Normalizing sexual violence

Apr 28th, 2014 11:36 am | By

Here’s a sad finding from sociologists in gender studies – girls view sexual violence as normal.

(April 2014) – New evidence from the journal Gender & Society helps explain what women’s advocates have argued for years – that women report abuse at much lower rates than it actually occurs. According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), 44% of victims are under the age of 18, and 60% of sexual assaults are not reported to police.

The study, “Normalizing Sexual Violence: Young Women Account for Harassment and Abuse,” will appear in the June 2014 issue of Gender & Society, a top-ranked journal in Gender Studies and Sociology. The findings reveal that girls and young women rarely reported incidents of abuse because they regarded sexual violence against them as normal.

Sociologist Heather Hlavka at Marquette University analyzed forensic interviews conducted by Children’s Advocacy Center (CAC) with 100 youths between the ages of three and 17 who may have been sexually assaulted. Hlavka found that the young women experienced forms of sexual violence in their everyday lives including: objectification, sexual harassment, and abuse. Often times they rationalized these incidents as normal.

During one interview, referring to boys at school, a 13 year-old girl states:

“They grab you, touch your butt and try to, like, touch you in the front, and run away, but it’s okay, I mean… I never think it’s a big thing because they do it to everyone.”

See…this is why feminists are so widely seen as huge pains in the ass. It’s because we keep pointing out the badness of what most people view as normal. We keep trying to defamiliarize the “normal.”

The young women in the study provided insight into how some youth perceived their experiences of sexual violence and harassment during sexual encounters with men. In particular, the study pointed to how the law and popular media may lead to girls’ interpreting their abuse as normal.

I wondered about that a lot when I was navigating the street harassment in Paris as a teenager. It was so relentless and constant that it was clear all women in Paris must be familiar with it…so did they just view it as normal, and if so did that make them able to ignore it? I couldn’t imagine how that could work. I still can’t.

You know another thing that’s apparently viewed as “normal”? Bullying. Of course sexual violence is a form of bullying, but it’s not the only form. At any rate it’s terrible that such things become normalized. Feminism is going to continue to denormalize the “normal.”

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



“¡Los piropos me alegran todo el día/tarde/noche!”

Apr 28th, 2014 11:03 am | By

We’ve heard about street harassment in Cairo and Brussels; now let’s hear about street harassment in Lima, via the Stop Street Harassment blog.

When I arrived in Lima, Peru, as an American exchange student about two months ago, I thought I knew about street harassment. I had read about it, I had experienced a few catcalls here and there, and I had even had an egg thrown at me out the window of a moving car. But it had never been as constant as what women here experience every day. During my first of many ten-minute walks to school, I experienced endless “piropos” –  honking, whistles, and of course the infamous kissing noises that Limeña women are forced to endure each time they walk down the street alone (and sometimes otherwise).

But apparently Kotex Perú can’t tell the difference between street harassment and a nice compliment. Through the Facebook page of “Paremos el Acoso Callejero,” a Lima-based organization for fighting street harassment, I came into contact with the following Kotex Peru ad with the caption “¡Los piropos me alegran todo el día/tarde/noche!” (Catcalls cheer me up all morning/afternoon/night!)

Here’s that Facebook page.

Ad Translation:

“Kotex Test: If you are walking down the street and you are cat-called, you:

  1. Laugh at the situation and keep walking
  2. Stop and give a look that could kill to whoever is catcalling you
  3. Take your lipstick out of your purse, put it on, and blow him a kiss”

Clearly, the sentiment of this ad is that “piropos,” or catcalls, are a compliment, and something to be appreciated. Listen, Kotex. This is not flirting. This is street harrassment.

A “piropo” isn’t It’s not about the fact that this man thinks I’m pretty. He’s not trying to brighten my day. He’s not trying to pay me a compliment. The smirks and laughter that often accompany these expressions make it clear that they’re meant to make women uncomfortable for the harrasser’s own entertainment.

The sentiment of this ad is even more than that. Choice # 2 is clearly meant for the prudish sex-negative humorless feminazis who just don’t know how to take a compliment.

The disconnect is bizarre. We’re supposed to see combinations of clothed men and naked women as “human sexuality” and we’re supposed to see barrages of jeering sexual harassment as something cheer-upping and flattering. Oy.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



A place where the writers call themselves “free thinkers”

Apr 27th, 2014 12:00 pm | By

Missing the point. Damion Reinhardt at Skeptic Ink.

Freezing Peaches at AACON

If you were to Google for “removing the objectionable paintings” as a phrase, it will lead you to (as of this printing) exactly one place on the World Wide Web,  a place where the writers call themselves “free thinkers” and are presently discussing removing three paintings from an art show because said paintings depict women in various states of undress:

AACON-sneak-peek

Not just missing the point but also distorting – “discussing removing three paintings” sounds as if the terrible people in question were discussing doing the removing themselves, which was not the case.

But the missed point is the more important aspect, because it’s so typical (of the genre as well as of Reinhardt’s friends and colleagues). No it wasn’t “because said paintings depict women in various states of undress.” If they had been for instance paintings of people in various states of undress, there would have been no issue. To be minimally fair and accurate, he should have phrased that as “because said paintings depict anonymous women in various states of undress along with famous men as thoroughly dressed as it’s possible to be apart from gloves and hat.”

But that would have ruined the sneer.

You can see all three paintings in this Storify. The images are not safe for work, unless you work in an art gallery and can therefore be expected to view nudes routinely without turning into a slavering misogynist sex beast.

I would love to write a brilliant post about why censoring these paintings is a bad idea, even in this narrow context, but Russell Blackford anticipated this issue almost exactly a year before the events of this weekend:

Within wide limits, we should all be free to talk about sex, or even joke about it. Book stalls should be free to sell books whose covers have arguably sexual or erotic images, art displays or poster shops should be free to include art with erotic content, etc.

It does seem that in every generation new rationalisations are invented to try to restrict sexual expression and openness. And in every generation, we have to fight this.

Please go read his entire post, and think seriously about whether we atheists want to follow the leads of mullahs and the priests in demonizing human sexuality in general and covering up of artistic representations of the female form in particular.

If you care to support the artist, prints of smiling David Silverman are still available from his website.

The paintings are not about “human sexuality”; they are about male sexuality, and women as objects of same. There’s a context here, for fuck’s sake. This wasn’t a set of pictures of naked people, and it wasn’t erotica; it was paintings exclusively of naked unknown women mixed in with fully clothed famous intellectual men. That does not simply translate to Human Sexuality.

Also, it was at the American Atheist Convention. Women were there as well as men: attending and also speaking. Women were participating. But what were these paintings? Famous fully clothed atheist men, and naked women. Where were the famous fully clothed atheist women? Nowhere. What does that look like to the casual (and even attentive) viewer? That men do atheism and women do being naked. Does Reinhardt really see no problem with that at an atheist Convention?

Update: Ahahaha Damion is such a wit. So is “I has gelato” of Twitter. (That’s a title. You know, like Princess Henrietta of Monaco.)

View image on Twitter

Geddit? I want to put burqas on all the women. Yup.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



All different, and all identical

Apr 27th, 2014 11:29 am | By

A great Jesus and Mo this week. (They’re all great, but in light of the recent demonizations of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, this one is especially so.)

group

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Vatican meritocracy

Apr 27th, 2014 10:44 am | By

Gnu Atheism at Facebook on a certain recent canonization:

Photo

 

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



They are agreeing to being spiritually married to their father

Apr 27th, 2014 10:12 am | By

A startling – yet all too easily understandable – item from Purity Culture. Lynn Beisner at AlterNet:

My step-father began having problems getting erections when I was a senior in high school. How did I find out about this? He told me that he was using me to get an erection so that he could have sex with my mother.

We were very religious people. We attended a Fundamentalist Baptist Church so sexually conservative I was not even allowed to wear jeans. But still, he would sit me down and discuss what he had been thinking on those nights when he pressed my body against his and stroked my hair, the curve of my hip and the area between my collar bone and breasts until his penis was hard against my thigh.

In those incredibly awkward and galling conversations he reassured me repeatedly that he would never do anything to compromise my virginity.

So using her to get a hard-on is perfectly fine. Purity is preserved.

In a way it’s staggering in its callous absurdity, but in another way it’s just of course, the whole point of patriarchy is ownership of female sexuality, so naturally Mr Horndog rationalizes that it’s all cool as long as he doesn’t actually Break Her Hymen.

But it’s worse than that.

To better understand the role that Purity Culture played in my step-father’s abuse, I would ask that you bear with me while I explain a little about the beliefs and practices of that culture. I should distinguish first the difference between the emphasis placed on purity in mainline Christian circles, and the hardcore Purity Community. The latter is best known for their the icky tradition of Purity Balls.  At these annual events, daughters as young as five dress in elaborate white gowns and “gift” their virginities to their fathers for safekeeping.

I will grant you that purity balls are indeed cringe-worthy. But it is important that we not stop our examination of the culture at that point because the Purity Culture is far more troubling, and the relationship between father and daughter becomes far more enmeshed and emotionally incestuous than most articles about purity culture expose.

For starters, the balls are celebrations of the vow that these girls have made and the contract that they sign. They are agreeing to being spiritually married to their father and to God until such time as their father sees fit to give her to a husband. For their part, fathers pledge to protect their daughters’ virginity, which is the “most precious gift that she can offer her future husband.”

Yeah you know that’s really not…

…it’s not a thing, not Christianity only more so, not extra extra pure. Daughters “spiritually marrying” their fathers…that’s a twist.

According to Vision Forum, one of the leaders in the Purity Culture, a father treats his daughter in such a way that is that he “woos her and wins her with a tenderness and affection unique to that relationship

My step-father couldn’t woo me using Purity Balls, because there were none at that point.  Back then, fathers were encouraged to woo their daughters on regular dates.  My step-father would bring me flowers, open doors for me and generally treat me like I was his much younger girlfriend.

Ew!

I did a post on the Ew back in September 2011, via a post of Libby Anne’s. Everyone who commented was equally horrified.

And in practice…it turned out to be every bit as creepy as it looked.

To me, these dates felt more like an excuse for my step-father to re-experience his youth. He got to be seen with a younger woman on his arm, and more importantly he got to spend an hour or two basking in the warmth and adoration of someone who was not allowed to challenge him.

I am not being egotistical when I say that my step-father fell for me, developed a huge and creepy crush on me during those dates. Had we been allowed to have the normal step-father/daughter relationship where we ignore each other and occasionally snarl back and forth, I feel fairly sure he would never have developed that heartfelt affection and sexual attraction.

But  the dates succeeded in one way: They taught me exactly what I should expect while dating men in that environment: abuse.

And the other thing they taught her?

The second lesson, however, is about more than just being your father’s servant. It is meant to teach young women to orient their entire lives around pleasing their fathers as practice for pleasing their husbands.  One of the more important ways that this shows up is in the requirement that  a woman dress and groom herself in a way which pleases her father.

A prime example of this is a statement from Michelle Duggar, a star of the hit series “19 and Counting” She said that she styles her hair however Jim Bob prefers because “what he likes is what I want.”  The Botkin sisters, luminaries in the Purity Movement, talk about wearing  their father’s favorite colors, styles in dress and hair so that their father will enjoy seeing them.

Girls are trained to be patriotropic.

In the practical case of my step-father,  surrendering to his wishes about my appearance led to him treating me as his personal Barbie doll.  He bought my clothes had my hair styled as he wanted. Then under the guise of giving his stamp of approval to the outfits that I planned to wear, he would demand fashion shows. Although they were obviously for his titillation, he was doing nothing more than what Purity Culture encourages.

It’s inevitable, when this is made so central. It’s funny about that, isn’t it – it’s not charity or compassion or making the world a better place that’s made central in these cults, it’s patriarchy – real patriarchy, literal patriarchy, not the sublimated watered down version that we secular weirdos have to navigate.

Of course not every man in purity culture uses his daughter to treat his erection problems. But the attitudes and beliefs about women that encourage men to see daughters as apprentice wives and their sexuality as his make it very easy justify all manner of oppression and abuse just as my step-father justified his behavior.  The potential for abuse grows exponentially when you factor in the isolation that these families and religions generally practice which leave the fathers with no fear of reprisal and daughters without recourse.

What does “apprentice wife” mean in this context? A girl who is being groomed for literal slavery. It’s a decorated, veiled, beribboned kind of slavery, but it is slavery.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



The cutting in the back rooms

Apr 26th, 2014 6:11 pm | By

FGM in Egypt.

Egypt has one of the highest rates of FGM in the world: a staggering 91 per cent of women between the ages of 15 and 49 have been cut, according to a 2013 report released by UNICEF (PDF). Genital mutilation is practiced in various forms across the African continent, from Nigeria to Somalia. In Egypt, it is most common—indeed, almost universal—in rural areas like Diyarb Buqtaris village where Soheir grew up. But it crosses all class boundaries.  The West often labels the excisions an Islamic practice, but cutting occurs in Egypt in both Muslim and Christian communities, and it goes on despite the fact that the Egyptian Coptic Church and Al Azhar, the country’s leading Islamic authority, have condemned it.

Al Azhar may be “the country’s leading Islamic authority,” if that means anything, but it’s not so leading that it brought FGM to a halt. The Muslim Brotherhood did not condemn it, and when asked said it was not a priority.

In the past, barbers or local midwives often did the cutting in the back rooms of the girls’ homes. In recent years doctors have performed an estimated 80 per cent of the procedures. Even so, they may know little about the damage caused to the girl, says Vivian Fouad from the NPC. Her organization has worked to integrate a course highlighting the dangers of FGM into Egypt’s gynecological and public health curriculum. “The ‘medicalization’ of FGM is very high,” Fouad explained, and “this is very dangerous, as it gives legitimacy to the practice.” The procedure, which takes just a few minutes, costs anything between $4.50 in the countryside to $140 in private clinics in the capital: useful earnings the medics make on the side.

If doctors do it, that makes it look as if it’s a normal and in some way medically beneficial thing to do. That’s bad. Imagine if doctors cut off every girl’s left little finger. The girls would mostly survive, but they would have a worse, clumsier, narrower grip than people who kept both their little fingers. Adults should not do things like that to children.

An American-Egyptian artist who prefers not to be named says she was circumcised in a smart clinic in the coastal city of Alexandria during the early 1990s. “I thought it was normal thing and everyone did it. It was something to be proud of,” the 31-year-old told The Daily Beast. Her mother, from the United States, had been coerced by friends into organizing the operation. The young woman says she is still suffering from psychological damage as a result of the mutilation. She was sedated during the procedure, but that is is not always the case. She said she could barely walk or urinate for four days afterwards.

See? If everyone does it and it seems normal – then everyone does it and it seems normal. The fact that it’s agonizingly painful at the time and destructive later is obscured. Footbinding worked the same way. It hurt like fuck and it left girls and women crippled, but it was normal and everyone did it…until it wasn’t any more.

“In the era of the Muslim Brotherhood, the people perceived that they encouraged these practices,” Fouad said. Even though it is not addressed or endorsed in the Qur’an, genital mutilation fit into the kind of traditionalist view of Egyptian life that the Brotherhood exploited for its own ends.

In 2011, local media reported that the then-ruling Muslim Brotherhood was offering subsidized female circumcision at mobile clinics. The Daily Beast obtained a leaflet, dated April 2012, emblazoned with the logo of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) and detailing discount medical services being made available. At the bottom the simple paper brochure advertised female and male circumcision for just 30 Egyptian pounds ($4.50) a procedure.

Well it’s the Muslim Brotherhood. It’s not their genitals that are going to be carved up.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Math matters

Apr 26th, 2014 5:55 pm | By

David Robert Grimes points out that mathematics is of fundamental importance, a claim which I would have thought was uncontroversial in this high tech age, but apparently it’s not.

There is still a self-perpetuating apprehension about mathematics, and an attitude of contempt that must be overcome. The comment by Sheila Nunan, the general secretary of the INTO, that “it was the boys who did the honours maths led the country to ruination” borders on the profoundly anti-intellectual, and such sentiments are counterproductive to improving our national numeracy problem.

Ireland however seems to have other ideas of what’s important.

It is a damning testament to our skewed priorities that until now we have insisted primary teachers have honours Irish but showed little concern about their mathematical confidence. That we place more value on a minority language than on the language of the universe reeks of misplaced nationalism. Similarly, that we devote 30 per cent of primary teaching time to Irish and religion while our basic literacy and numeracy struggle should raise alarm bells.

Irish and religion, 30% – in primary school. That does seem highly perverse. Nationalism is not one of humanity’s better ideas, and religion is a kind of nationalism of god.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



30%

Apr 26th, 2014 5:19 pm | By

David Robert Grimes points out that mathematics is of fundamental importance, a claim which I would have thought was uncontroversial in this high tech age, but apparently it’s not.

There is still a self-perpetuating apprehension about mathematics, and an attitude of contempt that must be overcome. The comment by Sheila Nunan, the general secretary of the INTO, that “it was the boys who did the honours maths led the country to ruination” borders on the profoundly anti-intellectual, and such sentiments are counterproductive to improving our national numeracy problem.

Ireland however seems to have other ideas of what’s important.

It is a damning testament to our skewed priorities that until now we have insisted primary teachers have honours Irish but showed little concern about their mathematical confidence. That we place more value on a minority language than on the language of the universe reeks of misplaced nationalism. Similarly, that we devote 30 per cent of primary teaching time to Irish and religion while our basic literacy and numeracy struggle should raise alarm bells.

Irish and religion, 30% – in primary school. That does seem highly perverse. Nationalism is not one of humanity’s better ideas, and religion is a kind of nationalism of god.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



234 missing schoolgirls

Apr 26th, 2014 5:01 pm | By

Those abducted schoolgirls in Borno state, Nigeria, are still missing. Borno women appealed for the girls’ release on Wednesday.

Women in Borno State yesterday stated their willingness to go into the Sambisa Forest in search of schoolgirls abducted from the Government Girls Secondary School Chibok two weeks ago.

The women, who appeared in black dresses and sobbed over the incident, spoke to journalists in Maiduguri, where they urged for the release of the female students.
Authorities believe that at least 234 of the schoolgirls are still missing, after some of them escaped from their Boko Haram kidnappers.

Prof Hauwa Abdu Biu, who spoke on behalf of the concerned women yesterday, called on the sect to release the girls, saying the abduction was inhuman.

“We are ready to go into the bush to search for them if we could get somebody who will led us. These girls are innocent and no harm should befall them,” she said, sobbing.

“The abduction of innocents’ girls violates their human rights, is a crime against humanity and is prohibited under the international humanitarian law.

“Women in Borno State condemn in its totality such acts of violence as attacks on schools deny children their rights to learn in a safe environment, thereby jeopardising their future.”

And making quite a nightmare of their present, too.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Human rights in Iran

Apr 26th, 2014 4:55 pm | By

Samantha Power, US ambassador to the UN and author of The Problem From Hell, raised objections to a recent UN election.

U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power protested the election of repressive regimes including Iran to the U.N. Committee on Non-governmental Organizations which deals with civil society groups accredited to the United Nations.

Iran’s U.N. Mission responded Thursday by rejecting “baseless accusations” raised by Power on the status of human rights and civil liberties in the country.

Did it? Iran thinks the status of human rights and civil liberties are pretty good in the country?

Power accused Iran in a statement Wednesday night of regularly detaining human rights defenders and “subjecting many to torture, abuse and violations of due process.” She called its unopposed candidacy “a particularly troubling outcome” of the election.

Is she wrong? Rayhaneh Jabbari would say no she’s not wrong.

 

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Promoting isn’t starting

Apr 26th, 2014 11:42 am | By

There’s a comment on The racism of the white wolf who cried Islamophobia that suddenly clarified for me what is probably a widespread misconception.

Interesting post, I’m a little bit disheartened by your suggestion of Harris & Dawkins as racist. I know at times they have not provided the nuance on Islam we would all like to see (something especially hard on twitter) but they have at least started a discourse which really did not exist from the liberal perspective circa 10 years ago.

No. That’s seriously wrong.

They have helped to draw attention to that discourse, but they certainly did not single- or rather double-handed start it all by themselves. The two of them did not create or start the discourse ex nihilo. It’s really pretty insulting to say they did – insulting to all the other people who contributed to starting that discourse long before Dawkins and Harris played any part, and with more inside knowledge about it. I mean, obviously, all the ex-Muslims and secular Muslims and liberal reformist Muslims who did. Ibn Warraq, Taslima Nasreen, Tarek Fatah, Homa Arjomand, Southall Black Sisters, Irshad Manji, Maryam Namazie – all were active well before The End of Faith and The God Delusion. Yes, Harris and Dawkins wrote best-sellers, but that doesn’t mean that they started the discourse, and they didn’t start it. (To be fair, I think they would say the same thing.)

Give them due credit, by all means, but don’t give them more than their due.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



A person who has died in blasphemy will not receive God’s forgiveness

Apr 26th, 2014 10:55 am | By

Jeswan Kaur is one person in Malaysia who objects to tyrannical theocratic meddling.

The country’s administration is in a mess and still, the ruling government continues to rejoice in demonising other faiths and uphold the superiority of Islam, which the Federal Constitution safeguards as the official religion.

From the threats to non-Malays to back off from using the word ‘Allah’ to the seizure of more than 300 bibles in Iban and Malay languages to the uncalled for Jan 2 raid of the Bible Society of Malaysia premises in Damansara Kim to condemning Valentine Day’s as the ‘root of all evil’, the Barisan Nasional government continues to display its pre-occupation with the persecution of the non-Malays.

See why secularism is better? Including for religious people? It means the state leaves people’s religion alone as much as possible.

The latest show of prejudice and discrimination against the non-Malays comes in the wake of the death of DAP’s former national chairman Karpal Singh on April 17. The MP for Bukit Gelugor died in an accident near Gua Tempurung on the North-South Expressway.

Karpal, who would have turned 74 on June 28, was travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Penang to attend a court hearing in the morning. The country’s best criminal and constitution lawyer’s demise not only shocked the nation but the grief shown by the rakyat left the BN government red-faced.

What’s the problem? People were saying “RIP” to mourners. Uh oh, that’s Christian.

this touching farewell to a defender of the truth rankled the National Fatwa Council.

It promptly reminded Muslims that they are not encouraged to use the phrase to a non-Muslim because of its Christian connotations. In a statement on its website, the council said Muslims could express their condolences but it had a bone to pick with ‘RIP’, claiming that it was a form of prayer used by Christians during the 18th century and regularly engraved on tombstones.

“Condolences can be expressed to a non-Muslim families as long as there are no religious implications,” it said.

Justifying its ruling, the council said RIP was an assumption that the non-Muslim person would receive God’s blessings.

“It is similar to the Latin prayer of ‘May his soul and the souls of all the departed faithful by God’s mercy rest in peace’. From an Islamic point of view, a person who has died in blasphemy will not receive God’s forgiveness and blessings,” said the council.

Ahhhhh that’s a pretty thought. “From an Islamic point of view” lots of dead people are now miserable because they were not Muslim when they were alive. No peace, no forgiveness, no anything good for people who chose a different religion or no religion. Cherish that grudge.

[T]he council never shies away from pushing the envelope when it comes to the Malay agenda, even if it means trampling on the people’s fundamental rights.

Two months ago, the council demanded the government take action against the pro-human rights movement, Coalition of Malaysian Non-governmental Organisations (Comango) which it claimed was trying to destroy Islam in the country. There seems to be no stopping the council and its bigotry – little wonder then why Malaysia and her children continue to suffer from an ‘identity crisis’.

And from a plague of bossy vindictive purity-enforcers.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Down with equality, liberty, and human rights

Apr 26th, 2014 10:31 am | By

A Malaysian Islamist group makes things helpfully clear by attacking the very idea of equality and human rights.

Equality, liberty and human rights are “godless” and “faithless” ideologies created by atheists to destroy Islam, hardline Islamic group Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (ISMA) said today.

Since Malaysia’s general elections in 2013, the non-governmental organisation has been  growing in popularity, striking a chord with more conservative Malay Muslims who support its push for Malaysia to become an Islamic state.

ISMA’s uncompromising views and bald statements have been criticised mainly by Malaysia’s non Muslim minority and rights groups. Some have likened ISMA to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Mainly by non-Muslim minority groups and rights groups? Why not the non-extremist mainstream Muslim groups that we’re always hearing are so much more numerous and real than the Islamists? Why not liberal secularist Muslims?

Speaking at  ISMA’ s convention for Muslim women, its president Zaid Abdul Rahman also said civil society groups are proxies of a Zionist-Christian agenda that seeks to confuse Muslims with ideologies which are unIslamic.

“Islam is Islam. Ideologies are not part of Islam and all these ideologies are from the west..liberalism, liberty, equity and human rights are all agenda of the atheist.

“They are a godless and faithless ideology.

“There is no liberal islam or socialist islam. You are either a Muslim or a jahilliah (an ignorant),” he said.

That simplifies the choices. There is no liberal Islam, and you are either a Muslim or a jahilliah – so either you’re a Correct Muslim or you’re an Ignorant; all liberals are ignorants.

Zaid said ISMA, which strives to ensure the “purest” form of Islam is upheld in Malaysia, was set up  to counter the threat against Islam.

Despite accusations to the contrary, Zaid claimed that ISMA promotes moderation and its version of Islam is universally suitable.

“We Isma promote moderation and I believe our model is timeless”.

Right. A version of Islam that opposes liberalism, liberty, equity and human rights is the epitome of moderation and suitability.

 

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



If only committed Christians would rise to the challenge

Apr 25th, 2014 5:34 pm | By

Want some sophistication? Damon Linker has some for you. Well not exactly sophistication maybe – more like pseudo-sophistication, or silliness that looks like sophistication when it’s placed next to even sillier silliness.

It’s about hell. Eternal punishment. Suffering as the reward for doing bad things.

So you already know what the sophistication is. No no no no no no no hell is not devils and pitchforks, no no no no no, that’s just silly. It’s [drum roll] Alienation From God.

Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhh that’s not a thing. You could accuse me of being alienated from Artemis, if you wanted to, but it would leave me unruffled. It’s the same with god.

But I’ll let him tell it, because he seems to think it’s good and compelling.

[T]he most theologically cogent view of hell found in classical Christianity maintains that it is the state of mind (or soul) of someone who is alienated from God. Living a life that is out of harmony with God is painful, and to die and be confronted so decisively with the error of your ways — to be made to see that you made a wreck of your life by separating yourself from God, and to have to learn to shatter your pride by reforming yourself in his divine presence — is, one imagines, excruciating. But it is intrinsically painful, not externally imposed by torturers in some fire-and-brimstone-filled dungeon.

Or in the words of theologian David Bentley Hart, “What we call hell is nothing but the rage and remorse of the soul that will not yield itself to love.” In refusing to “open itself to the mercy and glory of God, the wrathful soul experiences the transfiguring and deifying fire of love not as bliss but as chastisement and despair.”

This is what hell must be if God is truly good.

I, for one, find this far more plausible than the popular vision of hell as a torture chamber run by sadistic demons. And I suspect that at least some young religious skeptics might, too, if only committed Christians would rise to the challenge of making the case.

Oh blah. If God is truly good, God has a lot of explaining to do. It could start with what definition of “love” it’s working with.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



A pause

Apr 25th, 2014 4:37 pm | By

Afusat Saliu (and her very young daughters) have won a temporary reprieve.

The Home Office had ordered Saliu to fly to Lagos on Friday after she had exhausted all attempts to stop her deportation.

But a last-minute intervention from her MP, George Mudie, has enabled her to stay temporarily in the UK. Mudie has written twice to James Brokenshire, the security and immigration minister, asking him to intervene. The Home Office has told Mudie that Brokenshire will be writing to him about Saliu’s case.

“The assumption is that this is a pause,” said Mudie. “I would be extremely disappointed if they tried to detain her while this is still going on. This is so important and sensitive.

“[Brokenshire] has got to satisfy himself that he is absolutely certain that these children are not in danger. It would be unforgivable if anything happened to these children if they go back.”

It seems very unlikely that he can be certain of any such thing. Saliu fled Nigeria because her family wanted to cut her daughter. Remember how Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her sister Halima were cut? It wasn’t because her parents wanted that; they didn’t. Their grandmother had it done in the parents’ absence.

Saliu arrived in the UK in 2011, and says that she fled Nigeria when her stepmother told her that her oldest daughter, Bassy, would be cut.

She gave birth to another child while in the UK, and has vowed to do everything possible to stop her daughters going through the mutilation she did.

“I don’t want them to be mutilated,” she said. “I know it will happen if I have to go back with them, I know it because it is the culture of my family.

So now it’s wait and see.

 

 

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



She knew she had to finish

Apr 25th, 2014 3:49 pm | By

Katherine Switzer on that marathon, and what it meant, and what it felt like to be mauled by an enraged Jock Semple.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOGXvBAmTsY

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



How far

Apr 25th, 2014 11:31 am | By

Nostalgia for slavery. Well naturally, right? Who wouldn’t miss that?

[14 years ago] Maurice Bessinger, owner of a chain of South Carolina barbecue restaurants called Maurice’s Piggie Park, began distributing pro-slavery tracts in his stores. One of the tracts, called the “Biblical View of Slavery,” said the practice wasn’t really so bad, because it was permitted in the Bible. It argued that many black slaves in the South “blessed the Lord” for their condition, because it was better than their life in Africa.

When the tract was discovered, Mr. Bessinger was denounced and his restaurants boycotted. Many retail stores pulled his distinctive (to be kind) yellow mustardy barbecue sauce from their shelves.

But one prominent South Carolinian decided to stand up for Mr. Bessinger. Glenn McConnell, then a state senator from Charleston,stocked the sauce in his Confederate “art gallery,” which was loaded with secessionist flags and uniforms, as well as toilet paper bearing the image of Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman. When a local power utility banned its trucks from the parking lots of Piggie Park, Mr. McConnell threatened a legislative vendetta against the company.

Mr. Bessinger died in February. Mr. McConnell is now the lieutenant governor of South Carolina.

I wonder how he treats his support staff.

In that state, it is not considered a stain to have fought passionately to keep the Confederate flag flying on top of the Capitol dome, or to have appeared on a notorious white-nationalist radio program in 2007. (All of this is meticulously chronicled on the website of the invaluable Southern Poverty Law Center.)

No reputational damage was done even when Mr. McConnell, a well-known Civil War re-enactor and then president pro-tem of the Senate, appeared in a 2010 photograph dressed as a Confederate general, standing between a black man and a woman dressed as slaves. The man was wearing a floppy hat and holding a washboard; the woman wore an apron and a bandanna. When black leaders protested, Senator McConnell said the photo actually showed how far the state had come in race relations.

Ooh ooh I know this game! I can play too. “The fact that I can call you a bitch and a cunt shows how far the world has come in gender relations.”

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Welcome home; this may pinch a little

Apr 25th, 2014 11:12 am | By

Oh, horrors. Afusat Saliu is being deported from the UK to Nigeria today with her two very young daughters. The daughters will be cut up there.

Afusat Saliu, 31, and her two children aged one and three, face deportation to Nigeria on Friday. Saliu, who was a victim of female genital mutilation (FGM) as a child, has appealed to the Home Office on the grounds that her daughters could face FGM if sent back to their home country. But her appeal was rejected on Thursday. Nigeria has the highest number of genitally mutilated women in the world.

Sometimes it seems like trying to tidy a beach by picking up a grain of sand and then another and then another…

 

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Jump to condemn the obviously condemnable

Apr 25th, 2014 9:49 am | By

Marwa Berro at Between a Veil and a Dark Place: Missives of an Ex-Muslim Woman did a post last week wittily titled The racism of the white wolf who cried Islamophobia.

I’m tired of a certain faction of Western liberals, especially white guys, Westsplaining about how anti-Muslim bigotry and Western colonialism and imperialism and international geopolitics provide *essential context* for understanding the sources of Muslim problems, which don’t come from a vacuum, how there are striking *parallels* between liberal critique of Islam and right-wing anti-Muslim bigotry.

Not that there’s no such thing as anti-Muslim bigotry, not that imperialism and geopolitics have never fucked anything up, but…there’s more to it than that.

But those things are not an *explanation*. They are contributing factors at best that neither sufficiently explain nor excuse the blatant transgressions of Muslims and the horrible conditions in Muslim-majority countries. There is also an ironic lack of focus on Arab imperialism and the manner in which Islam has been reified, propagated, and been used to justify horrors in the Middle East and South Asia *far preceding* the West dipping its fingers into that mess. Sorry to strip you of credit for this, really, but it’s not the West that created the dehumanizing elements of Muslim cultures.

Not everything is about us (us being people in “the West”). Neither for credit nor for blame is everything about us. We don’t make everything happen. It can be useful to remember this.

There is also ironic lack of focus on the booming (essentially) slave trade disguised as a migrant worker system exploiting Africans and South and Southeast Asians that is utterly normalized in the Gulf and Levant.

That’s one reason I bring it up a lot. The main reason is of course that it exists and it’s horrible, but it’s also to make the point that people treat others (especially Others) like shit in a great many places.

And the supreme irony here? The blatant condescension of this PoV. It really is such a white-centric thing to try to explain the Muslim issue in those terms, to essentialize our problems in terms of your culture’s imperialism. It is also–and I’m not holding my breath for anyone to realize this anytime soon–buying into the same anti-brown racism to continually draw analogies between liberal critiques of Islam and right-wing anti-Muslim bigotries, to present eg the often-racist ignorant spewings of Dawkins and his ilk as the FACE of liberal and atheist discourse regarding the matter so you can self-righteously jump to condemn the obviously condemnable just as you raise it to the level of being representative of the entire liberal and atheist community, ironically completely drowning out and excluding the voices of Ex-Muslims and progressive Muslims, especially women, from the categories of ‘Western’ and ‘liberal’ and ‘atheist discourse’, othering us and contributing to our silence and marginalization. We don’t want Dawkins and Harris to be the driving voices of liberal discourse regarding Islam either. Stop excluding us. Stop alienating us. Stop reducing us to the norms of our home cultures, as if we’re incapable of engaging with them or transcending them, and stop creating a binary between us and our values and liberalism and its values.

To be fair, for all his faults, Dawkins has done a lot to amplify the voices of Ex-Muslims in general and e.g. Maryam Namazie in particular (but then he goes and undercuts some of that with his fatuous [at best] tweets about Islam). But yes: I think the non-Muslims who rant about Islamophobia do a very bad job of listening to people like Maryam and Marwa.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)