Rahila Gupta discusses Amnesty International and Cage at Open Democracy.

[W[hen Asim Qureshi, Research Director of Cage, alleged that harassment from MI5 was responsible for Emwazi’s journey to IS (Islamic State) in a Channel 4 interview with Jon Snow, they overreached themselves and opened themselves up to general ridicule and incredulity.

The ensuing outrage at Cage’s arguments appears to have pushed Amnesty International (AI) to put more distance between itself and Cage than it has ever done before, even though it was widely called upon to do so at the time of Gita Sahgal’s suspension from her post as head of the Gender unit at AI in 2010.

In December 2014, Gita Sahgal again criticised AI for co-signing a letter with Cage, along with seven other signatories, to David Cameron calling for a judge-led inquiry into rendition and torture of Islamic states. Both Steve Crawshaw, the deputy director of Amnesty, and Gita were interviewed on the Radio 4 Today programme on the issue of AI’s relationship with Cage. Crawshaw began by saying that he was ‘enormously saddened’ by Gita Sahgal’s interview which was ‘inaccurate on so many levels’ although he did not elaborate on this.

Well I’m enormously saddened, or rather make that disgusted, by Amnesty’s habit of throwing Gita under the nearest bus. Amnesty should never have been in bed with Cage, and Gita was right all along.

Crawshaw then said he didn’t know if Amnesty would sign such joint letters in the future, and the next day the director, Kate Allen, said they were “reviewing whether any future association with the group would now be appropriate.” As if something were different “now.”

Hopefully these public statements are not just an exercise in image management but an indication that Amnesty is undergoing a genuine and long overdue ‘crise de conscience’, although the above statements have left them with substantial wriggle room.  Gita Sahgal is not optimistic. She says, ‘Amnesty International’s long relationship with Cage and other Islamists damages the credibility of their research and their ability to make informed decisions on campaigning and partnerships. There is no sign that they have actually understood this – they are simply responding to media pressure and thinking it will all blow over.’

And why should we care?

Why should the level of co-operation between two NGOs matter to women, particularly BME women? Why should the world view of groups like Cage impinge on Amnesty’s decision to work with them? It matters because women need the support of organisations like Amnesty in their lonely struggle against the growth of religious fundamentalism. It matters because joint work with Amnesty is a gift to any organisation, gives them credibility and a place at the top table. What kind of belief systems acquire legitimacy as a result?  Both Asim Qureshi and Moazzam Begg, director of Cage, idealise societies which would, in my view, extinguish women’s rights as we know them.

Oh, not just in anyone’s view – that’s a fact. What we call women’s rights would be extinguished in the ideal society that Qureshi and Begg dream of.

How come such beliefs do not undermine the dangerous tropes circulating in left wing circles? One of the tropes is that one person’s freedom fighter is another person’s terrorist. This assertion is no longer a clever inversion of dominant narratives that it once was since most of the recent strands of ‘terrorism’ have an ideology which is anti-woman, anti-sexual minorities and religious minorities and anti-secular. This ideology does not make them ‘freedom fighters’. Whose freedoms are they fighting for – a tightly defined brotherhood of a particular strain of Islam, be it wahhabi or salafi? This is not comparable to the old freedom struggles for independence from colonial yokes or Marxist-inspired struggles for the liberation of the working classes from their capitalist masters.

And yet, bafflingly, many people think it is comparable. I’ll never understand why.

Maryam Namazie, of the International Committee against Stoning, says that AI refused to campaign jointly with them on the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman who was sentenced to be stoned for adultery, on grounds of impartiality.  She adds ironically that she [might] have won AI support if she had supported ‘defensive jihad’. All human rights organisations are faced with choices about the alliances they make. Their choices need to be consistent with a universal human rights agenda.

That’s not such an onerous requirement for a human rights organization, I’d have thought.

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

The actor Frieda Pinto gave a speech at the New York premiere of India’s Daughter. The Huffington Post reports:

“Today in 2015 despite the vast improvements in the lives and rights of women across the world in the last century, there still seems to exist this very complex network of ideological and cultural norms that still plague our society and that make global misogyny, in my opinion, a great scourge and most pressing issue of our age,” Pinto said.

That’s why we’re still battling – because of that network of ideological and cultural norms. The ones that put women in various inadequate pigeonholes that all function to diminish and constrain them.

Pinto told the audience that gender inequality is not limited by country, but manifests across all cultures and societies. She also discussed the importance of feminism as a shared understanding of mutual values. “I cannot wait for that day when this generation of women and men finally realizes that claiming to be a feminist is simply asserting that you share the same spiritual and economic value as your male counterparts — as each other,” she said.

That day is a long way off. Generations, probably.

There’s more on her speech at The Examiner.

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

Shaun King at Daily Kos has more about Sigma Alpha Epsilon at the University of Oklahoma and elsewhere.

27 days ago, people on Reddit were talking about this exact same chant, and stating that it was a required chant to enter the SAE fraternity at the University of Texas. Before this controversy at the University of Oklahoma ever existed, here is how it was recounted in Texas,

For SAE context a few buddies of mine told me their favorite song to sing went-
“There will never be a n*gg*r SAE, there will never be a n*gg*r SAE, Abe set ‘em free but they’ll never pledge with me, there will never be a n*gg*r SAE.”

But even before this, SAE had demonstrated a history of racism across the country.

So let’s read that Think Progress piece by Ian Millhiser.

Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE), the fraternity that was kicked off of the University of Oklahoma’s campus Sunday night after video emerged of some of its members singing a racist chant that celebrates lynching, proudly touts its history on its website. “Sigma Alpha Epsilon is the only national fraternity founded in the antebellum South,” the fraternity’s national webpage explains, adding that the frat was “[f]ounded in a time of intense sectional feeling” and that it initially “confined its growth to the southern states.”

Though SAE had “fewer than 400 members when the Civil War began,” 369 fought in the Confederate army. Only seven fought for the union.

Ok, there’s a thing here. They’re being coy, if not downright evasive. “Antebellum” and “sectional feeling” and “Confederate army” are all code. They’re all a way of invoking while denying a history of slavery and racism. What they’re really saying is that SAE was founded in a slave state, and that the overwhelming majority of its members at the time of the Civil War fought to defend the South’s “right” to own slaves. It’s sly, if not worse, to signal that while refraining from spelling it out. Apparently they don’t want to come right out and say that SAE is the only national fraternity whose origin is the slave-owning South, but that’s the reality.

SAE’s national headquarters, to its credit, reacted swiftly after the video became national news. “Sigma Alpha Epsilon’s national headquarters has closed its Oklahoma Kappa chapter at the University of Oklahoma following the discovery of an inappropriate video,” according to a statement on SAE’s website. “In addition, all of the members have been suspended, and those members who are responsible for the incident may have their membership privileges revoked permanently.” The statement adds that “we are disgusted that any member would act in such a way.”

Well just re-name it “intense sectional feeling” and you won’t be disgusted any more. Or will you?

This is hardy the first time, however, that an SAE chapter found itself in hot water due to the racist actions of its members. To the contrary, a brief search for publicly available articles and in the news database Nexis uncovered several similar incidents…

• In 2006, an SAE member at the University of Memphis quit the fraternity after two other frat members harassed him for dating a black woman. According to an editorial in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, the former SAE member “said SAE members used the N-word to refer to his girlfriend” and that they “also suggested that he must have met Darden on the street one night and that he couldn’t possibly be interested in a real relationship with someone of another race.” The Associated Press later reported that two students were suspended by SAE’s national office after they determined that these students “made comments that were inappropriate and unbecoming.”
• In 2000, SAE’s Oglethorpe University chapter was put on probation, along with chapters from three other fraternities, after an incident where African American students visiting from other schools faced racial harassment and assault. According to one news report uncovered on Nexis, officials at two predominantly black colleges that competed in a cross-county meet at Oglethorpe “complained that Oglethorpe students in fraternity houses threw bottles at athletes and screamed racial epithets.”
• In 2009, Valdosta State University in Georgia hosted a community forum on “Heritage, Hate or Fear?” that was inspired by the university’s SAE chapter’s practice of flying a Confederate Flag on its front lawn. A lawyer for the fraternity’s national headquarters warned that the chapter could lose its charter if it continued to fly the flag.

That’s what I’m saying. You can’t invoke “the Confederacy” and “sectional feeling” without invoking slavery and racism. Gone With the Wind is a reactionary pro-slavery movie; get over it.

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

Michael De Dora wrote this as a comment on a public Facebook post I did of the 2006 statement by Amnesty International. He gave me permission to publish it here, which is good, since this is his subject.

In particular, any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence cannot be considered legitimate exercise of freedom of expression. Under international standards, such “hate speech” should be prohibited by law.

This is, for me, the most interesting part of the statement. It is actually true that international standards state “Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.” See Article 20 of the ICCPR.

However, that has long been problematic language for many human rights organizations, and even some states. For instance, the U.S. signed onto the ICCPR, but issued a reservation on Article 20 due to concerns that it would conflict with the right to free speech.

Indeed, the language in Article 20 has been abused by many states to restrict free speech. For instance, Indonesian atheist Alexander Aan was convicted for inciting religious hatred. So it is strange Amnesty would support it — especially in reference to the Danish cartoons, which would not meet the standard.

There was an excellent UN document released in early 2013 that details the high wall speech must breech to be considered incitement, called the Rabat Plan of Action. It makes clear that blasphemous speech does not count as incitement. I encourage everyone to read it:

http://www.ohchr.org/…/Pages/TheRabatPlanofAction.aspx

http://www.ohchr.org/…/SeminarR…/Rabat_draft_outcome.pdf

I would also suggest taking a look at General Comment 34, especially Paragraph 48, by the Human Rights Committee, a group of experts who interpret the ICCPR.

I would say Amnesty has an out because Rabat wasn’t published until 2013 (GC 34 was published in 2011). But the problems with Article 20 were known well before 2013 or 2011. In fact, that’s why Rabat was published — to help clear up that states cannot use Article 20 to restrict speech as they had been doing, and propose a helpful plan of action. And so, this statement, if accurate, is confusing at best, inexcusable at worst.

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

Michael De Dora at the UN Human Rights Council today.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBTLAlzlbgY

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

Tarek Fatah wrote a column in the Toronto Sun in January that tells me something I didn’t know.

One of the reasons I avoid attending Friday congregations at mosques is a specific ritual supplication uttered by Imams at many mosques in Canada and around the world, just prior to our formal Friday community prayer, the Juma’a.

In the supplication, the cleric prays to Allah for, among other things, to grant “Muslims victory over the ‘Qawm al-Kafiroon,’” the Arabic phrase that lumps all non-Muslims — Jews, Hindus, Christians, Atheists, Buddhists and Sikhs — into one derogatory category, the “Kuffar”, or non-Muslims.

Well that’s gross. For one thing there’s the lumping, for another there’s the derogation, for another there’s the “victory” – which, given that there’s not One Big War on with Muslims on one side and the Kuffar on the other, must mean domination. Imagine the yelling there would be if the pope prayed for god to grant Christians victory over the Muslims. It’s an ugly prayer with an ugly thought behind it.

This supplication is not obligatory. Not uttering this prayer would in no way adversely affect the holiness or solemnness of the collective community prayer.

I have long argued with my orthodox and conservative Muslim friends and family that at least when living among non-Muslims, we should avoid praying for their defeat at the hands of Muslims.

It’s not great when not living among us, either, especially since even majority-Muslim countries have plenty of non-Muslims in them. It’s even more bullying when Muslims are the majority, in fact.

He has friends who agree with him, but they’re afraid to act on their agreement.

Inside the mosque, I was hoping that in wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, the cleric would have the good sense not to speak about non-Muslims as adversaries or enemies, but my hopes were dashed.

Far from condemning the acts of terror, the cleric, speaking in English, thundered that Islam “will become established in the land, over all other religions, although the ‘Disbelievers’ (Jews, Christians, Hindus and Atheists) hate that.”

It’s just bullying. It’s dominance-display. It’s nasty.

At the end of his “khutba” (sermon), the cleric repeated the ritual praying to Allah to grant Muslims victory over non-Muslims. That prayer is:

“O Allah, pour patience upon Muslims, strengthen their feet and give them victory over ‘Qawm -el Kafiroon’ (Non-Muslims).

“O Allah, give victory to our brothers the Muslims, the oppressed, the tyrannized and the ‘Mujahedeen’ (those who fight jihad against non-Muslims)”.

Then we all stood up in orderly rows, turned towards Mecca and followed the imam as he led us in the ritual prayer that is obligatory for all Muslims.

As I left, I knew I would not be returning to that mosque again.​

Always jockeying. Give ME the biggest ice cream cone, give ME the best seat, give ME the adoration and worship, give ME authority and power.

Shan’t.

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

Look at the nice treat Femina Believe sent out for International Women’s Day –

All you superwomen who shop at the mall, and clean the house, and keep men from being lonely. Happy International Women’s Day 1953.

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

And one more, because it’s just so unchanged and so infuriating – the bait and switch. Yes you can have free speech, no you can’t say harsh things about religion. What’s the problem?

Of Course You Can, Except When You Can’t

February 4, 2006

Back to the real world, where cartoons ‘are’ representations of Mohammed – some depressing oxymoronism from Jack Straw. Of course we respect free speech, but you can’t say that; of course everyone has a right to free speech, but no one can insult religion. Well which is it, bub? It ain’t both! I’m not a free speech absolutist, as I’ve said many times, but this idea that free speech is okay as long as it doesn’t offend anyone is sheer jam tomorrow. If we can’t say anything that might offend someone, our speech is pretty damn restricted, isn’t it!

Speaking after talks with the Sudanese foreign minister, Mr Straw said: “There is freedom of speech, we all respect that. But there is not any obligation to insult or to be gratuitously inflammatory. I believe that the republication of these cartoons has been insulting, it has been insensitive, it has been disrespectful and it has been wrong. There are taboos in every religion. It is not the case that there is open season in respect of all aspects of Christian rites and rituals in the name of free speech.

Oh? Really? What does he mean? That it’s illegal to say ‘offensive’ things about some aspects of Christian rites and rituals? (Perhaps he’s thinking of the dear blasphemy law.) Does he mean that if one says ‘offensive’ things about some aspects of Christian rites and rituals, the result will be violent riots and death threats, and that that’s a good thing? If neither of those, what does he mean? What, exactly, does he mean?

Nor is it the case that there is open season in respect of rights and rituals of the Jewish religion, the Hindu religion, the Sikh religion. It should not be the case in respect of the Islamic religion either. We have to be very careful about showing the proper respect in this situation.

Do we? Why? And why doesn’t that work the other way? Why don’t people who want to prevent free speech on the subject of religion have to be very careful about showing the proper respect for our beliefs? Because we don’t chant ‘”7/7 is on its way” while also waving placards and burning flags, during a march through London to the Danish, French and German embassies’? Because we don’t threaten to blow up 57 random people as revenge for our feeling offended?

More bullying oxymoronism, this sample from Bunglawala.

UK Muslims have denied that the reaction to the cartoons’ reproduction has been a threat to freedom of speech. It was a “question of exercising good judgement”, said Inayat Bunglawala, from the Muslim Council of Britain…”Of course Europe has the right to freedom of speech, and of course newspapers have the right to publish offensive cartoons. This was really a question about exercising good judgment,” he said. “Knowing full well the nature of these cartoons, they were offensive, deeply offensive to millions of Muslims, these newspaper editors should have exercised better judgment.”

But of course Europe has the right to freedom of speech, and of course the reaction to the cartoons is not a threat to freedom of speech. How silly! Of course you can have your pesky freedom of speech! You just can’t say anything we don’t like, that’s all! What is the big stinking deal?

That is a really massively irritating trope – that saying you can have free speech and then instantly saying the opposite, in the very same breath. At leas they could have the honesty to say what they mean – ‘No, you can’t have free speech, because you say things we don’t like, so you have to shut up. And shut up about your free speech, too.’

I’ve had exactly the same thought Mediawatchwatch has had – remembering Stephen Fry at the Hay Festival last summer, talking with Hitchens, talking about the two words that have taken on a creepy resonance (and I knew what they were before he said them), ‘offended’ and ‘respect’. And I can hear him saying what Mediawatchwatch quotes him saying – ‘So you’re offended. So fucking what?’

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

Then there’s one on February 4 2006 wondering what anyone even means by “images of Mohammed” anyway.

Tinkerbell

Wait, hold on – something has just crossed my tiny mind. These cartoons – that are so ‘offensive’ because they are cartoons of Mohammed – how do the people who are so offended know they are cartoons of Mohammed? There aren’t, like, photographs of him, right? Not to mention the fact that it’s a no-no to make pictures of him anyway, so that if there were photos of him, they’d all have been thrown away by now. But surely it’s much more likely that they weren’t taken in the first place, and that drawings, paintings, watercolours, engravings, etchings, and silhouettes were not made either. And even if they had been they’d probably be pretty dilapidated by now. Pretty crumbly and curly at the edges and faded – at best. And then who knows how accurate the artists would have been, if they had taken any likenesses, which they probably didn’t, on account of how it was taboo (as we keep being reminded, because we’re so likely to forget, with all this shouting going on)? So – let’s face it – nobody knows what the guy looked like. It was fourteen hundred years ago after all. It’s like Jesus. People think they know what he looked like, but they don’t really – they know what Raphael and Rembrandt and people like that thought he looked like. But they didn’t know, see, so that doesn’t help.

There’s not, like, an unbroken chain of accurate portrayals of Jesus going all the way back to 35 CE, is there. Same deal with the prophet. Nobody knows what the guy looked like. No idea. Now I know what you’re thinking – well he looked like the cartoons! Mediterranean, bearded, kind of burly (because he was a powerful guy), kind of impressive-looking, a mensch – dark hair, big features – kind of like – oh, Anthony Quinn, say. Well no doubt you’re right, but I have to tell you, we don’t actually know that. Seriously. Nobody does. (Don’t forget the taboo thing.)

So what I’m wondering is, why on earth do all these offended people think the cartoons are of Mohammed? Because the cartoonists said so? Because they have, like, ‘Mohammed’ scribbled somewhere along the edge or on the bottom? Because of the pose and the turban? Well – that’s not much of a reason! I can do that! I can draw a picture of a dog or a cat or a bag of carrots or a teapot (no, not the one that orbits the sun, a different one) and say it’s a drawing of Mohammed, but what good does that do? Me just saying it’s Mohammed doesn’t make it Mohammed, does it. So why does a cartoonist saying it’s Mohammed make it Mohammed?

Now that I’ve had my fun, that’s actually a serious question, as well as a mocking one. Really – why do all the offended people accept that the cartoons are of Mohammed? Because a bunch of non-Muslim Danish cartoonists say they are? But how would they know? And what are they, magic? They can transform a drawing of some generic bearded guy in a turban into a representation of a specific person who died fourteen centuries ago? How? By saying so, by writing his name underneath, by the context of the jokes. But that still doesn’t make the cartoons cartoons of the actual Mohammed – not for people who just don’t accept that that’s what they are. Why don’t all the infuriated Muslims just laugh and shrug and ignore the whole thing? Why don’t they just say ‘those goofy Danish cartoonists, pretending they’ve drawn pictures of Mohammed – like they have any idea what he looked like. I’m so sure’? Why don’t they just say ‘you guys don’t know what Mohammed looked like any more than we do, and probably less (because we have this like inner intuition, which is denied to non-Muslims), so dream on – draw your stupid little pictures if you want to, we don’t care, it’s nothing to do with us’?

Actually the whole taboo is empty, it’s a taboo without a referent. It’s like a taboo on walking on water, or a taboo on sleeping on the wing of a jet plane when it’s in flight. Nobody can make a representation of Mohammed, it’s quite, quite impossible – so why worry about it? Just making representations of a man and naming them Mohammed doesn’t make them Mohammed – so why on earth worry about it?

Because the cartoons were a provocation, were meant to offend, and so on and so on. Hmm. Not really. The shouting is all about the guy himself, and how terribly terribly forbidden it all is. So – why don’t they just wake up and realize that those cartoons are not Mohammed, not in any way, because they can’t be? Why not just laugh at the pretensions of cartoonists and forget all about it?

This occurred to me while looking at the cartoons on Groep Wilders’s blog. Surely it must have occurred to a lot of people. Those are just lines on paper. We all have to buy into the idea that they are cartoons of Mohammed; otherwise they just stay lines on paper. Why buy into the idea if you don’t like it then? Very odd, people are – we believe our own lies.

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

A B&W post from February 2, 2006, to show how little has changed in 9 years.

Paul Goggins went on the Today programme on the day the religious hatred bill was passed in the Lords version not the government’s version, to explain why the bill (particularly, in the government’s version, with the language about ‘recklessness’, instead of the Lords’) was necessary and a good idea. After some pressing he articulated the basic (I take it) point.

Well I accept, Jim, and we always have accepted that there are fine balances to be drawn here, but religious belief is an important part of identity, and the expression of that religious belief is important to many people, and that others should set out intentionally to stir up hatred about those people because of those religious beliefs has no part in our society, so for all the difficulty in getting the balance right we think it’s right to press ahead with this legislation.

That’s it. Religious belief is an important part of identity, and expression of that belief is important to many people (no! really?!?). Therefore stirring up hatred about those people because of those religious beliefs should be made a crime – but stirring up hatred about people because of any other beliefs should not. Because…?

The expression of other beliefs is not important to many people? No, that can’t be right, because it’s not true. Because other belief is not ‘an important part of identity’ (whatever that may mean)? No, because that’s not true either. To the extent that ‘identity’ means much of anything in that phrase other than cuddly feelings about oneself, other kinds of belief and other beliefs are also an important part of identity. Religion may be an important part of identity, but you’ll notice Goggins didn’t say it was the most important part of identity, much less the exclusive source of it. So – why are religious beliefs special? Why does their part of ‘identity’ have to be protected if other parts don’t?

Because they’re special? Because they’re sacred? Because they make people go all red in the face with rage and offendedness and outrage and hurt feelings if anyone makes fun of them? Maybe; probably; but there again: why? Why do they make people go all red in the face and self-righteous, and why do so many people think they have every right not only to feel that way, but to demand that the rest of the world join them in feeling that way? Well – because they’re sacred. Oh dear.

I saw a comment yesterday in this article, which Allen Esterson sent me a link to, which included a comment that apparently disappeared when the article was updated. Someone in what is generally (and I think rather patronizingly and communalistically) called ‘the Muslim world’ said that the right to freedom of speech ought to be balanced with – wait for it – the right to protect the sacred. Er – no. That is just exactly the one thing it must not be balanced with, because that is the one thing that would render it null and void. Refusal to ‘protect the sacred’ is the very essence of free speech. And the mindset that thinks great big holy circles need to be drawn around ‘the sacred’ and policed day and night by indignant men with large guns, is a mindset that if left unchecked will suck all our brains out and leave us like pod people.

Rowan Atkinson answered what Goggins said on the same ‘Today.’

You can’t draft a piece of legislation with the intention of just picking off a few nasty people, because the very nature of law is that it applies to us all. And there’s absolutely no doubt that this bill is seeking to provide immunity from criticism and ridicule to religious beliefs, and I’m a great believer that you should be able to say whatever you like about religious beliefs and practices, and if the practitioners and believers are caught in the crossfire, then they just have to accept that. If the exposure of hateful or ridiculous religious practices is there and is done, then the religion’s followers are just going to have to accept responsibility for those things.

That’s a big problem with this whole idea right there. What Goggins said would seem to imply that religion is the first thing that should be protected and given immunity, but in fact it’s the last thing that should. Religion is in need of constant vigilance and interrogation and steady unrelenting pressure, so that maybe someday in some other happier time, it will stop being a source of misery and deprivation and oppression for so damn many people, especially women. So bring on criticism, mockery, cartoons, robust discussion, and whatever else it takes.

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