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Women's rights under attack in Iraq
A UPI story about the fight against attacks on women in Iraq by the vile Islamic fundamentalists.
Once again, a victory for US rulers is a profound defeat for vast numbers of ordinary people.
Once again, a victory for US rulers is a profound defeat for vast numbers of ordinary people.
Women's rights become a struggle in Iraq
By Pamela Hess
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
BAGDAD, Iraq, Aug. 13 (UPI) -- Like Saddam Hussein, Yanar Mohammed tries not to sleep every night in the same place.
"For a different cause," she notes dryly, in the run-down barebones office she borrows from the Worker's Communist Party of Iraq.
Yanar, 42, left the safety and comfort of her life as an architect, wife and mother in Toronto to return to Baghdad to fight for Iraqi women's rights.
This is not an equal pay for equal work debate, or a campaign for a child-care subsidy. Her platform is elemental: Women must not be abducted, sold and raped. Those that eventually return to their families must not be murdered to restore the family's honor. Women must not be forced to wear an opaque veil over their faces and bodies.
She will not say where she sleeps because her life has already been threatened. She does not move without her bodyguard.
"Women activists are few. Most are very scared," Yanar says. "I do not have the patience to wait for 20 years," she explains. "If the Islamists are calling publicly for this treatment of women. ... I think I should use the same methods."
Yanar is Norma Rae -- tiny -- just 5 feet, with thick black hair pulled into a ponytail and a snug denim shirt and khakis -- and cut from the same revolutionary cloth. She is the founder of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq, a Baghdad-based follow up to the Defense of Iraqi Women's Rights organization she headed in Canada.
The dingy walls around her are roughly whitewashed. Mismatched chairs pulled to a single desk comprise her office and conference room.
It's a marked change from her life three months ago. When she left Canada with her husband, she was leading a design team to build a 50-story condominium in downtown Toronto for Burka Varacalli Architects.
Having lived through the 1991 war, she was an outspoken critic of the most recent one.
"Thank god Saddam was a paper puppet and not the power he was made out to be," she said, noting the low casualties in the city this time around.
Although she left a teenage son behind in Toronto parentless, she feels she is needed more here.
Up through the 1980s, women in Iraq, and especially the relatively cosmopolitan capital Baghdad, were free to wear what they chose and to work for themselves. Yanar earned both her bachelor's and master's degree from Baghdad University. She fled Iraq in 1993 and by 1995 had earned enough money in Lebanon to immigrate to Canada.
But in the years following the 1991 Persian Gulf War, there was a change in Iraq. Saddam Hussein, an avowedly secular leader who regularly persecuted the religious and assassinated influential ayatollahs, sensed his days were numbered. To maintain his hold in Iraq in the face of what was considered an inevitable second war with the United States, Saddam found religion. He built mosques. He touted his direct genetic link to the prophet Mohammed. And he rolled back women's rights to mollify the traditional Islamic tribes.
Three years ago, in a display of "piety," Saddam's henchmen organized the slaughter of 200 alleged prostitutes around the country. They were beheaded, stripped naked and hung upside down or tossed in front of their houses with signs that said, "The evil is out of society."
Yanar is afraid the same thing is happening again. She unfolds a handwritten note that has just been brought from her supporters in Basrah, the oil city deep in southern Iraq. Armed men went in to a house and shot four prostitutes on August 6, the note reads.
"Umm Alla was shot walking with her children on the street," she says. Umm Alla means "mother of Alla," a girl's name. It is customary to refer to women as the mother of their children rather than by name.
"This is human life and we need to defend it," she says, helpless to do anything but. "I see women abused and killed every day. It is not something to turn your back to."
Women in Iraq are not necessarily equipped for the dangerous and difficult slog ahead of her, Yanar says.
"If you live long enough with no human rights, you get convinced you are the inferior party," she says.
Political operatives in the new Iraq do not have telephones and faxes, as there is no phone service. They do not have copy machines, because there is little money and electric power is intermittent. Yanar has only her friends, a trickle of funding, and a printing press.
The men she is working against have fatwas -- decrees that hold powerful sway over the religious -- loud speakers, mosques full of congregants, and the Koran behind them, or so they say.
The average woman's situation in Iraq has grown even more precarious since the war. Women made up 40 percent of the public-center work force but now almost none have jobs, and the Coalition Provisional Authority is not providing social welfare payments. The military and former government workers are being given monthly stipends, but women only receive a small percentage of that. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women are single mothers and widows, given three successive wars in 20 years and Saddam's frequent executions. Others are second or third wives of the same man who does not take financial care of them.
Moreover, Iraq's borders are now open to what she calls "Islamist political groups" like the Iran-backed Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Other fundamentalist clerics have also returned, like the young Shiite Moqtada Sadr, and they are agitating to get women under the veil.
"At the mosques, they are asking men to veil their women and take their daughters out of school after sixth grade," Yanar says.
Indeed, at Baghdad University, where it seems a roughly half the female students wear veils -- the others are conservatively but fashionably dressed in long skirts and long-sleeve shirts -- new posters that have been put up. They read: "Women without veils are fallen women."
Women face grave dangers in Baghdad, according to a July report from Human Rights Watch.
There are no reliable statistics about the rape and kidnapping of females in Baghdad in part because police stations are operating on skeleton staffs but also because rape is not taken to be a serious crime under the Iraqi penal code -- a rapist can get his sentence suspended if he marries his victim, according to HRW's translation of the law.
Anecdotal evidence suggests women and girls are being abducted in broad daylight and raped in alarming numbers. Many are returned to their families where they face the prospect of "honor killing" if it is known they have been raped. Therefore, some victims refuse to report the crime or seek medical attention. In a number of cases, hospitals refuse treatment to rape victims, citing an overload of patients, according to the report. A medical confirmation of rape can only be made at the city's forensic institute -- at the morgue.
There are only 5,000 Iraqi police in Baghdad, a city of 5.5 million people. Iraqi-on-Iraqi crimes are generally left to Iraqi police to solve, rather than the American military police and soldiers who man and guard the police stations.
Coalition Provisional Authority administrator L. Paul Bremer reported Tuesday the Iraqi police had broken up two kidnapping rings in Baghdad. No further details were made available.
Yanar says abducted women and girls are being sold -- $100 for a married woman, $200 for a virgin. Human Rights Watch's investigation turned up evidence to support that claim.
Yanar is planning an Aug. 24 demonstration in Baghdad for women's rights and has her sites set on influencing the newly formed Iraqi governing council to codify protections for women and girls.
The council is currently headed by Ibrahim al-Jafari, the representative of the Dawa Party, an Islamist political party, by Yanar's lights. She differentiates between the strictly religious and those who use religion to further their political agendas.
"It's one of the oldest Islamist groups. They try to look modern but if you go to their houses their women are under veils," she said.
At his first press conference as chairman of the council on Monday, al-Jafari -- in a Western suit and tie -- denied that women are being forced to wear the veil or are in danger of being sold.
"It is very personal. It is left up to every woman to wear what she likes," he said.
"That is a big lie," Yanar said Wednesday, having watched the press conference on television. "Women in the streets are under social pressure."
She is doubtful the governing council will take up women's rights. There are three women on the council but two wear the veil and the third "is not known as an outspoken figure for women's rights." The woman, Akila al-Hashimi, was an adviser to former foreign minister Tariq Aziz.
Yanar has met with American civil affairs military officers but has been told not to expect an audience with Bremer to press her agenda. One of her top priorities is to get women a monthly payment of $100 from the CPA as a form of welfare, because millions lost their jobs when the war came and have been without work for four months.
"They told me, 'Good luck, we haven't even seen his face,'" Yanar relates.
"The CPA will have to respond, if not fully then at least partly," she said. "They can not keep us quiet forever."
She met with some officials when the CPA was still the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance. She insistently pressed her case with the Americans. One of them -- apparently exasperated -- told her, "Do you want to cooperate or confront?"
"At the time, I didn't know if I should feel very hopeless or very powerful! There I was asking for help for women in need from the biggest military machine in the world, who can invade a whole country in no time" she says, still in wonderment that she could be perceived as a bully. "Look at my size!"
Yanar only has about 200 members in her organization, many of them operating in the far freer northern provinces, where Kurds built their own autonomous society free from Saddam's interference by dint of the U.S.- and British-enforced no-fly zones.
"That's not a lot of members, I know. There's a very good reason. Women are afraid to step into our office," Yanar explains.
Yanar has political ambitions. She plans to run for an office in the Iraqi government that deals with women's issues when elections are held. That process -- which requires a constitution be written and a census taken -- could take more than a year.
Most of Yanar's supporters have come to her through her Arabic-language newspaper, Equality. She has published two issues and a third is due out soon with a run of 3,000 copies.
Her friends in the Communist party -- the pure, grass-roots version organized in 1993, she explains, not the compromised old Iraqi Communists -- distribute the papers for her.
She is almost apologetic about her association with the Worker's Communist Party as she knows it taints her organization. But when pressed, she is defiant.
"I look at myself as a woman activist in the first place, but later on I became a member of the party. I will not be ashamed of being affiliated with them," Yanar says. "It does deprive me of many supporters I could get from parts of North America. But for me, there is no choice. I have no other support here in Baghdad. They work for human justice and equality. I am proud to be affiliated."
Iraqi women are different from women elsewhere in the Middle East, she insists. Some 45,000 Iraqi women demonstrated for equal civil rights in Baghdad in 1958, years before the American feminist movement of the 1960s got publicly organized.
"We are not the (stereotypical) submissive women of Islamic society," Yanar says.
She doesn't know how many women to hope for at her Aug. 24 march. She believes the crowd will be primarily men from the Worker's Communist Party. The women are not brave enough.
By Pamela Hess
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
BAGDAD, Iraq, Aug. 13 (UPI) -- Like Saddam Hussein, Yanar Mohammed tries not to sleep every night in the same place.
"For a different cause," she notes dryly, in the run-down barebones office she borrows from the Worker's Communist Party of Iraq.
Yanar, 42, left the safety and comfort of her life as an architect, wife and mother in Toronto to return to Baghdad to fight for Iraqi women's rights.
This is not an equal pay for equal work debate, or a campaign for a child-care subsidy. Her platform is elemental: Women must not be abducted, sold and raped. Those that eventually return to their families must not be murdered to restore the family's honor. Women must not be forced to wear an opaque veil over their faces and bodies.
She will not say where she sleeps because her life has already been threatened. She does not move without her bodyguard.
"Women activists are few. Most are very scared," Yanar says. "I do not have the patience to wait for 20 years," she explains. "If the Islamists are calling publicly for this treatment of women. ... I think I should use the same methods."
Yanar is Norma Rae -- tiny -- just 5 feet, with thick black hair pulled into a ponytail and a snug denim shirt and khakis -- and cut from the same revolutionary cloth. She is the founder of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq, a Baghdad-based follow up to the Defense of Iraqi Women's Rights organization she headed in Canada.
The dingy walls around her are roughly whitewashed. Mismatched chairs pulled to a single desk comprise her office and conference room.
It's a marked change from her life three months ago. When she left Canada with her husband, she was leading a design team to build a 50-story condominium in downtown Toronto for Burka Varacalli Architects.
Having lived through the 1991 war, she was an outspoken critic of the most recent one.
"Thank god Saddam was a paper puppet and not the power he was made out to be," she said, noting the low casualties in the city this time around.
Although she left a teenage son behind in Toronto parentless, she feels she is needed more here.
Up through the 1980s, women in Iraq, and especially the relatively cosmopolitan capital Baghdad, were free to wear what they chose and to work for themselves. Yanar earned both her bachelor's and master's degree from Baghdad University. She fled Iraq in 1993 and by 1995 had earned enough money in Lebanon to immigrate to Canada.
But in the years following the 1991 Persian Gulf War, there was a change in Iraq. Saddam Hussein, an avowedly secular leader who regularly persecuted the religious and assassinated influential ayatollahs, sensed his days were numbered. To maintain his hold in Iraq in the face of what was considered an inevitable second war with the United States, Saddam found religion. He built mosques. He touted his direct genetic link to the prophet Mohammed. And he rolled back women's rights to mollify the traditional Islamic tribes.
Three years ago, in a display of "piety," Saddam's henchmen organized the slaughter of 200 alleged prostitutes around the country. They were beheaded, stripped naked and hung upside down or tossed in front of their houses with signs that said, "The evil is out of society."
Yanar is afraid the same thing is happening again. She unfolds a handwritten note that has just been brought from her supporters in Basrah, the oil city deep in southern Iraq. Armed men went in to a house and shot four prostitutes on August 6, the note reads.
"Umm Alla was shot walking with her children on the street," she says. Umm Alla means "mother of Alla," a girl's name. It is customary to refer to women as the mother of their children rather than by name.
"This is human life and we need to defend it," she says, helpless to do anything but. "I see women abused and killed every day. It is not something to turn your back to."
Women in Iraq are not necessarily equipped for the dangerous and difficult slog ahead of her, Yanar says.
"If you live long enough with no human rights, you get convinced you are the inferior party," she says.
Political operatives in the new Iraq do not have telephones and faxes, as there is no phone service. They do not have copy machines, because there is little money and electric power is intermittent. Yanar has only her friends, a trickle of funding, and a printing press.
The men she is working against have fatwas -- decrees that hold powerful sway over the religious -- loud speakers, mosques full of congregants, and the Koran behind them, or so they say.
The average woman's situation in Iraq has grown even more precarious since the war. Women made up 40 percent of the public-center work force but now almost none have jobs, and the Coalition Provisional Authority is not providing social welfare payments. The military and former government workers are being given monthly stipends, but women only receive a small percentage of that. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women are single mothers and widows, given three successive wars in 20 years and Saddam's frequent executions. Others are second or third wives of the same man who does not take financial care of them.
Moreover, Iraq's borders are now open to what she calls "Islamist political groups" like the Iran-backed Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Other fundamentalist clerics have also returned, like the young Shiite Moqtada Sadr, and they are agitating to get women under the veil.
"At the mosques, they are asking men to veil their women and take their daughters out of school after sixth grade," Yanar says.
Indeed, at Baghdad University, where it seems a roughly half the female students wear veils -- the others are conservatively but fashionably dressed in long skirts and long-sleeve shirts -- new posters that have been put up. They read: "Women without veils are fallen women."
Women face grave dangers in Baghdad, according to a July report from Human Rights Watch.
There are no reliable statistics about the rape and kidnapping of females in Baghdad in part because police stations are operating on skeleton staffs but also because rape is not taken to be a serious crime under the Iraqi penal code -- a rapist can get his sentence suspended if he marries his victim, according to HRW's translation of the law.
Anecdotal evidence suggests women and girls are being abducted in broad daylight and raped in alarming numbers. Many are returned to their families where they face the prospect of "honor killing" if it is known they have been raped. Therefore, some victims refuse to report the crime or seek medical attention. In a number of cases, hospitals refuse treatment to rape victims, citing an overload of patients, according to the report. A medical confirmation of rape can only be made at the city's forensic institute -- at the morgue.
There are only 5,000 Iraqi police in Baghdad, a city of 5.5 million people. Iraqi-on-Iraqi crimes are generally left to Iraqi police to solve, rather than the American military police and soldiers who man and guard the police stations.
Coalition Provisional Authority administrator L. Paul Bremer reported Tuesday the Iraqi police had broken up two kidnapping rings in Baghdad. No further details were made available.
Yanar says abducted women and girls are being sold -- $100 for a married woman, $200 for a virgin. Human Rights Watch's investigation turned up evidence to support that claim.
Yanar is planning an Aug. 24 demonstration in Baghdad for women's rights and has her sites set on influencing the newly formed Iraqi governing council to codify protections for women and girls.
The council is currently headed by Ibrahim al-Jafari, the representative of the Dawa Party, an Islamist political party, by Yanar's lights. She differentiates between the strictly religious and those who use religion to further their political agendas.
"It's one of the oldest Islamist groups. They try to look modern but if you go to their houses their women are under veils," she said.
At his first press conference as chairman of the council on Monday, al-Jafari -- in a Western suit and tie -- denied that women are being forced to wear the veil or are in danger of being sold.
"It is very personal. It is left up to every woman to wear what she likes," he said.
"That is a big lie," Yanar said Wednesday, having watched the press conference on television. "Women in the streets are under social pressure."
She is doubtful the governing council will take up women's rights. There are three women on the council but two wear the veil and the third "is not known as an outspoken figure for women's rights." The woman, Akila al-Hashimi, was an adviser to former foreign minister Tariq Aziz.
Yanar has met with American civil affairs military officers but has been told not to expect an audience with Bremer to press her agenda. One of her top priorities is to get women a monthly payment of $100 from the CPA as a form of welfare, because millions lost their jobs when the war came and have been without work for four months.
"They told me, 'Good luck, we haven't even seen his face,'" Yanar relates.
"The CPA will have to respond, if not fully then at least partly," she said. "They can not keep us quiet forever."
She met with some officials when the CPA was still the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance. She insistently pressed her case with the Americans. One of them -- apparently exasperated -- told her, "Do you want to cooperate or confront?"
"At the time, I didn't know if I should feel very hopeless or very powerful! There I was asking for help for women in need from the biggest military machine in the world, who can invade a whole country in no time" she says, still in wonderment that she could be perceived as a bully. "Look at my size!"
Yanar only has about 200 members in her organization, many of them operating in the far freer northern provinces, where Kurds built their own autonomous society free from Saddam's interference by dint of the U.S.- and British-enforced no-fly zones.
"That's not a lot of members, I know. There's a very good reason. Women are afraid to step into our office," Yanar explains.
Yanar has political ambitions. She plans to run for an office in the Iraqi government that deals with women's issues when elections are held. That process -- which requires a constitution be written and a census taken -- could take more than a year.
Most of Yanar's supporters have come to her through her Arabic-language newspaper, Equality. She has published two issues and a third is due out soon with a run of 3,000 copies.
Her friends in the Communist party -- the pure, grass-roots version organized in 1993, she explains, not the compromised old Iraqi Communists -- distribute the papers for her.
She is almost apologetic about her association with the Worker's Communist Party as she knows it taints her organization. But when pressed, she is defiant.
"I look at myself as a woman activist in the first place, but later on I became a member of the party. I will not be ashamed of being affiliated with them," Yanar says. "It does deprive me of many supporters I could get from parts of North America. But for me, there is no choice. I have no other support here in Baghdad. They work for human justice and equality. I am proud to be affiliated."
Iraqi women are different from women elsewhere in the Middle East, she insists. Some 45,000 Iraqi women demonstrated for equal civil rights in Baghdad in 1958, years before the American feminist movement of the 1960s got publicly organized.
"We are not the (stereotypical) submissive women of Islamic society," Yanar says.
She doesn't know how many women to hope for at her Aug. 24 march. She believes the crowd will be primarily men from the Worker's Communist Party. The women are not brave enough.
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Hello, Hi:
The reason the liberal knee-jerk crowd pay NO attention to the terrible things done to Muslim women is because it would mean Muslim MEN are doing something evil.
Clearly, you must know that the average liberal today hates Jews more than the Ku Klux Klan ever did, and to hate the Jew is to excuse the rape and torture at the hands of Muslims.
ALSO, the average liberal is EXTREMELY anti-American, and opposes any values it espouses, such as individual rights, and the freedom to worship (or not to).
This is no suprise because the liberal WANTS gang rapes and war to continue without anyone stopping it, especially United States.
The reason the liberal knee-jerk crowd pay NO attention to the terrible things done to Muslim women is because it would mean Muslim MEN are doing something evil.
Clearly, you must know that the average liberal today hates Jews more than the Ku Klux Klan ever did, and to hate the Jew is to excuse the rape and torture at the hands of Muslims.
ALSO, the average liberal is EXTREMELY anti-American, and opposes any values it espouses, such as individual rights, and the freedom to worship (or not to).
This is no suprise because the liberal WANTS gang rapes and war to continue without anyone stopping it, especially United States.
Priority one - if you can't blame the US, whites in general, Republicans, or jews, it's not important.
And seriously, it's true. You look at the stuff that's hidden at http://www.indybay.org/news/?display=f and you'll see some odd similarities on the stuff that disappears off the main news.
Critical review of leftist thought is banned. Criticism of the ACLU's stance is banned. Jesse Jackson? Again, criticsm is banned. The ME situation - better not post anything contrary to the site's stance or it WILL get deleted. Pardon - 'hidden'. The Palestinian cause is holy, and anything done in their attempt to kill their Zionist enemy is perfectly justifiable. Even exploding busses full of schoolkids.
Anyway - from their Publish link ---
Publish!
The San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center, like other IMC sites around the world, allows anyone to instantaneously publish articles, photos, audio and video on the website.
---------
You won't find a guarantee that the articles, photos or what have you won't be deleted as irrelevant or distasteful in the eyes of the editors, however. This thread, IMO, is borderline - you're raising something pretty serious that needs to be looked at, but you're also being critical of Islam. Not a good combination at all.
Now that THAT griping's done - I'm amazed that people aren't more concerned about Islam and the professed desires of the fundamentalists to impose shari'a law worldwide. There's a lot of good to Islam, but there's a lot of bad too - and that needs to be taken into account when looking at the entire picture. Focusing on one small part you like and extrapolating it to the whole won't cut it.
But there's a lot of people here who won't look at the world with a critical unbiased eye, but filter it through what THEY believe - and a lot of times that belief doesn't have much to do with reality but with what the media presents. (I'd wonder if they'd be as accepting when dealing with a used car salesman.)
Shari'a IS a bad idea. Muslim women ARE repressed. And feminists are going to ignore that as long as they possibly can. Which does THEM no credit whatsoever.
And seriously, it's true. You look at the stuff that's hidden at http://www.indybay.org/news/?display=f and you'll see some odd similarities on the stuff that disappears off the main news.
Critical review of leftist thought is banned. Criticism of the ACLU's stance is banned. Jesse Jackson? Again, criticsm is banned. The ME situation - better not post anything contrary to the site's stance or it WILL get deleted. Pardon - 'hidden'. The Palestinian cause is holy, and anything done in their attempt to kill their Zionist enemy is perfectly justifiable. Even exploding busses full of schoolkids.
Anyway - from their Publish link ---
Publish!
The San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center, like other IMC sites around the world, allows anyone to instantaneously publish articles, photos, audio and video on the website.
---------
You won't find a guarantee that the articles, photos or what have you won't be deleted as irrelevant or distasteful in the eyes of the editors, however. This thread, IMO, is borderline - you're raising something pretty serious that needs to be looked at, but you're also being critical of Islam. Not a good combination at all.
Now that THAT griping's done - I'm amazed that people aren't more concerned about Islam and the professed desires of the fundamentalists to impose shari'a law worldwide. There's a lot of good to Islam, but there's a lot of bad too - and that needs to be taken into account when looking at the entire picture. Focusing on one small part you like and extrapolating it to the whole won't cut it.
But there's a lot of people here who won't look at the world with a critical unbiased eye, but filter it through what THEY believe - and a lot of times that belief doesn't have much to do with reality but with what the media presents. (I'd wonder if they'd be as accepting when dealing with a used car salesman.)
Shari'a IS a bad idea. Muslim women ARE repressed. And feminists are going to ignore that as long as they possibly can. Which does THEM no credit whatsoever.
Was the goal of the 2nd Gulf War to increase the power of fundamentalists and give the US an enemy that can distract from issues in the US?
It seem like this had to have been Bush's goal when he took down the only secular (albeit dictatorial) government in the Middle East.
It seem like this had to have been Bush's goal when he took down the only secular (albeit dictatorial) government in the Middle East.
Islamic takeover and imposition of Shari'a rule. Then there's Iran, that's about had a bellyfull of the Islamic theocrats.
But that doesn't make a good rant, right?
But hey, it's a lot easier to blame Bush for everything, right?
But that doesn't make a good rant, right?
But hey, it's a lot easier to blame Bush for everything, right?
The US had him overthrown and killed...
see
http://www.iranonline.com/newsroom/Archive/Mossadeq/
The root of most problems in the Middle East comes down to the British and the US. The British stuck in a bunch of fundamentalist rulers when they carved up the Ottoman Empire (Wahabi crazies really only gained real power with the rise of the house of Saud) and the US helped create more problems with the newer tyrants the US helped create (ie Iran, Iraq and Egypt)
see
http://www.iranonline.com/newsroom/Archive/Mossadeq/
The root of most problems in the Middle East comes down to the British and the US. The British stuck in a bunch of fundamentalist rulers when they carved up the Ottoman Empire (Wahabi crazies really only gained real power with the rise of the house of Saud) and the US helped create more problems with the newer tyrants the US helped create (ie Iran, Iraq and Egypt)
Turkey is secular although I would say its in Europe rather than the MIddle East.
Why is Turkey secular?
Unlike the other countries in the MIddle East Turkey never was a British colony... hmm I wonder of there is a connection...
"How Britain created Iraq
Britain set up Iraq in 1922. The area had been three separate provinces-Basra, Baghdad and Mosul-which were part of the Ottoman Empire run from Turkey. Britain's rulers wanted the territory after oil reserves were discovered there in the late 19th century. The Anglo-Persian oil company had drilling rights across 500,000 square miles in the region.
Britain seized its chance during the First World War to occupy Basra and Baghdad. The allied powers defeated Turkey alongside Germany. As Lord Curzon, the British foreign secretary, said, "The allies floated to victory on a wave of oil."
He said he wanted the Persian Gulf to become a "British lake". Britain and France had drawn up a secret deal in 1916, the Sykes-Picot Treaty, where they agreed to divide the Arab territories among themselves. The Bolshevik revolutionary government in Russia revealed it in 1917. It showed that Britain and France had no intention of granting the Arabs' hope for independence.
This was despite the call Britain had made during the war for the Arabs to revolt against the Turks. The Arab revolt and the promises made by Britain's rulers are shown in the film Lawrence of Arabia. The British military moved quickly to subdue Iraq. The RAF bombed Kurdish areas in northern Iraq in 1919 and 1920 where there were uprisings against British rule.
Arthur "Bomber" Harris said, "The Arab and the Kurd now know what real bombing means in casualties and damage. Within 45 minutes a full-size village can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured."
Winston Churchill, secretary of state for war, said, "I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes." The League of Nations, the forerunner to the United Nations, allowed Britain and France to carve the Middle East up. Britain got a mandate to run Iraq (now made up of all three provinces) and Palestine in 1920.
It drew up the borders creating Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in 1922. The main aim in creating Kuwait was to prevent the new Iraq from having access to the Gulf-this could have allowed it to threaten British dominance. Britain then manoeuvred to install a ruler in Iraq who it could rely on. A Foreign Office official said, "What is wanted is a king who will be content to reign but not govern."
The new Middle East department of the Colonial Office, headed by Winston Churchill, decided to install Emir Faisal ibn Hussain as king of Iraq. Faisal had not set foot in Iraq before he was made king in 1921. British administrators ensured laws were passed to favour the ruling class of large landowners who came from the minority Sunni population. They rigged elections to the puppet parliament.
Britain and the US formed the Iraqi Petroleum Company, which got the right to drill in every part of the old Ottoman Empire in 1928.
Britain's legacy
King Faisal was under constant pressure from ordinary people, who hated British rule.
Britain finally granted Iraq independence in 1932 after a wave of strikes and protests the previous year. The British High Commission admitted the situation "reveals surprising lack of support for the present government, and unpopularity of King Faisal. Republican cries have been openly raised in the streets." But Britain retained a stranglehold on power in Iraq, keeping control over oil and maintaining air bases.
Even most of Iraq's upper classes were excluded from power. There were repeated coup attempts. Each faction that seized power used the British-equipped and Brithish-trained army to crush opposition. Iraq's rulers were prepared to use that force against workers and to defend British oil interests. Some 5,000 workers went on strike in the Iraqi Petroleum Company for higher wages.
The strike united workers across ethnic and religious lines. The government sent in mounted police who killed ten workers at a mass meeting. After the Second World War Britain withdrew its troops, deciding to rely on puppet rulers to defend its oil interests.
Popular unrest and strikes grew throughout the country as the gap between rich and poor widened. The cost of living increased fivefold between 1939 and 1957. Some 80 percent of the population were illiterate in 1958. The pro-British monarchy in Iraq was a bulwark against radical change in the Middle East.
It was at the centre of opposing the radical movement of Gamal Abdul Nasser, which overthrew the British-backed monarchy in Egypt in 1952 and which preached radical change uniting all Arabs against imperialism. The Baghdad Pact in 1953 was a NATO-sponsored agreement among states in the region, led by Iraq, to contain Nasserism.
The rulers of Britain and France were thrown into panic when they failed to stop Nasser nationalising the Suez Canal in 1956. The "Suez crisis" provoked a wave of anti-British agitation throughout the region. The Iraqi monarchy fell in 1958 to a military revolt led by Abdul Karim Qasim.
Qasim made popular promises of land reform and negotiations for a greater share of the oil wealth. Britain sent troops to neighbouring Jordan. The US sent troops to Lebanon. They were desperate to crush the Qasim government and turned to the Ba'athist Party (which Saddam Hussein now leads) to spearhead right wing resistance in Iraq.
The CIA backed a Ba'athist coup in 1963. The head of the CIA in the Middle East, James Critchfield, said, "We regarded it as a great victory."
...
"
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/1814/sw181410.htm
Why is Turkey secular?
Unlike the other countries in the MIddle East Turkey never was a British colony... hmm I wonder of there is a connection...
"How Britain created Iraq
Britain set up Iraq in 1922. The area had been three separate provinces-Basra, Baghdad and Mosul-which were part of the Ottoman Empire run from Turkey. Britain's rulers wanted the territory after oil reserves were discovered there in the late 19th century. The Anglo-Persian oil company had drilling rights across 500,000 square miles in the region.
Britain seized its chance during the First World War to occupy Basra and Baghdad. The allied powers defeated Turkey alongside Germany. As Lord Curzon, the British foreign secretary, said, "The allies floated to victory on a wave of oil."
He said he wanted the Persian Gulf to become a "British lake". Britain and France had drawn up a secret deal in 1916, the Sykes-Picot Treaty, where they agreed to divide the Arab territories among themselves. The Bolshevik revolutionary government in Russia revealed it in 1917. It showed that Britain and France had no intention of granting the Arabs' hope for independence.
This was despite the call Britain had made during the war for the Arabs to revolt against the Turks. The Arab revolt and the promises made by Britain's rulers are shown in the film Lawrence of Arabia. The British military moved quickly to subdue Iraq. The RAF bombed Kurdish areas in northern Iraq in 1919 and 1920 where there were uprisings against British rule.
Arthur "Bomber" Harris said, "The Arab and the Kurd now know what real bombing means in casualties and damage. Within 45 minutes a full-size village can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured."
Winston Churchill, secretary of state for war, said, "I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes." The League of Nations, the forerunner to the United Nations, allowed Britain and France to carve the Middle East up. Britain got a mandate to run Iraq (now made up of all three provinces) and Palestine in 1920.
It drew up the borders creating Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in 1922. The main aim in creating Kuwait was to prevent the new Iraq from having access to the Gulf-this could have allowed it to threaten British dominance. Britain then manoeuvred to install a ruler in Iraq who it could rely on. A Foreign Office official said, "What is wanted is a king who will be content to reign but not govern."
The new Middle East department of the Colonial Office, headed by Winston Churchill, decided to install Emir Faisal ibn Hussain as king of Iraq. Faisal had not set foot in Iraq before he was made king in 1921. British administrators ensured laws were passed to favour the ruling class of large landowners who came from the minority Sunni population. They rigged elections to the puppet parliament.
Britain and the US formed the Iraqi Petroleum Company, which got the right to drill in every part of the old Ottoman Empire in 1928.
Britain's legacy
King Faisal was under constant pressure from ordinary people, who hated British rule.
Britain finally granted Iraq independence in 1932 after a wave of strikes and protests the previous year. The British High Commission admitted the situation "reveals surprising lack of support for the present government, and unpopularity of King Faisal. Republican cries have been openly raised in the streets." But Britain retained a stranglehold on power in Iraq, keeping control over oil and maintaining air bases.
Even most of Iraq's upper classes were excluded from power. There were repeated coup attempts. Each faction that seized power used the British-equipped and Brithish-trained army to crush opposition. Iraq's rulers were prepared to use that force against workers and to defend British oil interests. Some 5,000 workers went on strike in the Iraqi Petroleum Company for higher wages.
The strike united workers across ethnic and religious lines. The government sent in mounted police who killed ten workers at a mass meeting. After the Second World War Britain withdrew its troops, deciding to rely on puppet rulers to defend its oil interests.
Popular unrest and strikes grew throughout the country as the gap between rich and poor widened. The cost of living increased fivefold between 1939 and 1957. Some 80 percent of the population were illiterate in 1958. The pro-British monarchy in Iraq was a bulwark against radical change in the Middle East.
It was at the centre of opposing the radical movement of Gamal Abdul Nasser, which overthrew the British-backed monarchy in Egypt in 1952 and which preached radical change uniting all Arabs against imperialism. The Baghdad Pact in 1953 was a NATO-sponsored agreement among states in the region, led by Iraq, to contain Nasserism.
The rulers of Britain and France were thrown into panic when they failed to stop Nasser nationalising the Suez Canal in 1956. The "Suez crisis" provoked a wave of anti-British agitation throughout the region. The Iraqi monarchy fell in 1958 to a military revolt led by Abdul Karim Qasim.
Qasim made popular promises of land reform and negotiations for a greater share of the oil wealth. Britain sent troops to neighbouring Jordan. The US sent troops to Lebanon. They were desperate to crush the Qasim government and turned to the Ba'athist Party (which Saddam Hussein now leads) to spearhead right wing resistance in Iraq.
The CIA backed a Ba'athist coup in 1963. The head of the CIA in the Middle East, James Critchfield, said, "We regarded it as a great victory."
...
"
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/1814/sw181410.htm
Conservatives are going off about Islam all the time these days, but there was a time just 15 years ago that they all loved the Islamic Fundamentalists.
Reagan made dozens of speeches calling the Mujahiden "freedom fighters" fighting against "godless communism", and his propaganda inspired such movies as Rambo III (dedicated to Hekmatyar one of the warlords now attacking the US in Afghanistan)http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1982/31082c.htm
http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/reagan.html
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1985/32185c.htm
Of course Reagan hated Shiites Muslims due to Iran's anti-US stance (When they liberated themselves from the Shah only to get an authoritarian religious ruler), but Sunni fundamentalism was encouraged and many current Al Qaida members were trained in Britain and the US to help with the US war effort in Afghanistan.
Middle Eastern Islamic fundamentalism is a byproduct of US anti-Communist Cold War propaganda. The Ottomans were pretty secular, and it doesn't seem that strange to blame the people who drew the modern borders. (see http://www.teachersfirst.com/lessons/mideast/timeline2.cfm for a timeline of how Britain screwed over the Middle East in a way that Tony Blair could only dream of doing today)
Reagan made dozens of speeches calling the Mujahiden "freedom fighters" fighting against "godless communism", and his propaganda inspired such movies as Rambo III (dedicated to Hekmatyar one of the warlords now attacking the US in Afghanistan)http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1982/31082c.htm
http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/reagan.html
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1985/32185c.htm
Of course Reagan hated Shiites Muslims due to Iran's anti-US stance (When they liberated themselves from the Shah only to get an authoritarian religious ruler), but Sunni fundamentalism was encouraged and many current Al Qaida members were trained in Britain and the US to help with the US war effort in Afghanistan.
Middle Eastern Islamic fundamentalism is a byproduct of US anti-Communist Cold War propaganda. The Ottomans were pretty secular, and it doesn't seem that strange to blame the people who drew the modern borders. (see http://www.teachersfirst.com/lessons/mideast/timeline2.cfm for a timeline of how Britain screwed over the Middle East in a way that Tony Blair could only dream of doing today)
so active then as now. The big enemy was the USSR - they're the ones who ate Afghanistan, they needed to be fought by Islam, so that was the start.
Then the USSR pulled out, Afghanistan was in chaos, and the Taliban took over. In the meantime - the Saudis were attempting to still the unrest in their country by focusing it elsewhere, so your comment "Middle Eastern Islamic fundamentalism is a byproduct of US anti-Communist Cold War propaganda." doesn't hold water - because it was AFTER the cold war that the Saudis really started pumping funds into the Wahhabi sect ministries.
Geez. I'm surprised you guys can't recognize a state attempting to divert attention from internal matters by drumming up problems outside. (Sarcasm off)
Seriously, the Saudi rulers knew (and know) that the ONLY way they can stay in power is to have the backing of the mullahs, who control the people. So they feed the most rabid ones (which would be kind of like the US government paying about $500 billion a year to Evangelical Southern Baptists, only in Islam they've got two advantages that Southern Baptists don't. 1. They can kill if they can't convert, and 2. - they can change their legal system to make it perfectly okay. The Southern Baptists couldn't do that.) which basically steamroller the other sects - and you get folks who'll fly airplanes into skyscrapers.
This focuses the problem outside - but there's a lot of speculation that the Saudi rulers realize they're riding a tiger now, and they have no way to get off it that'll end up with them still in power. Or even, arguably, alive.
Besides - remember the saying when you're quoting Reagan and his stuff about the mujahadeen - "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
The problems occur AFTER the primary enemy is defeated - then all of a sudden your friend isn't so friendly. And Arabic countries/tribes do have a tendency to shift loyalties and allegiances easily.
(Or, take a look at what happened between the USSR and the rest of the Allies after WW2. Not exactly a love-fest there, even though we did team up to defeat Hitler.)
For what it's worth, it's easy to assign blame to anyone and everyone - the hard thing is to figure out what to do next. And I'll bluntly admit I haven't got a clue. I've got some ideas, but I don't think they'd work long-term, and in the short term they'd be pretty damn drastic. And remember - 15 years is a very long time in the ME.
We may end up having to get Islam to recognize it has to change itself, become more tolerant and accepting of other religions. In a best-case scenario the Moderates in Islam subvert the Fundies and everyone lives happily ever after with 9/11 a bad memory brought on by the black sheep in the family.
In a worst case - Islamic fundies decide a "kill them all, let Allah sort them out" policy is the way to do things and gets sufficient people to go along that there's real problems - think multiple 9/11s in half a dozen major cities - and it turns into "genocide for survival" time.
And that's something I REALLY don't want to see. Because if something like that was necessary, the Arab world would lose.
Why Arabs lose wars - http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/AD_Issues/amdipl_17/articles/deatkine_arabs1.html
Now, I'd LIKE to believe that things could be worked out and there's gonna be a happy resolution - but I've seen too much and read too much to make me think that it's got more than a 20% chance of a peaceful settlement. On the good side, I think there's no more than 3-5% chance it'll be necessary to go the genocide ruote, and that's only if we manage to stall off admitting there IS a problem in Islam.
Then the USSR pulled out, Afghanistan was in chaos, and the Taliban took over. In the meantime - the Saudis were attempting to still the unrest in their country by focusing it elsewhere, so your comment "Middle Eastern Islamic fundamentalism is a byproduct of US anti-Communist Cold War propaganda." doesn't hold water - because it was AFTER the cold war that the Saudis really started pumping funds into the Wahhabi sect ministries.
Geez. I'm surprised you guys can't recognize a state attempting to divert attention from internal matters by drumming up problems outside. (Sarcasm off)
Seriously, the Saudi rulers knew (and know) that the ONLY way they can stay in power is to have the backing of the mullahs, who control the people. So they feed the most rabid ones (which would be kind of like the US government paying about $500 billion a year to Evangelical Southern Baptists, only in Islam they've got two advantages that Southern Baptists don't. 1. They can kill if they can't convert, and 2. - they can change their legal system to make it perfectly okay. The Southern Baptists couldn't do that.) which basically steamroller the other sects - and you get folks who'll fly airplanes into skyscrapers.
This focuses the problem outside - but there's a lot of speculation that the Saudi rulers realize they're riding a tiger now, and they have no way to get off it that'll end up with them still in power. Or even, arguably, alive.
Besides - remember the saying when you're quoting Reagan and his stuff about the mujahadeen - "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
The problems occur AFTER the primary enemy is defeated - then all of a sudden your friend isn't so friendly. And Arabic countries/tribes do have a tendency to shift loyalties and allegiances easily.
(Or, take a look at what happened between the USSR and the rest of the Allies after WW2. Not exactly a love-fest there, even though we did team up to defeat Hitler.)
For what it's worth, it's easy to assign blame to anyone and everyone - the hard thing is to figure out what to do next. And I'll bluntly admit I haven't got a clue. I've got some ideas, but I don't think they'd work long-term, and in the short term they'd be pretty damn drastic. And remember - 15 years is a very long time in the ME.
We may end up having to get Islam to recognize it has to change itself, become more tolerant and accepting of other religions. In a best-case scenario the Moderates in Islam subvert the Fundies and everyone lives happily ever after with 9/11 a bad memory brought on by the black sheep in the family.
In a worst case - Islamic fundies decide a "kill them all, let Allah sort them out" policy is the way to do things and gets sufficient people to go along that there's real problems - think multiple 9/11s in half a dozen major cities - and it turns into "genocide for survival" time.
And that's something I REALLY don't want to see. Because if something like that was necessary, the Arab world would lose.
Why Arabs lose wars - http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/AD_Issues/amdipl_17/articles/deatkine_arabs1.html
Now, I'd LIKE to believe that things could be worked out and there's gonna be a happy resolution - but I've seen too much and read too much to make me think that it's got more than a 20% chance of a peaceful settlement. On the good side, I think there's no more than 3-5% chance it'll be necessary to go the genocide ruote, and that's only if we manage to stall off admitting there IS a problem in Islam.
Bear in mind two things.
Islamic Fundamentalism is currently antithetical to Western modes of thought. (This includes Eastern, too - basically if you ain't Islam, you ain't shit, if you'll forgive the simplification.)
You'll need a solution that the worldwide majority of Muslims AND non-Muslims can sign off on.
Blame is fine - but that takes ten minutes. What's after that? Got any ideas?
Islamic Fundamentalism is currently antithetical to Western modes of thought. (This includes Eastern, too - basically if you ain't Islam, you ain't shit, if you'll forgive the simplification.)
You'll need a solution that the worldwide majority of Muslims AND non-Muslims can sign off on.
Blame is fine - but that takes ten minutes. What's after that? Got any ideas?
Most people found nothing "liberating" about the Soviet Union being anywhere. There was a reason for that.
it criticized our editorial policy in an inappropriate thread.
Criticism of our editorial policy goes here:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2002/12/1548433.php
Put it anywhere else and it will be removed.
Criticism of our editorial policy goes here:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2002/12/1548433.php
Put it anywhere else and it will be removed.
"Seriously, the Saudi rulers knew (and know) that the ONLY way they can stay in power is to have the backing of the mullahs,"
The Saudis were tied to a fundamentalist version of Islam far before the British started supporting them. The British purposely chose people who were from famillies that could claim ancestry back to Mohhamed as regional kings. Most had no connection to the people they governed.
As for things changing etc.. The US's choice of how to fight the war in Afghanistan was not one of just military support. The US actively encouraged a new breed of fundamentalism to create the situation where the Soviets could not win. Jails in the MIddle East were emptied and attempts to get religious crazies from all over the world to go to Aghanistan was a well thought out strategy to create the Soviet loss.
The US supported Hekmatyar directly but also supported many of the people who became the Taliban and Al Qaida. Neither the ideology of those groups nor the movement of so many people to Aghanistan could have happened without the US.
Back in the the Middle East, the US had also been waging war against communist sympathizers. There is a reason that the most powerful opposition group in Israel today is Hamas and not the PFLP. The US attacked the Communists form one side while enouraging (through the Saudis) religious fundamentalism on the other side. SInce the Soviet Union was an athiest state, what way to reduce Soviet power than inflaming traditional religious beliefs (not that modern Islamic fundamentalism has anything traditional about it).
Islamic fundamentalism has a lot to do with the way the Ottoman Empire was divided up, the partition of India, the US supported murder of nearly a million Communist sympathizers in Indonesia in the 1970s and US training of terrorists in Afghanistan in the 1980s. It also has a lot to do with the lack of democracy in many Islamic countries (universal support for the government of Algeria when it anulled a democratic win by Islamacists in the 1980s didnt help either).
The Saudis were tied to a fundamentalist version of Islam far before the British started supporting them. The British purposely chose people who were from famillies that could claim ancestry back to Mohhamed as regional kings. Most had no connection to the people they governed.
As for things changing etc.. The US's choice of how to fight the war in Afghanistan was not one of just military support. The US actively encouraged a new breed of fundamentalism to create the situation where the Soviets could not win. Jails in the MIddle East were emptied and attempts to get religious crazies from all over the world to go to Aghanistan was a well thought out strategy to create the Soviet loss.
The US supported Hekmatyar directly but also supported many of the people who became the Taliban and Al Qaida. Neither the ideology of those groups nor the movement of so many people to Aghanistan could have happened without the US.
Back in the the Middle East, the US had also been waging war against communist sympathizers. There is a reason that the most powerful opposition group in Israel today is Hamas and not the PFLP. The US attacked the Communists form one side while enouraging (through the Saudis) religious fundamentalism on the other side. SInce the Soviet Union was an athiest state, what way to reduce Soviet power than inflaming traditional religious beliefs (not that modern Islamic fundamentalism has anything traditional about it).
Islamic fundamentalism has a lot to do with the way the Ottoman Empire was divided up, the partition of India, the US supported murder of nearly a million Communist sympathizers in Indonesia in the 1970s and US training of terrorists in Afghanistan in the 1980s. It also has a lot to do with the lack of democracy in many Islamic countries (universal support for the government of Algeria when it anulled a democratic win by Islamacists in the 1980s didnt help either).
The Christians and Muslims in Palestine as well as the rest of the Arab World, live together with harmony.
They are not the ones in need of a western culture turtoring lesson.
In the 19th century the Jewish Palestinians lived in harmony with the Christians Palestinians and the Muslims as their cultures were similar.
The quarrel is not a religious one nor was it ever a religious quarrel.
It is a human rights issue that needs to be addressed.
With piece for all concerned
A human
They are not the ones in need of a western culture turtoring lesson.
In the 19th century the Jewish Palestinians lived in harmony with the Christians Palestinians and the Muslims as their cultures were similar.
The quarrel is not a religious one nor was it ever a religious quarrel.
It is a human rights issue that needs to be addressed.
With piece for all concerned
A human
Woman organization announce that more 400 Iraqi women were kidnapped
Iraq, Politics, 8/25/2003
A woman organization working for the freedom of woman in Iraq announced yesterday that more than 400 Iraqi women were kidnapped, raped or sold since the collapse of the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein in April.
Yanar Muhammad, who supervises this organization, said in press statements during a demonstration at al Fardous street in the downtown of Baghdad that "since the entry of the coalition forces to Iraq, this country is facing an unprecedented wave of violence against women and that some 400 of them were kidnapped, raped or sometimes sold."
She explained that professional gangs are selling, raping or kidnapping women in order to get financial ransom. She stressed that women in the streets are exposed to insulting sexual harassment and threats of kidnapping "and that a state of real fear exists among women with many of them avoid getting out of their houses."
The women organization accused the American forces of keeping a blind eye over what is taking place and stressed that, uselessly, it talked to the transitional governing council and the American administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer and asked for enhancing security and imposing penalty of sexual harassment.
http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/030825/2003082515.html
Iraq, Politics, 8/25/2003
A woman organization working for the freedom of woman in Iraq announced yesterday that more than 400 Iraqi women were kidnapped, raped or sold since the collapse of the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein in April.
Yanar Muhammad, who supervises this organization, said in press statements during a demonstration at al Fardous street in the downtown of Baghdad that "since the entry of the coalition forces to Iraq, this country is facing an unprecedented wave of violence against women and that some 400 of them were kidnapped, raped or sometimes sold."
She explained that professional gangs are selling, raping or kidnapping women in order to get financial ransom. She stressed that women in the streets are exposed to insulting sexual harassment and threats of kidnapping "and that a state of real fear exists among women with many of them avoid getting out of their houses."
The women organization accused the American forces of keeping a blind eye over what is taking place and stressed that, uselessly, it talked to the transitional governing council and the American administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer and asked for enhancing security and imposing penalty of sexual harassment.
http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/030825/2003082515.html
" Go ask citizens of India about Pakistan being carved out of India and turned into a muslim state. "
And you would find most of them blaming the British since a vote at the time would have been against the partition.
Islam spread to India peacefully via Suffi mystics who converted many in lower castes. It was only later (after the fall of Tamerlane) that Islamic armies moved into India. While The Moghul's were oppresive there wasnt much Hindu opposition to their rule since many of the Moghul rulers even adopted elements of Hindu belief.
Islam in Central Asia tended to be Suffi before the mid 1800s. It was only with the fall of the British empire when the Brits decided to play one group against another that the newer fundamentslist forms started to appear (pre 1800s Islam in the region involved saint worship and a lot of mixing of Hindu and Islamic beliefs).
And you would find most of them blaming the British since a vote at the time would have been against the partition.
Islam spread to India peacefully via Suffi mystics who converted many in lower castes. It was only later (after the fall of Tamerlane) that Islamic armies moved into India. While The Moghul's were oppresive there wasnt much Hindu opposition to their rule since many of the Moghul rulers even adopted elements of Hindu belief.
Islam in Central Asia tended to be Suffi before the mid 1800s. It was only with the fall of the British empire when the Brits decided to play one group against another that the newer fundamentslist forms started to appear (pre 1800s Islam in the region involved saint worship and a lot of mixing of Hindu and Islamic beliefs).
. . . "one tiny little Jewish state".
Well, lad, it appears from where I sit that your "tiny little Jewish state" has been getting larger by the year (or the month even) over the past several decades as more and more Palestinian land is taken, and that of the other countries around it as well. What the hell do you think 1967 was all about?
In present day times, the expansion of Israel is seen almost daily in its settlements that keep springing up regardless of the so-called Road Map and its supposed "freeze" on same.
Then there's the "evil wall" (as Uri Avnery has called it amongst others) that has meandered into the Palestinian towns and villages virtually making it impossible to live and work there. Another marvellous "security" excuse for a land grab.
Israel has been getting larger since the massacre at Deir Yassin, for heavens sakes, which has miraculously disappeared without a trace to be reinvented as an Israeli settlement. How many other Deir Yassin's have there been? Will there be? How many more towns and villages will be enclosed by Israeli settlements and the "evil wall"?
Well, lad, it appears from where I sit that your "tiny little Jewish state" has been getting larger by the year (or the month even) over the past several decades as more and more Palestinian land is taken, and that of the other countries around it as well. What the hell do you think 1967 was all about?
In present day times, the expansion of Israel is seen almost daily in its settlements that keep springing up regardless of the so-called Road Map and its supposed "freeze" on same.
Then there's the "evil wall" (as Uri Avnery has called it amongst others) that has meandered into the Palestinian towns and villages virtually making it impossible to live and work there. Another marvellous "security" excuse for a land grab.
Israel has been getting larger since the massacre at Deir Yassin, for heavens sakes, which has miraculously disappeared without a trace to be reinvented as an Israeli settlement. How many other Deir Yassin's have there been? Will there be? How many more towns and villages will be enclosed by Israeli settlements and the "evil wall"?
not Israel/Palestine. Stop hijacking threads. This is your last warning.
Angie, don't reply to this stuff. Notify us by email. We'll deal with it.
Angie, don't reply to this stuff. Notify us by email. We'll deal with it.
at least, at the more fundamentalist levels...
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2003_08_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#106175377049311765
From the end of the post, on unemployment and other issues...
"I’m one of the lucky ones… I’m not important. I’m not vital. Over a month ago, a prominent electrical engineer (one of the smartest females in the country) named Henna Aziz was assassinated in front of her family- two daughters and her husband. She was threatened by some fundamentalists from Badir’s Army and told to stay at home because she was a woman, she shouldn’t be in charge. She refused- the country needed her expertise to get things functioning- she was brilliant. She would not and could not stay at home. They came to her house one evening: men with machine-guns, broke in and opened fire. She lost her life- she wasn’t the first, she won’t be the last. "
Bear in mind this is from a blog - it's hard to tell how true it is. But looking at what's been reported on Fundamentalist Islam, it's not at all unthinkable.
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2003_08_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#106175377049311765
From the end of the post, on unemployment and other issues...
"I’m one of the lucky ones… I’m not important. I’m not vital. Over a month ago, a prominent electrical engineer (one of the smartest females in the country) named Henna Aziz was assassinated in front of her family- two daughters and her husband. She was threatened by some fundamentalists from Badir’s Army and told to stay at home because she was a woman, she shouldn’t be in charge. She refused- the country needed her expertise to get things functioning- she was brilliant. She would not and could not stay at home. They came to her house one evening: men with machine-guns, broke in and opened fire. She lost her life- she wasn’t the first, she won’t be the last. "
Bear in mind this is from a blog - it's hard to tell how true it is. But looking at what's been reported on Fundamentalist Islam, it's not at all unthinkable.
it criticized our editorial policy in an inappropriate thread. All criticism of our editorial policy must go here:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2002/12/1548433.php
If you put it anywhere else it will be removed. If you do it twice, you will be banned, and everything you have ever posted will be removed.
Take the hint, Steve. Otherwise, you’re out of here.
http://www.indybay.org/news/2002/12/1548433.php
If you put it anywhere else it will be removed. If you do it twice, you will be banned, and everything you have ever posted will be removed.
Take the hint, Steve. Otherwise, you’re out of here.
I have listened to actual femalie acitivists in the Middle East who fight for women's rights. One thing they stress is addressing the imperial designs of the great powers on the Arab countries and Israel's occupation of Palestine.
They recognize that people like "Steve" often use their struggle as a way to legitimate bombing and oppressing them and they vehemently oppose this.
Anyway, women's rights vary widely in the region. In Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan, women are equals. This was even true of pre-war Iraq.
Saudi Arabia is an aberration -- one incidentally supported by the US government because the Saudi regime obediently sends their oil profits into US and British coffers (through wealth transfers like weapons purchases).
They recognize that people like "Steve" often use their struggle as a way to legitimate bombing and oppressing them and they vehemently oppose this.
Anyway, women's rights vary widely in the region. In Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan, women are equals. This was even true of pre-war Iraq.
Saudi Arabia is an aberration -- one incidentally supported by the US government because the Saudi regime obediently sends their oil profits into US and British coffers (through wealth transfers like weapons purchases).
INSTEAD OF TRYING TO COME UP WITH SOME SORT OF SOLUTION, YOU'RE GOING TO SPEND THE NEXT 60 YEARS WATCHING THEM BLOW UP PEOPLE, OPPRESS WOMEN, AND KILL THEM FOR DARING TO BE EQUAL TO MEN IN FACT INSTEAD OF FANTASY!!
You think you could POSSIBLY get off the "Blame US, Blame Israel, Blame the Palestinians, Blame EVERYONE except the people actually DOING the oppressing" kick?
For cripe's sakes! Look at yourselves! Falling all over yourselves to BLAME instead of trying to come up with a SOLUTION!
And we wonder why the world is so screwed up....
You think you could POSSIBLY get off the "Blame US, Blame Israel, Blame the Palestinians, Blame EVERYONE except the people actually DOING the oppressing" kick?
For cripe's sakes! Look at yourselves! Falling all over yourselves to BLAME instead of trying to come up with a SOLUTION!
And we wonder why the world is so screwed up....
" historically, has been a religion of "conversion of death.""
hmm, historically Islam has been one of the more tolerant religions. While there was early military conquests most countries that are now Islamic converted due to Sufi mystics who followed trade routes (Pakistan, India, Malaysia, the S Philippines, Indonesia etc..). Christianity was much more violent in terms on conversions in the New World.
As for treatment of women and minority religious groups, that was the reason FOR conversion to Islam in India and many other countries. In India Islam was opposed to Sati and it was also a way for those in low castes to gain some freedom. The Moghuls, Ottomans and most late Islamic empires gave full rights to religious minorities (and in India?s case one sees that hundred of years of Muslim rule resulted in only conversions in members of low castes who saw gain in the change and almost no forced conversion).
For most of its history Islam was more tolerant than Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and even Buddhism. Science made great advances under several Islamic Empires and the treatment of women was above better than in most non-Islamic countries.
In the last two hundred years much of this has changed. The reason is tied to how colonialism ended and how the British and French tried to play factions against each other in their former colonies. The US overthrow of Sukarno and Mossadeq were also big setbacks in terms of the spread of tolerant secular Islam.
The worst regressive form of Islam is that tied to the Saudi royal family (Wahhabi Islam) and was promoted worldwide as a result of British and later US support. The Taliban followed the Deobandi form of Islam which really took off in Pakistan following the US supported coup by General Zia-ul-Haq (see http://www.aajkaynaam.org/site/campaign/lableft.htm). In both cases the promotion of the new regressive forms of Islam were for the interests of the US and Britain and not a natural evolution of the local religions.
?The dubious honor of inflicting religious militancy upon Pakistan must go to Zia, who sent his democratically elected predecessor Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to the gallows after a short kangaroo trial. Facing the rising popularity of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and its new leader Benazir Bhutto, daughter of the slain former president, Zia resorted to religious extremism to counter her growing populist appeal. One of Zia's early maneuvers, as a devout Sunni Muslim, was to gain control of the Pakistani army through the instrument of religion. The subsequent recruitment of a large number of clergy-recommended recruits, not only into the army but also in police and civilian services, began a resurgence of fundamentalism throughout Pakistani society.?
http://www.indiagov.org/policy/Terrorism/news_us/pak_coup_jihad_oct_25_99.htm
For US citizens (especially conservative ones) to now go around the world denouncing the very monster they created to fight the Soviets is the height if hypocrisy. Islam was one of the worlds more tolerant religions before British colonialists and Americans tainted it with antiCommunist/Christian fundamentalist mumbo jumbo.
hmm, historically Islam has been one of the more tolerant religions. While there was early military conquests most countries that are now Islamic converted due to Sufi mystics who followed trade routes (Pakistan, India, Malaysia, the S Philippines, Indonesia etc..). Christianity was much more violent in terms on conversions in the New World.
As for treatment of women and minority religious groups, that was the reason FOR conversion to Islam in India and many other countries. In India Islam was opposed to Sati and it was also a way for those in low castes to gain some freedom. The Moghuls, Ottomans and most late Islamic empires gave full rights to religious minorities (and in India?s case one sees that hundred of years of Muslim rule resulted in only conversions in members of low castes who saw gain in the change and almost no forced conversion).
For most of its history Islam was more tolerant than Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and even Buddhism. Science made great advances under several Islamic Empires and the treatment of women was above better than in most non-Islamic countries.
In the last two hundred years much of this has changed. The reason is tied to how colonialism ended and how the British and French tried to play factions against each other in their former colonies. The US overthrow of Sukarno and Mossadeq were also big setbacks in terms of the spread of tolerant secular Islam.
The worst regressive form of Islam is that tied to the Saudi royal family (Wahhabi Islam) and was promoted worldwide as a result of British and later US support. The Taliban followed the Deobandi form of Islam which really took off in Pakistan following the US supported coup by General Zia-ul-Haq (see http://www.aajkaynaam.org/site/campaign/lableft.htm). In both cases the promotion of the new regressive forms of Islam were for the interests of the US and Britain and not a natural evolution of the local religions.
?The dubious honor of inflicting religious militancy upon Pakistan must go to Zia, who sent his democratically elected predecessor Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to the gallows after a short kangaroo trial. Facing the rising popularity of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and its new leader Benazir Bhutto, daughter of the slain former president, Zia resorted to religious extremism to counter her growing populist appeal. One of Zia's early maneuvers, as a devout Sunni Muslim, was to gain control of the Pakistani army through the instrument of religion. The subsequent recruitment of a large number of clergy-recommended recruits, not only into the army but also in police and civilian services, began a resurgence of fundamentalism throughout Pakistani society.?
http://www.indiagov.org/policy/Terrorism/news_us/pak_coup_jihad_oct_25_99.htm
For US citizens (especially conservative ones) to now go around the world denouncing the very monster they created to fight the Soviets is the height if hypocrisy. Islam was one of the worlds more tolerant religions before British colonialists and Americans tainted it with antiCommunist/Christian fundamentalist mumbo jumbo.
Here are some links that make clear how bad Christianity has been compared to Islam:
http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news1001/viciousgodquiz.html
http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news1101/talibanlist.html
?But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth? (Deuteronomy 20:16).
?Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city [of nonbelievers] with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword? (1 Samuel 13:15).
?And that day Joshua took Makkedah, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and the king thereof he utterly destroyed, them, and all the souls that were therein; he let none remain: and he did to the king of Makkedah as he did unto the king of Jerico. Then Joshua passed from Makkedah, and all Israel with him, unto Libnah, and fought against Libnah: And the Lord delivered it also, and the king thereof, into the hand of Israel: and he smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that were therein; he let none remain in it? (Joshua 10:29-30).
Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass? (1 Samuel 15:3).
http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news1001/viciousgodquiz.html
http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news1101/talibanlist.html
?But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth? (Deuteronomy 20:16).
?Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city [of nonbelievers] with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword? (1 Samuel 13:15).
?And that day Joshua took Makkedah, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and the king thereof he utterly destroyed, them, and all the souls that were therein; he let none remain: and he did to the king of Makkedah as he did unto the king of Jerico. Then Joshua passed from Makkedah, and all Israel with him, unto Libnah, and fought against Libnah: And the Lord delivered it also, and the king thereof, into the hand of Israel: and he smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that were therein; he let none remain in it? (Joshua 10:29-30).
Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass? (1 Samuel 15:3).
basically speaking the tora is part of the bible and the bible is part of the koran so your pissing in the wind to find anti christinaity quotes in the bible (or anti jew quotes in the torah) to compare it with islam.
Besides that " For most of its history Islam was more tolerant than Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and even Buddhism. Science made great advances under several Islamic Empires and the treatment of women was above better than in most non-Islamic countries."
What are you comparing here? Saudi arabia in 1000AD and the holy roman empire in 1000AD? or what? A gross fgeneralization like is unlikely to make any sense especailly since you are comparing an evangelical and non evangelical religions
.
Try considering this. NOW "what are the boarders of islam.......... on the south you have places like nigeria (unstable situation between christians and muslims) on the west we have greece and turkey (dont like each other) and israel and everyone (dont like each other) in the north they have the soviets and the chineese (periodically fighting to put down islamic insurgency) on the east we have irian jaya ache east timor etc etc
In he middle we have india and pakistain (nuclear stand off) and then you have lots of fighting inbetween sects.
Hmm there could be a pattern here. and animosity between each of these groups predates the US so saying "it is the US's fault" doesnt cut it.
One has to wonder where is there a muslim country that has a GOOD relationship with a non muslim neighbour?
Besides that " For most of its history Islam was more tolerant than Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and even Buddhism. Science made great advances under several Islamic Empires and the treatment of women was above better than in most non-Islamic countries."
What are you comparing here? Saudi arabia in 1000AD and the holy roman empire in 1000AD? or what? A gross fgeneralization like is unlikely to make any sense especailly since you are comparing an evangelical and non evangelical religions
.
Try considering this. NOW "what are the boarders of islam.......... on the south you have places like nigeria (unstable situation between christians and muslims) on the west we have greece and turkey (dont like each other) and israel and everyone (dont like each other) in the north they have the soviets and the chineese (periodically fighting to put down islamic insurgency) on the east we have irian jaya ache east timor etc etc
In he middle we have india and pakistain (nuclear stand off) and then you have lots of fighting inbetween sects.
Hmm there could be a pattern here. and animosity between each of these groups predates the US so saying "it is the US's fault" doesnt cut it.
One has to wonder where is there a muslim country that has a GOOD relationship with a non muslim neighbour?
Islam was th world leader until around 1200 when Sunni and Shiite secs spit. Sunni believed that at that time all questions had been asked and answered, so there was no need for "progress", (which ironically enough means Jihad) and hence thier was none.
The problem is that Islam like most religous is 90% good and progessive however, there remains bad parts, the kill everyone who disagrees with you stuff
The problem is that the Sunni muslims can't come to terms with Islam inperfection, there can be no reform.
The reformers won the religous wars in Europe, the Shiites did not. They were defeated at Najaf, that is what we need to change and are starting too.
"One has to wonder where is there a muslim country that has a GOOD relationship with a non muslim neighbour?"
Turkey, has a good relationship with of all countries, and even Israel. But this is because both or democratic. Corupt regimes in the middle east have no reason to inocurage and support moderation in Islam with a few expections.
The problem is that Islam like most religous is 90% good and progessive however, there remains bad parts, the kill everyone who disagrees with you stuff
The problem is that the Sunni muslims can't come to terms with Islam inperfection, there can be no reform.
The reformers won the religous wars in Europe, the Shiites did not. They were defeated at Najaf, that is what we need to change and are starting too.
"One has to wonder where is there a muslim country that has a GOOD relationship with a non muslim neighbour?"
Turkey, has a good relationship with of all countries, and even Israel. But this is because both or democratic. Corupt regimes in the middle east have no reason to inocurage and support moderation in Islam with a few expections.
From what I've read the Koran tells Muslims to respect "other people of the book" and while Saudi Arabia is crazy when it comes to religion some other countries like Iraq (before the US gave power to the fundamentalists) and Syria (where Assad is Alawi rather than a Muslim) are not exactly intollerant to minority religions.
As for Turkey and Israel being "democracies", tell that to the Kurds and then Palestinians. (Its rather amusing how Bush and the neocon actually pretend to like the Kurds these days after supporting years of repression in Turkey where Kurds had been outlawed from even speaking Kurdish). While, Tukey and Israel are not dictatorships (although the Turkish army has overrulled elections) their human rights records are both bad even by regional standards.
Iran was on its way to being a secular democracy when the US stuck back in a monarch in teh 1950s. Egypt was gaining a more democratic grovrenment but the US decided to prop up Mubarak. Algeria had an election that was annulled with the full support of Europe and the US.
"The village of Kerdassa near the famous Giza Pyramids outside Cairo is a postcard of rural life in Egypt. Men wearing galabia robes are weaving woolen rugs on ancient looms while women clad in colorful peasant dresses are planting cauliflowers in adjacent vegetable fields. But the bucolic scene is shattered by a commotion at the local polling station where supporters of the banned Muslim Brotherhood are being blocked by Egyptian security forces. "They will not let us vote!" one man shouts. "We want to go in and choose our candidate!" yells another. The crowd chants the Brotherhood slogan, "Islam is the solution," as police fire rounds of tear gas to disperse the protesters."
http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/2000/1127/mubarak.html
"Algeria continues to be governed under a state of emergency decreed in February 1992. That decree gives the authorities vast powers to arrest and intern individuals, prevent public gatherings, close an organization on the grounds of an impending danger to the public order, and suspend or dissolve local assemblies or governments if they impede the legal actions of the public authorities. At the same time as it imposed the state of emergency, the authorities banned the FIS, the party calling for an Islamic state that had been legalized in 1989 and that was poised to capture a majority in the National Assembly if the election had proceeded. The top leadership of the FIS had already been in prison since 1991 on subversion charges; most of the remaining senior cadres either went underground or fled into exile. Some members of the now-outlawed FIS and other Islamist groups took up arms against the government, and have since attracted a stream of recruits to their ranks. The ensuing violence, in which both the security forces and armed groups have targeted civilians as well as each other, shows no signs of abating"
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1997/algeria/Algeria-05.htm
For an American conservative to ask why there are no Islamic democracies is kinda like a mugger punching an old lady in the face and then asking her why she can't get off the ground.
As for Turkey and Israel being "democracies", tell that to the Kurds and then Palestinians. (Its rather amusing how Bush and the neocon actually pretend to like the Kurds these days after supporting years of repression in Turkey where Kurds had been outlawed from even speaking Kurdish). While, Tukey and Israel are not dictatorships (although the Turkish army has overrulled elections) their human rights records are both bad even by regional standards.
Iran was on its way to being a secular democracy when the US stuck back in a monarch in teh 1950s. Egypt was gaining a more democratic grovrenment but the US decided to prop up Mubarak. Algeria had an election that was annulled with the full support of Europe and the US.
"The village of Kerdassa near the famous Giza Pyramids outside Cairo is a postcard of rural life in Egypt. Men wearing galabia robes are weaving woolen rugs on ancient looms while women clad in colorful peasant dresses are planting cauliflowers in adjacent vegetable fields. But the bucolic scene is shattered by a commotion at the local polling station where supporters of the banned Muslim Brotherhood are being blocked by Egyptian security forces. "They will not let us vote!" one man shouts. "We want to go in and choose our candidate!" yells another. The crowd chants the Brotherhood slogan, "Islam is the solution," as police fire rounds of tear gas to disperse the protesters."
http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/2000/1127/mubarak.html
"Algeria continues to be governed under a state of emergency decreed in February 1992. That decree gives the authorities vast powers to arrest and intern individuals, prevent public gatherings, close an organization on the grounds of an impending danger to the public order, and suspend or dissolve local assemblies or governments if they impede the legal actions of the public authorities. At the same time as it imposed the state of emergency, the authorities banned the FIS, the party calling for an Islamic state that had been legalized in 1989 and that was poised to capture a majority in the National Assembly if the election had proceeded. The top leadership of the FIS had already been in prison since 1991 on subversion charges; most of the remaining senior cadres either went underground or fled into exile. Some members of the now-outlawed FIS and other Islamist groups took up arms against the government, and have since attracted a stream of recruits to their ranks. The ensuing violence, in which both the security forces and armed groups have targeted civilians as well as each other, shows no signs of abating"
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1997/algeria/Algeria-05.htm
For an American conservative to ask why there are no Islamic democracies is kinda like a mugger punching an old lady in the face and then asking her why she can't get off the ground.
Specifically, about what CRAP they have to put up with in the Islamic states, specifically under Shari'a?
Or are you MEN going to keep on trying to prove what big dicks you have by blaming everyone else for what is happening to the WOMEN?!?
Or are you MEN going to keep on trying to prove what big dicks you have by blaming everyone else for what is happening to the WOMEN?!?
"Iran was on its way to being a secular democracy"
Says you, but really who knows what would have happened although take up your complaint with the Britian. Nasser started off good too after he nationalized British propery, but than look what happened.
"(Turkey's) human rights records are both bad even by regional standards"
What are you smoking or are you accepting that Turkey is really part of Europe
As for as the Koran yeah most of it is nice, but some passages are horruble and it was not written by god, until Sunni musliums are willing to accept this they can not go forward.
Why do women care so much about thier eyebrows?
Says you, but really who knows what would have happened although take up your complaint with the Britian. Nasser started off good too after he nationalized British propery, but than look what happened.
"(Turkey's) human rights records are both bad even by regional standards"
What are you smoking or are you accepting that Turkey is really part of Europe
As for as the Koran yeah most of it is nice, but some passages are horruble and it was not written by god, until Sunni musliums are willing to accept this they can not go forward.
Why do women care so much about thier eyebrows?
WHAT DOES IT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING!
EYEBROWS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN WOMEN BEING OPPRESSED!?
FINE! HERE YOU GO!
http://www.oleda.com/oleda_tips/index.cfm?ID=19
Your EYEBROWS! No, I’m not being picky! Many women have very nice eyebrows…but for the ones that can’t get it right, this will help.
Eyebrows can give your face an older, harder look, or they can give a younger, softer, beautiful look that acts as a frame for your shape and type of eyes. Eyebrows can also make your eyes appear smaller or larger.
I have observed in my travels that American women seem to have more difficulty with proper eyebrow shape and color than women of other countries. I’m not sure why except, perhaps, some women have become more focused on the eyebrows per se, rather than how they can be most flattering to the shape of their individual eyes and face.
Eyebrows are modifiers…they are eye beautifiers. They exist to complement and enhance one of the most expressive of human attributes, the look of the eyes. They should not overpower the face in general or draw attention to themselves. They should flatter the face but at the same time enhance the shape of the eyes. Have you ever seen someone with brown hair and, before you noticed anything else about them, you saw two black “lines” above their eyes (called eyebrows)? Well I have, and I’ve seen worse “eyebrows” than that, as well.
Observe some classic paintings by the Masters, like Rembrandt, Renoir, da Vinci and Rubens. Note how these great painters treated the eyebrows of the women in their art in understatement and accompaniment.
Just keep in mind that the basic rule is to use your eyebrows to beautify your eyes. Beauty-wise your eyebrows are part of your eyes. Eyebrows should be delicate and soft looking, not overpowering and distracting.
Here’s How To Check Yours
To make your eyes appear larger and more open don’t have them “sitting” low toward your eyes. Instead, keep sufficient space between your eyes and your eyebrows by plucking clean from underneath the brows. But don’t pluck too much so as to make them too thin. If you have bushy eyebrows, then you might need to trim the tops to keep the length short and to make them less thick.
The shape of your eyebrows should be in a slight arch, wider toward your nose and thinning toward the temples. The peak of the arch should generally be about ¾ of the distance of the width of your eye toward the temple. The length of the brow is determined by the width of your eyes. Begin your eyebrows about where your eyes begin inside your nose and end them just beyond where your eyes end toward your temples.
If you have small eyes, do not wear thick eyebrows. They’ll cause your eyes to look smaller. Thinner brows will allow smaller eyes to appear larger. (But don’t overdo it.)
If you feel your eyes are spaced too close to each other, create a slightly larger space between your eyebrows than you normally would. Not too great a space, just enough to give a more open look.
As for color, choose an eyebrow pencil that somewhat matches your hair color, but never use black, even if your hair is black. Use dark brown for black or brunette, lighter brown for brownette, auburn or brown for red hair, light brown or dark blond for blonds. Tip: A gold pencil can be used, lightly and sparsely, as a highlight with red and blond hair. It creates a soft yet exciting look. Always keep your eyebrow pencils sharp for a more natural look.
In applying eyebrow pencil, use short, light, upward, quick strokes for each “hair,” allowing them to blend together. Never draw the pencil through the whole eyebrow in one stroke. (Use an upward/outward motion) Keep your eyebrows as natural looking as possible.
Final and very important step: Once eyebrows are completed, powder over them very lightly against the direction of the hair. This will give them a softer, more natural look. Then, with two fingers, brush upward toward the forehead to remove excess powder and restore the hair to its natural position. You could buy an eyebrow brush for this purpose, but your fingers are just as good—and faster.
THERE! ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?
LET'S TRY ANYTHING TO AVOID SAYING YOU DON'T HAVE ANY ANSWERS, OR EVEN POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS, EH?
EYEBROWS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN WOMEN BEING OPPRESSED!?
FINE! HERE YOU GO!
http://www.oleda.com/oleda_tips/index.cfm?ID=19
Your EYEBROWS! No, I’m not being picky! Many women have very nice eyebrows…but for the ones that can’t get it right, this will help.
Eyebrows can give your face an older, harder look, or they can give a younger, softer, beautiful look that acts as a frame for your shape and type of eyes. Eyebrows can also make your eyes appear smaller or larger.
I have observed in my travels that American women seem to have more difficulty with proper eyebrow shape and color than women of other countries. I’m not sure why except, perhaps, some women have become more focused on the eyebrows per se, rather than how they can be most flattering to the shape of their individual eyes and face.
Eyebrows are modifiers…they are eye beautifiers. They exist to complement and enhance one of the most expressive of human attributes, the look of the eyes. They should not overpower the face in general or draw attention to themselves. They should flatter the face but at the same time enhance the shape of the eyes. Have you ever seen someone with brown hair and, before you noticed anything else about them, you saw two black “lines” above their eyes (called eyebrows)? Well I have, and I’ve seen worse “eyebrows” than that, as well.
Observe some classic paintings by the Masters, like Rembrandt, Renoir, da Vinci and Rubens. Note how these great painters treated the eyebrows of the women in their art in understatement and accompaniment.
Just keep in mind that the basic rule is to use your eyebrows to beautify your eyes. Beauty-wise your eyebrows are part of your eyes. Eyebrows should be delicate and soft looking, not overpowering and distracting.
Here’s How To Check Yours
To make your eyes appear larger and more open don’t have them “sitting” low toward your eyes. Instead, keep sufficient space between your eyes and your eyebrows by plucking clean from underneath the brows. But don’t pluck too much so as to make them too thin. If you have bushy eyebrows, then you might need to trim the tops to keep the length short and to make them less thick.
The shape of your eyebrows should be in a slight arch, wider toward your nose and thinning toward the temples. The peak of the arch should generally be about ¾ of the distance of the width of your eye toward the temple. The length of the brow is determined by the width of your eyes. Begin your eyebrows about where your eyes begin inside your nose and end them just beyond where your eyes end toward your temples.
If you have small eyes, do not wear thick eyebrows. They’ll cause your eyes to look smaller. Thinner brows will allow smaller eyes to appear larger. (But don’t overdo it.)
If you feel your eyes are spaced too close to each other, create a slightly larger space between your eyebrows than you normally would. Not too great a space, just enough to give a more open look.
As for color, choose an eyebrow pencil that somewhat matches your hair color, but never use black, even if your hair is black. Use dark brown for black or brunette, lighter brown for brownette, auburn or brown for red hair, light brown or dark blond for blonds. Tip: A gold pencil can be used, lightly and sparsely, as a highlight with red and blond hair. It creates a soft yet exciting look. Always keep your eyebrow pencils sharp for a more natural look.
In applying eyebrow pencil, use short, light, upward, quick strokes for each “hair,” allowing them to blend together. Never draw the pencil through the whole eyebrow in one stroke. (Use an upward/outward motion) Keep your eyebrows as natural looking as possible.
Final and very important step: Once eyebrows are completed, powder over them very lightly against the direction of the hair. This will give them a softer, more natural look. Then, with two fingers, brush upward toward the forehead to remove excess powder and restore the hair to its natural position. You could buy an eyebrow brush for this purpose, but your fingers are just as good—and faster.
THERE! ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?
LET'S TRY ANYTHING TO AVOID SAYING YOU DON'T HAVE ANY ANSWERS, OR EVEN POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS, EH?
New York, July 16, 2003) The insecurity plaguing Baghdad and other Iraqi cities has a distinct and debilitating impact on the daily lives of women and girls, preventing them from participating in public life at a crucial time in their country's history, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
The 17-page report, "Climate of Fear: Sexual Violence and Abduction of Women and Girls in Baghdad," ( http://hrw.org/reports/2003/iraq0703/ ) concludes that the failure of Iraqi and U.S.-led occupation authorities to provide public security in Iraq's capital lies at the root of a widespread fear of rape and abduction among women and their families.
"Women and girls today in Baghdad are scared, and many are not going to schools or jobs or looking for work," said Hanny Megally, executive director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch. "If Iraqi women are to participate in postwar society, their physical security needs to be an urgent priority."
Human Rights Watch interviewed rape and abduction victims and witnesses, Iraqi police and health professionals, and U.S. military police and civil affairs officers, and learned of twenty-five credible allegations of rape or abduction. The Human Rights Watch report found that police officers gave low priority to allegations of sexual violence and abduction, that the police were under-resourced, and that victims of sexual violence confronted indifference and sexism from Iraqi law enforcement personnel.
The report also found that U.S. military police were not filling the gap when Iraqi police were unwilling or unable to conduct serious investigations of sexual violence and abduction. Human Rights Watch said this inadequate attention to the needs of women and girls has led to an inability, and in some cases an unwillingness, by police to conduct serious investigations. In some cases, reports of sexual violence and abduction to police were lost.
Megally urged that Iraqi and occupation authorities urgently undertake legal reforms, law enforcement training, and health and support services for women. The U.S. should deploy a special investigative unit to investigate sex-based and trafficking crimes against women and girls, until such time as the Iraqi police can take up the responsibility for it.
Cases documented in the report include:
Saba A. (not her real name), a nine-year-old girl, was brutally raped by a man who grabbed her from the stairs of the residence hotel where she lives, in the middle of the afternoon on May 22. A hospital refused to treat her, and the forensic institute refused to give her an exam because she did not have an official referral.
Muna B.(not her real name), a fifteen-year-old-girl, escaped from a house outside Baghdad on June 8, where she had been held for a month with her two sisters and seven other children. She wasn't raped, but her sister was, and she thought that her captors intended to sell her and the other children to traffickers. Her case was reported to U.S. military police, but Iraqi police didn't even take a statement from her.
Dalal S. (not her real name), a 23-year-old-woman, was snatched while walking down the street with her mother and other family members on May 15; she was taken to a house outside Baghdad, held overnight and raped. Her father reported her abduction to the police, but they never pursued the allegations.
"Iraqi and U.S. military police continue to receive reports of abductions of women but mechanisms are wholly inadequate for processing these cases," Megally said.
For example, on June 17, two young women reported to the U.S. military and Iraqi police that their friend had just been kidnapped. U.S. military police went to the scene of the abduction, but the perpetrators had long-since fled. Iraqi police failed to take a statement from the witnesses and thus no investigation was opened into the abduction of that young woman.
http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/07/iraq071603.htm
The 17-page report, "Climate of Fear: Sexual Violence and Abduction of Women and Girls in Baghdad," ( http://hrw.org/reports/2003/iraq0703/ ) concludes that the failure of Iraqi and U.S.-led occupation authorities to provide public security in Iraq's capital lies at the root of a widespread fear of rape and abduction among women and their families.
"Women and girls today in Baghdad are scared, and many are not going to schools or jobs or looking for work," said Hanny Megally, executive director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch. "If Iraqi women are to participate in postwar society, their physical security needs to be an urgent priority."
Human Rights Watch interviewed rape and abduction victims and witnesses, Iraqi police and health professionals, and U.S. military police and civil affairs officers, and learned of twenty-five credible allegations of rape or abduction. The Human Rights Watch report found that police officers gave low priority to allegations of sexual violence and abduction, that the police were under-resourced, and that victims of sexual violence confronted indifference and sexism from Iraqi law enforcement personnel.
The report also found that U.S. military police were not filling the gap when Iraqi police were unwilling or unable to conduct serious investigations of sexual violence and abduction. Human Rights Watch said this inadequate attention to the needs of women and girls has led to an inability, and in some cases an unwillingness, by police to conduct serious investigations. In some cases, reports of sexual violence and abduction to police were lost.
Megally urged that Iraqi and occupation authorities urgently undertake legal reforms, law enforcement training, and health and support services for women. The U.S. should deploy a special investigative unit to investigate sex-based and trafficking crimes against women and girls, until such time as the Iraqi police can take up the responsibility for it.
Cases documented in the report include:
Saba A. (not her real name), a nine-year-old girl, was brutally raped by a man who grabbed her from the stairs of the residence hotel where she lives, in the middle of the afternoon on May 22. A hospital refused to treat her, and the forensic institute refused to give her an exam because she did not have an official referral.
Muna B.(not her real name), a fifteen-year-old-girl, escaped from a house outside Baghdad on June 8, where she had been held for a month with her two sisters and seven other children. She wasn't raped, but her sister was, and she thought that her captors intended to sell her and the other children to traffickers. Her case was reported to U.S. military police, but Iraqi police didn't even take a statement from her.
Dalal S. (not her real name), a 23-year-old-woman, was snatched while walking down the street with her mother and other family members on May 15; she was taken to a house outside Baghdad, held overnight and raped. Her father reported her abduction to the police, but they never pursued the allegations.
"Iraqi and U.S. military police continue to receive reports of abductions of women but mechanisms are wholly inadequate for processing these cases," Megally said.
For example, on June 17, two young women reported to the U.S. military and Iraqi police that their friend had just been kidnapped. U.S. military police went to the scene of the abduction, but the perpetrators had long-since fled. Iraqi police failed to take a statement from the witnesses and thus no investigation was opened into the abduction of that young woman.
http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/07/iraq071603.htm
For what is worth I heard the US troops and Iraqi police broke up many kidnapping rings in July and August, so hopefully these incidents are on the decline.
Slightly off topic but there was also a report about a girls school being burned down in Afganistan the other week, with many of the girls getting death treats if they ever returned. Sadly these events don't get reported if one American dies, as if American lives are more valuable then others.
Slightly off topic but there was also a report about a girls school being burned down in Afganistan the other week, with many of the girls getting death treats if they ever returned. Sadly these events don't get reported if one American dies, as if American lives are more valuable then others.
Women want Army officer investigated for alleged romances
Updated: 8/26/2003 11:18 AM
By: Associated Press
(LOS ANGELES) -- A group of women is urging military investigators to determine if a Fort Bragg-based used government-issued satellite phones and computers in an alleged scheme to romance them.
...
If investigators find Saleh used the government equipment to contact them, the women want him to be dishonorably discharged.
The 29-year Army veteran serves as the primary staff officer for the civil affairs section of the 18th Airborne Corps. He returned
to the U.S. in May after heading reconstruction and humanitarian
efforts in Afghanistan.
http://rdu.news14.com/content/headlines/?ArID=34729&SecID=2
Updated: 8/26/2003 11:18 AM
By: Associated Press
(LOS ANGELES) -- A group of women is urging military investigators to determine if a Fort Bragg-based used government-issued satellite phones and computers in an alleged scheme to romance them.
...
If investigators find Saleh used the government equipment to contact them, the women want him to be dishonorably discharged.
The 29-year Army veteran serves as the primary staff officer for the civil affairs section of the 18th Airborne Corps. He returned
to the U.S. in May after heading reconstruction and humanitarian
efforts in Afghanistan.
http://rdu.news14.com/content/headlines/?ArID=34729&SecID=2
Women's Groups Release Scorecard on Bush Administration
Three women's rights and health groups today commemorated Women's Equality Day by releasing a scorecard rating the Bush administration on global women's issues. The Global Women's Issues Scorecard on the Bush Administration was unveiled at a press conference in Washington, DC this morning featuring leaders of the three groups: Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority; Jodi Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE); and June Zeitlin, executive director of the Women's Environmental and Development Organization (WEDO). "When women are equal and women are empowered, we are a safer, more secure, and more prosperous world," said Zeitlin.
The groups selected issues important to women globally and rated the Bush administration's rhetoric on the issues, as well as the current reality. For example, the Bush administration received a "B" on its rhetoric about Afghan women, but received an "F" for the reality. "A year ago President Bush declared that women's rights had been restored in Afghanistan and that girls had returned to school," said Smeal. "Last week we learned that because of the worsening security situation in the country more girls' schools have been set on fire by fundamentalist extremists. Because the Bush Administration refuses to support expansion of international peace troops beyond Kabul, girls' schools are under attack, regional warlords are able to impose Taliban-like restrictions, people who speak out for women's rights and human rights receive threats, and many women still wear the burqa out of fear." The administration received incompletes for both rhetoric and reality on the passage of the Convention to End all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the International Women's Rights treaty, because of its inaction on the issue. Last summer, the 1979 treaty passed for the first time out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but it has not yet been brought up for a vote by the full Senate. If there was a vote, says Smeal, CEDAW would pass. "What Senator in what year wants to go down in history being opposed to basic equality for women?" she said.
Other issues included international family planning; Bush's HIV/AIDS initiative; women in Iraq; and the impact of agricultural subsidies on women in developing countries. "Women here and around the world heard the Bush administration's rhetoric and it gave them hope," said Zeitlin. "But women are waiting for the reality to see [if] the administration can deliver on women's rights." Regarding the grade of "F" the Bush administration received for the reality of international family planning, Jacobson emphasized that so-called pro-life groups should not be celebrating. "I'm not really clear on the definition of 'pro-life' if that doesn't mean concern about the 600,000 women who die each year from complications of childbirth," she said.
http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=8012
Three women's rights and health groups today commemorated Women's Equality Day by releasing a scorecard rating the Bush administration on global women's issues. The Global Women's Issues Scorecard on the Bush Administration was unveiled at a press conference in Washington, DC this morning featuring leaders of the three groups: Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority; Jodi Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE); and June Zeitlin, executive director of the Women's Environmental and Development Organization (WEDO). "When women are equal and women are empowered, we are a safer, more secure, and more prosperous world," said Zeitlin.
The groups selected issues important to women globally and rated the Bush administration's rhetoric on the issues, as well as the current reality. For example, the Bush administration received a "B" on its rhetoric about Afghan women, but received an "F" for the reality. "A year ago President Bush declared that women's rights had been restored in Afghanistan and that girls had returned to school," said Smeal. "Last week we learned that because of the worsening security situation in the country more girls' schools have been set on fire by fundamentalist extremists. Because the Bush Administration refuses to support expansion of international peace troops beyond Kabul, girls' schools are under attack, regional warlords are able to impose Taliban-like restrictions, people who speak out for women's rights and human rights receive threats, and many women still wear the burqa out of fear." The administration received incompletes for both rhetoric and reality on the passage of the Convention to End all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the International Women's Rights treaty, because of its inaction on the issue. Last summer, the 1979 treaty passed for the first time out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but it has not yet been brought up for a vote by the full Senate. If there was a vote, says Smeal, CEDAW would pass. "What Senator in what year wants to go down in history being opposed to basic equality for women?" she said.
Other issues included international family planning; Bush's HIV/AIDS initiative; women in Iraq; and the impact of agricultural subsidies on women in developing countries. "Women here and around the world heard the Bush administration's rhetoric and it gave them hope," said Zeitlin. "But women are waiting for the reality to see [if] the administration can deliver on women's rights." Regarding the grade of "F" the Bush administration received for the reality of international family planning, Jacobson emphasized that so-called pro-life groups should not be celebrating. "I'm not really clear on the definition of 'pro-life' if that doesn't mean concern about the 600,000 women who die each year from complications of childbirth," she said.
http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=8012
people getthe media they deserve. if the people dont care then the media doesnt care.
have to actually make a judgement call and find some way to make a change instead of reflexively spouting slogans and not really doing anything except talking?
*sigh*
Slogans are great. Blaming everyone except the ones doing the oppression is lots of fun. Does it actually make a difference? No.
And most people who are 'activists', apparently don't even care, because it's not against the administration or Bush or Capitalism or whatever their cause of the week is.
Hey, you get what you consent to. You're consenting to this - so when it's burqua time in the US don't bitch, okay? You didn't think it important when it could be stopped with a little effort - don't complain about it when the fatwas start flying and the Morality Police start sweeping the beaches.
*sigh*
Slogans are great. Blaming everyone except the ones doing the oppression is lots of fun. Does it actually make a difference? No.
And most people who are 'activists', apparently don't even care, because it's not against the administration or Bush or Capitalism or whatever their cause of the week is.
Hey, you get what you consent to. You're consenting to this - so when it's burqua time in the US don't bitch, okay? You didn't think it important when it could be stopped with a little effort - don't complain about it when the fatwas start flying and the Morality Police start sweeping the beaches.
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