islam.
Zulkifli regards any challenge to anything he deems Islamic as an attack on the religion. In his eyes, the debate on issues such as freedom of religion, conversions to Islam, road signs in Arabic, the use of the word Allah by non-Muslims, the appointment of non-Muslims to positions traditionally held by Muslims and the controversy involving loudspeakers to amplify sermons from mosques are systematic attacks on Islam from “the left, right, above, below, behind or in front”.
He sees young Muslims who believe in human rights as a danger to the race and religion as these ideas conflict with Islam, and he urges the authorities to take immediate action to stop the dangers posed by these young, educated, liberal Muslims.
As another law professor from the International Islamic University said in an interview a few weeks ago, these young Muslims are poisoning the minds of other Muslims and they must be stopped!
What is most distressing is that Zulkifli and those like him are trying to wipe out the diversity and differences of opinion endorsed, advocated and studied by generations of enlightened Islamic scholars.
Ikhtilaf (diversity) is a recurring theme in the Quran and widely recognised in Islamic tradition as a natural phenomenon. Have we forgotten the Quranic verse in which God says “we have created you into nations and tribes for you to know each other”, not hate each other?
Or the Hadith that says diversity is a blessing to the community? Why the different sects and the different schools of theology and law in the Islamic tradition? It is precisely because of this diversity in interpretation, juristic opinion and recognition of diverse local practices that Islam has spread to all corners of the world. Every culture, every tradition has been able to accommodate and celebrate the universal message of Islam.
And yet those who claim to be the experts in Islam deny this rich and complex heritage of Muslim scholarship, history and practice. Instead, using their authority, they interpret the authoritative text to impose authoritarianism on those who do not share their narrow understanding of the faith. To them, there can only be one way of knowing Islam and one way of being Muslim.
It is this mindset that inspires the Malaysian religious authorities to issue one fatwa after another to regulate what Muslims can do and cannot do, what they can think and cannot think, and what they can read and cannot read.
Banning the works of Karen Armstrong and John Esposito, two Western writers most sympathetic to Islam, only exposes the politics behind that decision. I have not met anyone who has read the writings of these two authors and felt their faith undermined. In fact, it is the writings of fair-minded Christians like them that has brought a kinder, gentler face of Islam to many young Western-educated Muslims and non-Muslims all over the world fed on a diet of the punitive Islam of the traditionalist ulama, and the fire and brimstone Islam of political Islamists.
So, let’s be honest here: Is it Islam that needs to be protected as they so claim, or is it Muslims pushing the Islamic state and supremacy of Islamic law ideology who command that their ideology be protected from any challenges posed by those who disagree with them?
When Zulkifli declared, “I am a Muslim first, party member second; I am a Muslim first, a lawyer second; I am a Muslim first, an MP second, I am a Muslim first, everything else is second,” some obvious questions come to mind. What does being a Muslim mean? Is it not possible to be a good Muslim and still be a good lawyer, a good MP, a good human being?
More disturbingly, could he be saying that being Muslim means being divorced from the real world? This is actually a very secular notion that the likes of Zulkifli abhor.
Does a judge who declares he is a Muslim first, a judge second get the licence to violate the Federal Constitution and the rule of law which he swore to uphold in office because he deems them contradictory to his religious beliefs?
Does a lawyer who declares he is a Muslim first, a lawyer second have the right to condemn another lawyer for defending a client’s interest and his right to exercise his freedom of religion as guaranteed under the Federal Constitution?
Can a doctor who declares he is a Muslim first, a doctor second break his professional oath to save lives and do his best for his patients by refusing to save the life of a Muslim in a drink-driving accident?
Flying the flag of Islam does not give anyone the prerogative to think that he or she can become the walking embodiment of Islam. No one knows what God knows. If we accept this — and certainly as Muslims we must — why then should we bow to anyone who claims that he or she knows with certainty the will of God?
In the Islamic tradition, the arrogance of these supremacists is regarded as takbur — considering oneself superior to others. Although the ulama warns us against this, the attitude is prevalent in the Muslim community. It underpins all practices and systems of oppression and discrimination in this world.
It is sad how Islam is instrumentalised today as if it is nothing more than a label. Stick the Islam label on any and every issue and it becomes untouchable, even sacrosanct. No one is to question or to debate it except the experts.
Yet, it is the failure of these so-called experts and those in authority to deal with all these grievances and injustices over the years that we now see open and ugly contestations that have also impacted race relations in this country. The answer is not to silence the debate. The answer is to sit together and find solutions.
We say we are Muslims first, everything else second; we wear our Islam proudly on our sleeves and we put the religion on a pedestal to make it unchanging and unmoving. At the same time, we employ unkind words and practise unkind deeds, especially towards those who think and act differently from us. Without reflection or compassion, we declare that difference is wrong. Is this not a betrayal of what is truly Islamic?
Wednesday, 22 October 2008
There is no topic that requires no debate
Today I read a fascinating article on the responses to a new Tunisian film, Shtar Mahaba that raises the issue of how Islamic law determines the distribution of inheritances between male and female heirs:
'The director [Kalthoum Bornaz] has been accused of differing with sharia. Bornaz countered that she did not create Shtar Mahaba (half the love) to create sedition or cast doubts on the Qur’anic verse that explains inheritance and its distribution among male and female heirs. "I am not into politics or Islamic jurisprudence," said Bornaz. "I am a filmmaker and an artist. I only want to discuss the issue of inheritance from a humane and social perspective."'
Below the online article are several comments left by people voicing their support of Bornaz's decision to tackle this issue, and admiration of her courage, as well those voicing their condemnation. It is interesting to linger a while over these condemnations. Here are two examples:
1) 'In such conditions, the state must issue court orders against anyone who dares to violate religion in one of its principles which is defined by religion. This topic requires no debate because it causes strife of ignorant people like her whose numbers are highly increasing in the Maghreb recently.'
2) 'The religion of God is eternal against their will. We are astonished at the Tunisian authorities and their censorship which allow such violations of the religion of God. But if they were against their president Ben Ali, there would have been a commotion. But these are just the words of God, so there is no problem.'
The tone of the above-quoted comments is of course rather aggressive, but that is not the issue here. The commentators' intent is clear even if they were to have couched their order as a gentle entreaty. They are saying: Silence! It is not your place to discuss and question these issues! And that is where we must return to the words of the film's director, Bornaz: 'I want to discuss the issue of inheritance from a humane and social perspective.'. There is no topic that requires no debate, and Muhammad (pbuh) knew that, as did early scholars of Islam. Everything must be discussed in the light of the social and political context in which we live, as we all seek answers to questions of money and property - on the materialistic plane - and to questions of social justice and mercy - on the religious, spiritual plane. As far as I understand, Bornaz is not challenging or endorsing any one particular interpretation of Islamic law - she is saying: my concern is that the men and women of my country are treated with humanity and live in dignity. When one half of the population is left at an economic disadvantage because of 'Sharia' then we should at least confront the consequences of these laws, and discuss whether this is what we want for our daughters.
Those who order our silence are afraid. They are afraid because they know that they cannot defend their stances from the perspectives either of social justice or of the health of the global economy - which depends on an equitable distribution of wealth (contrary to the mantra of the self-appointed gods of Wall St!).
QATAR: Interview with Robert Manard on the DCMF and in praise of Sheikha Mozah
By Rania Massoud
15 October 2008
After 23-years at the helm of Reporters sans Frontières (Reporters without Borders), Robert Ménard (55) is moving to Qatar, where he will be heading the Doha Centre for Media Freedom (DCMF). The DCMF, which opened for business last Friday [October 10 2008], provides assistance to journalists under threat anywhere in the world. But it also aims to promote freedom of expression in the Arab world. Rania Massoud spoke with Ménard about the many challenges ahead.
Where did the idea for the Doha Centre for Media Freedom originate?
Ménard: The idea was born in Baghdad in October 2007. I went to Iraq as the head of a small Reporters without Borders team in order to provide help to the families of Iraqi journalists who were killed - assassinated most of the time. I was amazed to see that not a single Arab country was helping us do this despite the fact that many of them could well afford it.
An Iraqi colleague suggested that I ask for a meeting with Sheikha Moza Nasser al-Misnad, the wife of the emir of Qatar, which I did. It was supposed to be a 15-minute interview but, in the end, it lasted almost an hour. I explained to her the urgency of the situation and that to help protect these Iraqi journalists who were being threatened and attacked was the very least we could do.
Her response was prompt. Just two days later, she let me know that she had discussed the issue with the emir and that he had agreed to create a centre in Doha.
The centre has already taken in an Afghan journalist who was under threat in her home country. How exactly will the DCMF function?
The centre's first objective is to come to the aid of journalists anywhere in the world. This aid can be in the form of financial help to media in difficulty. To date, the centre has helped close to 90 journalists worldwide, including 20 or so in Haiti where many media lost their offices in the hurricanes that ravished the country this summer. In Djibouti, we have helped a group of Somali journalists in exile to create their own independent and bilingual news agency.
But the DCMF can also provide help in terms of security. The centre has been set up as a safe house for journalists who are under threat in their own countries. The centre will also provide medical help to journalists wounded on the job, wherever they are in the world.
So the DCMF is a kind of lifeline for any journalist in need?
Not just that. The centre will also serve as a forum in order to promote dialogue - in the first place between the Arab world and the West, particularly in light of the controversy over the cartoons [of the Prophet Muhammad] and later between the Arabs themselves. It is not just governments that attack the media; sometimes the media are fighting among themselves, like in Lebanon. The Doha Centre also wants to be a sort of tribute to all the journalists who have died doing their job. There will be a memorial and a museum dedicated to freedom of expression.
Why did you choose Qatar as the location for the centre?
There are several reasons. First, there are few leaders anywhere in the world who are willing to invest in something like this as Sheikha Moza did. Second, Qatar is practically the only Arab country where journalists from any nationality - including Israeli - can be accommodated. Remember, it was Qatar that provided a base for Al Jazeera and allowed it to turn the image of the media in the Arab world upside down. This experience has greatly influenced Qatar and I think this is a very important development for the Arab world.
What do you ultimately hope to accomplish with this project?
The Arab world is one of the most troubled regions in the world and I have always wanted to become more involved with this region. We are seeing the emergence of a number of independent media organisations. There is significant progress in terms of the freedom of the press in the region, and I hope that the centre will be instrumental in helping to create a real force of independent journalists in the Arab world and in the world at large.
You sound optimistic. Does this optimism stem from your observation of the region in terms of freedom, after 23 years at Reporters sans Frontières?
It's complicated. The statistics about press freedom in the Arab world are worrying. Take Iraq for example.
But at the same time these statistics show that an independent press is starting to assert itself in this part of the world. Of course, Lebanon is not a good example because it has always been at the vanguard of press freedom in the Middle East. But look at Morocco. The press there has seen a great evolution in the past 20 years. Of course, the situation is still far from good and the Moroccan authorities continue to put pressure on journalists through the courts. But this in itself is proof that a free press is taking shape.
I think it is a question of people wanting it themselves; it is a true battle for freedom of expression.
Rania Massoud is a Lebanese journalist working in the international section of L'Orient-Le Jour. Robert Ménard is one of the co-founders of Reporters sans Frontières. This article originally appeared in L'Orient le Jour and is distributed with permission by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).
Thursday, 16 October 2008
A woman of substance
Shaikha Mozah is representative of a moderate and secular elite in this part of the world who, through her high visibility in the media, can effect a change in women’s self-identities. It may seem simplistic, but this new visibility – which in the past has been the sole preserve of men, and which still presents a challenge in socially conservative societies – has became an important tool for women hoping to bring change to the Gulf region. For the first time it has become possible for women and men to relate to such figures at an open and public level that differs from the private and traditional, which is part of a still-pervasive culture of honor and shame.
The Shaikha is the woman behind many important projects, among them the education city: a flagship educational city that embraces Georgetown and Carnegie Mellon Universities. The creation of this educational city was a challenge, not because of its size and scale, but because of the commitment of its architects and sponsors to design a site where the sexes would be able to mix. A relatively conservative society, Qatar has nevertheless made great strides in this area compared to Kuwait, which is losing its battle with the Islamists – the latter tightening their grip on the liberals as is evident from the country’s policy of gender-segregation in many areas.
Shaikah Mozah is, above all, an icon. Her growing popularity is apparent with a single glance at young Qatari women today who are following in her footsteps and have embraced her passion for work, as well as her famous and stylish head scarf!
Wednesday, 15 October 2008
Update: Release of those sentenced for breaking Ramadan fast in Algeria
via WLUML
On 29 September, a court in Biskra sentenced 6 men to 4 years in prison and a 1000 euro fine, for eating in public during the fasting hours of Ramadan. The verdict has since been overturned and the prisoners are freed.
Although the Algerian constitution guarantees the freedoms of belief, religion and conscience, the original verdict was based on article 144 (a) 2 of the Penal Code, stipulating that « tout individu qui porte atteinte aux préceptes de l’Islam par des écrits, des dessins ou tout autre moyen est passible de lourdes peines » [“any individual who undermines the precepts of Islam in writings, drawings or by any other means is liable to serious penalty” --ed.].
For further details from the WLUML site (in French) please see here:
http://wluml.org/french/newsfulltxt.shtml?cmd[157]=x-157-562678
Friday, 10 October 2008
When all else fails in US politics, there's always bigotry against Arabs and Muslims
Excerpt from The low road of racism
October 10, 2008 By Nicole Colson and Alan Maass
Source: Socialist Worker via Znet
If Republicans are trying to exploit racism against Blacks more indirectly, they're prepared to use straight-out scaremongering about Arabs and Muslims.
GOP speakers and officials are questioning Obama's connections to Palestinian activists Rashid Khalidi and Ali Abunimah. McCain himself insinuated that Obama received money from "shady" Arab sources. "His campaign had to return $33,000 in illegal foreign funds from Palestinian donors," McCain said in New Mexico, adding, "Why has Sen. Obama refused to disclose the people who are funding his campaign?"
Barack Obama print with an excerpt from Barack Obama’s speech at the DNC from Upper Playground via WPM
McCain conveniently left out the fact that the "$33,000 in illegal foreign funds" was from two Palestinian brothers from Gaza who bought $33,000 worth of T-shirts from Obama's campaign Web site.
Bobby May, the McCain campaign chair in Buchanan County, Va., and correspondence secretary for the Buchanan County Republican Party, warned in a "satirical" column that "the platform of Barack Hussein Obama" includes:
--Illegal Immigration: "Learn to Speak Spanish";
--Terrorist Threat to America: "Learn to Speak Arabic";
--Freedom of Religion: "Mandatory Black Liberation Theology courses taught in all churches";
--Homosexual Marriage: "[C]oddle sexual perverts. Give tax breaks for NAMBLA membership";
--Drug Crisis: "Raise taxes for free drugs for Obama's inner-city political base";
--U.S. Military: "[Abolish] the 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy, replacing it with 'A queer in every foxhole and a camouflage sex toy in every backpack' requirement."
The idea of freedom of religious conscience suffers more setbacks in the Muslim world
To read two recent reports on arrests of peaceful citizens in Algeria and Sudan, you would be mistaken for thinking the international media are playing a sick joke on us: up to thirty girls are arrested in Sudan 'for wearing tight trousers' and accused of 'disturbing the peace', and in Algeria six people are arrested for 'failing to observe the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan' and sentenced to FOUR years in jail and 1,000 euro fines each.
The question has to be: who benefits from these arrests? Are the people now safer on the streets - safer because they cannot see the curve of a woman's thigh, or witness food passing the lips of a fellow citizen when they themselves have chosen to not imbibe food or water for those hours of the day? Do governments need to act to protect citizens from the consequences of their hungry gazes; are they afraid that people will do one of two things: 1) fall upon the young Sudanese women and the Algerian men and quite literally devour what is before their eyes, therefore behaving sinfully and condemning themselves to a harsh sentence on the Day of Judgement, or 2) take up arms and defend their faith against those not observing their religion in the most orthodox fashion, thereby causing chaos and unrest on the streets?
Have people not in the course of history shown themselves to be tolerant of much - likely to turn into a rampaging mob only on the orders of resentful, power-seeking religious and political leaders. If the government gives licence to people to act with intolerance, to 'be offended', many will certainly take advantage of the opportunity to strike vulnerable or disliked members of their society. But give people the opportunity to allow and respect difference - to enjoy in their midst plurality of experiences and faiths - and the majority will respond well. In fact, if an individual has his or her religious, political and economic freedoms and rights respected, they will have little cause to disrespect, and see punished, those of their neighbours.
These rulings are an insult to the citizens of these two countries. They suggest in both cases that the governments are either completely enthralled to - and in the well-funded pockets - of the religious fundamentalists who yet feel starved of the total power they so desperately crave, or are in agreement that the citizens they serve are stupid, small-minded and bitter. And if this is how a government finds its citizens, then they might consider who brought them to this low state.
Via WLUML: What you can do!
Demand immediate release and revision of trial!
Six people, arrested mid- September, were sentenced to 4 years in prison and a 1000 Euros fine by the Tribunal of Biskra ( southern Algeria) on September 29, 2008. They were accused of having had food before the end of Ramzan fast. (http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2008/10/07/01003-20081007ARTFIG00743-algerie-ans-ferme-pour-ne-pas-avoir-respecte-le-ramadan-.php)
While the Algerian Constitution garantees freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, feedom of opinion, judges used article 142 bis 2 of the Penal Code to justify the sentence; this article sets punishment for 'offending the Prophet and denigrating the dogma of Islam by writing, drawing, oral statement and any other means'.
Clearly the fundamentalists' offensive bears fruits: the government negociates with them, the laws of the Republic are gradually replaced by the ' law of God' - fundamentalist version -, and if judges still take the pain to subvert the legal code to justify their decision, one can fear that the time has come when this precaution will not even be necessary any more.
In order to avoid further talibanisation of Algeria and to prevent further compromission of government and justice, we call on all of you to take any action (letter writing, but also, delegations to the Algerian Embassies, demonstrations, press articles, legal aid to those sentenced in Biskra, etc...) vis-a-vis Algerian authorities to demand the immediate release of the condemned people now, on the ground that this judgement conrtradicts the rights granted by the Constitution. We should also demand the revision of the trial.
-- SIAWI - Secularism Is A Women's Issue http://www.siawi.org/article561.html
Sample letter to be adressed to Embassies:
Ambassador Permanent Representative
H.E. Mr. Mourad Benmehidi
The Permanent Mission of Algeria to the United Nations
326 E 48th St
New York, NY 10017-1747
mission@algeria-un.org
(F): 212.759.5274
Dear Ambassador:
The Court of Biskra on 29 September 2008 sentenced to four years' imprisonment, six people for eating during Ramadan. This ruling violates the Constitution of the Republic of Algeria, which guarantees freedom of religion, conscience and opinion.
We therefore urge the immediate release of convicts and the subsequent revision of their trial.
Sincerely,
Monday, 22 September 2008
The purveyors of a kitsch Islam
Forces behind Islamophobia
Dr. Basma Al-Mutlaq, 20 September 2008
Via Arab News
THE interfaith dialogue summit which was held in Madrid a few months ago left many of us perplexed, even indifferent — not least because of the current, distorted image of Islam in the Arab and Muslim world. One commentator says that some “Arab countries today are dominated by a profoundly contradictory culture — one that I would call Disneyland Islam.” In an article, he exposes the fundamentalists’ — and fatwa issuers’ — obsessive search for purity and the “real Islam” and shows how their efforts have resulted in a form of kitsch Islam ripe for ridicule. The main purveyors of this kitsch Islam are the fundamentalists and the Western media who feed off each other, spurring each other on from one absurdity to the next.
Responding to the heightened curiosity of the Western world for anything 'Muslim' or 'Islamic', writers from different parts of the globe have volunteered their experiences of Islam, joining in the race to be the first to successfully rubbish the image of the Muslim religion and culture. The fervor with which these writers have approached their subject matter and the hysteria with which it has been greeted may well be unprecedented in the history of world media.
The appetite for Islam-as-global-threat and medieval religion has given birth to new TV channels, websites and perhaps most importantly commercial books, or what Fatemeh Keshavarz calls the 'New Orientalist Narrative': A clearly discernable literary element that primarily relies on the strategy of shocking the readers by intentionally breaking taboos, showcasing the Muslims as savage, primitive and sexually repressed.
(Image of Keshavarz's book, Jasmine and Stars: Reading More than Lolita in Tehran, via Payvand)
WHILE literature is a mirror of reality and any reality yields a mixed harvest of sorrow and joy, we have been witnessing the emergence of a new, strongly biased literature — one that plays to Western preconceptions of Arabs and Muslims and helps force them into one mold. Muslims, and in particular Muslim men, are framed as aggressive, sexually repressed and socially backward, fit only for acts of terrorism and the oppression of 'their' women.
The Caged Virgin by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and The Almond by Nedjma are just two examples among hundreds of works in this genre. On the cover of the former book is a photo of a woman who is covered from head to toe in a burqa, revealing only her diffident eyes. The cover of The Almond has a woman wearing what seems to be an all-enveloping but seductive dancing costume evoking Orientalist paintings of Arabian harems. The images touch a chord with the Western reader. They know the content will sing a familiar, sneering tune — a tune that is greeted by a chorus of Islamaphobic material. Scanning the shelves of bookstores worldwide reinforces the suspicion that our religion has been packaged and sold for the highest price — it is a dumbed-down, Disneyfied version with its cartoon goodies and baddies. Pejorative titles and threatening images sell Islam as a singularly bloodthirsty religious ideology and the Muslim world as a hotbed of terrorism, especially after 9/11.
Muslim fundamentalism is an extreme ideology like any other. But the vast majority of us who practice Islam do so because we want to live a peaceful, righteous, interesting life, and should not, by default, be branded ideologically suspect. Western media have in their various forms been constructing a binary opposition between the East and the West and insisting that Muslims pose a threat to democracy. From the hyped issue of the hijab in France and Turkey to the gratuitous blasphemy of the Danish cartoons against the Prophet (peace be upon him), the Muslim person feels stigmatized and stripped of his dignity and identity.
These thoughts flashed through my mind with horrifying clarity while I was making small talk with an American lady, and the subject moved to books that stereotype Arabs. Firmly she stated, “Yes, Arabs are stereotyped as terrorists, but this is a realistic image; Arabs are terrorists”. For a second I was baffled, but then I found myself saying: “If we are terrorists what do you think the Americans are when they barge into other countries?” She repeated the usual line: “You mean the American government?”
This woman has lived in the region for over 20 years; still she has failed to empathize with our culture, and our political and regional predicaments that began long before 9/11, when Al-Quds in Palestine — the third Qibla of Islam — was snatched out of the hands of the Arabs with the Balfour declaration and UN Resolution 181, gifting historic Palestine to the Zionist movement and creating the Palestinian refugee problem. This American who has lived and worked in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries was not willing to see things through our eyes. The Arab media have been saying for over 50 years now that world peace cannot be achieved without an end to the total military and economic support by the US and Britain of the region’s apartheid — and pariah — state, Israel.
Regrettably, the constant outcry of Muslims over the occupied lands of Palestine fails to register with many Westerners, noticeably those from the United States. Many of them certainly experience some kind of conflict of beliefs and values when they live in the region, but instead of questioning established preconceptions, most choose to remain shielded by their prejudices — secure in the knowledge that they have invested in the dominant discourse. It is a lot easier to adopt the prêt-a-porter politics that prioritizes the condemnation of violence in the name of Islam over inquiries into relentless aggression and genocide in the name of security, democracy and the free market. We should all be aware that the world’s most powerful states profit principally from the creation of enemies and the exploitation of their enemies’ resources, a concept that Noam Chomsky has identified in his book Media Control (2002) as 'the war of resources'.
This is not to say that we in the Arab world can take our eyes off extremism at home; every type of aggressor undermines our security and dignity, and every berserk fatwa that calls for violence destroys our image. The media have come a long way since 9/11. People from both sides of the globe can no longer turn a blind eye to the failures of their own governments or to major issues in the world. Interfaith dialogue is an empty concept if we meet on the rare occasion to smile and shake each other’s hands and say how much we like each other’s religion, etc. We must openly debate the nature of corrosive ideologies in West and East, our own involvement in them, and, crucially, why their existence continues to be so expedient — and profitable — to many governments.
— Basma Al-Mutlaq has a Ph.D. in comparative and feminist literature in the Middle East from SOAS, London University.
Driving each other mad
I like this recent post on Saudiwoman's Weblog. It doesn't make light of the often fraught, but usually mundane relationship a woman maintains with her driver; rather it shows through its comical and crudest aspects, the fustrations of being a woman dependent on a driver, and of being a driver dependent on his livelihood from a frustrated, independent-minded woman. Both suffer needlessly!
Saudi Women and Their Drivers
Via Saudiwoman's Weblog, September 12, 2008
In Saudi Arabia you can tell a lot about a woman by her relationship with her driver. Yes I call it a relationship. Because, unlike anywhere in the world, drivers are a necessity and not a luxury that is used on a whim. A driver here knows his employer’s (or charge, depending on how conservative the family is) every single habit. Is she punctual or late? How social she is and who calls her and whom does she call. And depending on the size of the car, he probably even knows the smell of her morning breath. Her moods, shopping habits and favorite drink are common knowledge to not only her own driver but also to the neighbors’ drivers. Just as an example of how suffocatingly close a driver is, when my husband cannot reach me on my cell phone, he contacts the driver because wherever I am, the driver will of course be there too.
(Image from Feminist Discussion Group's post on one woman defying the ban)
With someone that close, a relationship has to evolve. For some of my friends, it is a nurturing relationship. Just as long ago when people had horses and at stops the first thing they would do is make sure that the horse is put in a stable and provided with nourishment, these friends first make sure that the driver is let in to wait in the little cramped host’s driver room. Some even go as far as to prepare at home before going out tea in a thermos and some snacks for the driver to enjoy while he waits. When I ask them why go to all that trouble? They tell me that they cannot afford another runaway so they’re trying to make the job as pleasurable and easy as possible.
Others have a more master- slave relationship. They scream at their drivers. I’ve personally witnessed a woman hit her driver when he made a wrong turn. And if you try to comment they’ll say he should thank God that I’m willing to give him a job. Ironically, these women always end up with the loyal drivers who stick around for years. The driver that I witnessed being hit stayed with that employer for over 14 years.
And then there are the delusional, who try to ignore the presence of another human being in the car as much as they can. They gab on their phones and get in and out of the car just barely informing the driver of the destination. When they get there, they leave the car with no instructions as though the driver is just another auto part that will be there with the rest of the car when they finish their errand or visit.
No matter what type of relationship it is, the bottom line is pure unadulterated frustration. Why do we have to put up with this? Why do we have to fork out salaries and accommodations? Why do we have to figure out if we should let the driver wait outside or cruise around Riyadh on our gas money every time we reach a destination?
Ban on women playing football lifted in Kuwait
Women are back in the game!
Via Kuwait Times
By Eman Goma, Staff writer, September 19, 2008
Kuwait will no longer be left behind when it comes to women football tournaments. Following a huge uproar raised by Islamist MPs in 2001, women in Kuwait were banned from playing football due to numerous reasons submitted by the MPs including that it's an aggressive sport and it would be degrading to women in addition to the fact that Kuwait is a country governed by Islamic laws, and women wearing shorts and chasing a ball in public would be an abuse to Islam. However, this ban was lifted recently, giving women in Kuwait the green light to form their football teams and compete locally and regionally.
(Image is of Afghanistan's Women Football Team via the Afghan Sports Federation. If anyone has a picture of Kuwait's Women Football Team, please send it in!)
Al-Fatat Sports Club in Khaldiya (for women) was among the first sports institutions to call out for female football enthusiasts to enroll in Kuwait's first women football tryouts in years. Kuwait Times paid a visit to the club and spent a training session with the newly formed team.
As the girls did their warm-ups and carried on with their usual practice, the team coach Sabreen Khaled, told Kuwait Times that the girls have been training for the past month and a half. She stated, "A couple of months back Al-Fatat Club was informed that football is no longer banned for women here (in Kuwait), given that we play the indoor form of football (Futsal), and not the standard 11-player squad on the field.
Futsal is the indoor form of football each team is comprised of five players, with matches played in indoor courts. "Such a decision was taken so that women will not literally be playing in public as is the case in outdoor fields for the 11-player team; and the entrance to the indoor football court would be easier to control when it comes to not allowing male spectators from watching the girls play which was one of the main reasons for banning the sport for years, but we are happy with the recent compromi
se," Sabreen said.
She elaborates, "Since we started in August, the team began growing rapidly which shows that girls and women in Kuwait needed to quench their long thirst for football and the chance has finally come." Al-Fatat Club now has enough players to form two teams; a junior and a senior team. Sabreen explains, "We now have 15 girls that made it for the Fatat Club team and we'll be dividing them up into two teams according to their ages giving them a wider chance to compete in the various local tournaments.
Al-Fatat Club is currently organizing a Ramadan tournament which is expected to attract most of the newly formed football teams in the country, and registration for the tournament has already started," she said. The Ramadan tournament will serve as an inauguration for the women's football activities in Kuwait.
Nada Al-Faris, a 22-year-old Kuwaiti, was among the first women to try out at the club and has successfully made it to the senior team.
My story with football started when I was young until I was 16 years old when I had to stop to concentrate on my studies. But now after I finally graduated from university I'm back in the football squad," she said. At Al-Fatat, Nada found the opportunity to play for an actual team because as she explained, all her previous participations were in schools.
She added, "During these years I didn't miss out on the news that we are banned from playing the game we love, and I actually took the initiative and contacted the Kuwait Football Association to inquire about the matter and was sadly informed by the association that football is an 'aggressive' sport and not suitable for women." Nada explained, "Girls here can participate in martial arts like judo, taekwondo and karate but actually it's football that is considered an aggressive sport?!
After the ban has been lifted, Al-Faris said she is enthusiastic on being able to play football in her country. "I'm ecstatic. It's beyond belief that we now have the freedom to play the game we love and have our own teams, and no matter what happens during training and what the coach says, you just go back home knowing that you are going to come back the next day and play better," she stated.
Another player on the team is Nour Al-Hajji, a high school student, who will be playing in the juniors category. Nour has been playing football since she was in the fifth grade and has decided to join a local team to be able to represent Kuwait in upcoming competitions and tournaments.
Talking about the ban Nour said, "Football is like any other sport. It's no different from basketball and volleyball and we have the right to play it. I heard about the ban and how some MPs claimed that women playing football is against the cultures and traditions of Kuwait, but I was relieved to hear that Sheikha Naeema Al-Sabah backed us up (female players) and worked hard on lifting the ban till it finally became a reality.
Nour's teammate, Ayat Abdul Rahman had a different story to share about her love for football. She has just moved to Kuwait from the US two months back and had the perception that it's only men who play football in Kuwait, but lifting the ban has proved her wrong and encouraged her to join Al-Fatat team.
She elaborates, "In the US there are many women football leagues and I was amazed and happy to find out that I can still play my favorite sport here in Kuwait and I hope the popularity of this sport grows more amongst women so that we can actually reach the point where we can compete internationally.
It seems that Ayat's payers will not go unanswered, and as Coach Sabreen concluded the training session, she mentioned that the Ramadan Tournament at Al-Fatat Club will just be a starter of upcoming competitions that the team will participate in. She affirmed, "We are looking forward to representing Kuwait in the next GCC Women's Tournament which will be held in Bahrain in the beginning of 2009, and I have faith in our team and we are definitely sure that Kuwait's women will be fierce competitors and will
make a strong comeback in this sport.
Jewish fundamentalists in Israel harass and threaten to kill women who do not conform to an-ultra conservative dress code
Once again we hear the same absurd claim by 'religious' men - in this case self-appointed moral police of women's bodies - that women encourage men 'to sin'. This is the same lie that Christian and Muslim fundamentalists have peddled for centuries. When will 'Adam' take responsibility for his own desires?
Jewish 'ultras' defend morals with menace
The Haredi sect has launched an aggressive campaign against the secular lifestyles of women in Jerusalem
Toni O'Loughlin The Observer, Sunday September 21 2008
Four months ago in the middle of the night, six men dressed in wide-brimmed black hats, black coats, white shirts and black trousers burst into the Jerusalem apartment of a young Jewish woman and taught her a lesson. Mikhail, who is reluctant to give her full name, had scandalised members of her ultra-orthodox Jewish community by leaving her husband and embracing a secular lifestyle. The men, all members of the theologically conservative Haredi branch of Judaism, tackled her to the ground, slammed her head against the floor and tied a rag around her mouth. One assailant sat on her head as the others kicked her while demanding to know the names of the men she was seeing. They also threatened to kill her if she did not leave the neighbourhood, which contains many secular as well as religious residents. 'A woman is only OK if she has a family, kids and a husband,' said Mikhail with a sigh.
Welcome to the new, increasingly orthodox, Jerusalem. The attack on Mikhail, although exceptionally brutal, was only the latest in a string of assaults over the past two years against Jewish women accused of immoral behaviour in the city.
In relative terms, Orthodox Jews dominate Jerusalem to a greater extent than in any other city in Israel. More than 30 per cent of its Jewish residents are Haredi while only 22 per cent are secular. Of the remaining 47 per cent, 14 per cent say they are religious and 33 per cent say they are traditional Jews.
According to Menachem Friedman, a sociology professor at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Tel Aviv, the orthodox are imposing their rules more forcefully than before and the lives of the city's women are becoming more circumscribed, and sometimes more dangerous, as a result. Friedman grew up in an ultra-orthodox family and has been studying the Haredi for 49 years. He said the extreme atmosphere is tangible.
Self-appointed moral guardians, dubbed the 'modesty police' by Israel's modern secular media, roam Jerusalem's ultra-religious neighbourhoods enforcing the voluminous and ever growing list of rabbinical laws such as the recent decree banning the sale of MP4 players. About 100 Haredi women have taken to wearing scarves and veils to cover themselves much like Muslim women.
Yoel Kreus is known locally in the Mea Shearim area of the city as the 'manager of operations'. He describes himself as a 'shmira', a Hebrew word that translates as 'watcher of Israel'. 'I make sure the rabbis' decisions happen ... I help you to be a moral person,' he said.
Much of Kreus's time is spent checking out reports of illicit use of new technologies by members of the Haredi community. 'If we discover someone has a computer at home we throw the children out of school,' he said. Enforcing dictates on women's behaviour is another vital part of his brief.
He runs a library housing copies of the enormous notices pasted on the walls of Mea Shearim and other religious neighbourhoods berating women for wearing wigs instead of scarves and advertising appropriate dress on buses.
Signs warning women not to enter if they are wearing trousers, short sleeves or a skirt above the knees, hang in the neighbourhood. One is affixed outside Kreus's two-room house where he lives with his wife and 11 children. 'Every week there's a complaint about the way women dress,' said Kreus.
Extraordinarily, he admitted to slashing the tyres of women who have driven into the neighbourhood who, he said, were indecently dressed. 'There was a mess with the police,' he said. 'Now I'm trying new creative methods, not using violence. Now I make a small hole in their tyres and the air deflates slowly. I'm not destroying their car.'
Inside the Haredi neighbourhoods separation between the sexes is becoming increasingly strict. Husbands and wives socialise separately and during Jewish holidays men and women walk on opposite sides of the street.
Kreus said that in a few weeks, when religious Jews will dance to celebrate the receiving of the Torah, men and women would rejoice separately, breaking a 50- year tradition of the sexes mingling in this neighbourhood during this event.
He maintained that separation was necessary beyond the boundaries of the neighbourhood. 'Having secular people on the buses is a problem. They go like animals, without clothes. Non-religious girls don't dress properly. They encourage me to sin,' he said.
With the demographics skewed in their favour, government authorities are acquiescing to the growing demands of the ultra-orthodox. The transport ministry, which regulates and funds bus transport through private companies, has allowed operators to provide 'kosher' or 'pure' routes, where women are required to sit at the back and cannot board unless appropriately dressed.
More than a dozen women have filed complaints after being verbally or physically attacked on the buses. 'Sometimes it's an official group but often it's one or two men who start to complain and the other men follow,' said the Israel Religious Action Centre's legal director, Einat Hurvitz. 'The drivers allow them to intimidate the women.' Haredi women also participated in the bullying.
'I was wearing jeans and a long sleeved T-shirt and as I was getting on the bus someone told me I couldn't get on the bus like that,' said Iris Yoffe who was travelling from Jerusalem to her parents' home in the northern city of Haifa. 'I ignored him and paid the driver.' But then, said Yoffe, two women blocked her way and told her to get off. 'When I refused they started yelling at me.'
According to Friedman, the growing intolerance is only likely to worsen. 'They've built an imaginary idealistic world where everyone is pious.' Increasingly, Jewish women in Jerusalem are required to conform to that vision.
Friday, 19 September 2008
Violence Against Women: Palin saves a dollar rather than a woman's life
Further to the SaudiAmber (Basma's) article, Violence Has no Country, we look at US vice-presidential hopeful, Sarah Palin's record on violence againt women. And it does not look good.
Via The American Prospect:
Sarah Palin's advocacy for women who are victims of sexual assault and domestic violence leaves a lot to be desired. By Brentin Mock, September 18 2008
Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska says that she's a champion for women, professing that, as the Republican vice-presidential nominee, she is the breakthrough that authenticates the 18 million cracks in the proverbial glass ceiling opened by Sen. Hillary Clinton. But before Palin can claim any authenticity as a fighter for gender issues, she needs to address some important questions: With Alaska having the highest rates of rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence in the U.S., according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, what did Palin do as a mayor, and as governor, to remedy these problems? And what would she do as vice president to address gender-based violence as a national issue? Her previous and current governing acts signal that the protection of women's rights is not much of a priority for her. For all of Alaska's dismal statistics on violence against women, Palin took steps that worked against the interests of vulnerable women -- especially Native Alaskan women. As mayor, Palin refused to have the city of Wasilla cover the costs of the forensic kits for women who said they had been raped. As governor, Palin stood in the way of efforts to expand legal-service resources to victims of sexual assault, and fired Walt Monegan, one man who had almost unanimous respect from police, urban Alaskans, and Native Alaskans alike for his dedication to this issue.
As mayor of Wasilla from 1996 to 2000, Palin decided she would defy a bill from then-Gov. Tony Knowles that said local law enforcements should foot the bill for "rape kits" -- the forensic analysis needed to trace the identity of attackers -- when victims filed complaints or sought treatment in medical centers. The kits cost between $300 and $1200, putting them out of the reach of low-income women and adding a financial weight to an already burdened accuser. But Mayor Palin thought instead that the kits were too much of a financial drain on the city government.
The Alaska that Palin inherited as governor had a rape rate 2.5 times the national average. Its rates of sexual assault against children are six times the national average. And its per-capita rate of women killed by men is the highest in the nation. For Native Alaskan women, reality is even grimmer. A major Amnesty International report on violence against American Indian and Alaskan Indian women found that an alarming one in three female Native Alaskans and American Indians (two distinct groups) are raped in their lifetime, and three in four have been sexually assaulted. Native Alaskan women are 10 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than all other Alaskan women.
These women are often cut off from the avenues to justice -- literally. Since many Native Alaskan women live in rural villages that have no connecting roads to the main cities with police stations, they have a difficult time filing complaints. The Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault reports that 30 percent of Alaskan women have no access to victim services where they live. According to the Amnesty International report, police are themselves handicapped -- often underfunded -- in trying to get to the villages when complaints arise. And in interviews Amnesty International conducted with Native Alaskan sexual-assault survivors, respondents said that police and medical professionals often wrote them off as being drunk when they complained. Doctors and police wouldn't follow up on investigations.
In what was hailed as a step in the right direction, Palin appointed Monegan, the former Anchorage police chief, as public-safety commissioner in 2006, just after she was elected governor. The first Native Alaskan to hold this position, Monegan was well regarded as a well-respected public figure among both city- and village-dwelling Alaskans. He's a board member of the Alaska Native Justice Center, which advocates on behalf of Alaskan Natives. As commissioner, he established and supported measures to strengthen law enforcement in the native rural areas, and advocated for more protection of native women, who are the prime targets for assault, rape, and murder -- mostly by non-native men. He also established a Citizens Police Academy, which empowered residents to report crimes as they surfaced. One program he hoped to put in place would have deputized villagers and eventually elevate them to official state troopers -- a program which, if carried out, would have given sexual-assault victims a law service in their own front yards.
But Monegan bumped up against Palin's staunch position that she wouldn't support any programs that she felt would burden taxpayers. Monegan went to Washington, D.C., to request federal funds to combat sexual assault and domestic violence. It was this move that drew him into conflict with Palin and her way of governing. Palin reportedly had not "authorized" the program to expand the sexual-assault legal services that Monegan wanted to implement. According to her lawyer, Thomas Van Flein, Palin considered Monegan's trip to D.C. to request funding "the last straw."
Palin's spokeswoman Sharon Leighow said Monegan was fired because the governor wanted the public-safety department to move "in a new direction" -- although this "new" strategy seemed remarkably similar to what Monegan was already doing. Palin's interim replacement for Monegan was Kenai police officer Charles Kopp, who at the time was facing accusations of sexually harassing a female employee -- a "new direction," indeed.
All of this stands in stark contrast to Palin's counterpart on the Democratic ticket, Sen. Barack Obama's running mate Sen. Joseph Biden, who has a strong congressional record on these issues -- most notably his long battle in establishing, promoting, strengthening, and sustaining the Violence Against Women Act. (It was, in fact, this signature piece of legislation that made funds for Monegan's proposed programs possible.)
Palin's record of standing in the way of progress and justice for those women suffering from the most egregious of crimes undermines her claim that she represents a step forward for women. Her record in Alaska makes clear that her chosen style of governing often means choosing to save a dollar rather than save a woman's life.
Exhibition: Edge of Arabia, Contemporary Art from Saudi Arabia
Offscreen will host the first comprehensive exhibition of contemporary Saudi art ever to be staged in the UK. Edge of Arabia, Contemporary Art from Saudi Arabia will open a new window into the largely unknown contemporary art culture of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 15 Saudi contemporary artists, male and female, whose work explores the complex and diverse identities of 21st century life in the Middle East, have been invited to take part. The exhibition will run from 13th October – 13th December at the SOAS Brunei Gallery, University of London.
The Offscreen Education Programme http://offscreened.com/ is based in London and offers a new kind of arts education for kids in school - educating them through real life experiences rather than soley through the study of the arts in books and trips to museums. They fly kids out from West to East and vice versa in order for them to experience their counterparts' education system first-hand. It's a great way to create lasting ties between the cultures and broaden the younger generation's horizon. 
At the moment, Offscreen is organising an exhibition of Saudi artists to be held in the UK in October 2008. The exhibition is called 'Edge of Arabia: Art and Identity in the Land of the Prophet'. Artists are male and female, from different regions of SA and range from sculptors to painters to photographers. They represent different social classes, religious, and professional backgrounds: there is a policeman from Khamees Mushait who is into the environment and works with it to create his art; there is a doctor from Abha who uses X-Rays as art; also featured is a woman-photographer who is the creative director at ARAMCO. The exhibition book will not only look at the work of these artists but will go further, looking into the lives of these people who created the art; it will ask, what inspired them, and what their daily routines are.
Thursday, 18 September 2008
Peacock Pavilions in Marrakech... who's coming?!
I have finally caught up with Maryam's inspired blog, My Marrakech, and discovered that the boutique hotel, Peacock Pavilions, that she and her architect-husband, Chris, have been building in Marrakech, Morroco, will be opening for business on March 10, 2009. Hundreds of her readers and devoted fans across the world have been following the months- (and months) long trials and joys of realising her dream of creating a modest, but beautiful and design-perfect palace in Marrakech.
Who will come with me? I am desperate to go, even if I can only afford a weekend!
Image via the Peacocks Pavilion shop, The Peacock Nest, coming soon. I better start saving so I can kit out my new flat...
American women voting with their brains and not their gender! No to Palin!
My God my whole body is tingling with exhilaration. This video should go viral.
What a fantastic display of intelligence and unity by the women of Alaska coming out onto the streets with their smart, witty placards and saying NO to Sarah Palin! Making it known to the rest of America that Sarah Palin does not speak for all Alaskan women; and warning the world that Palin is Bush in lipstick.
I love, love this. Watch with the volume on high and spread the word!!
Spurious Fatwas: Religious leaders condemned by Reporters without Borders for fatwas declared against journalists
via WLUML
Reporters Without Borders has voiced its deep concern about an upsurge in fatwas calling for the murder of journalists in the Arab and Muslim world. In the latest case, a high-ranking Saudi official, Sheikh Saleh al-Luhidan, president of the superior council of jurisprudence, issued a fatwa on 12 September 2008 calling for the murder of owners of Arabic satellite television stations for spreading "depravity". "From Nigeria to Pakistan, and via Saudi Arabia, many journalists have been targeted by religious officials in recent years after writing articles or broadcasting programmes viewed as "blasphemous" and "anti-Islamic", the worldwide press freedom organisation said. "These fatwas constitute calls for murder that endanger the lives of journalists who are already working in conditions made more difficult by the delicate political context in which they have to operate. We urge religious officials to show moderation so that no irreparable steps are taken. The highest Islamic authorities should publicly condemn such fatwas", it added.
The religious dignitary in the Saudi case played down his comments a few days later, in the face of an outcry prompted by his statements, but still without backing down on the validity of his edict. "It is lawful to kill (...) the advocates of depravity (...) if their evil is not removed by simple sanctions. The situation is very serious (...), moral depravity being a form of perversion on earth", Sheikh Saleh al-Luhidan said on a local Saudi radio. He was replying to a question from a listener about "immoral" programmes (variety and entertainment programmes) broadcast on satellite television during the month of Ramadan. Fatwas against journalists have become increasingly common in recent years. Two journalists were targeted by fatwas in 2003 after they condemned the backward nature of Islam practised in Afghanistan. An Iranian ayatollah called for two Azerbaijani journalists to be killed in December 2006 after they wrote an article about the superiority of European values. More recently, a Pakistani religious leader declared a fatwa in June 2007 against the editorial staff of fashion magazine Octane, based on a series of photos headlined "Adam and Eve, the apple of discord".
On the other hand, a fatwa issued by the Popular Resistance Committees, one of the highest religious authorities in the Palestinian territories, brought forward the release in 2007 of British journalist Alan Johnston, who was held hostage in the Gaza Strip.
The Lifted Veil: MMW reviews the Veil Anthology
Our blogging friend Fatemeh at Muslimah Media Watch has kindly directed us to her review of The Veil: Women Writers on Its History, Lore, and Politics. This should not let me off reading it of course, especially as friend and WLUML networker, Aisha Shaheed, has written one of the chapters! Help, must get hold of a copy...
Wednesday, 17 September 2008
Book: The Veil: Women Writers on Its History, Lore, and Politics
This is a link to a sample chapter on the UC Press website:
Concealing and Revealing Female Hair: Veiling Dynamics in Contemporary Iran
By Ashraf Zahedi
Excerpt: Decades of discontent with the shah led to the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Massive numbers of Iranian women participated. The image of thousands of veiled women demonstrating against the shah captured the world’s attention. The veil had found a new political meaning. No longer a symbol of backwardness and oppression, it now signified resistance. Even many secular and modern women, who did not believe in wearing the veil, put it on in solidarity with religious women and in opposition to the shah.
Iranian women, veiled and unveiled, played an important role in the revolution and its victory. Though they did not participate in the revolution as women advancing their own cause, they hoped to benefit by supporting it. But their symbolic use of the veil came to haunt them as the postrevolutionary regime of the clerics set into motion the Islamization of Iran.
Women were the first targets. Shortly after the revolution, the clerics’ regime entertained the idea of officially reveiling Iranian women. And veiling was good for business. Among the clerics’ supporters were the aforementioned conservative bazaar merchants,who could recapture the huge market they had lost during the Reza Shah era and only partially regained during his son’s reign.
On March 8, 1979, thousands of Iranian women—many of whom had veiled to express their dissent and support the revolution—marched in the streets in the first of many protests against the veil. They were often violently attacked by Islamic zealots. Ironically, they were not supported by secular and leftist organizations that had, in principle, favored women’s rights and social advancement. In the name of revolutionary unity, these organizations viewed women’s protests as diversionary and chose not to support them. This was a sobering experience for secular and modern women.Without the support of men and secular political organizations, they could not succeed.
In July 1980, the Islamic regime began implementing “compulsory” veiling as part of the regime’s agenda to institutionalize and exploit the female identity espoused by the authenticity movement. It promoted wearing the veil as “moral cleansing.” Concealing female hair became the clerics’ immediate political project. The regime capitalized on all mass media to justify veiling. It propagated the links between veiling, morality, and Islamic virtue. Women who did not comply with veiling or the new hijab were subjected to harassment, violence, and imprisonment.
The meaning and symbolism of hair again took the center stage. Female hair was publicized as seductive and alluring. According to a prevailing Islamic view, “it has been proven that the hair of a woman radiates a kind of ray that affects a man, exciting him out of the normal state.” Even Abolhassan Banisadr, Iran’s first elected postrevolution president, allegedly shared this view. Concealing female hair says more about men’s sexual anxiety than about the seductive power of women. In other words, “fear of the power of female sexual attraction over men” justifies any device that can protect men against female power.
Saudi lawyer wins Human Rights Watch award
Via HRW:
Abd al-Rahman al-Lahim's commitment to justice is manifest as he fights on behalf of those in Saudi Arabia who have been persecuted arbitrarily under dubious interpretations of Sharia (Islamic law). His constant quest for justice and thorough knowledge of Islamic teachings are valuable catalysts for change within oppressive Saudi Arabian laws.
As the leading human rights lawyer in Saudi Arabia, al-Lahim defends the rights of women, educators, and human rights activists who have been unjustly convicted under the Saudi religious establishment's narrow interpretations of Islamic law. He has been arrested several times, imprisoned and banned from traveling outside the kingdom for his unfaltering defense of the rights of Saudi activists, but he continues to engage fearlessly in the fight for justice.
Al-Lahim is a classically trained Sharia scholar. It is his understanding of Islamic religious teachings that makes him such a formidable force for human rights reform. Al-Lahim provides free legal services to those in desperate need and is writing a comprehensive guide to human rights in Saudi Arabia. Where the Saudi justice system failed him and his clients, Human Rights Watch has helped raise al-Lahim�s cases with Saudi decision-makers, and with success: King Abdullah has pardoned six human rights victims defended by al-Lahim. Human Rights Watch honors al-Lahim for protecting the human rights of people in Saudi Arabia and for his dedication to progressive judicial reform.
Women managers in Saudi Arabia
Female Film Company Unveils Saudi Arabia
By DANYA M. ALHAMRANI
Via Middle East Times
In the summer of 2006, I partnered with my friend Dania Nassief to establish our own production company in Jeddah. We wanted to tell the world the stories hardly ever told of Saudi life and culture. The paper chase was long and drawn out. Currently, Saudi Arabian regulations require the general manager of a production company to be male. As women, we not only wanted to own the production company ourselves, but we also wanted to manage it. It took us some time to petition the government for this right. But finally, two years later, Dania and I are licensed and practicing.
Our goal at Eggdancer Productions is to produce inquiring and moving programs that examine social, cultural and religious issues. We believe in using the media to affect social change and are committed to fostering dialogue and greater understanding amongst the people of this region, and to bring their stories, concerns, values and ideas to the rest of the world.
Most people probably wouldn't put Saudi Arabia on their list of vacation destinations. Unless you're coming for work or pilgrimage, there is no easy way to get into Saudi as a tourist. In general, people don't get to see Saudi Arabia unless it's in the news where it is usually painted in a less than flattering light.
Eggdancer Productions, serving as the field coordinator for a program on the Travel Channel, recently had the opportunity to show the world a little bit about Saudi Arabia -- that Saudi women can be strong in charge, that we have malls similar to those in America, and that we like to enjoy our time with family and friends, like everyone else. I had won the first-ever "Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations FAN-atic Special" casting call competition for a television show on the Travel Channel. The contest required individuals to send in videotapes explaining why the show's host, chef and author, Anthony Bourdain, should visit the contestants' hometowns.
When I first met him in New York City as he was vetting the contestants, Tony asked me repeatedly whether I thought he would have fun in Saudi, reflecting a common bias in Western media that Saudi Arabia does not value leisure and recreation, and that local inhabitants are somber, serious, or even evil.
When he arrived in Jeddah, we dined together at a local fast food restaurant, went fishing for fresh fish in the desert, and played air hockey at the local Red Sea Mall. His answer to my frequent question -- "So, are you having fun?" -- was a resounding "yes."
Although Tony never spoke to me about his expectations of Saudi Arabia, in the narration of his Jeddah episode he commented how he was surprised to find that Saudis were people with a sense of humor and who could laugh at themselves: "There's a cheerful, whimsical, good-humored and sophisticated atmosphere very much at odds with the kinds of humorless fanaticism I was led to expect".
I think Tony's revelation helped a lot of people see a different side of Saudis than that depicted on television or in movies.
In other attempts to transform perceptions, we have filmed people performing the Hajj for the documentary, "The Straight Path: Pillars of Islam," a teacher's aid for high school and university students in the West. Using interviews and observational footage filmed in colorful locations in Mecca, the documentary introduces a non-Muslim audience to the basic tenants of a Muslim's faith.
We are in a unique position because of our ability to understand both the Eastern and Western mentality and to navigate seamlessly between both worlds. Although I live in Saudi Arabia now, I was born in Bismarck, North Dakota, and spent many summers there with my mother's side of the family. I later went to school at both the University of San Diego and San Diego State University. I still spend a lot of time in the United States visiting friends and family whenever I get the chance. And Dania lived in the U.K. for a few years while she was attending graduate school.
We are lucky to be on the ground in Saudi. It is difficult to obtain visas and shooting permissions when coming from abroad, and in a time when all eyes are on Saudi Arabia, we are able to leave our offices, cameras in hand, and tell the story without going through that hassle.
Most stories in or about Saudi Arabia are done from the perspective of non-Arabs or non-Muslims, and are sensationalized versions of the same story being told over and over. We want to tell different stories, from the perspective of the people on this side of the world, tailored for a western audience so that we might do our part to help build bridges of understanding between these different parts of the world.
--
Danya M. Alhamrani is a co-founder, along with Dania Nassief, of Eggdancer Productions, an independent film and television production company based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).
Photo of Eggdancer Production Team via Middle East Online
Tuesday, 16 September 2008
Book: The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century
I haven't read this book, and this is the first time I have come across it in the media, but is interesting to read the history of Bin Laden's family in Saudi Arabia as seen by the author, Steve Coll. Below is an excerpt from an interview with the great Amy Goodman of a favourite website, DemocracyNow:
AMY GOODMAN: Today, we spend the hour with Steve Coll. I began by asking him, when we sat down together here in the firehouse studio, to talk about the story of the bin Laden family.
STEVE COLL: Well, they’re an immigrant family that emerged from one of the poorest places in Arabia, a canyon in an area of what’s now southern Yemen called the Hadhramaut, which I visited in the course of doing the research for this. It’s an astonishing place. The landscape is like the Grand Canyon—steep walls and desert—and at the time, at the turn of the twentieth century, a very, very poor place, where the few thousand who lived there farmed when flood rains came in, and they’d try to hold the water in place for a few months and plant, harvest a few staples and then survive the long period where no rain came. And the bin Ladens lived in this canyon. They lived in a sort of a family village organized around a little fort, and there were perhaps 300 or 400 of the clan there.
And the grandfather of Osama bin Laden, from those circumstances, migrated after receiving death threats, because an ox he had borrowed died. He migrated to a neighboring canyon and, from there, married, had several children. And one of those turned out to be the father of Osama, a man named Mohammed bin Laden, who was essentially orphaned, maybe at around age eight or nine or ten, lived in very difficult circumstances in another remote valley, where there were no schools other than religious schools. And at age fourteen, he left, as many people in the Hadhramaut did when they had no other choice. And he walked out to the sea and boarded a ship and found his way to what we now know as Saudi Arabia, and that’s where the family fortune was seeded, through his migration.
AMY GOODMAN: What did he do?
STEVE COLL: Well, he arrived in Jeddah, which is the port that pilgrims arrive in when they go on the Hajj to Mecca. It’s about a hundred kilometers from Mecca. And he turned up on foot with his younger brother, with no resources, and they slept in the street for awhile and looked for work. I think his first job, by family oral history accounts, was as a bag carrier who worked for pilgrims arriving by ship. And then he just hustled, and he became a bricklayer, taught himself masonry, taught himself small contracting repair jobs. And there was a long period after he arrived, at the cusp of the Great Depression, between his arrival, 1929, 1930, and the end of the Second World War, fifteen years, where he just scraped by as a bricklayer and eventually as a small contractor. But it was a very difficult time. The economy was in desperate straits through the ’30s, and then the Second World War disrupted international sea lanes, and so pilgrims couldn’t come for the Hajj, and so there was not a lot of business in Arabia.
So, by the time the Second World War ended, however, he had just started out as a small builder, a guy who had gotten a few palace jobs and who had ingratiated himself with the royal family of Saudi Arabia. So when the war ended and Saudi Arabia’s oil economy began to take off, he was in a position to profit from it.
AMY GOODMAN: How did he become a construction magnate?
STEVE COLL: Well, he started out doing palaces, essentially. Saudi Arabia in 1945, when the war ended, had virtually nothing by way of national infrastructure. It was a desert society that had never been colonized during the imperial period; its interior portion had never been occupied or colonized. And it was a forbidding place governed by the Al Saud family of tribal emirs and who consider themselves a royal family. And they had just consolidated political control over the whole peninsula. But their idea of what they would do now that they were an independent nation was kind of underdeveloped. So they didn’t think, well, let’s build a government, let’s build a health ministry, let’s build schools; they thought, let’s build some palaces to live in.
And they brought in some American corporations, because the Americans were there pumping oil. But the international corporations who came in to build things quickly became frustrated with the style of business that they found, where they might bring a bulldozer in to do a road contract, and they’d be out on the job for a month or two, and the phone would ring, and it would be a prince saying, “My refrigerator is broken. Would you please come over and fix it? Oh, and by the way, bring your bulldozer. I’ll need it for three weeks, because I want to dig my garden in the backyard.” And Bechtel, which was one of the American corporations that was there early on, eventually said, “You know, life is too short. We’re not making enough money, and dealing with the whims of princes is not for us. We’ve got other work we can do.”
Well, Mohammed bin Laden essentially exploited this opportunity. He saw an opportunity to make money where the international corporations were leaving contracts behind—American corporations, British, German—and he was willing to deal with the whims and the peccadillos of the Saudi princes and to give them whatever they wanted. He learned to act as a kind of concierge service for the self-indulgent Saudi royal family. And if they wanted to repair their refrigerators instead of build a road, if they wanted a palace filled with kitchen gadgets from Paris, if they weren’t going to pay him for eight months or to pay him in oil instead of cash, he would just adapt to the circumstances. And he was also very talented, in an intuitive sense, about building and about bringing together groups of workers from all over the Arab world who he could organize and sort of swarm a jobsite with and get things done. So, he did get things done.
AMY GOODMAN: So, tell us about his family. He had fifty-four children, one of them Osama bin Laden. Where was Osama in the lineup?
STEVE COLL: Osama is reckoned to be about his seventeenth son. He had twenty-five sons and twenty-nine daughters. He was inspired by the example of the Saudi royal family and many sheikhs in Yemen, where he had come from, men who took multiple wives and had many children by them. But he took that example to extremes, even by Arabian standards. He wasn’t the only prominent sheikh in the peninsula at that time who did so, but it was not, on the other hand, common to do what he did, which was he married at least twenty-two times, probably more than that, and by these wives had fifty-four children, twenty-nine daughters and twenty-five sons.
Each time one of his wives became pregnant, he recognized her as legitimate, and he recognized the children as legitimate, and he treated them all, according to Islamic law, as equals. But there were sort of two classes, in an informal sense, of children. There were a couple of senior wives who stayed married to him for many years, decades, and bore a number of children and lived with him on a big compound. And then there were other wives—and Osama’s mother was such a wife—who were typically married to him for a short period of time, perhaps a couple or three years, and then, after the divorce, he would arrange for the wife’s remarriage to someone with a good income, often a manager in his own company. And so, there were many children who were essentially singleton sons or daughters of short-lived marriages. And yet, they were not outcasts or, you know, discriminated against in law or even in the way he organized his family. They just had a somewhat lesser status than the children of the senior wives.
AMY GOODMAN: And who was Osama bin Laden closest to, of his brothers and sisters?
STEVE COLL: Well, he had two families, in effect, because his mother remarried a manager in Mohammed bin Laden’s company and then had a rather conventional, by Saudi standards, nuclear family in a suburb in Jeddah where Osama was the step-child, as the mother now had four or five children by this more conventional marriage. And so, Osama was a member of that household, the special child whose inheritance, whose allowance of several hundred thousand dollars a year, whose status as a son of Mohammed bin Laden conferred great privilege on this step-family. And at the same time, he was a member of the larger Mohammed bin Laden family, which would gather on more formal occasions. On weekends, the father would teach them the Koran, take them into the desert, teach them the values that he wanted to convey to his sons. And so, Osama had these two families.
In the larger Mohammed bin Laden family, he was eventually close to his elder brother Salem, who ran the family after Mohammed’s death in an airplane crash in 1967. And Salem and Osama were a very odd pair, because Salem was a very westernized secular character, and Osama, after middle school, became an increasingly devout and eventually radicalized Islamist.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about that trajectory that Osama bin Laden took and where it took him.
STEVE COLL: Well, he—as a child, he went—we don’t know every year of his schooling, but possible to get a glimpse of him being sent off to boarding school at a Quaker school in Lebanon, where a number of his siblings went. That didn’t seem to take at about age eight or nine. Perhaps he just didn’t like being away from home.
In any event, he came back to Jeddah and enrolled at about age twelve or thirteen in the only truly international standard school in Saudi Arabia, a prep school, a day school in Jeddah called the Al-Thagher Model School. And it was modeled on a British boarding school. The boys—it was all boys, and the boys wore grey slacks and blue blazers, and they assembled on the yard every morning, and they played soccer. And they had teachers from England and Ireland to teach them English, and they had a modern scientific and math curriculum.
And in that school, some of the teachers were Syrians and Egyptians affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, an international sort of Islamist network started as an anti-colonial movement in Egypt. By the time that Osama encountered these teachers, it was a sort of a source of organizing and political dissent in the Arab world, built around Islamist revolutionary ideas. Hamas today is an expression of the Muslim Brotherhood, to get a sense of its character. And these teachers, typical of the way the Muslim Brotherhood worked, looked for elite students and recruited them at school in after-school study groups, and Osama was recruited by his Syrian gym teacher into such a group at about age thirteen or fourteen and was essentially radicalized there, being taught a particularly political form of conservative Islamic theology. That’s the difference between the Muslim Brotherhood and, say, normal Saudi conservative orthodoxy, is that the Brotherhood has a political vision of changing governments. And Osama was indoctrinated in those views from a young age.
AMY GOODMAN: So how did Osama bin Laden, Steve Coll, end up in Afghanistan?
STEVE COLL: Through the Brotherhood, essentially. After he was recruited through these study groups, he became part of a Brotherhood clique at his high school. His prep school had cliques like our schools. And there was essentially a Nasirite secular group, and then there was a Muslim Brotherhood conservative group, and he was in the latter and prominent in it. And through his contacts in the Brotherhood after the Soviet invasion of 1979, he gradually became part of the sort of international networks of volunteers who, through the Brotherhood’s connections and transnational sort of proselytizing and political networks, he traveled to Pakistan, initially to provide humanitarian aid and to participate in Brotherhood-organized support networks for the Afghan refugees who were pouring out of Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. So that’s where he began.
AMY GOODMAN: And training with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, where did he get the support? Talk about his relationship with the United States. And then we’ll talk about a trip he took to buy arms with his brother—
STEVE COLL: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: —in England.
STEVE COLL: Well, his—one thing to keep in mind about his involvement in the Afghan war during the 1980s—and I was really reminded of this in the research for this book, even though I’ve been sort of working on his biography, on and off, for fifteen years; there was a way in which, I think, until this round of research, I didn’t quite appreciate—that in Saudi terms, in the 1980s, when he was participating in the Afghan war, working with the Mujahideen, he was an entirely orthodox figure. I mean, this was an entirely authorized effort up until 1989 or so.
So he was there under the good graces—good graces of his family, with his family’s support. They provided him money. They provided channels of importing construction equipment. They provided company engineers to support his work on the frontier. And the government, the Saudi government, supported him, as well. The bin Ladens, by the 1980s, were sort of the Halliburton of Saudi Arabia. They had a tradition of doing no-bid contracts on sensitive defense and intelligence projects. In the ’60s, they had built the entire kingdom’s defense infrastructure along the Yemen border during a war with Egypt, and in Afghanistan they were doing the same thing. There was a lot of government support for what he was doing.
AMY GOODMAN: And didn’t they have US support also?
STEVE COLL: They had US support, but it was sort of running in parallel. The US and the Saudis made an agreement at the beginning of the war to match each other’s support dollar for dollar. Much of the official Saudi government cash support was funneled through the CIA, which then passed it through the Pakistan army and intelligence services, which then passed it on to the Afghan Mujahideen. [...]
The Women: Feminism is about economics and race too
'Women?!' I shouted distractedly at the cinema usher as my friend and I, popcorn and bottle of water in hand, frantically looked for the right screen. It had taken several aborted attempts to see The Women, and we were determined not to miss the beginning. It had been a mentally exhausting weekend for me: a tense email exchange with my boss on Friday, the discovery of a leak in the kitchen ceiling of my new ex-council flat in Brixton on Saturday, and general anxiety about love, work and finances; indeed a not untypical weekend of a single thirty-something in London. I had loved the intelligent, candid Sex and the City TV series and had not been too disappointed by the film, although I do remember railing against the fact that the formerly tom-boyish and career-minded Miranda with the kooky, practical outfits had been turned into a stiff, over-coiffured fashionista. It didn't sit right, and was just one of the films cowardly concessions to its designer fashion-industry sponsors.
So, back to The Women... It opened with a wide-angle shot of NYC from across the Hudson river, and split screen shots of slender legs in an array of spiky heeled footwear. A nod to fashion-conscious, monied, career, have-it-all NY women. So far so cliched. Then we are introduced to fashion snob, uptight, skinny 50-something magazine editor, Sylvie, played by Annette Benning. An immediately unsympathetic character, but clearly meant to be set in juxtaposition with the practical, down-to-earth, messy-haired, sweet-natured Mary, played by Meg Ryan, who we first see planting bulbs in her garden. Except, hang on a minute.. what happened to Ryan's face, and why is she no longer able to frown or move her hair from the side of her face? The benevolent society woman - a true boho at heart we are meant to believe - is all frozen and filled out with botox and collagen. And when we finally pull back to see where she is humbly weeding or planting these bulbs, we see that she lives in a HUGE house with acres of perfectly cut lawn, and has a housekeeper and a nanny. She is a rich, white, middle-aged woman afraid of her own skin or of offending anyone. I think we are supposed to be drawn to her inoffensiveness, but she's just a cold fish, and none of her marital trials and tribulations ever succeed in making her truly endearing. When she decides later in the film to briefly punish her husband and to focus on what she wants in life, her life-change is epitomised by the straightening of those 'unruly', girlish curls to within an inch of their life, and the covering of her uber-skinny body in stiff little tailored black outfits. 'She has found herself!' (or at least the hair-straightener) we feminists are supposed to chorus triumphantly: now she is a top designer (of horrible red, white and black dresses)! Hooray, another small victory for womanhood!
By this stage of the film I am missing Eva Mendes who plays Crystal - a 'spritzer girl', as she is patronisingly referred to by the rest of the monied cast, and in the fantastically expensive Sacs, 5th Avenue which all the other women seem to treat like a second home. In truth I think that Mendes is the only reason I contemplated seeing this film. She is just staggeringly gorgeous and I could stare at her for hours. She has been cast as the 'other woman', the 'home-wrecker', the femme-fatale whose charms no man can resist. And such is the case with poor, defenseless Stephen - husband of Mary. Apparently it took no more than a wiggle of Crystal's womanly hips and he became an unfaithful husband to the Good Mary. I think, however, that is was probably a little more than this. Crystal is Hispanic and poor and all sorts of presumptions about such woman now come into play: a Hispanic woman is expected to be inherently sensuous, warm, soft, sexy, and naughty, while poor, uneducated women are either virtuous and noble or (as in Crystal's case) crass and money-grabbing, trying to bag themselves a rich husband. Not, of course, anything like Good Mary who just happened to fall in love with the rich, white, waspish, big financier Stephen Haynes who can afford a $10 million house. And how these women are encouraged to bitch and outdo each other for the love of this Good, Rich man who only sinned once because he was tempted by an opportunistic woman! Even the 12 year-old daughter is in on the act, letting Crystal know her place - socially and intellectually far below that of her mother, Good Mary.
The fact that money flows around women like Sylvie and Crystal enabling them to escape to expensive health spas when they are in emotional turmoil, or buy thousands of dollars worth of designer gear with their own credit card, or appeal to rich relatives for capital to set up a fashion house for other rich women, whereas Crystal must scheme to put it on Stephen's card, is apparently not worth a mention. The sheer wealth of these Better, Legitimate women is never commented on. And the poverty that Crystal may have come from is not considered relevant either.
The Women is a remake of the 1939 film by George Cukor of the same name. The film's conceit is that NO men appear in the film. This is a risky strategy as it can imply two things: that this is a woman's world too, or that men are pulling the strings behind the screens (like evil puppet masters!) and it can somewhat absolve them of responsibility for the state of the world and for women's insecurities. In this remake, the main quartet of women are Ryan, Benning, and Debra Messing who plays a mother hen with her growing brood of chicks, and Jada Pinkett who plays the rather superfluous hard-clubbing lesbian friend: a modern spin I'm guessing! In the case of Messing's character we learn that her husband has moved out of the family home to a studio in the same block so he can work undisturbed by the noise of his children. And Pinkett introduces her latest girlfriend, a stereotypical tall, angry Russian model who eats her paper-napkin so as to avoid imbibing any carbohydrates; she appears deliberately petty and moody and there is no allusion to the pressure put on her by a male-dominated fashion industry. It seems to me that rather than women uniting against the unearned authority of men in this film, they are principally struggling to accommodate themselves to it. I do not think that ageing women (and we are considered 'ageing' from about 25 years old) shouldn't have plastic surgery or fillers if they want, but the desire or need to stay youthful or baby-faced and 'fresh' should be explored or at least be up-front, as we have with the Sex and the City character Samantha who has openly dedicated her life to her sex-appeal by whatever means. Nothing is worse than the faux girlishness of the Good Mary Haynes (Ryan).
