Oppression // Current TV

Trans-realities: when basic necessities are denied

Unfortunately, when in need, trans-people are commonly denied life's basic... more

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Trans-realities: it's not a lifestyle, it's DNA

Though many label transgenderism/transsexuality as mere life choices, the reality is... more

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Transition: life's second shot at puberty

For many trans-people, transition is simply a second chance at puberty. Here the... more

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The symbolism and artistry of trans-life

Though an unlikely comparison, the author chooses the beautiful Saguaro as a... more

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The transgender-indigenous connection

Here, the author speaks on the similarities between the transgender and Indigenous... more

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I am a living Weapon

Hip Hop Artist Jon Henry lets his voice be heard for many who are unable to speak.

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Hardly anyone noticed this summer when former president Jimmy Carter explained why he had decided to leave the Baptist Church. However “painful and difficult,” wrote Carter in an essay that appeared in the Guardian, his break with the denomination to which he had belonged for sixty years had begun to seem like the only possible response to past opinions expressed and codified by the Southern Baptist Convention. “It was an unavoidable decision when the convention’s leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be ‘subservient’ to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors, or chaplains in the military service. This was in conflict with my belief—confirmed in the holy scriptures—that we are all equal in the eyes of God.”

Considerably more attention was generated some months earlier by another story about how religion conceives and enforces its view of a woman’s place. The horrific attack on two Afghan girls en route to school—the young women were severely disfigured by acid allegedly thrown by Taliban fighters—was widely reported and discussed. Obviously, the assault was more brutal, shocking, and newsworthy than an elderly white guy’s regretful decision to separate himself from the misguided pronouncements of some other elderly white guys. And just as clearly, the Taliban’s plans for women far exceed the darkest imaginings of the Southern Baptists, whose tenets—“a wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband”—seem genial and reassuringly vague when compared to the restrictions that the Taliban impose, and seek to impose, on women, regulations that narrow the parameters of daily life down to a space in which anyone, male or female, would suffocate. Under Taliban rule Afghan women cannot work, attend school, leave home without a male chaperone, or ride in a taxi. Minor infractions, such as showing an ankle, are punished by public whippings. More serious violations, such as adultery, are capital crimes for which the sentence is death by hanging or stoning.

The acid attack on the schoolgirls offered graphic and persuasive confirmation of one reason why we have gone to war, or in any case one reason we’ve been given: according to some, once we defeat the Taliban, every Afghan girl can go to school. That’s the outcome everyone wants, though it is less often mentioned that literacy rates among Afghan women were appallingly low long before the Taliban, back in the 1980s when we were still arming the mujahideen—including many future Taliban warriors—to fight against the Russians. The Taliban’s demonic and demonizing attitude toward women represents merely the most current extreme manifestation of the grotesque misogyny fostered throughout history by religion and patriarchal tribal culture. Both the Taliban and the Southern Baptists employ the “lessons” of biology and scripture to “prove” women’s inferiority, a view of our gender unlikely to be eliminated by another air strike or drone-missile deployment, or by the polite demurrals of a former president.

Sensible, decent Jimmy Carter got it right again. “This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. It is widespread. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths. Nor, tragically, does its influence stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue, or temple. This discrimination, unjustifiably attributed to a higher authority, has provided a reason or excuse for the deprivation of women’s equal rights across the world for centuries. The male interpretations of religious texts and the way they interact with and reinforce traditional practices justify some of the most pervasive, persistent, flagrant, and damaging examples of human-rights abuses.”

More at link...

http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/essays/the-original-sin.php?page=1Hardly anyone noticed this summer when former president Jimmy Carter explained why he... more

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Funeral for Ayatollah turns into protest against Iranian government - slide show

~y2009m12d21-Funeral-for-Ayatollah-turns-into-protest-against-Iranian-government--slide... more

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Are Americans a Broken People? Why We've Stopped Fighting Back Against the Forces of Oppression | |

That can be the only answer as to why the average American hasn't taken to the... more

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It Rained Hard That Day.......

"I was too shocked to cry and I thought I'd let the sky do it for me."... more

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Senate Bill would allow "mentally Incapacitated" vets to buy guns

Major Nidal Hasan, accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood Army base, has been... more

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Christian in Somalia Who Refused to Wear Veil is Killed

NAIROBI, Kenya, Three masked members of a militant Islamist group in Somalia last week shot and killed a Somali Christian who declined to wear a veil as prescribed by Muslim custom, according to a Christian source in Somalia.

Members of the comparatively “moderate” Suna Waljameca group killed Amina Muse Ali, 45, on Oct. 19 at 9:30 p.m. in her home in Galkayo, in Somalia’s autonomous Puntland region, said the source who requested anonymity for security reasons.

Ali had told Christian leaders that she had received several threats from members of Suna Waljameca for not wearing a veil, symbolic of adherence to Islam. She had said members of the group had long monitored her movements because they suspected she was a Christian.

The source said Ali had called him on Oct. 4 saying, “My life is in danger. I am warned of dire consequences if I continue to live without putting on the veil. I need prayers from the fellowship.”

“I was shocked beyond words when I received the news that she had been shot dead,” the source in Somalia told Compass by telephone. “I wished I could have recalled her to my location. We have lost a long-serving Christian.”

Ali had come to Galkayo from Jilib, 90 kilometers (56 miles) from Kismayo, in 2007. She arrived in Puntland at the invitation of a close friend, Saynab Warsame of the Darod clan, when the Islamic extremist group al Shabaab invaded Kismayo, the source said. Warsame was born in Kismayo and had lived in Jilib but moved to Puntland when war broke out in 1991.

The source said it is not known if even Warsame knew of Ali’s conversion from Islam to Christianity.

“She might not have known, because Warsame is not a Christian,” he said.

In 1997 Ali, an orphan and unmarried, joined the Somali Christian Brothers’ Organization, a movement commonly known as the Somali Community-Based Organization. As such she had been an active member of the underground church in the Lower Juba region.

Muslim extremists have targeted the movement, killing some of its leaders after finding them in possession of Bibles. The organization was started in 1996 by Bishop Abdi Gure Hayo.NAIROBI, Kenya, Three masked members of a militant Islamist group in Somalia last week... more

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Ahmadinejad Closes Three Newspapers that Were Critical of His Regime

"Iran has shut down three daily newspapers critical of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the... more

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21st Century American Militias: Patriots or Nutjobs?

Militias are the on the rise. Is this a sign of a brewing American extremism or a new... more

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crime watch

neighborhood watch just got bigger

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Israeli Police have evicted nine Palestinian families living in 2 houses in occupied East Jerusalem

Jewish settlers moved into the houses almost immediately. The US has urged Israel to... more

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Zionism, anti-Zionism and the state of Israel

Haim Bresheeth is an activist and film-maker of Israeli origin, living in Britain, where he is Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of East London. He is co-author of “The Gulf War and the New Word Order” (with Nira Yuval-Davis) - an edited anthology on the first Gulf War, and “Introduction to the Holocaust” (with Stuart Hood). His documentary films include A State of Danger (BBC2, March 1989) - a film on the early stages of the first Palestinian Intifada. He is currently researching: Palestinian Cinema, Global Media Markets, Cinematic Narrative Structures, Film and memory.

Understanding the Occupation

"Most of my family was destroyed in the holocaust - in different concentration camps and in the Warsaw ghetto and I was born in a refugee camp in Italy immediately after the war... I'm not saying this in order to elicit some sympathy because this is nonsensical on this audience [mostly Jewish] obviously. I'm saying this in order to explain why its so easy for me to understand the Palestinians in Gaza and in the rest of Palestine. It is very easy for me to understand them because they live in a combination of a concentration camp and Warsaw ghetto for so many years that we have stopped counting...

Israeli Governments

"I don't think there is the slightest difference between the different Israeli governments in one important respect - the Zionist project was, is, and will be about the dispossession and expulsion of the Palestinian population of Palestine. It was this, it is this, and it will be this - every Israeli government has done this - it doesn't matter if it was Barak and now Sharon or Netayahu before him - it was no different..."

Water

"Israelis use 41 times more water than Palestinians - well what does it mean? Think about it. Its not just that they have very large swimming pools in the occupied territories - which of course they do, it also means the Palestinians do not have proper water supply for their agriculture which is the only industry such as it is that they are running here and there - there is no other industry that they were allowed to develop all those years. They weren't even allowed to open a bank during the Israeli occupation. Its interesting - most of the water in Israel comes from the West Bank... Palestinians cant even have their tomatoes growing, I'm not even talking about having a wash, cleanliness - I'm talking about very simple things - you cant even grow anything because the water will be cut off for a week at a time. I was in Gaza and my Gazan hosts were apologising to me an Israeli that they cant give me water to drink when we are having lunch with pitta's because the water was turned off..."

Wanting Peace?

"They [Israel] will do everything to make you believe that they want peace - I even believed it once and most of you have believed it - I know that. They will do everything to make sure that people in the West believe that they want peace - they will go to meetings, they will sign documents - they will do all that and then they will make damn sure that there is no chance of any of this happening..."
Boycott Israel

"If you are making sure in every shop you go everyone knows that because they hold Israeli products you don't buy there - if you bring about the destruction of the Israeli economy which Mr. Sharon is doing such a great job of and you help him in that destruction, more Israelis will come to their bloody senses and will realize that justice is not divisible, peace is not divisible, humanity is not divisible - you cannot divide them. We will have peace - they will have peace, we will have water - they will have water, we will have human existence if they will have it..."Haim Bresheeth is an activist and film-maker of Israeli origin, living in Britain,... more

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This is My Plan to Save the Environment

I help fight to save the world because I am a unity supporter and support... more

USWGO
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3 years ago
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Afghan school for girls hit with poisonous gas

This is the third such incident in about two weeks.... more

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3 years ago
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Campaign to close down School of The Americas - Part 2 of 2

Vera Leone: They may have changed the school's name, but we are still seeing the... more

Vierotchka
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3 years ago
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