12 and hating our bodies

Yesterday while at the park, I ran into one of my favourite ex-students. Almost about to collide, we stopped to embrace instead. We haven't seen each other in more than a year or so. Noticing how furiously she was running, I asked if she was practicing for the school's track team. She duly replied that she was running because she's fat and she's getting zits.

She's only 12. And she has the body of a typical 12 year old girl. Not remotely close to fat at all.

Feeling naturally perturbed by her answers, the inner mother hen emerged, and I unloaded a barrage of inquiries probing the rationale and motivations behind her need to work out at such a young age. Her answers echoed of blossoming self-esteem and body dissatisfaction issues. Now of course, once a girl hits puberty, her body undergoes tremendous changes. Overnight, you sprout breasts, experience the first smidgens of sexual attraction amidst other nerve-wrecking hormonal surprises. But for a girl, a mere child, to be so conscious of her body at that age is quite disturbing.

I related the story to a few friends afterwards. One of them announced that at 12 she started starving herself. Another said that she knew of someone who started working out at that age as well. Unbeknown to me, body issues have fast enveloped children.

The saturation of sex and 'waif' ideal body images in the media have evolved into cultural norms and expectations. As a result, women and men are left striving to mould their bodies into shapes and forms that physically encapsulate perfection as socially mandated. Thereby, creating a hotbed of festering body dimorphism married with non-existent self-esteem and confidence. But to actually witness young children picking and embracing our social indicators is just wrong. When did children learn to replicate our insecurities and dissatisfaction?

This chance encounter reminded me of another experience I had with another young kid, many years ago, when I worked at Victoria's Secret. A mother-daughter duo walked into the store looking for suitable training bras. The young girl could not have been more than 10 or 11. They surveyed the sporty collection of the store and the mother picked out specific ones for her daughter. After informing me they would return later to purchase, the duo were heading out of the store when the young girl stopped at a table lavishly displaying bedazzled thongs. The kid grabbed a few thongs and held them up. Her mother (bless her) informed her child that thongs weren't meant for children. The young girl answered that all her friends wore thongs. The mother replied she wasn't going to let her daughter prance around without any underwear just because all the other girls were doing just that. With that being said, the duo left, with the younger one bearing a crest-fallen look. Almost nearing closing time, as I was helping with the last few customers, I noticed the daughter hovering around the thong table, alone. I went up to her and asked if her mother had returned to buy the bras. The young girl picked up three thongs and handed me a wad of cash.

As we adults struggle with myriad issues and insecurities, it is heart-wrenching to reflect that we are passing along our shortcomings to children.

Hatred Continues

Now that many agencies are breaking new grounds in working with sexual minorities, the hatred has caught the eye of the media.

In a recent Bengali news site, a reporter who has obviously not done his background research on the topic, makes several erroneous statements on the work being currently conducted by international agencies in regards to awareness of HIV/AIDS among MSM (men who have sex with men) population. The journalist's concluded his article by stating how those very international agencies are promoting homosexuality.

Come again?

How does one equate working to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS and providing essential public health services to a marginalized group encourage one form of sexuality?

The nature of the argument didn't astound me. By now, working in this particular line of work, I amused to hearing all kinds of arguments against the education of sexual rights. The one feature of the article that did astonish me were the several comments made by ordinary people who perpetuated and expressed their hatred against homosexuality.

One of my colleagues stated that as more agencies opt to work with sexual minorities, these types of ignorance-fueled hatred will frequently emerge. Ignorance and the fear of the unknown is understandable. Hence the awareness-building activities. But the blatant hatred that accompanies the ignorance is staggering. People simply refuses to accept an alternative form of desire beyond the hetero-normative model.

One thing is clear though, we can expect more and more of these types of reactions from all quarters.

Women and women

Living in a patriarchy society, it is astonishing to see how women tend to further suppress other women. Recent conversations with both sexes have verified the sad fact that women tend to be far more malicious of other women.

Some of us might shake our heads and remark how this is a stereotypical depiction of women generated by men to 'divide and conquer' the female race.

Unfortunately, that is the fact. Women, and I have seen plenty, readily vilify other women. Women tend to judge other women harshly, quick to plant labels as 'sluts', 'whores', and 'vixen'.

Why though? What are the underlying motives that compel women to tarnish and severely judge other women?

Insecurities? Older women feeling insecure about themselves when younger one emerge on to the scene? Or women in general feel insecure about themselves?

In a era where we have grown up with feminists and feminists theories dissecting and analyzing the world for us, it is quite a strange sight to encounter successful women swiftly and almost always negatively judge others. Whereas we should be forging community, building and nurturing bonds, encouraging and supporting each other, we fall back into petty jealousies and rivalries in the pursuit to emerge as the fairer and far appealing one.

It's upsetting to see the numbers of wonderful, inspiring, and successful women around me, and to know that at least half of them would never consider mentoring younger women. As much as we instinctively blame men and their patriarchy, we have to point the fingers at ourselves and really accept the blatant truth that we are the very proponents that prolongs and nurtures the patriarchical shackles in our society.

I have been fortunate to have met many women who have taken the time to nurture, encourage, inspire, and support me throughout the different phases of my evolution. But I don't find enough women are willing to mentor other to succeed akin to themselves.

This hesitation, insecurity, and refusal to welcome, nurture, and groom the younger generation of women needs cease now. Otherwise, we will continue inhabiting a world of men where females will always be considered the weaker sex.

My Benetton Heart and Supremacist Dick

Oh, John Mayer, your music certainly leaves a lot to be desired but your recent comments and the consequent media storm surrounding them really sheds light on the need for celebrities not to voice racist-tinged opinions at the communal square.

In a recent Playboy(Playgirl?) interview, John Mayer was asked if black girls threw themselves at him. Yes, the interview was being completely set up for entertaining sound bites. Mayer replied that he has a 'Benetton heart but a supremacist dick.." Wow.

It's not unnatural for different races to feel comfortable dating their own kind. For example, desis are often conditioned to select a mate from their own creed, as long as the significant female counterpart was of a 'fair and lovely' stock. Generations of desis propagate the notion that it is far easier to be with someone of similar backgrounds in order to better understand cultural and social indicators. I have had many discussions with peers and older patrons who have dissected, analysed, interpreted, and preached marrying your own kind.

However, yes, there are souls who dare to break away with tradition and venture forth into the land of inter-racial/cultural relationships. And they have existed remarkedly well without any sign of disintegration of their respective races.

Which brings us back to John Mayer's comments. To each his/her own. He has the prerogative to prefer a certain type of women, be it blonde, busty, blue-eyed etc. But he has absolutely no right to express his preference in such a crude manner whereby he alienates and discriminates against an entire race of women.

There have been many fierce and eloquent reprisals of John Mayer's comments emerging from all quarters. But the fact remains that a white guy should not get away calling his dick a supremacist. The word alone epitomizes generations of hatred, murder, bloodbaths, and stigma surrounding the color of skin. How can anyone dismissively label their body part with that noun and expect people to be entertained?

I suppose by now, John Mayer, must have learned from his callow actions. But his comments have uncovered a fact that is sadly the truth. Men and women tend to prefer to date from their own races. Is that an issue? Not necessarily. As long as advocates of these intra-racial dating phenomenon refrain from flippantly using discriminative language to justify their philosophy.

Rationalizing Rape and Perpetuaters

A fifteen year old high school girl gets gang raped on school premises while waiting for her father to pick her up. In response to a posting of this story on a site, many commentators started speculating on the victim’s looks, gauging her intoxication level, and whether she had herself provoked the rape. (Broadsheet)

Needless to say, their speculations were deeply troubling in light of the evidence and account of the rape emerging.

Rape has to be undoubtedly one of the worst forms of violence against women. It is hard to imagine a young girl being brutally sexually violated by multiple men while others gather around jostling, laughing, and even taking pictures. And no one thought of calling law enforcement then and there.

Instead two hours later, the police came to find the girl unconscious and in such a critical condition that she was air lifted to the nearest hospital.

I remember in psychology 101 class, we learned that in the event of encountering violence, we should scream fire as opposed to help me I’m being raped. Human beings are more prone to run to someone’s help if they hear there are faced with natural disasters as opposed to violence perpetuated by other human beings.

That perplexing theory came to mind when I read about this incident in several news trades. How can so many people just stand around watching a girl being violated? What compelled them to witness and not report? What fear, hesitation, depravity prevented them from compassion?

Now, what becomes of the girl? What becomes of her life as she is left to reel from the psychological, emotional, and physical effects of her rape?

But far greater emphasis must be placed on the men who perpetuated this heinous crime. What compelled them to brutalize a hapless young female? What motivated them to resort to forced sexual violence? What form of perverse joy did they deprive from encouraging their peers to repeatedly engage in sexual violating the girl?

It remains to be seen how this rape narrative will be pieced together to make sense.

Are we hardwired to prefer young children?

Roman Polanski’s capture and imminent battle against US for raping and drugging a thirteen year old girl in the 1970s bounds to be in the same breath as the trial of the centaury. But his capture raised the phenomenon of sexual intercourse with minors that gripped and incited the media into a frenzy.

On the heels of myriad media discussions of Polanski’s behavior appeared Kate Harding’s of Broadsheet infamous piece that asked us as judges to not not forget that Roman Polanski raped and drugged a thirteen year girl against her wishes. http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/09/28/polanski_arrest/index.html
She raised several pivotal points about the act of adults having consensual and/or non-consensual sexual intercourse with minors. Points that were furthered verified and validated by more news pundits.

In comes MacKenzie stating that she and her father had a long-standing consensual sexual intercourse interspersed with drug abuse. She stated she still loves him dearly.

Both these accidents involving celebrities throw light on to the severely cloaked and veiled phenomena of child abuse. All over the world, the statistics for child sexual abuse is astounding. It happens everywhere, all the time,, to people who you know.

Even with strict laws targeting pedophilia, this phenomenon refuses to die down. This refusal to efface begs the question, are human beings sexually hardwired to prefer young children? A creeping thought that will send many of us to immediately cringe and dismiss it. Yet, why is it that we always hear of young children being raped, sodomized, molested by men and women in times of wars, peace, inside their own homes, by uncles, aunties, brothers, friends, neighborhood kids and so forth.

The western world still fights in curbing this war against pedophilia, but how does it look in our part of the world? Or even in our country? We inhabit a society that refuses to disclose and discuss sexuality out in the open. A woman exposing her kneecaps is deemed open to whistles, shouts, curses, and angry glares from passersby on the streets, But behind closed doors, the worst forms of sexual debauchery are being conducted upon hapless victims. Oftentimes, the prevailing ocean of silence prevents victims from voicing the violations they encounter. Oftentimes, the newspapers decline to print such material. Voices are lost. Crimes are largely ignored.

I often think if we are unconsciously but deliberately breeding a nation of sexual perversity and sexual abuse.. What are the odds that someone that I know has been sexually molested and/or groped at by an acquaintance at a young age? What seeds of self-loathing and fear do those episodes trigger in those victims?

Pro-Choice Death

A recent news item on NY Times and on Broadsheet about end of life decisions spurred me to contemplate on the issue.

As a person who firmly believes and advocates pro-choice in terms of controlling and deciding things that are good for my mental and physical well-being; having that same prerogative for choosing death never occurred before.

During a bio-ethics course in college, the case of Terri Schiavo was broached. She was a young woman completely surviving through life support. Essentially, her body was dead. Her family wanted to maintain her on life-support, probably hopeful that a breakthrough in modern medicine will bring their daughter back into their arms. Her husband, on the other hand, wanted to ensure she received a dignified death. The husband and her family fought an epic battle that riveted the American nation and even had the then President Bush interjecting his perspectives.

Undoubtedly, at this point in my life, I feel having the ability to choose what is good for my body is an essential human right. But does that same right encompass death as well?

In a hypothetical scenario where my body is ravaged and riddled with cancer, and I opt for death to ease myself of the pain and the inevitability of demise, am I right in doing so? Can I say I am in the "correct" frame of mental health to declare I choose death? Am I doing justice to my family and friends in wishing for death? What of their desire to be with me till the end?

Perhaps these question are of those nature that will be constantly debated and never fully answered. I cannot truly imagine how Terri felt, or how her husband and family felt when they hotly contended their views on her right to life and death. Neither can I predict how my loved ones will react to my pro-choice inclinations if I experience a similar fate.

But it certainly does make sense for a person to wish for a dignified death in any manner he/she deems appropriate. Who are we to deprive or thwart them from this basic right?

Afghanistan, Afghanistan, Afghanistan

It is disconcerting to see how the failing war in Afghanistan is flashed across various media now. The failing war efforts, the failing war strategies, the failing tactics, the failing counterinsurgency, the failing troops morale, and the failing public support have gripped worldwide nations.

In the midst of this gloom, there are signs of revival in the form of General McChrystal new strategy in successfully combating the Taliban. However, we have yet to see if the US will whole-heartedly embrace this new vision.

Undoubtedly, failing to rid the Taliban from Afghan lands will lead to a global turmoil that will quickly spread into Pakistan and nearby conflict-riddled regions. Hence, winning the war in Afghanistan is imperative. Yet I wonder if the US public is willing to dispense more troops, invest more time and effort into a war that has claimed so many lives and seem far from over.

Not that there have much of a choice. It behooves the US to complete a war that was foolishly and ineffectively initiated by the Bush Administration. But at what costs.

Bangladeshi, Female and Doubly Marginalized

On the hot trail of a new research on violence against marginalized women in Bangladesh, I met with a few individuals who are physically disabled. One of them is legally blind, and the other is bound to a wheelchair.

In the midst of discussing the forms of violence encountered by physically disabled females, I realized as females we are accustomed to many modes of violence and discrimination, whether subtle or overt, but that very violence must be further amplified for the physically disabled.

A personal account I heard from one woman is of her dismissed from her graduate programme in a reputed national university. Her discharge came about on account of her failure to show her face at the Registration Office. The Office is located on the fourth floor of the building. She is in a wheelchair. And there is no provision for physically challenged people to move in, about, and out that building.

When asked why she didn’t pursue legal action against such blatant discrimination. The woman cited her university professor encouraging her to let the matter slide.

Why?

Regardless of her facing such an outright violation of her basic human rights to education, why would a supervisor, a supposed mentor, telling her to drop the matter? How does her silent retreat into the cloak of invisibility from the public domain aid her right to have access to education?

But this is just a single case. There are multiple and diverse forms of violence faced by physically disabled females in our country. The deeper and the more rural areas one ventures into, the worse the transgressions. Disturbing as it is, one must wonder what other forms and shapes violence against them take. Are physically disabled women also prey to sexual abuse and violation? And if so, what coping strategies and legal provisions are available for them to pursue to redress their grievances?

As an eminent legal expert in our country stated once, females are already marginalized in Bangladesh, but if they happen to be ethnic, religious minority or physically disabled, they are doubly marginalized and susceptible to violence without any chances of pursuing legal actions.

Are they really gay people in Bangladesh?

Granted working in sexuality rights in Bangladesh raises quite a few empathetic nods, but the eyebrows are raised when they learn of sexuality rights of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender (LGBT) community. Usually the first question I am asked is – are they really gay people in Bangladesh?

I wish I could flippantly answer no of course not because being gay is such a western construction. But I curb my tongue and remind myself that most people I encounter don’t have the faintest idea of the larger, somewhat thriving, yet cloaked LGBT community in our country. Most people would rather mock at seeing two men holding hands and walking on the streets (quite the norm in our country) rather than actually fathom that they are Bangladeshis living here engaged in same-sex relationships.

Their ignorance is, I will defend, justified. But their willful denial of the LGBT community possessing the same human rights and prerogatives as sanctioned by the UN Human Rights Convention is mindboggling misfortunate.

I have had people smirk at my work in advocating and promoting awareness and tolerance of the LGBT community. I have had people deplore their very existence. I have had people yell that homosexuality is the evil work of western exploitation. I have had people state that homosexuality is a mental disease.

Only after working with, meeting, and befriending many inspirational figures from the LGBT community, I have realized how supremely fortunate I am in being heterosexual. I recall a statement a friend made regarding same-sex relationship; that no matter what race, creed, faith, skin hue they are, being gay always incites violence, censure, and fear.

Can you imagine fearing for your life because you happen to prefer men/women of your own sex?

I ask many critics this question when they take it upon themselves to educate me of my misguided ways. They scoff at my idealistic notion of creating safe arenas where people of all sexual identities can emerge on the public forum without fear or censure.

At the midst of such disdain and open disapproval of empowering the LGBT community with rights and prerogatives that rightfully belong to them as human beings, I quietly tell myself that it took India ten years to decriminalize homosexuality. It may take Bangladesh far longer, or our country will never reach that goal, but it isn’t a lost cause at all.

One woman defies, another woman accepts

While one woman draws the world’s attention on defying Sudanese law to punish her for wearing pants in public, another woman demurely accepts her punishment and even requests a public lashing to repent for her transgression of drinking alcohol in a Malaysian bar. Both of those women are facing public punishments for violating alleged Islamic laws, but their reactions to their supposed crimes cannot be farther apart.

Lubna Hussain, a journalist (who I now read is a Muslim), is garnering as much attention as possible on opposing the Islamic law that had her arrested for wearing pants in public. As she defiantly questions where in the Quran it is written women cannot wear pants (paraphrased).

Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, a Malysian model, is scheduled to be caned in public for being caught drinking beer at a bar. In Malaysia, Muslims are forbidden to drink alcohol. Instead of defying the law, she complied with the punishment meted out and even asked to be publicly caned. Her rationale being she has no right to oppose Islamic law, and that her public caning will educate Muslims to stay away from alcohol.

One woman defies, another woman accepts.

I walked on Dhaka street

I walked on Dhaka streets yesterday. It felt so refreshing to be able to walk on pavements again. Even amidst the stares.

Pedestrians stared, police stared, rickshaw pullers and passengers stared, young children stared, beggars stared, people by roadside tea stalls stared, even passengers in cars fast speeding away stared.

Our clothes, our looks, our walk, our ethnicity, our class, even our past were being speculated by the passersby.

I walked with a friend deep in conversation. But we did hear the few snide comments. Ordinarily I would have stopped and castigated them. But then I thought why ruin this unique opportunity of actually walking through Dhaka streets by yelling at a random chauvinistic stranger?

So I walked, head held high, talking to my friend.

Perhaps it was Iffat Nawaz who said it, or perhaps someone else, but as I walked and now in retrospection, I feel it is just about time that we reclaimed our streets.

Perhaps the more young females are seen walking on the streets, the more sensitized people will become.

It is definitely worth a shot. Such a small pastime and a fundamental right feel like a luxury to us.

Jaycee Dugard and her Kidnapper/Rapist

The sad case of Jaycee Dugard and her captors raises several imperative questions. As the story goes, Jaycee was kidnapped right in front of her stepfather from outside their home in 1991. Eighteen years later, she is freed from her captor, Philip Garigo, who also by now happens to be the father of Jaycee’s two children, 15 and 11 years of ages.

Jaycee was 11 when she was kidnapped. If her two daughters are 15 and 11, that indicates her kidnapped raped her since she was 14.Plausibly, since the day he kidnapped her. So Jaycee at the age of 14 had given birth to her first daughter already.

At the time of arrest, Jaycee and her daughters were found to be living in a sound proof shed veiled by a false wall within a larger compound. Ironically, the local police failed on locate the false wall on a random property search a few years earlier. So, Jaycee and her daughters were living with their kidnapper and rapist for period of eighteen years without their neighbors knowing their actual relationships.

In addition, and this has to be one of the most frightening aspect of the whole story, the townsfolk, apart from a few suspicious ones, did not wonder of the nature of the relationship between Philip Garigo, another women who was booked as his wife, Jaycee Dugard and her two daughters.

The whole case reeks of a matter that dropped out of the public’s radar, perhaps to the detrimental effect on Jaycee and her two daughters.

Now that Jaycee and her daughters are finally emancipated, there are still looming issues for them to encounter. Least of all accepting and moving past the fact that they had bonded with a husband and father who raped Jaycee from childhood.

As this gruesome tale unfold, more unfortunate details will emerge of Jaycee’s life with Philip Garigo.

To make matters far worse, Philip Garigo is being investigated with past murders of prostitutes that happened in the same locales that he inhabited.

It must be deeply traumatic for Jaycee and her children to understand and accept their shared past,

Wear Trousers, Get Arrested

Lubna Hussain, a Sudanese woman, was arrested recently for wearing 'un-Islamic" clothing in public. The immoral clothing in question was a pair of trousers.

Sudan sanctions a sever public dress code for females. However, those laws are only applicable for Muslims. Thus that law does not apply on Christians like Lubna Hussain.

In a recent interview with Al-Jazeera, Lubna Hussain vehemently challenged the moral grounds upon which her arrest took place. She questioned why Sudanese female police and government officials are allowed to wear trousers as part of their uniform; but a civilian like herself cannot.

She said before the hearing: 'Thousands of women are punished with lashes in Sudan but they stay silent. The law is being used to harass women and I want to expose this.'

If convicted, Lubna Hussain will face up to 40 lashes in public. However, she is determined to fight the law in court. She has used her arrest to highlight the unfair legal practices in her country. Even the circumstances of her arrest come into scrutiny, as an UN employee, Lubna enjoys legal immunity. However, she has agreed to resign from her UN post to ensure her case received a fair hearing in court.

This mere arrest over wearing trousers in public could very well lead to an epic battle in legal courts on the power of absurd laws based on ambivalent sense of immorality. Moreover, it could also showcase the disparities between the laws that are forced upon Muslim females and Christian females. Even if Lubna manages to lose the battle and endure 40 lashes, she will at least have voiced her concerns over the absurdity of laws in Sudan. Perhaps her arrest will lead to Sudanese women to unite and fight against discriminatory laws against them in their country.

More Thought on the Hijab Wearing Option

I came across this piece on a UK police division unit introducing an hijab/head scarve for its female police officers. According to the article, the headscarf/hijab will come in handy in covering the females' heads and/or shoulders when they have to enter places of worships of all religions. However, Broadsheet blogger, Judy Berman, raises a few questions on the effectiveness and conditions of these new additions to the police unforms.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/07/28/police_hijab/

Oldest Mother Passes Away

The oldest mom in the world gave birth two years ago to twin boys and only recently passed away. Her demise begs the question – was it wise for her to give birth so late in her life?

I believe reproductive rights, whether to have children or not, should be chiefly left in the hands of females. That is, their bodies give them the right to determine and decide what and how they wish to act.

However, as hypocritical as my statement will sound, I do fear for the welfare of those orphaned twin boys now that they have no parents. A father figure was never in the picture as their mom opted for a sperm bank. But now that she is no longer alive, who takes responsibility of those boys?

Obviously if the mother was still alive, then they would be no judgment of her decision to have the children so late in her life, but now that she isn’t, I wonder if she was a tad bit selfish. Of course, she wasn’t aware that she would pass away so soon after giving birth, but a woman in her sixties must have weighed her mortality at one point.

In any case, I wonder how the twin boys will fare now.

Breaking the Silence

An Israeli group published a report allegedly based on the first-hand accounts of Israeli soldiers who engaged in the incursion into Gaza earlier this year. A swift media storm soon enveloped the release of the report. Israeli army spokespeople categorically denied the allegations in the report that Israeli soldiers repeatedly used Palestinian men as human shields. Due to the strict anonymity of the soldiers’ accounts, the Israeli army spokespeople condemned the report as false and misleading.

However, the stories published in that story as recounted by Israeli soldiers corroborate with stories from ordinary Palestinian men who have claimed they were used as human shields. One Palestinian man on a CNN story took the reporters on the route he was taken by Israeli soldiers as they scouted the area looking for Palestinian renegades; furthermore, the man also showed how he was positioned in front of the Israeli solider with the gun resting on his shoulders.

As heinous as those stories are, Breaking the Silence needs to be read, spoken, and written about more in the media and by ordinary citizens like you and me. These types of violations and abuses of human rights need to be brought to light and further prevented from future occurrences.

Aftermath of Queer Politics

http://www.frontlineonnet.com/stories/20090731261503300.htm

A great article on the aftermath of the decriminalization of consensual homosexuality in India. This historic judgment opens the door to probing, questioning, and discussing questions regarding society and sexuality. Suffice to say, gender and sexuality are both society’s constructions. Both facets have been borne in the bellies of the social beliefs and traditions and fed to the masses from birth. In order to define sexuality and gender, and perhaps neutralize it, one must start questioning the origins of those perspectives in comparison to current stances. For example, a school in Thailand has established a bathroom for the third gender i.e. transgenders. A city in Japan (I want to say Tokyo but could be wrong) marvels at the high number of effeminate men who gleefully embrace feminine characteristics and even proudly look, dress, and act in ways that are neither men nor women. These blatant rejections of society’s definitions of gender and sexuality act as catalysts in re-defining constructions and conceptions that are hopefully more gender-neutral and not hell-bent on labeling proper forms of sexuality.

Iran Iran Iran

As a person who loves to watch revolutions from the confines of my telly, I was glued into the events that unfolded in Iran. Showing my solidarity with the Iranian green movement, I posted stories, articles etc relevant to their cause in order to encourage people to stay abreast of their historic struggle.

So imagine how upset I felt when I saw the state beat and brutalize their people into fear and eventually reluctant submission. Now the streets have been cleared of all marchers and dissent. The only form of dissonance is expressed through nightly collective shouts of Allahu Akbar by brave Iranians from their roof tops, a slogan directly taken from the heady days of the Islamic Revolution in the late 1970s.

Now with President Ahmadinejad speaking out against western agents working in conjunction to topple the glorious empire that is their theocracy, as well as arresting British diplomatic staff as foreign agents, some pivotal Islamic clerics have spoken out in mild tones in support of the people. They haven’t denounced the president or their supreme leader, but have protested against the harsh police brutality against the demonstrators.

It sure does feel like Iran’s rigid political and religious hold on the population is slowly unraveling.

Justice Rabbani, Sodom, and Homosexuality

On the heels of the epic decriminalization of homosexuality in India, Justice Rabbani of Bangladesh decided to spew in local Bangla newspapers his view on the matter. Among his colourful rant, is the claim that homosexuality is against Islamic law. One of the trite debates that have been tossed around in conjunction with the story of the town of Sodom that was demolished by Allah for being a hot bed of inhumane activities to exemplify how the Quran preaches against homosexuality.

Naturally people from both sides of the debate have their own conflicting interpretations of the story of Sodom. Some say the homosexual residents engaged in sexual acts of rape and bestiality, and even tried to rape one of the messengers of Allah. Others say Allah was displeased with the residents because they were inhospitable. And others have far different interpretations.

Yet, this story is utilized repeatedly as the crux to denote when and how the Quran tackles the issue of homosexuality. Religion obviously is injected into this issue to either exonerate or disclaim homosexuality. Yet, it’s puzzling that a story that has myriad interpretations and misinterpretations is always used as the standard in approving or disapproving of the lifestyle.