March 11, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

Follow-up: Feminist Afghan Artist Forced into Hiding

This entire story has really caught the imagination of women around the world. The bravery of this talented, courageous, creative woman lit up hope in the hearts of many women and feminist men. Now, she has had to go to ground to protect herself. Even though there will be those who say “well, she shouldn’t have done it in the first place”, progress is made by those who extend themselves beyond the normal bounds of society to the betterment of all.

I will be keeping up with this story, as best I can, so we all know what happens to this wonderful young woman.

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After Protesting Sexual Violence, Afghan Artist Forced into Hiding

by Laura C. Mallonee on March 9, 2015 – From Hyperallergic.com

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An Afghan artist who enacted a performance against sexual molestation in a crowded Kabul marketplace has been forced into hiding,AFP reported.

Kubra Khademi had hired a local blacksmith to forge a suit of armor with accentuated breasts and buttocks. She planned to wear it publicly to protest the way that women’s bodies are lecherously groped and abused in public spaces — something that first happened to her when she was only four years old.

“Somebody touched me and then he just walked away. I was just a female for him. He didn’t care how old I was,” the 25-year-old artist shared in an interview. “I was feeling guilty. Why did it happen to me? It was my fault. And I said: ‘I wish my underwear were made of iron.’”

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She told the AP that she was publicly sexually assaulted several times after that, most recently in 2008, just before she took her entrance exams to study art at Kabul University. That time, she screamed. “All the people stared at me and even started yelling at me: ‘You whore! How dare you scream! Did you enjoy it?’” she remembered.

Because of these personal encounters, Khademi has made violence against women the focus of her performance work; in a Kabul gallery in late 2013, she slapped each side of her face for almost an hour as a metaphor for her country’s numbness to violence. Human Rights Watch estimates that 87% of Afghan women have experienced physical, sexual, or psychological attacks, while the United Nations has reported that “violence remains an inextricable part of the lives of many Afghan women and girls.”

Khademi’s activism culminated on the afternoon of February 26, when she emerged from her home wearing the metal suit, concealed by a coat. She removed the covering at the base of the Kata stone bridge and began to walk. Bystander Mina Rezaei described the eight-minute performance and the angry reactions it quickly provoked on her Facebook:

Crowds were wide-eyed and everyone was running to see the armored woman. Some complained about her clothes, some misused the situation and started touching girls’ bodies in the crowd, some people stoned her, some abused. It was so unbearable and scary. People were following both herself and her entourages while stoning all of them. During those eight minutes, the armored woman was scared and walked so fast. At the end she sat in a car, but people still stoned and kicked the car as a sign of goodbye to her.

At least one person got the message. “Look at that girl,” Khamedi recalled a 10-year-old boy saying. “She doesn’t want to be touched.”

But for the most part, the backlash continued, spreading to social media where the event began trending. Blogger Omar Haqbin wrote:

It was hard for me when I read a girl’s comment on the Facebook who said: “Kubra is a whore and looking to become famous so better and rich men will come to her.” Or a man [who] said: “What Kubra did is useless and we don’t appreciate it in Afghanistan.” … During the next two hours after the Armor Performance, I read about it at least 20 times in my Facebook feed and more than half of them … denounced her action.

Some people even accused Khademi of being an American spy. She has since received so many angry emails and death threats that she’s purportedly left her home. According to her Facebook, she currently resides in Seoul, South Korea, though it’s unclear if that’s where she’s currently located.

Khademi’s brave performance follows that of many other artists — from Pussy Riot to Tania Bruguera — who have forsaken the safe haven of the gallery to take their social activism into the streets, where it is most trenchant. The persecution she has since endured shouldn’t only be a cause for despair, but for optimism, as it shows just how threatening such acts of protest really are. Hopefully this will inspire more victims to break their silence.

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March 10, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

Honor Killings are Only Used for Women

Women’s shelters are one of the most provocative legacies of the Western presence in Afghanistan.

By ALISSA J. RUBINMARCH 2, 2015

KABUL, Afghanistan — Faheema stood trembling in the courtyard of the large house, steeling herself for the meeting with her family.

She took a deep breath and ran inside, her black abaya swirling around her, and fell to the floor at her uncle’s feet, hugging his knees, her face pressed against him, her shoulders heaving.

The reproaches came immediately. “How could you do this?” her uncle said. “You were always so sweet to everyone. How could you have done this?”

What Faheema, 21, had done was to run away from her home in eastern Afghanistan with the man she loved. She left behind her large family and the man that her family had promised her to. Although her uncle’s words at first seemed kind, his tone had a dangerous edge: Faheema had to come home.

For a young woman from an Afghan village to go home after running away with a man is tantamount to crossing a busy street blindfolded: There is a strong likelihood that she will be killed for bringing shame on her family.

aheema, who like many Afghans uses a single name, was one of the lucky ones: She had made it to an emergency women’s shelter, one of about 20 that over the last 10 years have protected several thousand women across Afghanistan from abuse or death at the hands of their relatives.

These shelters, almost entirely funded by Western donors, are one of the most successful — and provocative — legacies of the Western presence in Afghanistan, demonstrating that women need protection from their families and can make their own choices. And allowing women to decide for themselves raises the prospect that men might not control the order of things, as they have for centuries. This is a revolutionary idea in Afghanistan — every bit as alien as Western democracy and far more transgressive.

As the shelters have grown, so has the opposition of powerful conservative men who see them as Western assaults on Afghan culture. “Here, if someone tries to leave the family, she is breaking the order of the family and it’s against the Islamic laws and it’s considered a disgrace,” said Habibullah Hasham, the imam of the Nabi mosque in western Kabul and a member of a group of influential senior clerics. “What she has done is rebelling.”

The opposition comes not only from conservative imams, but also from within the Afghan government itself. Lawmakers came very close in 2011 to barring the shelters altogether and in 2013 nearly gutted a law barring violence against women. They yielded only after last-minute pressure from the European Union and the United States.

Now, as the Western presence in Afghanistan dwindles, this clash between Western and Afghan ideas of the place of women means many of the gains women made after the 2001 invasion are at risk.

Although the Taliban’s harsh restrictions on women alienated many Afghans and helped rally foreign support for the war, the idea that women must submit to men remains widely held.

“A lot has changed since 2001, but most people still have conservative, traditional views of women,” said Manizha Naderi, who runs Women for Afghan Women, which operates shelters or other programs in 13 provinces.

That makes the fragile network of safe houses and the women who staff them even more vulnerable to restrictive legislation and attacks by local strongmen. The shelters, like so much of the Western project to coax change in Afghanistan, are emblems of a society in transition.

While the shelters have brought freedom to many women, others are stranded, safe for a time from their families but unable to leave because neither their families nor society accepts them.

Ms. Naderi estimates that about 15 percent of the women in her shelters cannot leave — ever. For these abused women, the longer they live suspended between two worlds, the less the shelter comes to feel like a haven and the more like a jail.

A Frightening Example

Above all, Faheema wanted to avoid the fate of Amina, an 18-year-old who ran away from her family in rural Baghlan Province in the summer of 2013 and whose case became widely known. She fled when her family told her she would be marrying an older man.

Amina made it to the provincial capital and was picked up by the Afghan Intelligence Service. Unlike many runaways, who are seen as fallen women and are prey to being molested by the police, she was not abused. Instead, she was brought to the women’s ministry office, which exists in every provincial capital in Afghanistan.

The women’s ministry sent her to the only shelter in the province. But after one or two nights, her family arrived. They promised not to harm Amina if she returned home with them, repeating that pledge on a videotape after meeting with the head of the provincial women’s ministry office, Khadija Yaqeen. The girl then climbed into a taxi with her family.

Amina never made it home. Nine men accosted the vehicle on a deserted stretch of road not far from her home, pulled her out and shot her, according to her family. No one else was harmed, they later told the ministry.

Women’s advocates and the police doubted the story. Why would armed men take just one young girl out of a car and shoot her? Why wouldn’t the family call for revenge?

The answer pointed to something far more sinister than a random holdup. In much of Afghanistan, a runaway is a tainted woman, who cannot be married off.

WomenHonorKilling “This is the perception: Once she leaves the family, she’s in the hands of others, and they can do whatever they want with her — sexually abuse her — because she has left the family circle,” said Mr. Hasham, the imam in Kabul. By tribal custom, which is particularly strong in rural areas, a so-called honor killing is the only way to eradicate the shame.

The Baghlan provincial police chief, Amer Khail, believes Amina’s brother was involved in her killing, but said there were conflicting reports.

The women’s ministry office did not press for arrests. Amina’s short life and death drifted into sketchier and sketchier memory, with everyone involved claiming they had done the right thing.

Ms. Yaqeen of the women’s ministry said she had to let Amina go because she asked to leave with her family.

“Nobody had beaten her,” she said, “so I had no excuse to keep her.”

Ms. Yaqeen admits she was called by a member of the provincial council. She said the council member did no more than urge her to talk to the family, who had come to the provincial capital to get their daughter back. Provincial council members tend to be deferential to the desires of powerful local families, who would be eager to cleanse the family honor.

But Ms. Yaqeen said Amina made the choice herself.

It seems likely that a young girl, frightened and among strangers and faced by her angry family, would try to appease them because she could hardly believe that her family would be willing to kill her.

Women’s advocates in Baghlan have little question that this was an honor killing. “She should have been kept in the shelter for much longer,” said Homaira Mohammedi, the acting head of the Baghlan shelter at the time, who says that she was away the weekend that Amina came in.

“We did everything according to the rules and regulations,” Ms. Yaqeen insisted. “This is a problem of the society.”

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A Family Confrontation

Faheema was sure that her family would not spare her if she left the shelter and went home.

“I had a problem with my father,” she said. “He engaged me to my uncle’s son, and I wasn’t happy to marry him, so I married another man.”

Her father told her he had bought a gun. “‘Wherever I see you both, I will kill you,’” he said before she ran away.

The desperation of her family to have her come home suggested that her view was correct. They were willing to agree to almost anything to pry her away from the safety of the shelter. A younger girl, or a weaker one, might have given in. But one of the most striking characteristics of many of the women who make it to a shelter is that, like Faheema, they have a sad but cleareyed understanding that they are in danger from their own families. This is often the first step toward being able to save themselves.

Unlike the Baghlan women’s ministry, where Amina had just one meeting with her family before she was given back to them, Women for Afghan Women requires repeated sessions between the young woman, her family and a mediator before she can go home. . The average number of meetings is about eight, said Nuria Kohistan, who mediated Faheema’s case. If the staff is not satisfied that the young woman will be safe, they will keep her as long as necessary.

Faheema’s third session with her family was a few days after the first and involved her mother, a younger sister, a younger brother and the brother of her spurned fiancé, who had been at the previous meeting.

The 45-minute session was filled with tears and screaming and bordered on physical violence — several times Faheema’s mother grabbed her daughter’s arm and held it in an iron grip as if to drag her from the mediation room, through the door and out the gate. A tall, thin woman with a frightening strength, she seemed to hold Faheema in her sway far more than the men in the family.

As if to protect herself, Faheema entered the room with a veil covering her whole face.

First her mother said to the mediator: “My daughter wants to go with us. Her father is now in the hospital.”

She turned to Faheema and said, “We will get you divorced from that guy,” referring to the man Faheema ran away with. Her fiancé’s brother and her mother said they would support her marrying someone else.

Ms. Kohistan, the mediator, said in an aside, “They’re saying these things, but as soon as they get custody of her, they will kill her.”

Heaping on the guilt and reminding Faheema of her shame, her mother said, “We have two houses in Ghazni, but we will sell them, because we can’t live in Ghazni anymore.”

The mediator pleaded: “Please talk about this in a way that this problem could be solved.”

Faheema put her head in her hands. Her 3-year-old brother knelt on the floor with his head under his mother’s long skirt as if he were trying to block out the sound of the warring grown-ups.

As it became clear that the shelter was not going to turn Faheema over to her family, her mother tried offering the mediator a bribe. “Please help us, and we will give you a gift,” she said, her voice pleading, tears in her eyes. Then she turned, almost spitting, to Faheema.

“You know your father, you know the character of your father,” she said. Gripping Faheema, she dragged her up from the chair. “He will kill me. You can come to my grave tomorrow.”

Finally, Faheema summoned her courage. “Why don’t you understand?” she said. “I already got married.”

And then she appeared to resign herself to the future. “This thing I did, I did. I cannot go with you, even if I lose everyone in my family,” she said and added, half speaking to them and half to the mediator, “I cannot go back home, because they will kill me.”

She pried her arm away from her mother’s grip and ran into the main building’s basement rooms. There, her mother could not reach her — she was kept out, and Faheema locked in, by a heavy metal gate. Her shoulders heaving, Faheema sank to her knees and wept hopelessly.

Never Going Home

The women in the long-term shelter try to cheat sleep by huddling together in the dark, their voices a way to ward off nightmares. The torments they endured at the hands of their families are written on their bodies. Knife scars traverse their faces and necks. Beatings with chains mark their backs. Some limp from broken bones that were never properly set. Several have faces eroded by acid, a favorite weapon here.

Daily life is an endless effort to escape the haunted precincts of memory; images of pummeling hands, the thumping sound of wood hitting their legs, of their bodies falling to the floor, the taste of blood in their mouths.

There are 26 women in the long-term shelter run by Women for Afghan Women in Kabul. If Faheema’s family continued its threats, this shelter would become her home.

That these women are still standing, and that some are trying to piece together complete lives, is a cause for wonder and a testament to their strength. In the safety of the halfway house, the women offer a glimpse into the worlds they have fled: muddy courtyards strung with laundry; screaming children and squawking chickens; cramped rooms for women and often not enough food. Women in Afghanistan are the last to eat, the last to bed and the first to rise.

Gul Meena, 16, survived a brutal attack by her brother after she fled an older husband, who had beaten her, and ran away with another man. She had been just 8 or 9 in her home in Kunar Province on the Pakistan border when a man in the next village offered money to her unemployed father for her.

In her innocence, she was thrilled to be given a white dress and makeup for the wedding ceremony. “I was thinking, this is the future, my husband would be buying me new clothes every day,” she said. In the car on the bumpy ride to her new home she remembers addressing her new husband as “uncle.”

“Uncle, please take care of me. I’m afraid I will fall,” she said as she bounced on his knee in the car.

From the moment she arrived in his house, she was a servant. The only grace was that he was not allowed to have sex with her before she had her first period. Two years after they wed, the moment came and he forced himself on her. “I was like a thing and they sold me,” she said. “He was beating me with everything near to him. With his glasses, with his mobile phone, with wood, with stones, and with his hands.”

Lonely and bewildered, she tried at least twice to return to her father’s house, but the family sent her back to her husband and finally she went to a neighbor’s home. The husband of the family ran away with her to Nangarhar Province in eastern Afghanistan.

When her brother caught up with them, he slit the man’s throat and slashed Gul Meena 15 times with an ax, nearly blinding her and leaving her for dead. When she woke up in the hospital, she looked in the mirror. “I was very damaged,” she said. “Before, I was beautiful and young.”

Although she does not see herself that way, she is still a stunning young woman. She has never gone to school but speaks with a simple eloquence. Now she fears that she is ugly and no one will marry her. “Men are always interested in the beauty of a woman,” she said. “They are never interested in the heart.”

In the long-term shelter, most women feel a deep relief. No one is beaten. There is enough food. Chores are shared and, above all, there are choices: Some girls decide to go to school and try to make up for the years they were kept as virtual slaves. Others go to classes at beauty school in the hope of learning a skill that they will be able to use. One has a job as a house cleaner, and another is a skilled tailor and makes clothes while caring for her 6-year-old daughter.

“We try to find a solution,” Ms. Naderi said, but she admitted there were few options in Afghanistan. It is exceedingly rare for a woman to live alone here, and so the staff tries to help women recreate families when their own have shunned them. “Sometimes we can find husbands,” she said. “We’ve married maybe 10 or 11, but it’s difficult.”

While traditional attitudes remain deeply ingrained, women’s advocates do see changes. “Now women are finding a voice,” said Soraya Sobrang, a member of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. “And also they want to have some rights and have some decision-making. If you want to marry my daughter, you have to ask me as well. The men think the women want to deprive them of rights. This touches their pride. And this creates violence in the family.”

The battle between tradition and a fragile new sense of women’s rights continues. A government committee investigated the shelters after a television program accused them of forcing battered women into prostitution. The committee found that most of the shelters were well run.

The committee members recognized that most of the women were at risk of beatings or death if the shelters were closed or their capacities diminished, but no one wanted to defend the shelters publicly. The outcome relieved the women who ran the shelters and Western aid organizations: The government would not close the safe houses but, at the same time, there was little public support for spending money from the Afghan budget on them.

However, Ms. Sobrang said: “The international community has promised to continue support.” Such funding is essential if the shelters are to survive. Ms. Naderi relies on generous funding from the United States government, which accounts for close to 90 percent of her budget. The balance is raised from private, mostly foreign donors.

The women inside the halfway house understand the risks they would face if they had to leave. “I cannot go anywhere alone,” said Mariam, 22 who escaped an abusive Taliban husband and fled to the shelter. “Everybody likes to have their freedom, but I cannot have mine.”

Inescapable Fear

In the end, Faheema was able to leave the shelter, with the help of a lawyer provided by Women for Afghan Women. After four or five months, a court recognized her marriage to her husband, Ajmal, and the attorney general ordered her to live with him in Kabul.

But it is not exactly a happy ending.

Although they are in love, they live in terror of being cornered by a member of Faheema’s family and being beaten or killed. They live in poverty because Ajmal had to shutter his shop in their hometown, Ghazni, and cannot go there for fear of being killed. He has no money to start a new business.

A thin young man who wears Western clothes and, in keeping with more modern Afghan ways, does not have a beard, Ajmal comes across as serious and anxious.

“We live in fear and in hiding,” he said. Three times a day, when he goes out to buy a long loaf of Afghan bread, he finds himself looking around nervously to see if any of Faheema’s family is lying in wait for him.

He worries all the time about his widowed mother and two sisters, who still live in Ghazni. When he had his small cosmetics shop there, he contributed to supporting the family. But now, only his widowed mother’s meager income as a tailor helps feed the family.

None of this has weakened the couple’s resolve to be together, but it weighs on them because in Afghanistan, to not be able to go home is to be an outcast, almost an orphan.

Faheema tried to make peace between their two families and braved a phone call with her angry father to beg him to meet with elders from Ajmal’s clan. But her father refused to see them and said the only thing that would satisfy him is if they gave him a daughter to marry off to his son or nephew in exchange for Ajmal’s taking Faheema.

Despite the hardship, Faheema hopes her sisters and cousins will have the courage to demand that their families ask permission before making plans to marry them off. She wishes that her father had respected her enough to ask her. “My message to my father is that he should ask his children first before making any decision for their lives,” she said, wistfully.

In the cold Kabul winter, as they prepared to return to their small, damp apartment, which is all they can afford, Faheema said she had one more wish.

“Take us out of Afghanistan,” she said, “because we won’t be able to have a quiet life here.”

March 7, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

Ghazal

“Thanks be to God, the very world that birthed us

now is bathed by wondrous Nature

in a rapture of her glorious light:

the splendor of Earth, Air, Fire, Water, now revealed.

And humankind, highest of creatures,

endowed with Intellect’s might

so that all the beasts,

winged and hoof’d,

are placed under his command

And Adam’s veins are filled

with Art, Science, Faith:

he knows the sciences are clear

-but music is the weightiest

as a surging ocean

outweighs the very world through with it flows.

If he whose heart’s been moved

by the science of Music’s whole effect

were offered the pleasure of emperorship,

he’d certainly ignore it

-for Man is not alone in his delight

at that sweet sound

since even animals have sacrificed themselves for it.

More stubborn than a donkey,

he who holds that Music’s “impure”;

Ignorant of beauty

how claim acquaintance with the Lord?

Creator!

the Ocean Surges!

Permit my skiff to reach the shore

-King!

I beg what kindness

-Inayat-

thou canst afford.

—Translated from the Urdu by Pir Zia Inayat Khan and Lamborn Wilson

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The Dalai Lama

Embrace your world and make it be whatever you want.

March 7, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

Turning the Clocks

bjwordpressdivider The cycle of life is turning and it is time to “spring ahead.” In Pagan times, spring was celebrated on Beltane and it was the time when the earth woke up from it’s long winter sleep. It was a time for celebration of life. We are a little early these days but we are advancing on spring, so hang in there. It won’t be long Now.

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March 6, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

A Woman Who’s Found Her Voice

from dailydot.com

A Female Lebanese news anchor was told to shut up — here’s what she did instead

By Marisa Kabas on March 06, 2015

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Rima Karaki is a Lebanese TV host who isn’t afraid of a fight.

Things got heated Monday when Karaki was interviewing Hani Al-Seba’i about the phenomenon of Christians joining Islamic groups like ISIS. Al-Seba’i is a Sunni scholar who fled to London after he was sentenced in an Egyptian court to 15 years in prison for being a part of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The United Nations considers the group to be an affiliate of al Qaeda.

But despite Al-Seba’i’s extreme ties, Karaki didn’t back down when he disrespected her on AlJadeed TV after she politely tried to redirect his historical tangent. Instead of taking his guff, she cut off his microphone when she decided she’d had enough.

The video was shared by MEMRI, a Middle East media watchdog.

To give you some context, here is a comment Al-Siba’i made on Al Jazeera TV in the wake of Osama Bin Laden’s death.

“Let me tell you: I love Sheikh Osama bin Laden as a Muslim. I am not glorifying or extolling anything. I am simply telling it as it is – Sheikh Osama is loved by millions of Muslims. Sheikh Osama is a hymn in the hearts of the downtrodden – from Jakarta to the Hindu Kush Mountains, to the villages and rural areas of Egypt… Ask those downtrodden and poor people, and they will tell you that they are grieving for Sheikh Osama bin Laden.

Sheikh Osama bin Laden fought occupation forces. He never killed civilians, and he never said he did. On the contrary, he extended his hand in peace to Europe and the West, and they were the ones who rejected it.”

Karaki, for her part, is a strong female figure in a country where women’s rights are still commonly ignored. Human Rights Watch released a 114-page report in January called “Women’s Rights under Lebanese Personal Status Laws” that found that women were not considered equals, especially when it came to divorce.

“Not only are Lebanese citizens of various religions treated unequally under the law, but women are treated unfairly across the board, and their rights and security go unprotected. Passage of an optional civil marriage code, alongside badly needed reforms to existing personal status laws and religious courts, are long overdue.”
-Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East and North Africa director

It’s quite surprising that Karaki is not more of a household name. Before she made it in TV, she held a successful position at Lebanon’s central bank. In a recent interview with Fit’n Style magazine, she said her family considered her move to media “an irrational act.”

Her ethos seems to be one of power and strength, as demonstrated in the Al-Seba’i interview.

Some accuse me of being “disrespectful,” since I was the only one to omit my guests’ titles and address them with their first names no matter who they were; I see it as more respectful in fact because we don’t need all the poetry to introduce them.

Others say that I have no limits in my questions; I see this as an added value. Some say that I am not objective; I call it honesty. For those who describe me as “Not being loyal to or not following any political group,” I see it as cleanness.

Karaki is setting an example not only for Lebanese women, but for everyone in the media who could use a refresher on practicing what they preach.

H/T Reddit | Screengrab viaMEMRITVVideos/YouTube | Remix by Jason Reed

March 5, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

An Artist and A Feminist

This Young Woman Walked Through Kabul Wearing Metal Armor To Protest Street Harassment

Artist-activist Kubra Khademi took to Kabul’s streets in a metal jacket in a defiant protest against sexual harassment.

posted on Feb. 27, 2015, at 11:02 a.m.

Tasneem Nashrulla

BuzzFeed News Reporter

Kubra Khademi, a 25-year-old Afghan artist, took to the streets of Kabul in a metal armor to protest street harassment on Thursday.

Photo by Abbas Changezi

In a Facebook post, Khademi, who is a multi-disciplinary artist in Kabul, called her performance “Armor.”

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Khademi’s performance went viral in Afghanistan, a country where women struggle against assault, violence and misogynistic traditions on a daily basis.

Street harassment is rampant in cities such as Kabul where women are frequently subjected to verbal insults, physical assault and even acid throwing.

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“Harassment on the street is a daily experience for women and girls, and women who have sought help from the police in response to harassment and even threats have typically received no assistance,” according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).

While there has been progress in girls’ access to education and increased participation in The Afghan parliament, “unchecked sexual harassment has been a significant obstacle to women’s employment and participation in public life,” HRW said.

BuzzFeed News has reached out to Khademi for comment.

Tasneem Nashrulla is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.

Contact Tasneem Nashrulla at tasneem.nashrulla@buzzfeed.com

March 4, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

Eastern Thoughts

Many of us enjoy reading the poetry of Rumi, Hafiz, Kabir and others. I always feel as if I have been in the presence of God. Whatever form of the Divine you follow, their words take us into his/her presence. This is the same kind of experience. I hope you can enjoy these beautiful Zoroastrian words.

In Thy image let me pattern my life, Oh Ahuramazda,

Let me awake with Thy name on my lips,

In my eyes let me ever carry Thy image,

To enable me to perceive Thee and

Thee alone in everyone else.

Let my mind never waver elsewhere except

to hold Thee in mind.

Let me ever sing songs of praise for Thee.

Let me dance with joy ever in Thy presence.

Let me await Thee patiently for Thy coming

Let that be my everlasting joy.

To be with Thee forevermore.

I await Thee, Thee and Thee alone.

I seek none but Thee.

I long for Thee, I yearn for Thee.

Bless me with Thy vision and let me hold

That enchanted Vision every in my memory,

To Thy Glory, Oh Ahuramazda.

Teach me to knock, teach me to sing, to clim

So that the door may open with sweet music,

That will lull me to the world of creation,

World of geniuses, who all sing one song,

the song of Praise to Thee.

Oh Ahuramazda, I long for Thee,

I await Thee in patience, when shall I perceive?

When shalt Thou bequeath?

I patience I kneel and bow.

I await in silence, in expectation.

Have mercy on this aching heart.

Transform me with Thy Divine Touch.

My aching heart calls out to Thee.

My anguish can only cease with Thy Divine Touch.

I await Thee, I surrender to Thee.

I look forward to They coming in silent meditation.

–A Zoroastrian Prayer which is recited before meditating

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The Dove of Peace.

March 3, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

Blaming the Victim

When a woman gets raped it is an act of control and violence. It is not sexual. Eighty eight year old women are raped…not lust. Rape has nothing to do with where a woman is, whom she is with and what she is wearing.

It is pathetic than some men state they can’t control themselves when they see a woman’s ankle or neck or face. These men view women as property. Some one to be controlled because they are not equal. This must end. Women do not deserve to be raped. They can’t be owned like cattle or chickens. When a human being is experiencing their body being being violated, they will always fight back. It is a crime. Women are not going to just lie there and take it. It is ridiculous to even say something like that. This is a sad state of affairs.

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New Delhi Gang Rape Convict Blames Victim For Attack: ‘She Shouldn’t Have Fought Back’

| By By ASHOK SHARMA

Posted: 03/03/2015 2:47 am EST Updated: 1 hour ago

Delhi Gang Rape Convicts At High Court

NEW DELHI (AP) — One of the men convicted of raping and killing a woman in a brutal 2012 gang attack on a New Delhi bus said in a TV documentary that if their victim had not fought back she would not have been killed.

Instead, the 23-year-old woman should have remained silent, said Mukesh Singh, who was driving the bus for much of the time that the woman was being attacked.

“Then they would have dropped her off after ‘doing her,'” he said in a documentary being released next week. The filmmakers released transcripts of the interview, which was recorded in 2013, on Tuesday.

“A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy,” he said, according to the transcripts. “A decent girl won’t roam around at 9 o’clock at night …. Housework and housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes.”

The woman and her friend were returning home from seeing a movie at an upscale mall when they were tricked by the men into getting on the bus, which they’d taken out for a joyride. The attackers beat her friend and took turns raping the woman. They penetrated her with a rod, leaving severe internal injuries that caused her death.

Singh and three other men were convicted in a fast-track court in 2013. They confessed to the attack but later retracted their confessions, saying they’d been tortured into admitting their involvement. The appeals against their death sentences are pending in the Supreme Court.

India, where many people have long believed that women are responsible for rape, was shocked into action after the attack. The government rushed legislation doubling prison terms for rapists to 20 years and criminalizing voyeurism, stalking and the trafficking of women. The law also makes it a crime for police officers to refuse to open cases when complaints are made.

In the interview, Singh suggested that the attack was to teach the woman and her male friend a lesson that they should not have been out late at night. He also reiterated that rape victims should not fight back: “She should just be silent and allow the rape.”

The death penalty, he said, would make things even more dangerous for women. “Now when they rape, they won’t leave the girl like we did. They will kill her,” Singh said.

Singh’s interview is from the documentary “India’s Daughter” by British filmmaker Leslee Udwin. It will be shown on March 8, International Women’s Day, in India, Britain, Denmark, Sweden and several other countries.

Indian authorities, meanwhile, objected to the filmmakers releasing the documentary without their approval.

A spokesman for New Delhi’s Tihar Jail, where the interview was filmed, said Udwin had agreed to allow them to screen the footage before it was released.

“We want to see the documentary as it can be screened only after it was approved by authorities,” said jail spokesman Mukesh Prasad.

Udwin, however, said she had obtained necessary clearances from jail authorities as well as India’s home ministry for her documentary and for interviewing the convicts in the prison.

“I had first submitted an unedited version of the documentary and later an edited version as demanded by prison authorities,” Udwin told reporters in New Delhi.

She expressed surprise at the jail spokesman’s claim and said she had not received any communication from prison authorities on those lines.

Delhi Rape Protests An Indian protester holds a placard during a protest against a recent gang rape of a young woman in a moving bus in New Delhi, India, Thursday, Dec. 27, 2012. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pledged Thursday to take action to protect the nation’s women while the young rape victim was flown to Singapore for treatment of severe internal injuries. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

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March 2, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

U.S.-Israel Relations under President Obama

5 Things You Need to Know About the U.S.-Israel Relationship Under President Obama

Posted by Bernadette Meehan on March 01, 2015 at 04:12 PM EST

Since Israel’s founding in 1948, the United States has stood firmly as its closest ally in the Middle East. The first country to recognize Israel, the United States has forged a deep and unshakable bond with Israel through a multifaceted relationship that reflects the depth and breadth of the ties between our people and the values that we share.

Under President Obama’s leadership, American engagement with Israel has grown and strengthened to an unprecedented degree. From meeting frequently with Israeli leaders to ensuring that Israel remains the largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance, the President is deeply committed to helping Israel maintain its strength and security.

Here are the five key facts you need to know about the U.S.-Israel relationship under President Obama:

1. A strong defender: President Obama has strengthened Israel’s defense in concrete and unprecedented ways:

Israel remains the leading recipient of U.S. foreign military financing (FMF), receiving over $20.5 billion since 2009.
The United States in Fiscal Year 2014 provided Israel with more security assistance funding than ever before. In Fiscal Year 2016, which marks the eighth year of a 10-year, $30 billion Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. and Israel, we have asked Congress for $3.1 billion in FMF funds for Israel.
The President has provided $2.9 billion in funding for missile defense programs and systems. Since 2011, the United States has provided Israel with over $1.3 billion for the Iron Dome system alone, including $225 million in short-fuse funding last summer.
The U.S. and Israel regularly conduct joint exercises to improve our military capabilities and strengthen our bilateral security.

2. An international ally: Under President Obama, the U.S. has led global efforts to defend Israel’s legitimacy on the world stage:

Last year, the U.S. opposed 18 resolutions in the UN General Assembly that were biased against Israel.
On five occasions last year, the U.S. cast the only “no” vote against unfair anti-Israel measures in the UN’s Human Rights Council.
The U.S. worked with Israel and the European Union to organize the first UN General Assembly session on anti-Semitism in UN history, held in January 2015.

3. A proponent of peace: The President has strongly supported Israel in its quest for peace with its neighbors:

President Obama has repeatedly stood up for a two-state solution that ensures the peace and security of Israelis and Palestinians.
Under the President’s direction, Secretary Kerry initiated an intensive, collaborative effort to facilitate negotiations for a comprehensive peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians.
The President prioritized Israel’s security by asking one of our foremost military experts to help develop security arrangements that ensure a two-state solution leaves Israelis more secure, not less.

4. An economic partner: Under President Obama, the U.S. has a strong and robust commercial relationship with Israel:

This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the United States-Israel Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which was the first FTA entered into by the United States.
U.S. goods exports to Israel in 2014 were $15.1 billion, up 9.6% ($1.3 billion) from 2013, and up 64% from 2004. U.S. exports to Israel are up 587% from 1984 (Pre-FTA).
U.S. goods imports from Israel were $23.1 billion in 2014, a 1.1% increase ($242 million) from 2013, and up 58% from 2004. U.S. imports from Israel are up 1,203% from 1984.
The U.S. continues to invest in the BIRD Foundation, a U.S.-Israeli partnership between private sectors to expand private high tech industries. Since its founding in 1977, the $295 million in grants have been awarded to 800 partnerships, generating over $10 billion in product sales.

5. A support system for refugees and migrants: Under President Obama, the U.S. has invested millions in helping Israeli immigrants:

In the last 6 years, U.S. humanitarian assistance to refugees and migrants travelling to Israel totaled $140 million. This funding is used to help transport eligible migrants to Israel, transitional shelter, intensive Hebrew-language programs that focus on newly-arriving immigrants, or youth programming in Israel.

Since Israel’s founding, the U.S. has provided Israel with more than $120 billion in bilateral assistance and, under President Obama’s leadership, the U.S. will continue to be Israel’s strongest ally and staunchest supporter in its pursuit of peace and security in the Middle East.

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