tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46823338701136402532024-03-13T17:48:33.692+00:00FarahtasiaWriting, teaching, studying sci-fi as a PhD (yep, it's possible)Farahtasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06665595475499689736noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4682333870113640253.post-10204367871505451842016-10-06T14:46:00.000+01:002016-10-18T15:37:35.296+01:00A Response to Violence<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Today is
National Poetry Day, and I did try to write a poem (honest!) but wrote this
instead. It’s flash fiction, I guess, with lyrical elements. It's about losing my nephew and the kindness of friends. My nephew died aged 26 as a volunteer doctor for the civilian population in Idlib, Syria. He was killed by the army of the dictator President Bashar al-Assad, who is still in power. <o:p></o:p><br />
</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">For some reason I had to write it in Third Person, take a bit of artistic licence and fictionalise my own name. Distance, I suppose.</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">
</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Writing about grief does feel like an indulgence, and yet writing is how I deal with most things so it would be very odd not to write about it. I have also wanted to write a kind of ‘testament to friendship’ for some time, because without my friends I’m not sure where I would be.</span></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">President
Basshir Assad’s forces have been responsible for the vast majority of civilian
deaths in Syria, according to the statistics of the Syrian Human Rights
Committee. Daesh is also killing civilians, as are the Russian airstrikes on Daesh.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri light";"></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br />
</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> * * *</span></b></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br />
</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Layla Rahman
does two rounds of the apple orchard and waves at the chickens. There is no marked
improvement in her mental health so she catches a bus to the coast where she buys
sorbet and walks barefoot by the water. The sand is cold and compact. A walking
meditation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">
</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">She queues
to wash her feet under a rusty tap, then sits in the window of the Charles Dickens
pub, sipping at a Virgin Mary. Hours slide by and when the evening clientele
roll in for real drinks, she leaves. <o:p></o:p></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">
</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">On the bus
she’s half-asleep and there’s sand in her hair and a patch of it on each knee
and her bag’s open, but who cares.<o:p></o:p></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">
</span><br /><br />
</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">‘Are you
alright, Love?’ asks a lady with a labradoodle. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">
</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">‘Yeah,’ she
says. <o:p></o:p></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">
</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The lights
on the bus flicker and there’s pressure at the back of her eyes. Perhaps her
face is rejecting her eyes, she thinks, or her mind.<o:p></o:p></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">
</span><br />
<br />
</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">At home she sits
on the sofa with her coat on, shaking. She rings a friend. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">
</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">He says, ‘Don’t
be so hard on yourself, these things take time.’ <o:p></o:p></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">
</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">‘Ok,’ she
says, and hangs up. She tries to breathe the way she’s taught herself to, the
way the Buddhists and the sane people do. Because she doesn’t want to be mad to
the grave and mad through the afterlife. This is her fear: that the rage cannot
be contained by a mere nine decades and will instead run on and on.<o:p></o:p></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">
</span><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">‘They shoot
pregnant women,' her nephew said, before he was killed with the others. ‘They
make a day of it. The next day it’s the old. The day after, children, then it
starts all over again. It’s their game... to drain us medics of resources and spread the
terror.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">
</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">She stares
at her phone, would like to ring her friend back. She wants to say: Time isn’t
kind to me. What do I do? I’m awake for too long. At 4am half-dreams make
shadows on the walls and this is when I see bombs. </span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">But the
words don’t make it to her mouth.</span></span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">
</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">When she rings
back for real, she says Sorry. Sorry I keep ringing. Sorry I keep saying sorry
but this isn’t normal… he died before me and I’m older than him. I’m sorry
about this, for doing this again. I’m…<o:p></o:p></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">
</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Stop it, says
her friend. Of course it’s not right. Take your time. Take it. We are here.<o:p></o:p></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">
</span></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> </span></div>
Farahtasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06665595475499689736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4682333870113640253.post-35896844619835990502015-11-18T20:32:00.000+00:002015-11-25T12:53:58.483+00:00Vive le technicolor.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: large;">What Daesh call the ‘greyzone’ is the world at its best.</span></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Surely there is nothing left to say. Or maybe there is but
by someone else. In the words of Philip Levine ‘[t]here is more to be said,/
but by someone who has suffered/ and died for his sister the earth/ and his
brothers the beasts and the trees.’ Not me. Not us - whoever that is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">So much has been said and yet not enough has been heard. The
voices of critics have overshadowed the ordinary, everyday voices of those who
have actually suffered due to the work of Daesh. Many of the people victimised
by Islamists worldwide are, of course, Muslim… Because they are not Muslim
‘enough’ or are the wrong kind of Muslim, or are fleeing the Muslims killing
them but not everyone wants to give them asylum because, well, they’re Muslim
and they’re not ‘like us’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">There has been so MUCH comment on this over the past week,
and yet I’m desperate to hear from voices that sound human rather than cynical.
I just can’t hear any more from some angry over-entitled bystander claiming the
‘chickens have come home to roost’ or that this is now a war against Muslims.
So I’m writing this post not so much with the intention of adding new ideas to
the debate but to make a plea for a more responsible and compassionate
attitude. And this includes the political rhetoric of those seeking revenge.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The drone attacks on Daesh in Raqqa seemed so fast
considering they were the most extensive air raids carried out by France in
Syria so far. But then Hollande had already declared "France will be
merciless towards these barbarians” the day after the attacks on Paris. It
smacked of revenge and of wanting to appear to do something, anything,
definitive in order to show strength at a time of generalised fear. And yet the
truth is that we do not know if there is any military strategy that can defeat
terrorists who do not fear their own deaths, and whose networks of influence
can extend to drug-dealers and bar owners in Paris with little prior engagement
with Islam.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Hollander's approach worries me, as does much of the debate
around the Paris attacks. Many have not paused to take a breath before stating
‘what they reckon’ in articles, speeches, political statements and even in
their posts via twitter and Facebook, adding to an already flooded terrain of
knee-jerk responses. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The problem with absolutist talk when it comes from
politicians or even activists is that it propagates a vision and attitude that
is alienating and dehumanising. Those of us sharing our views at this time have
a responsibility to offer more than propaganda. Why? Because otherwise we
implicitly agree to the black-and-white, with-us-or-against-us world that
Islamists and the racist far right want us to live in - one where normal life
and nuanced perspectives don’t exist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Some have complained that Paris was over-hyped and that this
lack of perspective proves a racist attitude towards the non-white victims of
terrorism in other countries. Fine. That’s a view. But in some cases this was
done without even stopping to acknowledging the victims in Paris. I can’t help
feeling that if someone can skip over the significance of a death with such
ease, they have in truth done a disservice to all victims of terrorism
everywhere by showing the same callous disregard for life that warmongers are
capable of. All life is important. It’s never worth ignoring an atrocity,
either in Paris or in Kenya. Stand up for that and you stand for something
better. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">As part of the Telegraph’s tirade, journalist Tom Harris
claimed it was normal and good to feel “murderous rage” about the Paris
attacks. Yes. Apparently Corbyn is out of touch with the “broader public”
because they are all, like Harris, revelling in “murderous rage”. Oppose Corbyn
if you like, but not because he’s failing to stand for “murderous rage”. I’ll
admit that I felt some anger at hearing about the Paris attacks but it
definitely wasn’t “murderous”. If you’re feeling “murderous rage” again, Tom,
please don’t write about it and shove it into the public domain because,
funnily enough, “murderous rage” sounds a bit terrorist-y to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Meanwhile, Tariq Ali of the Stop the War Coalition (STWC)
wrote a statement that sounded like he had written it very fast indeed. ‘The
West is not morally superior to the jihadis’ he says in his piece Isis in
Paris. The ‘West’? Who is that? Governments? Everyone in the West? Workers and
students and children in the West? He is basically using ‘West’ in the same way
that jihadis use it. The corrupt West. The evil West. The ‘WEST’. Ali is not
the only one using the word in this way; military strategists use it too. Much
has been made of choosing the term ‘Daesh’ over ‘ISIS’ or ‘ISIL’. I think
reflection is needed on all us-versus-them language.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Daesh don’t like nuance and it is, according to issue 7 of
their own publication Dabiq, seeking the “extinction of the greyzone”. In their
words, "The greyzone is critically endangered, rather on the brink of
extinction. Its endangerment began with the blessed operations of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>September 11th”. And this, in their view, is
a brilliant thing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The knee-jerk reactions, the “murderous rage”, the black and
white world of Islam Vs. the ‘West’, this is what they want even more than
anything. The attacks are only part of a long term strategy to create division
and intolerance. This is where Daesh do indeed share a great deal with European
fascism: their aim is to create divisions that lead to civil war and the
destruction of civil society, where the majority are polarised into two main
camps: those against the fascists and those with them. And that’s when their
real game plan starts, when victory goes to those morally ‘superior’ while the
morally ‘weak’ must go to the wall. (I realise I’m quoting Hitler. I hope I
don’t have to do that often in life). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">It’s my view that organisations such as Daesh hare some of
fascism’s views on gender roles precisely because both types of movement
despise all traces of nuanced perspective and therefore gender and sexuality
become ‘absolute’, black-and-white issues. Men and women become ‘essentially’
different in their eyes, and because fascism places no value on accepting
differences, of allowing agreement or compassion between groups who are not
identical, this ultimately allows the male leadership to sexually abuse women
with a clear conscience. Thus, just as the National Socialists had their Joy
Division, ISIS have the Yazidis to rape and torture. A dichotomous
with-us-or-against-us worldview can lead to this point when it reaches its
logical conclusion. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Regular Muslims living in London or Paris or any big
multicultural city are perceived as enemies by Daesh precisely because they
live their lives in the ‘greyzone’, i.e. they’re not angry or oppressed enough
to play the hate game. The thing is, the greyzone is where many of us – Muslim
and non-Muslim – are grateful to be living.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s where we drink coffee and see our friends without fear of violence.
It’s where children – girls and boys - can thankfully go to school in peace.
It’s where we talk about our views and feelings online without the danger of
being killed for them. It’s where we read books that haven’t been censored and
share poetry and music and humour. It’s where we can care for our neighbours no
matter what colour or religion they are because they too have children and
catch colds and appreciate a smile now and then. If we lose this trust, we lose
everything worth having.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">As part of its coverage of the Paris attacks, Channel 4 News
interviewed Daniel Cohn Bendit - a French-German Green party politician who was
a key figure in the May 1968 demonstrations. He was adamant that language of
‘war’ is dangerous and he was saddened that on the morning after the attacks he
was actually thanked by a migrant taxi driver for getting into his car. He
asked the taxi driver why he was being thanked. The Parisian driver replied
that three people had already refused to get into his taxi after observing the
colour of his skin. Reflecting on this with genuine sadness, Bendit says ‘This
is the beginning of a general suspicion. If France loses this battle, if we
grow the intolerance that every Muslim could be a murderer, France is lost.’ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">I feel passionately that the politics and language of
revenge has to be challenged, as well as the disingenuous talk of commentators
of all political persuasions who are simply spreading the rage. What these
people are doing – whether it’s their intent or not – is creating a world with
no space for compassion, no time for independent thought, and this sucks the
oxygen out of our common humanity. It poisons the well of democracy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">I used a poem earlier in this article because in many ways
poetry can function as the opposite of propaganda. While poetry celebrates the
multifariousness of lived experience, propaganda denies/ ignores its very existence.
So I’m going to use another poem, now, to sign off. It’s called ‘Snow’ by Louis
MacNeice and reading it gets me thinking about the ‘suddenness’ of when lives
are lost through violence and of how life can be both ‘spiteful’ and beautiful
at the same time. The entire poem illustrates the coexistence of pain and
beauty. Things simply live alongside each other. MacNeice celebrates the
‘drunkenness of things being various’ and ‘plural’. Because what Daesh call the
‘greyzone’, let’s face it, is the world at its very best in glorious
technicolour. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">SNOW<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">By Louis MacNeice<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The room was suddenly
rich and the great bay-window was <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Spawning snow and
pink roses against it <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Soundlessly
collateral and incompatible: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>World is suddener
than we fancy it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>World is crazier and
more of it than we think, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Incorrigibly plural.
I peel and portion <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A tangerine and spit
the pips and feel <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The drunkenness of
things being various. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the fire flames
with a bubbling sound for world <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is more spiteful and
gay than one supposes - <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the tongue on the
eyes on the ears in the palms of one's hands - <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is more than
glass between the snow and the huge roses.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Farahtasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06665595475499689736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4682333870113640253.post-76727043299576158752015-11-13T03:02:00.002+00:002015-11-13T11:27:10.157+00:00It's the pay gap that's 'vulgar', not talking about it<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">In March 2015 the Women’s Equality Party was founded to push
“for equal representation in politics, business, industry and throughout
working life”, after what I would call the failure of mainstream politics to fully
address these issues. I’ve been following their progress closely and it was
while reading an article about their policies online that I saw the video of Kate
Winslet’s recent interview. (<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><a href="http://gu.com/p/4e5fn/sbl">http://gu.com/p/4e5fn/sbl</a>)</span></span><br />
<div class="action-menu ab_ctl">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I honestly
wish I hadn’t watched it, because in it Winslet declares the public discussion of
the gender pay gap in Hollywood a terrible thing. Apparently, she finds women
talking about money ‘vulgar’. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘Wow!’</i>
I thought to myself<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, ‘She sounds some English
aristocrat from the 1900s complaining about uncouth Americans. Plus, she’s
making the demand for better wages look bad.’</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">I then did my homework and discovered that, unfortunately,
Winslet represents a broader malaise in the British workplace. According to an O2/ CIPD
study published earlier this year, British women are less likely to ask for a
pay rise than men, citing reasons such as the fear of being perceived pushy or
ungrateful. And these fears are not unfounded because the management class in
this country is indeed more likely to view a female employee negatively if she gets
a bit ‘vulgar’ about her pay packet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">In the interview, Kate Winslet goes on to confirm that she
feels very ‘lucky’ to be where she is, i.e. she isn’t an ungrateful cow like those women
in Hollywood. The problem with this is that while actors like Meryl Streep and
Jennifer Lawrence certainly aren’t toiling away in a factory or a call centre, the pay
gap crosses social class both here and in the US, so ANY women speaking up
about the issue – especially a high profile woman – is important for all.
It helps to break the ‘polite’ silence around women being short-changed
both economically and politically. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The British dislike of mentioning money has
to be put to one side if women are to make any progress, and Ms Winslet’s view
that arguing about wages in public is ‘vulgar’ only perpetuates a culture of sexist
attitudes and low expectations that disadvantages all women in the workplace. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">I, personally, would rather like to ask Ms Winslet if she views
the suffragettes Emmeline and Sylvia Pankhurst as also ‘not very British’? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They, too, might have chosen to simply stay ‘grateful’
about their well-off position. And to make things worse (a let-down to all
women) Sylvia Pankhurst was involved in the British labour movement, where
vulgar people talked about money and their political rights. I know. So vulgar.
Really yuck.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">A good few years ago Winslet had a go at claiming to be
working class, which I suppose is absolutely fine but very, very odd for someone
sounding more like a cardboard cut-out of Marie Antoinette these days. In fact,
someone really needs to put Kate in a T-Shirt that reads ‘This is not what a
feminist looks like’ and be done with it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></o:p></div>
Farahtasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06665595475499689736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4682333870113640253.post-71824615839988093512013-10-30T13:40:00.000+00:002013-10-30T14:07:18.483+00:00The Joys of Orbiting Pluto<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">''The outer space beings are my brothers. They sent me here. They already
know my music."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">- Sun-Ra (Jazz musician, 1914-1994)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">Uproar over the niqab continues and a just few days ago an eighteen year old
woman in France actually bit a police officer who tried to arrest her for
wearing Muslim garb. Frankly, I’m surprised there hasn’t been more biteyness
over this issue as the niqab has turned into a shrill political obsession among
the middle classes who have little better to do than wonder ‘Is this good for
women?’ (WITHOUT ASKING THE WOMEN INVOLVED on both sides of the argument) and ‘Can
a woman wearing a niqab really be a citizen of society?’ (when it is laws such
as those passed in France that effectively bar women donning Muslim garb from full
citizen rights). The experience of listening to a debate about Muslim women
that is so distanced from real human-to-human dialogue with Muslim and
ex-Muslim women has been both frustrating and surreal. Everyone wants to talk
about them but few want to talk TO them and make sure they’re getting real
human perspectives from both sides of the argument. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">I’ve basically liked two pieces on this issue, one by Padraig Reidy of Index
on Censorship (http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2013/09/niqab-asking-people-wear-veils/) and
the other in Vice Magazine (http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/the-great-niqab-debate).
Amazingly, Vice took the time to talk to women who aren’t white and don’t live
on a side-street off Upper Street. Wowzers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">I’ve made a conscious effort to NOT write lots of pieces for my blog on
this issue, but it’s hard to say nothing. The level of the debate has been so
low I didn’t want to contribute. Also, I’m a woman who’s a bit ‘ethnic’ and was
raised Muslim, so few days pass without me getting a little annoyed by a
dismissive article in the press. Being from a certain background can mean that
you’re constantly up against situations where, if you intervene at every point,
you find yourself defining your own identity in a purely defensive way. As a 35
year old woman who’s living my own life (and was never, ever beaten into
wearing Muslim garb) I think I want my writing to be defending what’s right but
also breaking into new ground. Surely the privilege of being 2<sup>nd</sup>
generation means I can dream beyond certain pre-destined cultural roles? I hope
so. Dreaming is pretty much my favourite pastime, and thus the kid’s book I’m
writing at the moment isn’t a diatribe on the niqab but a fantasy novel called
Tribe of the Snow Leopards. Magic, furry creatures and sequined headdresses galore.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">When I was growing up life was kind of boring and not much fun but I liked
writing and often dreamt I was flying on the back of a robot through the back streets
of Eltham. My father’s abuse defined the family landscape, and while I loved
school and daydreaming in the park I was continually informed that what was
'out there' was 'Western', 'bad', and a place where I'd never be accepted. Stay
and be abused, leave and they’ll corrupt you. Being a wizard seemed a great way
to make my own world that wasn’t Muslim or ‘Western’ but just everything I
needed it to be… my true native land. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">Precisely for this reason I was so excited when I learned of Samira Ahmed’s
interviews with Asian women from the suburbs, revealing a similar obsession
with other-worldliness in the shape of David Bowie. When I came across her BBC
Radio 4 documentary 'I dressed Ziggy Stardust', like an image-hungry urchin I
wanted cry out ‘They’re like meeeee!!!!!!’. Well, sort of… Like me, Samira grew
up in the suburbs of South London, where the South Asian diaspora was rather thinly
spread in the 80s and where the far right had gained some confidence on the
streets. The BNP headquarters were shut down after a rather excellent ANL demo
in ’94, but the memory of those brats who killed Stephen Lawrence (they were
known to be involved in a BNP-related gang) was unpleasant enough. I remember my mother coming home from Sainsbury’s
saying 'I saw them! They were on the other side of the street and they kept
looking at me a laughing and spitting on the ground!'. She said all this in
Urdu so I had to have it repeated a few times before I copped on. She meant, of
course, the killers of Stephen Lawrence, walking free after the trial. I sat
with her for a bit, drank tea, saw her get on with things after a while, and I went
back to reading my awesome novel. It by Ursula Le Guin novel and it was awesome
because it detailed the life of this kid who didn't seem to have a place in the
real world until he discovered his magical powers. HE WAS A WIZARD!!! Wow. I
loved every word. Words were my magic and they whizzed me off to worlds that
just seemed nicer and more empowering than the real one around me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">Unsurprisingly, I grew up to adore the likes of David Bowie, Kate Bush and
Natasha Khan, people who grew up in the suburbs and made their own identities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">I was reminded of Samira again when I looked at the Guardian Guide a week
ago and nearly wet my pants because Khan (AKA Bat for Lashes) was on the front
cover. I went straight to my computer and listened to all three albums, ‘Fur
and Gold’, ‘Two Suns’ and ‘The Haunted Man’. Sometimes the outer-world experiences
of Khan and Sun-Ra are a refreshing take on dealing with ‘difference’. Khan is
better known for her glittery, shaman-like image than the fact that she has a
Pakistani Muslim dad and was expected to have an arranged marriage. She was
saved by her parents' divorce, but one listen of 'Sirens' summons a picture of
the monsters (and men) that still haunt her imagination. It’s no coincidence
that while creating glittering, far-out artistic identities for herself Khan
has had to cut off all with the Pakistani side of her family. But she’s also
not defined by what she thinks of Islam or race. She’s defined her own
narrative. One minute she’s naked on an album cover carrying a man on her
shoulders (she decided against hair-removal and make-up for the photo shoot);
another she’s a Native American wizard. It makes you think. Sometimes the best
way to be a woman is ignore Caitlin Moran's book and do whatever the fuck you like.
Carrying various kinds of oppression on your shoulders when growing up can
definitely engender an intolerance for being told what ‘women like you’ should
be thinking or doing or writing about or singing about...<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">Every time I read yet another tedious piece by Alibhai- Brown or Keith Vaz, or get a request for my opinion on the niqab, I wonder 'Is this the only crap we get to talk about? Is this what
they want to publish by people like me?' </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">The debate so often defines difference as disadvantage and utterly fails to consult the 'disadvantaged' themselves. By these rules women from my background must be the subject, never the authors of our identities, doubly disadvantaged by the dominant narrative of two cultures. </span>Do I want to be a pawn in that sort of world? I'd rather fly to Pluto, dressed as a shaman. All hail the 3rd Space.</div>
Farahtasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06665595475499689736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4682333870113640253.post-65012798175153310272013-05-27T15:42:00.000+01:002013-05-27T18:27:24.455+01:00My nephew, the volunteer<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
22<sup>nd</sup> May, 2013, London. Two men behead a British
soldier in Woolwich. They shout ‘god is great’ in Arabic. They were Muslim
converts who had contacts in the banned UK organisation Al Mujaharoun and the
Somali organisation Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen (Al-Shabaab), which means ‘Mujahideen Youth
Movement’. ‘Mujahiddeen’ means ‘those who struggle’ and ‘Jihadi’. Jihad basically means struggling for what is
spiritually good.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
23<sup>rd</sup> May, 2013, Idlib, Syria. A young
British-Asian Muslim from Willesden dies while working in a field hospital. Dr
Isa Abdur Rahman was volunteering as a doctor in a country where medics
treating civilians have been tortured and killed. Hospitals are routinely
attacked and there is a dire shortage, therefore, of medical staff willing to
work under such circumstances.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Isa was my nephew. He was 26. His name means ‘Jesus’, who is
also named as a prophet in the Quran. In the Quran, Jesus’ death is different
but he still dies a young man striving for good. My nephew felt that he
absolutely had to go to Syria and that he would awful as a qualified doctor to
not go to a region so in need of his skills. He was supportive of the toppling
of the dictators in the Middle East but was not fighting as a rebel but as a
medic treating the sick and wounded. He was trying to do what he knew best to
help out in a hard situation a very, very long way away from home. Trained as a
doctor at Imperial College London, he put his career on hold to help the
charity Hand in Hand, one of the few charities still getting aid through to
Syria.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Isa felt this was his ‘jihad’, his ‘struggle for good’. It’s
hard to imagine two actions so different committed in the name of god, the one
in Woolwich and the one in Idlib. Hard to imagine two Londoners with such a
different vision of what their faith means to them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Isa wasn’t a British
soldier, he wasn’t white, he wasn’t a murderer who was also a ‘troubled young
Muslim man’ and he wasn’t a young man in ‘crisis’ with his masculinity any more
than any of us are at crisis with who we are. He was a young Muslim man who had
kind parents, four brothers and sisters and a young wife. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We feed our fantasies with images, plug ourselves into the
internet until we’re bursting with criticism, anger and helplessness. But our
lives are better than those of many. We’re the lucky ones. Our children are
lucky. Where there’s life, there’s hope… but we don’t celebrate it. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My nephew did what he felt was right and kind. He cared for
strangers in trouble. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I want people to stop and think. It’s not just some Muslims
who kill people; it’s people who join gangs, who believe in attacks and
reprisal attacks. Can we really keep just blaming religion per se when so many
young Muslim men lead good lives and the use of knives and machetes in London
are actually prevalent in forms of gang culture that have nothing to do with
religion? I was struck by how the men in Woolwich tried to film their actions
on their and other people’s mobile phones. It’s, well, very much like what
gangs do – film awful things on their phones and upload them onto YouTube. To see the phenomenon as just ‘Islamic’ with
no holistic view is crazy. It’s undeniable that certain groups are deeply
problematic and this needs to be tackled, but it is them who (like the EDL and
the BNP) actually want an ‘us’ and ‘them’ war to erupt, and we can’t let
humanity lose out to that view. It would let them win.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My nephew was an amazing young man. It’s so hard to lose
someone so young. But I’m proud of him and I’m also proud of all my nephews and
nieces. If we are the ‘responsible adults’ in society, let’s celebrate and love
and nurture our youth – not just our own children. That’s what real love is and
that’s the real ‘jihad’ that my nephew fought, the real ‘struggle for what is
good’ in the face of adversity: saving lives, valuing lives, respecting lives. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
True terrorists do
not recognise the existence of ‘innocents’ in societies they don’t like. Don’t
be guilty of the same thing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My nephew died saving innocents and he was just 26
year old. He gave up his future for them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As I write, civilians continue to be killed in Syria with
little international support. Donations are welcome to the charity Hand in Hand
and any other charity getting aid through to Syria. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
RIP, Dr Isa Abdur Rahman (1986 – 2013)… a young man who helped
because his open eyes could see no other way.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://handinhandforsyria.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=204%3Atribute-to-dr-isa&catid=920">http://handinhandforsyria.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=204%3Atribute-to-dr-isa&catid=920</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.justgiving.com/for-Isa">https://www.justgiving.com/for-Isa</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Farahtasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06665595475499689736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4682333870113640253.post-17163762928232537112013-04-15T18:41:00.003+01:002013-04-15T18:44:29.514+01:00Amina Tyler<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
It's a bit sad, really... one woman goes partly naked on her
own Facebook page and the world goes nuts. Mainstream culture - both “east” and
“west” - seems not to know how to react when girl reveals she's naked under her
clothes. Newspapers have a field day - "look, it's news but with boobs!”
Facebook groups against FEMEN spring up, with photos of women holding up signs
that read "My hijab is my dignity" and "Nudity doesn't liberate
me". There have been accusations of cultural imperialism and racism. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But no one can shout 'imperialist' at the fact that it's
been a Tunisian woman - Amina Tyler - who has founded FEMEN's branch in Tunisia,
and that the timing of FEMEN's growth into North Africa and the Middle East is
pretty unsurprising. The Arab Spring has been deeply inspiring but the
movements that have come to the fore are now largely Islamist. What we see in
in some countries is similar to the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution: secular
forces are being repressed and women - as in Amina's case - are being watched
by violently right wing 'morality police'. Her family have been acting in accordance
with these principles and few institutions have greater power than the internal
morality policing of family structures in these situations. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In a video released today (<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/04/15/amina-tyler-topless-tunisian-protester-femen-beaten-kidnapped-drugged-family_n_3083803.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/04/15/amina-tyler-topless-tunisian-protester-femen-beaten-kidnapped-drugged-family_n_3083803.html</a>)
Amina reveals that she was kidnapped,
beaten, forced to see a doctor, sedated, and given a kind of exorcism by an
imam. When asked if the police did this, she says, chillingly: 'No, not the
police... my brothers, my cousins'.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This isn't 'culturally specific' oppression. The misuse of
psychiatric drugs to sedate women was rampant in the UK and the US and in the
50s and 60s. Death by exorcism has been the horrible ending of various women's
lives at the hands of Christian ministers, including the Pentecostal ministers
in San Francisco who beat a woman to death in 1995 (they were trying to drive
out her demons, apparently). FEMEN, who claim they will not stop fighting Islam
as long as the stoning of women forms part of its teachings, have not singled out
Islam as its main enemy and came to notoriety through its protests against the
Orthodox Church in Eastern Europe.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So let's look at these accusations of 'imperialism'. Many of
those on Facebook (mis)using the word 'imperialism' are, it seems,
Western-based Muslims who have grown up under liberal laws. They have no idea
what it's like to actually live in a country where you might be forcibly
silenced for your politics. In my opinion, you do have to be pretty privileged
to cry out the word 'imperialism' so often and with such wild abandon. What is
really and truly awful is not that some Muslim women feel upset, but how
playing the victim can so effectively erase the original victim herself, in
this case Amina. There where whole days of outrage and little concern for where
Amina was. It turns out she was being tortured by her family, her aunts
stripped her naked to force a 'virginity' test on her and she was made to
recite passages from the Koran against her will.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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We need to be very wary of giving political credence to
those who cry wolf, screaming ‘imperialism’ to create a smoke screen every time
they don't want to be challenged. You really have to ask the question 'what are
you trying to hide?’ Accusations of racism are becoming a way of demolishing
the confidence to show or even feel solidarity with those across national and
cultural boundaries (boundaries I don't happen to believe in). It's becoming a
way of making people feel guilty about caring, of making women feel like they
can't say anything about human rights in another country. It's a strategy to
force silence on those who have something to fight for, like Amina. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I grew up in a Muslim family in London and I believe that
Islam is a religion a lot like its close relatives, Christianity and Judaism. A
lot of the culture I grew up with wasn't that Islamic, it was more rural Indian
than anything else. 'What the Koran says' was about as important as 'what will
other people say?' in my mother's eyes, and often it seemed that what the Koran
actually had to say was a bit less repressive than what Mrs Khan from Sevenoaks
thought ("My daughter wears high heels and goes to office but she can't
even make aloo ghobi" *tutting/ pursed lips all round*).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the end, I got into other ideas, the way teenagers often
do, and decided I was a socialist more than anything - a description of myself
that still holds true. But I think there are times when some liberals and
lefties (not all of course!) bend over
backwards so hard to not be racist that they end up listening to the same sort
of people who'd send their daughters back to the village and confiscate their
passports if they declared themselves radical. It's at best a naive misjudgement,
and at worst cowardly and unprincipled. Are non-white women to be considered
“separate but equal”? I know how that tale ended. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Women in Muslim countries deserve at least the same rights
as their western counterparts, and no one in Amina's case - not even FEMEN -
thinks Islam is 'bad' without also criticising other belief systems across
Europe that repress women. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I think it's important that we don't not lose sight of Amina
and her safety. Whether I'd do what she did has nothing to do with it. She's
been let down by her country and her family and I'm not about to do the same by
turning this into a 'racism' issue. I personally don't find the hijab or nudity
all that liberating, but I think Amina's protest pictures were amazingly brave.
For me it was the slogans that she wrote across her body, as well as the
cigarette and the book and that look of sultry defiance, that elevated ‘that
image’ to the level of protest-art. Bloody well good on her!!!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Solidarity.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<br />Farahtasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06665595475499689736noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4682333870113640253.post-22009664890168089212013-01-31T19:39:00.001+00:002013-01-31T19:41:01.676+00:00''The greatest crime in Auschwitz was to be pregnant''[1]<br />
<br />
This week, I learned about Gisela Pearl. She was a
Jewish-Hungarian doctor who worked in Aushwitz and performed secret abortions
to protect women from Nazi "experimentation" and death.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The policy on pregnant women in Auchwitz was simple to start
with - they were gassed as soon as the pregnancy was discovered. But the Nazi
Dr Mengele started to devise alternative plans for these women and asked Perl
for all pregnant women to be sent to him personally for separate treatment. He
said this would involve milk and extra food. As soon as Perl discovered that
these women were in fact being used for horrific experiments, she stopped
sending the women and tried, instead, to end the pregnancies herself.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In all, she performed approximately 3000 abortions in the
hope that the women would survive and later be able to bear children, if they
chose, in freedom<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Perl also risked her life giving medical assistance to men
and women who had been deliberately poisoned, or otherwise experimented on by Mengele.
She did this during the night, hoping she wouldn’t be caught. She had no medical equipment and very few
drugs but she did what she could...<o:p></o:p></div>
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"'I treated patients with my voice, telling them
beautiful stories, telling them that one day we would have birthdays again,
that one day we would sing again. I didn't know when it was Rosh ha-Shanah, but
I had a sense of it when the weather turned cool. So I made a party with the
bread, margarine and dirty pieces of sausage we received for meals. I said
tonight will be the New Year, tomorrow a better year will come.''<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Perl survived but many of her family did not. Years later she
said in an interview with the New York Times, ''It is worthwhile to live.” (Quotes
from taken from New York Times interview, 1982: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1982/11/15/style/out-of-death-a-zest-for-life.html">http://www.nytimes.com/1982/11/15/style/out-of-death-a-zest-for-life.html</a>)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Perl’s place in the Nazi machine was deeply complex, given
her position as a woman, a Jew and a physician working for the Third Reich, and
her actions have been deemed controversial by some. She was operating within a
system where sterilization and the termination of Jewish mothers, babies and
foetuses was actively encouraged as part of the Nazi policy to eradicate all
traces of Jewishness and ‘impurity’. Perl’s actions did not, and could not
possibly, subvert this project. She was aborting the same ‘bad’ foetuses, and
in some cases killing those same ‘impure’ babies that Hitler wanted dead. But
within the death machine that was Auschwitz, the children of women inmates
could not possibly survive. Babies, too, were experimented on and killed.
Mengele devised ways of observing babies starve to death – he taped one woman’s
breasts to watch her baby try to suckle day after day until it died.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It goes without saying that the Nazi’s forced abortions had
nothing to do with women’s choice. Both ‘Aryan’ and non-Aryan women didn’t
really have one. In 1933, the director of
the women’s clinic of Berlin’s Charite Hospital claimed “the nation’s stock of
the ovaries a national resource and property of the German state” (<a href="http://www.ima.org.il/FilesUpload/IMAJ/0/45/22849.pdf">http://www.ima.org.il/FilesUpload/IMAJ/0/45/22849.pdf</a>).
Bavaria’s official medical journal declared abortion a type of treason when
carried out on ‘pure’ women (quoted in the above article). Sexism was an innate
part of Nazism, and just as racially ‘pure’ women were ordered to produce as
many children as possible, ‘impure’ women were forbidden to reproduce, or to
have children who would live. All women
were the forced-curators of a cultural heritage decided by others – by Nazi men.
Agency was forbidden. Therefore women prisoners who tried to end their own
pregnancies, or to help other women to do the same, were punished by a trip to
the gas chambers. By eking any power at all for themselves – including power
over their own bodies - they were not behaving as absolute subjugates, and this
threat had to be destroyed. (Hedgepeth
& Saidel (2010) Sexual Violence against Jewish Women in the Holocaust). [2]<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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In the context of Auschwitz, Perl’s actions were about as
subversive as they could be. She informed women of their fate if they continued
with the pregnancy and worked to save the mothers’ lives. Unlike the more controversial
figure of Lucie Adelsberger, an inmate physician who performed abortions to
save women but often without - and sometimes <i>against- </i>their consent, Perl
has been so far been spoken of positively by survivors. The issues of consent
and coercion are not clear, however. Some survivors never forgave the
abortionists who claimed to have acted in their interests. And very little must
have felt clear to the inmate physician, whose job had been to nurture and care
for human life, when operating in the context of what was ultimately a death
camp. It doesn’t bear thinking about and it is hard to judge these things.
Rightly or wrongly, physicians even today would see it as their job to work in
the interests of the patient when the patient isn’t deemed well enough or
‘sane’ enough to make their own decisions. The women in the camp would have
been starved, ill, and deeply disturbed. The issue is one of women’s rights but
also, more broadly, the rights of the patient in a medical environment.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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At something of a
loss myself after writing about these events, the only way I feel I can finish
is with this poem by Avrom Sutzkever. The third stanza is a painful reminder of
the women and children who couldn’t be saved.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Let us never forget. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p> </o:p><b><i>Frozen Jews</i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>By Avrom Sutzkever <o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>July 10, 1944 <o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<i>Have you seen, in
fields of snow, frozen <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Jews, row on row? Blue
marble forms <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>lying, not breathing,
not dying. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<i>Somewhere a flicker of
a frozen soul - <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>glint of fish in an
icy swell. All brood. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Speech and silence are
one. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Night snow encases the
sun. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>A smile glows immobile
from a rose lip's <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>chill. Baby and
mother, side by side. Odd <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>that her nipple's
dried. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Fist, fixed in ice, of
a naked old man: the <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>power's undone in his
hand. I've sampled <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>death in all guises.
Nothing surprises. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Yet a frost in July in
this heat - a crazy <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>assault in the street.
I and blue carrion, <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>face to face. Frozen
Jews in a snowy <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>space. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Marble shrouds my
skin. Words ebb. Light <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>grows thin. I'm
frozen, I'm rooted in <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>place like the naked
old man enfeebled <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>by ice.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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[1.] Gilsela Perl,
NYT interview.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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[2.] It is possibly pertinent to point out here that while
the fascist British National Party here in the UK claims it is in opposition to
Muslims because Islam is unfair to women, it is also constitutionally against women
of all colour having reproductive rights. This is essentially the same old
belief in ‘bad heritage’ needing to be wheedled out to purify the nation, while
women of ‘good heritage’ are expected to reproduce whether they want to or not.<o:p></o:p></div>
Farahtasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06665595475499689736noreply@blogger.com0