The Fall

The melee of colors,
The pandemonium of wind!

The hunchbacked sun
Crawls into its bed
Before the onset of the night!
And if it were not for the compassionate rain,
The fire that has caught on to the forest,
Would burn the trees
Much like my heart
That is burning in the fire of love!
Do not take away my tears from me!

My petunias could not endure the morning cold.
What a futile expectation!
I watch my petunias die,
As would a medicine man
A dying warrior in his final throes!
Powerlessness is the onset of hopelessness.

This is a season of a different sort:
A time that –
In its pre death struggle –
Disturbs the green of tranquility
With the red of fireworks!
This is how love is
In this late season!

Abyss

Snowflakes melt before landing.
Rainfalls no longer beget blossoms.
Shadows are longer.
The trail hides into the evening mist.
Friends do not wave at friends.
Hands are snugly kept in pockets.
This night has no dawn.
The farther I merge into the night,
The darker it becomes.
The dawn that I had been promised,
The dawn that was supposed to be
Will never come.

The flickering light
Momentarily in sight
Was a fragment of imagination.
Shut the door to imagination.
Do not place hope in friends.
Something tells me that
At the end of the trail
There lies a gaping abyss,
The open mouth that will devour me.
I will give myself to the abyss
Willingly and happily.
The apex had nothing to appease me.
The abyss may.
I am on my way down.
I am on my way down

Lonly Traveler

It has become so cold here,
That my flowerbed
Has come down with a severe cold.
My petunias wither
Right before my humid eyes
And fall to the ground.
Times are so cruel.
My comrades of the olden times
Were unable to bear
The hardships of the path
And left me alone midway.
I walked the path
Through rocks and thorns
With tired legs and bleeding feet
All the way up
To this place of early winters,
Of the unknown,
Of loneliness,
Of nostalgia,
Of weeping eyes,
Of cold-stricken petunias,
Of friendlessness,
Of bottomless pit of despair.

One day,
Spring will return
From behind the bend
In the wintry road,
And my heart will warm up
With the rays of a sun
That does not crawl into bed
Early in the evening
With exhaustion.
On that day,
I would like you
To be next to me,
To see that
The everlasting snow
That has fallen on my hair
Does not thaw
With the rays of the spring sun,
And to know that
Every spring
That comes and goes
Could be the last
For this traveler
Of the roads of loneliness.

You chose not to be
The walker of this hard path.
You,
And my comrades of the olden times,
All left me alone half way.
I pray that
You be prosperous in your staying.
In my traveling,
Though,
I did not find a souvenir
Worthy of bestowing
Upon the bleeding feet
Of a tired itinerant.

I watch the trays
Of the balancing scale:
On one the time past,
On the other the time to come.
How heavy is the time past!
And how light is the time to come!
So much is the difference
That I know,
For sure,
That one of these days
I will experience my flight.
I am tired.
And the road in front of me
Is still hard,
Despite the gigantic difference
Between the past and the future.
I long for a kind companion,
Who would hold my hand in hers,
Who would whisper
Words of hope in my ears.

By golly, I love this journalistic assignment. Every book, every article I have read so far has demanded that I be aware that there is no absolute black and white, that all issues fall on a continuum of gray spectrum. Now here, I am told, “there is no standing on the fence,” that this is an “either or” situation. I either have to side with science and technology or should dispel them as detrimental to humankind’s well being.

The first article that I presented to the revered editors of Butterfly Effects was flatly refused. I was told that I had been “all over the place in my article.” The implication: I had failed to take a stand. And I would not have been able to take a stand for or against science, had I not been introduced to a powerful new religion, the Church of Flying Spaghetti Monster. Ironically, the person that enlightened me as to this amazingly comprehensive worldview is a science teacher. But Spaghetti Monster works in mysterious ways! He is able to get his message across in so many unorthodox ways, including through a Physics instructor.

The Church of Flying Spaghetti Monster was founded by Bobby Anderson in an effort to provide a final and all-inclusive explanation to the theory of creation, putting an end to the controversial issue of evolution versus intelligent design. In his detailed letter to Kansas School Board, Bobby Anderson writes, “We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it” (FSM website).

The result of my investigation into the Church of Flying Spaghetti Monster was such a strong revelation that I can no longer trust anything that the mundane human knowledge can offer. Science is not but a body of knowledge about the world that humankind would be better off not knowing anything about. It is not that the Church of Flying Spaghetti Monster is the first religion to declare this fact about science. The word science can be traced back to its Latin root scientia meaning “knowledge.” Today’s science is an accumulative collection of everything that humankind knows – or thinks s/he knows – about the universe. The old testament makes it clear to its followers in the book of Genesis that Adam and Eve were thrown out of the Garden of Eden because they had eaten the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and had, therefore, learned what the Lord knew:

Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground - trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” (The Holy Bible, NIV)

Knowledge, obviously, was not very helpful to Adam and Eve, the Lord’s favorite human beings. How stupid of us, ordinary men and women, to think that it can be of any help to us!

Knowledge has brought us not but misery and misfortune, and I do not just mean the atomic bomb, pollution, hazardous toxic and nuclear waste, or a hole in the Ozone layer. It has turned us into knowledge-hungry animals whose thirst for more to know can never be quenched. The more we know, the more we want to know. A vast amount of human wealth and energy is invested in the dissemination of knowledge. All these schools, colleges, and universities are a waste of resources when all the answers are provided to humankind by religious institutions, and specially this latest addition to the vast pool of human’s spiritual treasures, Pastaferianism – the Church of Flying Spaghetti Monster.

I strongly recommend that the readers of Butterfly Effect closely examine this new theological system and the answers that it provides to the crucial questions of life and death. Before becoming a Pastaferian, I was a follower of Zoroastrianism, one of the oldest religions of the world. By some estimates only two to five hundred thousand of the followers of this religion have been able to endure the persecutions of other more populous faiths. Today, many Zoroastrians live in India. There are so few Zoroastrians in the United State that when I told my professor in my Intercultural Communication class that I was a follower of Zarathushtra – Zoroaster – he reacted with the happiness of an insect collector that has come across a disappearing monarch butterfly.

The problem with Zoroastrianism, and for that matter any other religion, big or small, is that although they categorically declare that knowledge and science are a hindrance to the ultimate discovery of the spiritual truth, they are too tolerant and forgiving in their handling of different scientific disciplines. Some religions even allow sciences to be taught in universities that are funded by them. Take a Catholic university such as Gonzaga for instance, an absolute contradiction in terms! How can one be a Catholic and yet allow sciences to be taught in a university that should be entirely dedicated to stopping the free dissemination of knowledge? After all isn’t Catholicism the proud pioneer in persecution and punishment of the like of Galileo Galilee, who attempted to block humankind’s ascend towards celestial spiritualism through his knowledge-seeking scientific experiments? Sadly, most religions show great tolerance towards the evil propagation of knowledge!

As a Zoroastrian, I was a knowledge-hungry person much like all the students in college and university classes. I thought, for instance, that the Intercultural Communication class would give me the knowledge to deal with my “blonde” American girlfriend, and I mean “blonde with a capital B.” Spaghetti Monster forbid, I do not mean any offense by saying “my ‘blonde’ American girlfriend.” To be honest with you, I was once married to a “blonde” Iranian brunette. My “blonde” American girlfriend and my “blonde” Iranian brunette wife had two things in common: They both lacked savoir-faire and were challenged by knowledge; and, frankly, they were both much happier than I have ever been.

All these experiences and the incidental introduction to the Church of Flying Spaghetti Monster by the most unlikely person – a physics instructor - brought me to the sudden revelation that humankind can be happier not knowing all the things that we know today. I then had no doubt in my mind that I wanted to convert to Pataferianism, which is probably the only religion that categorically dispels any kind of science and scientific finding. I was inducted into the Faith in a simple ritual in the Old Spaghetti Factory. And now I have no need for science and the technologies that it makes possible.

To a Pastaferian, science is but a body of knowledge that complicates clear judgment, and therefore blinds one to the glory of the great Spaghetti Monster, the omniscient, the omnipotent, and the omnipresent. He knows it all for all of us, so we do not have learn!

A sociological Look at Khalled Hosseini’s Novel “Kite Runner”

Despite its dramatic portrayal of life in Afghanistan mainly before the communist takeover and less emphatically during and after the Russian occupation, Khalled Hosseini’s novel “Kite Runner,” which has won vast literary acclaim in the west, and specially here in the United States, is for the most part a depiction of Afghan life and culture through the lens of an American. More specifically speaking, the writer describes life and political events of Afghanistan in a way that can appeal to the American perception of how life must have been, or is, in Afghanistan.

Some writers are just lucky to coincide with certain events and political trends. Very few people remember Alexander Solzhenitsyn and his Gulag Archipelago. But Solzhenitsyn won international fame and prestige and even a Noble Peace Prize in the 1970’s simply because he got a free ride – well not quite very free - on the wave of the Cold War that landed him on the shore of great world renown and acknowledgement.

Another example of such literary success was the bestseller by Betty Mahmoodi “Not Without My Daughter,” which recounted the situation of an American woman caught up in the noose of the patriarchal structure of a devout Muslim family in Tehran of the early 1980’ right after the Hostage Crisis.

“Kite Runner” is another such case.

Amir, an Afghan-American novelist living in Northern California, who escaped Afghanistan with his father after the Afghan takeover by the USSR in 1980, receives a phone call from a friend of his father’s in Pakistan, which triggers a series of events and recollections that culminate when he returns to Taliban-controled Kabul and meets his old-time adversary, Assef, who is now a Taliban official.

And then through a chain of what I would like to call “plot holes,” he finally succeeds in bringing an Afghan boy, the son of his old servant, who, he has just found out, was his own half brother, over to the United States.

Though I can go on discussing why I think that this novel is a mediocre literary work, which owes its success to the political events of the early 2000’s, and the overall mental disposition in the United State, which would like to believe that the invasion of Afghanistan has led to the emancipation of the people of this country and specifically women, I think that I will, for the purpose of this paper, attempt to curb this desire, and adhere to the gender issues that are discussed in this book. Let me suffice by saying here that very little has changed in Afghanistan after the US led invasion of this country and the Taliban’s debacle for as far as the women’s rights are concerned. Despite some showcased females in symbolic positions, the helpless, and pity inspiring burqa-clad women are still considered to be the property of the male individuals in their lives including their fathers, brothers, and husbands.

Amir, the central character in “Kite Runner” grew up as the only son in a single-parent family. Amir’s mother died at childbirth. Interestingly, in Muslim countries, much like the tradition prior to the twentieth century in Europe and America, single parent-families mostly comprised fathers and their children. The single mom is a new phenomenon even in the western culture. Sometimes single fathers of the past remarried. And that is the origin of the “evil stepmother” lore. In Muslim societies, the myth of the evil stepmother lives on and for good reasons. When families break up due to divorce, which, for several reasons, is much less practiced in these societies compared to the West, children remain in the custody of the father. It is generally thought that children are too important to be entrusted with women.

But Amir did not have to deal with the nightmare of an evil stepmother. Amir grew up with his father, a successful Afghan businessman known for his bravery and manly conduct, having to prove to him that he was worthy of having been born to such a noble father. Never quite successful in this effort, one winter day, when he came quite close to proving his worth as a male child after he had earned the much-longed-for title of the winner of a kite tournament, he had to watch their servant boy, who was also his best companion, get homosexually raped by a rogue racist. He stood there not quite brave enough, as is expected of a man, to defend his friend. That event constituted the worst crises of his identity. How was he ever going to come to terms with his identity as a man?

His best friend had been raped right before his eyes. Assef, the villain that perpetrated the rape later went on to join the Taliban, an irrelevant fact to the gender relations but a quite relevant matter for Hosseini’s plot. As far as it relates to matters of gender, the rape of Amir’s friend is significant not only because it threw Amir into the identity crises of having difficulty thinking of himself as quite a “man,” it also bears importance because, on the day that it happened, Hassan – Amir’s friend – had just been able to run and make his own the nicest, and most beautiful kite that had been flown in the tournament, an envy of all, a thing that all young men wanted to have. When Assef and his rogue accomplices cornered Hassan in a dark alley, Assef could have gotten the kite and gone his way. That would have been in itself quite a blow to both Amir and his friend, Hassan. But instead, he chose to rape Hassan and let him hold on to the kite. Homosexual rape is quite a common thing in Muslim countries. Much like among male population of prisons in the United, the purpose of such rapes is not primarily sexual pleasure. The initial intent of the person that commits a homosexual rape is bringing his victim to the level of a woman, since a woman holds the lowest status in most Muslim societies. This is the most shameful thing that can happen to a man.

Khalled Hosseini does not really discuss class struggles in Afghanistan. His attention to class is mainly derived from an ethnic inferiority viewpoint. Shia Muslims are generally fiercely discriminated against in Sunni populated sections of Afghanistan, mainly in the south and central parts of the country. One of the reasons why the communist attempt in Afghanistan was unsuccessful despite the relative class equality that it was able to achieve, is the fact that Afghans – and for that matter many Muslims, Sunni or Shia alike – believe in something that they call “Ghesmat,” destiny if you will, though it really means “one’s share.” This share is predetermined by God and written into one’s destiny. It cannot and should not be changed by humans. Any attempt to do so is blasphemy. This religious view of satisfaction with what has been given one by God reinforces and perpetuates stratification, and hinders any efforts by the state to redistribute wealth. This is why, I argue, that despite their harsh rhetoric, conservatives in the United States have always loved Islamic regimes.

This conception of class dispels any idea of class struggle. Members of lower classes humbly accept their status and inferiority, and cannot even think of violating what “Ghesmat” has assigned to them. One can find examples of this in many parts of the novel. In one instance, even when Hassan and his family can legitimately choose to live in one of the rooms in the big house that Amir and his father have left behind, they refuse to do so understanding their status and not willing to violate the roles that are associated with it.

Patriarchy is certainly the most dominant aspect of the Afghan society, and it has a noticeable presence throughout the book. Even when a man loses his instrumental status as a breadwinner, he is still the patriarch, and probably more so because now he is likely to resort to physical violence to maintain his dominance. Hosseini portrays vivid examples of such Afghan men in the United States, who, deprived of their socioeconomic status, still adhere to their role as the patriarch and demand respect and submission from the women and children of their family.

Hosseini seems to be well aware of the role that patriarchy plays in the Afghan life. At one point Amir, the central character of the novel, says that he felt uneasy for the position of power that he had been given, “and all because I had won the genetic lottery that had determined my sex.”

This novel and other such works of art that attempt to demonstrate the skewed gender roles in Islamic countries are viewed as a double-bladed sword by many intellectual scholars of theses societies: on the one hand they are a true reflection of the plight of women and the oppression that they are subjected to, and on the other hand, they give hawkish politicians in the west ammunition to justify their militant strategies towards Islamic nations. Even worse, they give some Christian religious ideologues reason to advocate a new Crusade.

President Jimmy Carter on Arab-Israel Crisis

I found President Carter's stance on the Mid East crisis the most rational one among all views expressed on the issue by American politicians. It makes one hopeful that there are still some vestiges of sanity left in this country. This article was copied from Washington Post:

Stop the Band-Aid Treatment
We Need Policies for a Real, Lasting Middle East Peace
By Jimmy Carter
Tuesday, August 1, 2006; Page A17

The Middle East is a tinderbox, with some key players on all sides waiting for every opportunity to destroy their enemies with bullets, bombs and missiles. One of the special vulnerabilities of Israel, and a repetitive cause of violence, is the holding of prisoners. Militant Palestinians and Lebanese know that a captured Israeli soldier or civilian is either a cause of conflict or a valuable bargaining chip for prisoner exchange. This assumption is based on a number of such trades, including 1,150 Arabs, mostly Palestinians, for three Israeli soldiers in 1985; 123 Lebanese for the remains of two Israeli soldiers in 1996; and 433 Palestinians and others for an Israeli businessman and the bodies of three soldiers in 2004.

This stratagem precipitated the renewed violence that erupted in June when Palestinians dug a tunnel under the barrier that surrounds Gaza and assaulted some Israeli soldiers, killing two and capturing one. They offered to exchange the soldier for the release of 95 women and 313 children who are among almost 10,000 Arabs in Israeli prisons, but this time Israel rejected a swap and attacked Gaza in an attempt to free the soldier and stop rocket fire into Israel. The resulting destruction brought reconciliation between warring Palestinian factions and support for them throughout the Arab world.

Hezbollah militants then killed three Israeli soldiers and captured two others, and insisted on Israel's withdrawal from disputed territory and an exchange for some of the several thousand incarcerated Lebanese. With American backing, Israeli bombs and missiles rained down on Lebanon. Hezbollah rockets from Syria and Iran struck northern Israel.
It is inarguable that Israel has a right to defend itself against attacks on its citizens, but it is inhumane and counterproductive to punish civilian populations in the illogical hope that somehow they will blame Hamas and Hezbollah for provoking the devastating response. The result instead has been that broad Arab and worldwide support has been rallied for these groups, while condemnation of both Israel and the United States has intensified.

Israel belatedly announced, but did not carry out, a two-day cessation in bombing Lebanon, responding to the global condemnation of an air attack on the Lebanese village of Qana, where 57 civilians were killed this past weekend and where 106 died from the same cause 10 years ago. As before there were expressions of "deep regret," a promise of "immediate investigation" and the explanation that dropped leaflets had warned families in the region to leave their homes. The urgent need in Lebanon is that Israeli attacks stop, the nation's regular military forces control the southern region, Hezbollah cease as a separate fighting force, and future attacks against Israel be prevented. Israel should withdraw from all Lebanese territory, including Shebaa Farms, and release the Lebanese prisoners. Yet yesterday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rejected a cease-fire.
These are ambitious hopes, but even if the U.N. Security Council adopts and implements a resolution that would lead to such an eventual solution, it will provide just another band-aid and temporary relief. Tragically, the current conflict is part of the inevitably repetitive cycle of violence that results from the absence of a comprehensive settlement in the Middle East, exacerbated by the almost unprecedented six-year absence of any real effort to achieve such a goal.

Leaders on both sides ignore strong majorities that crave peace, allowing extremist-led violence to preempt all opportunities for building a political consensus. Traumatized Israelis cling to the false hope that their lives will be made safer by incremental unilateral withdrawals from occupied areas, while Palestinians see their remnant territories reduced to little more than human dumping grounds surrounded by a provocative "security barrier" that embarrasses Israel's friends and that fails to bring safety or stability.
The general parameters of a long-term, two-state agreement are well known. There will be no substantive and permanent peace for any peoples in this troubled region as long as Israel is violating key U.N. resolutions, official American policy and the international "road map" for peace by occupying Arab lands and oppressing the Palestinians. Except for mutually agreeable negotiated modifications, Israel's official pre-1967 borders must be honored. As were all previous administrations since the founding of Israel, U.S. government leaders must be in the forefront of achieving this long-delayed goal.
A major impediment to progress is Washington's strange policy that dialogue on controversial issues will be extended only as a reward for subservient behavior and will be withheld from those who reject U.S. assertions. Direct engagement with the Palestine Liberation Organization or the Palestinian Authority and the government in Damascus will be necessary if secure negotiated settlements are to be achieved. Failure to address the issues and leaders involved risks the creation of an arc of even greater instability running from Jerusalem through Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad and Tehran.

The people of the Middle East deserve peace and justice, and we in the international community owe them our strong leadership and support.

Former president Carter is the founder of the nonprofit Carter Center in Atlanta.

Chomsky on the Iranian Crisis

The following is an article written by Noam Chomsky about the Iranain nuclear crisis. The original article was posted on ZNET.

The urgency of halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and moving toward their elimination, could hardly be greater. Failure to do so is almost certain to lead to grim consequences, even the end of biology's only experiment with higher intelligence. As threatening as the crisis is, the means exist to defuse it.

A near-meltdown seems to be imminent over Iran and its nuclear programmes. Before 1979, when the Shah was in power, Washington strongly supported these programmes. Today the standard claim is that Iran has no need for nuclear power, and therefore must be pursuing a secret weapons programme. "For a major oil producer such as Iran, nuclear energy is a wasteful use of resources," Henry Kissinger wrote in the Washington Post last year.

Thirty years ago, however, when Kissinger was secretary of state for President Gerald Ford, he held that "introduction of nuclear power will both provide for the growing needs of Iran's economy and free remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals".

Last year Dafna Linzer of the Washington Post asked Kissinger about his reversal of opinion. Kissinger responded with his usual engaging frankness: "They were an allied country."

In 1976 the Ford administration "endorsed Iranian plans to build a massive nuclear energy industry, but also worked hard to complete a multibillion-dollar deal that would have given Tehran control of large quantities of plutonium and enriched uranium - the two pathways to a nuclear bomb", Linzer wrote. The top planners of the Bush administration, who are now denouncing these programmes, were then in key national security posts: Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz.

Iranians are surely not as willing as the west to discard history to the rubbish heap. They know that the United States, along with its allies, has been tormenting Iranians for more than 50 years, ever since a US-UK military coup overthrew the parliamentary government and installed the Shah, who ruled with an iron hand until a popular uprising expelled him in 1979.

The Reagan administration then supported Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran, providing him with military and other aid that helped him slaughter hundreds of thousands of Iranians (along with Iraqi Kurds). Then came President Clinton's harsh sanctions, followed by Bush's threats to attack Iran - themselves a serious breach of the UN charter.

Last month the Bush administration conditionally agreed to join its European allies in direct talks with Iran, but refused to withdraw the threat of attack, rendering virtually meaningless any negotiations offer that comes, in effect, at gunpoint. Recent history provides further reason for skepticism about Washington's intentions.

In May 2003, according to Flynt Leverett, then a senior official in Bush's National Security Council, the reformist government of Mohammad Khatami proposed "an agenda for a diplomatic process that was intended to resolve on a comprehensive basis all of the bilateral differences between the United States and Iran".

Included were "weapons of mass destruction, a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the future of Lebanon's Hizbullah organisation and cooperation with the UN nuclear safeguards agency", the Financial Times reported last month. The Bush administration refused, and reprimanded the Swiss diplomat who conveyed the offer.

A year later the European Union and Iran struck a bargain: Iran would temporarily suspend uranium enrichment, and in return Europe would provide assurances that the United States and Israel would not attack Iran. Under US pressure, Europe backed off, and Iran renewed its enrichment processes.

Iran's nuclear programmes, as far as is known, fall within its rights under article four of the non-proliferation treaty (NPT), which grants non-nuclear states the right to produce fuel for nuclear energy. The Bush administration argues that article four should be strengthened, and I think that makes sense.

When the NPT came into force in 1970 there was a considerable gap between producing fuel for energy and for nuclear weapons. But advances in technology have narrowed the gap. However, any such revision of article four would have to ensure unimpeded access for non-military use, in accord with the initial NPT bargain between declared nuclear powers and the non-nuclear states.

In 2003 a reasonable proposal to this end was put forward by Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency: that all production and processing of weapon-usable material be under international control, with "assurance that legitimate would-be users could get their supplies". That should be the first step, he proposed, toward fully implementing the 1993 UN resolution for a fissile material cutoff treaty (or Fissban).

ElBaradei's proposal has to date been accepted by only one state, to my knowledge: Iran, in February, in an interview with Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator. The Bush administration rejects a verifiable Fissban - and stands nearly alone. In November 2004 the UN committee on disarmament voted in favour of a verifiable Fissban. The vote was 147 to one (United States), with two abstentions: Israel and Britain. Last year a vote in the full general assembly was 179 to two, Israel and Britain again abstaining. The United States was joined by Palau.

There are ways to mitigate and probably end these crises. The first is to call off the very credible US and Israeli threats that virtually urge Iran to develop nuclear weapons as a deterrent.

A second step would be to join the rest of the world in accepting a verifiable Fissban treaty, as well as ElBaradei's proposal, or something similar.

A third step would be to live up to article six of the NPT, which obligates the nuclear states to take "good-faith" efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons, a binding legal obligation, as the world court determined. None of the nuclear states has lived up to that obligation, but the United States is far in the lead in violating it.

Even steps in these directions would mitigate the upcoming crisis with Iran. Above all, it is important to heed the words of Mohamed ElBaradei: "There is no military solution to this situation. It is inconceivable. The only durable solution is a negotiated solution." And it is within reach.

Human Trafficking

When I finally managed to get out of Iran in 1998, the first place that I ended up in was Larnaca, Cyprus. Larnaca is a small city on the southern coast of Cyprus Island, with beaches of white sand that shine in the Mediterranean sun. Before northern Cyprus was taken over by Turkey, and the island was brutally divided along ethnic lines, Famagusta was the most thriving Mediterranean resort town, but alas, Famagusta is now turned into a ghost town and can no longer be the destination for the British tourists who long for the white sand, azure waters, lots of sunshine, and young, plump, voluptuous Ukrainian, Belarusan, Hungarian, Romanian, or Albanian girls.

At the customs in Larnaca airport, there were at least ten gates were new arrivals were processed. Eight of these had signs that said “EU Arrivals.” The other two said “International Arrivals.” Tourists from European Union countries were quickly processed and allowed entry through the “EU Arrivals” gates. Everyone else, including me, had to wait their turns in the “International Arrival” lines.

On that particular day there were the passengers from my flight, mostly richer Iranian families, who could afford to spend their vacation in Cyprus, far from the harsh access of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards who seem to have nothing better to do than to make sure that not a single strand of hair can be seen from under the headscarf of a woman in the streets; there were simultaneously two British Airway arrivals, and a Russian Aero Float landing.

As I was waiting my turn in the line, I could not help but notice that most of the British Airway passengers were middle-aged men while the Aero Float seemed to have been an all female flight of young girls.

On my way to my hotel, I expressed my astonishment to the cab driver who spoke some English – everyone in Cyprus speaks some English. He told me that quite a few British men actually move to Cyprus after retirement. With their retirement pension they can enjoy a high standard of living in Larnaca, and get to have as much fun as they will with the East European girl that flood into the Island every day. Later through a restaurant owner, who took me out to a nightclub one evening, I found out that these girls are flown in through visas sent out on their behalf by Cypriot entertainment industry owners. Just as the article by Goodwin reveals “commonly the passports of these ‘guest workers’ are confiscated on arrival and the salaries [are] withheld.” The customs officers know that these young girls are not tourists. They know why they are in Cyprus. The police know too. They simply condone. The Russian Mafia has a strong presence in Cyprus, and bribing government officials is a very common practice.

Between sex entertainment, prostitution, forced marriages, domestic work, and forced labor in sweetshops, women and children seem to be the prime victims of human trafficking and the number one targets of the new wave of slavery around the world. Feminization of immigration appears to be another way of perpetuation of patriarchy. What with the upper-middle class males in the developed countries who, faced with the increasing expectation of egalitarianism on their wives’ part, seek to use the domestic labor of trafficked women from third world countries, and with the morally corrupt men from the wealthier countries, who want to gratify their sick desires by objectifying helpless women and children of poorer nations, it appears that the interplay of gender, race, and class simply works against the women.

The governments of the developing countries usually find the sex trade a lucrative source of hard currency, and despite the illegality of prostitution, they not only turn a blind eye on it, but at times cooperate with the owners of such businesses as brothels, and night clubs. “The government periodically promises to crack down on the industry, but because of the amount of money it generates, invariably looks the other way.”

These Boots Are Made for...

The corporation-controlled media would like people to believe that the Cold War era was a period of tension and hostilities between the good and the evil, good being the free market block led by the United States and evil being communism represented by the USSR and its satellites. What a lot of people fail to realize, however, is that the very existence of the Eastern Block was the underlying reason for all the welfare programs that were put into place to benefit the poor and to afford them a minimal standard of living so that any fermentation of uprising in the face of dire living circumstances could be prevented. It is not coincidental that immediately after the demise of the USSR and the Eastern Block, a lot of the welfare programs in this country were either completely stopped or substantially cut down. There was no longer a model to look up to; the inspiration had been removed; the evil empire, which could instigate the workers in the so-called free nations to raise their voices in demand for a fairer share of the outcome of their labor, had been obliterated. Although the Republicans started the downsizing of welfare programs, Democrats were also quick to follow through realizing that they no longer needed to bribe the poor into remaining calm.

Interestingly the call for democracy also started with the collapse of the evil empire of communism. During the Cold War, all over the world, the United States found dictators very efficient in curbing and containing movements of the working people who, every now and then, rose in pursuit of fairer wages and better working conditions. It was immediately after the fall of communism that the call for US-style democracy was placed at the top of the US foreign policy agenda.

It is no coincidence that both Reebok and Nike went into South Korea during the death throes of communism, when dictators were still very congenial with the US, and Human Rights were a commodity that the free market economy was not very interested in.

Reebok and Nike, correctly assessing the situation in host countries such as South Korea, China, Indonesia, Taiwan, or Thailand, refused to capitalize on building factories in these countries, but instead just subcontracted local entrepreneurs to take over the manufacturing aspect of their enterprise. “Let them be responsible for workers’ health and safety. Let them negotiate with newly emergent unions. Nike [Reebok, and others] would retain control over those parts of sneaker production that gave its officials the greatest professional satisfaction and the ultimate word on the product: design and marketing.”

Interestingly, American men running companies such as Reebok and Nike, whose business practices align them with the structural-functional frame of reference, and as such should support an expressive role for women and should, in principle, be against the participation of women in the paid labor force, have no qualms when the women in question are from some developing or underdeveloped country. Do these corporate men think of South Asian or South American women as something less than human beings? Isn’t this the new type of slavery?

The outsourcing of footwear production started in South Korea and Taiwan, but as women in South Korea organized against the injustice of their wages and working conditions despite the fact that “at the first signs of trouble, factory managers called in government riot police to break up employees’ meetings,” US-based companies decided to move the factories to totalitarian countries where labor unions were against the law and labor strikes could be punished severely. The exodus out of South Korea left quite a number of women unemployed. These women who had initially moved to cities to work in sneakers factories were now absorbed in the “entertainment industry, the kinds of bars and massage parlors offering sexual services that had mushroomed around US military bases during the Cold War.”

In a competition to bring foreign investment into their countries, South Asian countries made all sorts of concessions to foreign capitalists. These concessions included low wages, long working hours, no health benefits, few regulations, and a tacit pledge of suppression of any labor strikes or attempts to form unions. With governments propagating that women who worked in these factories were in effect carrying out their patriotic duty towards their country, any attempt by women to organize for better wages and working conditions could be punished as treason. Thus the race to the bottom assumed unprecedented proportions.

As accounts of inhumanities and unfair working conditions were reflected in reports that appeared in Western media, US-based footwear-producing companies refused to acknowledge any responsibility by rationalizing that these factories did not belong to them and they were run according to the laws and labor regulations of the host countries. Reebok presented human rights awards to Chinese dissidents while hypocritically turning a blind eye on the atrocities that were perpetrated in factories that in had subcontracted to foreign investors.

Despite all the ongoing injustice, there is hope. Women in all the host countries are gradually becoming aware of their plight. Feminist activist groups are helping to organize them and raising their consciousness.

Women Living under Muslim Laws

A sociologist and activist, Farida Shaheed, who lives in Lahore of Pakistan, works with Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML), an international solidarity network that attempts to provide legal help to muslim women who get caught in the midst of the relentlessly patriarchal Islamic and Quranic codes. Quoting Deniz Kandiyoti, she says “most Muslim states have failed to generate ideologies capable of coping realistically with social changes.” This has resulted in Muslim countries adherence to Islam not just as a “coherent ideology” but also as “a symbol of their cultural identity.” Shaheed believes that the patriarchal structure of Muslim societies is not much different from that of any other society and “like elsewhere, women’s subordination occurs at multiple levels (kinship structures, state-building projects, etc.). She also correctly maintains, “The idea of one homogeneous Muslim world is an illusion.” She argues that simply because a country is made up of a Muslim population does not necessarily make it an Islamic country. Absence of homogeneousness, lack of laws to properly cope with modernization, the urge for identity, and diversity of political structures demand a legal network that can provide support to suffering women throughout the Muslim world.

Women living in Islamic countries – regardless of whether their political systems allege secularity, as in Turkey, or whether their government is inspired by Quranic laws, as in Saudi Arabia – are helplessly fettered by reactionary customs and traditions that adversely affect their lives every day. The existence of a solidarity network that can provide them with support is an imperative.

Patriarchy

Many, especially among men, make the mistake of regarding patriarchy as a personal problem that may be corrected if individuals who practice and benefit from it stop their meanness and greed. “If evil exists in the world, it’s only because there are evil people who have entered into an evil conspiracy (Allan G Johnson, Patriarchy the System: An It, Not a He, a Them, or an Us. 1997).”

Allan G. Johnson argues that patriarchy should be examined as a system in whose light such social institutions as family, religion, and economy can be studied and understood. A system is a different entity from the sum total of the individuals that comprise it and acts independently from them. Individuals in a system unconsciously form their personalities and regulate their interactions in accordance with the roles that are expected from them by the system. It lives on even as individuals that make it up may change their minds about it. Such individuals are then pinpointed by the system as anomalies and abnormalities.

An individualistic perspective fails to account for such patterns of behavior as rape, sexual harassment, wife beating, macho violence, male anger, etc. it is only by understanding patriarchy – the larger encompassing system – that we can understand in what context and to what end such patterns of behavior exist and even flourish despite legislations that outlaw them.

To understand patriarchy, one needs to identify what its components are and how they are tied together to form it. “Patriarchy’s defining elements are male-dominated, male-identified, and male-centered character.” Patriarchy closely associates manhood and masculinity with humanness. It is this viewpoint that puts the control of everyone and everything in the world, including women, in the hands of men. “Patriarchal culture is about the core value of control and domination in almost every area of human existence.” In this system having power and being ready and willing to use it is a value and characteristically “masculine.” Lacking power and reluctance to use it is regarded as weak and characteristically “feminine.”

Patriarchy empowers the males and in return feeds on their desire to continue to cling on to the position of power and domination, and it lives on in this way. “By participating in patriarchy, we are of patriarchy and it is of us. Both exist through the other and neither can exist without the other.”

Immigration

Unlike race, nationality is not a genetic trait imposed upon humankind by fate. One has no option as to the choice of one’s race. Nationality, on the other hand, just like religion, ought to be one of choice, a freedom that every human being ought to be afforded by international laws. A breach of this freedom ought to be considered a human rights violation, and those policies and laws that aim at containing this freedom, regardless of what country puts them in place, should be considered contradictory to basic human rights, and strongly campaigned against.

Many generally endorsed documents of the United Nations, including the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, clearly support the right of individuals to travel and to choosing the place of their residence. Article thirteen of the latter document, of which the United States is a signatory, clearly articulates the basic right of human beings to travel and to choose their place of living:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.”

Pursuit of happiness is a generally accepted right of every man and woman, of every race and ethnicity, regardless of language and place of origin. People ought to be able to freely move from any part of the world to any other part of the world in their never-ending quest for better lives.

Thousand of years ago, the European ancestors of many present-day Americans, migrated from an area east of the Caspian Sea to what later came to be known as Europe. All Americans living in the United States today, with the exception of the native aborigines already living on this continent, are the descendents of immigrants who ran away from the despotic political systems of Medieval Europe to pursue happier and freer lives here in the United States of America.

The plaque at the foot of the Statue of Liberty boasts a poem by the 19th century American poet, Emma Lazarus, with words that will forever reverberate throughout the world:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your Huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

What happened to that spirit? Whatever became of the safe haven for the poor, the tired?

Today, the rhetoric in the media is relentlessly targeting the very people that make up the United States of America, the immigrants, portraying them as the cause of the misery and pain that the lower middle class in this country is grappling with. Politicians of every political party and inclination tend to find a scapegoat in the people whose only fault is their attempt to secure better lives for their families – pursuit of happiness.

Criminalizing immigration is a violation of the very laws that this country was founded on. It is the breach of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But perhaps more importantly, it is a shameful attempt by politicians to divert the public attention away from the main causes of the economical pain and misery that are taking a toll at their wellbeing.

Are immigrants the reason why Americans are losing their jobs? Are immigrants accountable for a shift from manufacturing industries and production to financial institutions and banking in this country? Are immigrants to be held responsible for “wealth fare” programs and policies put in place to ensure that the one percent wealthiest Americans continue to accumulate more wealth at the expense of the socio-economically poor and needy masses who have to struggle at multiple jobs to barely make ends meet? Are immigrants the reason why welfare programs are constantly being truncated? Why does the average American worker have to work harder and more hours than his/her European counterpart?

The corporation-owned media and the politicians stop short of nothing to give the public to think that “illegal aliens” are responsible for their misery. Yes, they are the ones that are depriving you of your jobs; if they are thrown out of the country, you will be able to fill up the gap. They are taking advantage of your resources. They are like leaches.

And, unfortunately, in the absence of a class struggle awareness, as a result of years of anti socialism rhetoric of the cold war era, the American public is entirely blind to the fact that the cause of their misfortune is not immigration – documented or undocumented – but rather the very people who take advantage of the immigrants as long as they need them for their modern day model of slavery, and throw them defenseless at the mercy of an ignorant populace when they no longer need them, or when they intend to divert the attentions from an ill-fated war, which is gnawing at the resources that would otherwise enhance the lives of the general public.

So frankly, the question should not be whether or not the United States benefits from immigrant. It is obvious that this country benefits from immigrants. Anyone that dispels this fact closes his/her eyes on the very nature of this country. The question is why, every now and then, the immigration issue is put at the foreground of the conflicts present in this society, and who benefits from doing so. The culprits are not the immigrants but those who attempt to criminalize immigration despite the very nature of this society.

James Kunstler

About six months ago, James Howard Kunstler, the author of "The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century" was here in Spokane. He gave a lecture at Gonzaga University. The following is what I wrote after I had attended his lecture:

“It may be easy for people to misunderstand where I am coming from. I am certainly not a science writer per se. I’m a—really I consider myself a prose artist who went into journalism and then became a novel writer and then returned to journalism. My first eight books were novels, and then I re-embarked on a journalism career. And I wrote several books about the fiasco of suburbia, and where that came from was my experience as a young newspaper reporter in the ‘70s and I covered the OPEC oil embargo of 1973—right on the ground, and I watched the people fight on the gas lines while I was waiting on the lines. The whole spectacle made an impression on me, that this was a serious problem and probably a dress rehearsal for a much bigger problem later on. Although at the time I knew nothing about the scientific modeling that has come to be known by the name of its originator, Hubbert’s Peak. It was also obvious to me at the time that suburbia was a tremendous problem—an economic problem, an ecological problem, and a spiritual problem. And that it was connected, obviously, to the energy issue.” (From an interview with Robert Birnbaum on the online magazine, the Morning News[1], 24 August 2005)

American geophysicist King Hubbert predicted that the US oil production would peak between 1965 to 1970. U.S. oil production actually peaked in 1971. He also predicted that the global oil production would peak in the year 2000. This did not happen mainly due to the OPEC oil embargo of 1973, which led to a temporary but effective reduction of dependence on fossil energy in the few years that followed. However, "fossil fuels currently supply most of the world’s energy, and are expected to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. While supplies are currently abundant, they won’t last forever. Oil production is in decline in 33 of the 48 largest oil producing countries.” (The International Energy Agency's (IEA) World Energy Outlook 2004) This means that the global peak has already happened though not exactly in the year that Hubbert said it would.

It is based on these facts that Kunstler draws a grim perspective of the future that is awaiting the United States and the world. He predicts that unless a change in the way of life is attempted, Americans will not be able to sustain their present standard of living for much longer.

Although he had to leave his speech at SFCC rather incomplete due to time circumstances, he did make it clear that the current standard of life in the U.S. is not sustainable even if new sources of energy can be found before the world runs out of fossil energy. Oil is not only the source of the energy that is currently running our factories, lighting and warming our houses, and transporting merchandise and people from place to place, but it is also the basis of petrochemical industries without which industrial production, transportation, and construction of residential homes and businesses will be rendered impossible.

Solar energy, wind and tide wave energy, and even nuclear energy may be able to run our cars and light and warm our houses, but they will not give us the rubber that we use in our tires, or the plastic products that are used in almost everything that we find necessary for our way of life today.

Kunstler argues that either we have to urgently change our way of living by minimizing our dependency on oil and oil-based products, or soon witness the decline of our standard of living.

Kunstler’s seems to be strongly critical of the globalization process. He favors a trend towards localizing production and a belief that, with the gradual trend towards the scarcity of oil, it will be more and more difficult for communities to depend on merchandise that is imported from faraway places.

Kunstler blasts the urban structure of American communities and calls for the “deconstruction” of the suburbia. He argues that aside from being ugly and impractical, the suburbia puts a heavy strain on the community’s resources in terms of urban services such as utilities, waste management, transportation, etc. not to mention that this sort of urban sprawl forces the constant retreat of nature as people demand more and more residential space.

Kunstler strongly favors the introduction of public transportation – city and inter-city transportation - as a way of conserving in energy consumption and reducing pollution. In his SFCC speech, he compared public transportation in Europe to that of the U.S. He made the point that while Europeans have maintained and expanded their public transportation system, in the U.S. the trend has been the contrary: public transportation has systematically lost grounds to the ownership of automobiles.

Kunstler predicts that, at the present rate of fossil energy consumption, giant retailers such as Wal-Mart will not be able to remain in business much longer since it will become more and more costly to transport merchandise from remote places.

Deglobalization, localization, and deconstruction of the suburbia seem to be quite reasonable suggestions in the face of diminishing fossil energy reserves. What Kunstler seems to be leaving out of the argument is the type of political system that will be capable of putting these goals on its agenda. With the present political structure in the United States, I seriously doubt that Kunstler’s ideas can ever be systematically realized before a decline in the living standards actually demand them, although, as Marx would put it, economic realities will eventually determine political decisions.

[1] http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/birnbaum_v/james_howard_kunstler.php

Brokeback Mountain - a Gender Story

Brokeback Mountain
Directed by Ang Lee

Heath Ledger: as Ennis Del Mar
Jake Gyllenhaal: as Jack Twist


Against the backdrop of the awe-inspiring and rugged expanse of Brokeback mountain in Wyoming, in the summer of 1963, while tending a herd of sheep, two young men – a cowboy and a ranch hand – forge a relationship and a bond that will change their lives forever. Ironically the formidable challenges of Brokeback mountain turn into the most welcoming and accepting aspect of the men’s lives as they escape from the unfriendly societal laws and norms to resort to the place where they first met and renew their bond.

By the end of the summer, when the two men say goodbye not knowing if their roads will ever cross again, against their rough upbringing, they are both visibly morose. Ennis Del Mar, who is supposed to marry soon, hides behind a wall and starts crying noisily, only to be reminded by his socialization that “men don’t cry” when a passing man stops to find out what is wrong.

The two men continue seeing one another once or twice a year despite both being married and having children now. They marry because that is what the society expects them to do. That is what they should do as men. That is what they have been socialized to do. Though they don’t seem to be consciously aware of it, they both know unconsciously that marrying a person of the opposite sex is not what they really want. They both know deep within them that they love each other. They keep testing the invisible conformity wall of the society. And eventually they both fall victim to the harsh and unyielding realities of the norms of the society. Jack Twist is lynched on the way to Mexico where he sometimes goes to seek homosexual intercourse. And Ennis Del Mar’s marriage breaks up in acrimony when his wife finds out about the nature of his relationship with Jack.

Though the movie portrays the doomed love of two homosexual men, you cannot but shed a few tears at the end when Ennis buries his head in the bloodied denim jacket of his murdered lover and voraciously takes in the scent of the body that he has so dearly loved for so long.

I went to the movie with an open mind, as a person that is very tolerant of homosexual behavior. I truly think of gays and lesbians as a minority that should be protected by civil rights laws. But let me be honest with you; even I was initially taken aback by the explicit love making of two men. One thing is certain: being gay is not equivalent to being effeminate. “Contrary to common myths about gay male effeminacy, masculinity also plays a powerful role in shaping gay and bisexual men’s identity and behavior” (Don Sabo 547). Throughout the movie, one can observe many manifestations of masculine socialization in the behaviors of Ennis and Jack: the Rough-and-Tumble play, aggression and violence, and control and domination.

A very controversial movie because of the subject that it presented, it instigated a wide variety of responses in the society. The conservatives vehemently dispelled and condemned it reasoning that it is detached from mainstream America. The liberals and gay and lesbian community welcomed it as a movie that can bring awareness about homosexuality and create a level of acceptance of this minority group in the society.

Just as this movie was being screened in cinemas across the United States, it coincided with an event that made it obvious how intolerant and zealous some members of the society can be as a result of the way they have been socialized by the culture of male domination and masculinity. Early in February, an 18-year-old male teenager walked into a gay bar in Massachusetts and injured some of the customers using a hatchet. Later he gunned down a police officer during a traffic stop. When he was finally stopped by the police after a high speed chase in Arkansas, he shot and killed the woman who was traveling with him before he was killed in a shootout with the police. Three lives in one week! Not bad for manhood!


Works Cited:

Sabo, Don. “Masculinity and Men’s Health: Moving toward Post-Superman Era Prevention.” Reconstructing Gender: A Multicultural Anthology. 4th Ed. Estelle Disch. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006. 541-558.

A Tribute to Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian Nobel Peace Laureate

All Iranians experience the bitter and brutal rule of the Islamic Republic and are to some degree, in one way or another, affected by its devastating impacts. Since 1978, when the so-called Islamic Revolution successfully derailed the democratic uprising of the people by taking advantage of their religious faith and usurping the much longed for findings of their efforts, many Iranians have had to voluntarily or involuntarily quit Iran and live in exile in Western Europe or the United States and Canada. According to some estimates the number of Iranians living in the United States alone was well over 1,560,000 in the year 1996 (Wikipedia.org).

But women and children have had to bear the brunt of this Orwellian, reactionary, and medieval rule much more harshly than other members of the society. Trapped in the quagmire of their socioeconomic status, their class, and their gender, women have been the prime victims of a corrupt regime that claims that it draws its mandate from the will of God – Allah as they refer to Him!

Many Iranian women have been executed by hanging, shooting, or stoning since the Islamic Republic assumed the reigns of political power in 1978. An example of the savagery with which the Islamic Republic subjugates women in Iran was the public hanging on August 15, 2004 of Atefeh Sahaleh Rajabi, a 16-year-old girl whose only charge was an out-of-wedlock relationship with a young man of about her own age. Her hanging came despite the repeated pleas of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other international human rights monitoring groups.

As the late Iranian poet, Ahmad Shamloo, says in a poem reflecting the practice of Revolutionary Guards in stopping cars at checkpoints late nights to make sure their occupants have not been drinking any alcoholic beverages,

“They smell your mouth, my love,
Lest you may have said ‘I love you!’
Love has to be hidden deep in the closet at home.”

In the face of increasing unemployment - as high as 15% by some estimates – many women and young girls fall prey to the prostitution imposed on them by the poverty that has been the direct result of the economic policies and political isolationism of the Islamic Republic (Amuzegar). Ironically, they are then shamelessly held accountable for trying to feed themselves and their children by the same regime that has induced their misery and suffering.

Conformity to the laws of Islamic Sharia is demanded from Iranian citizens in every aspect of their public and private lives. This includes such details as facial hair and long sleeve shirts for men, headscarves and hejab – Islamic covering – for women, type of music listened to by people, the contents of the books that they read, as well as much more important issues like sexuality and sexual partners. Homosexuality is punished by death. As a rule all Iranians know that if the title of a newspaper reports that a certain man has been hanged or executed by shooting after having been found guilty of sodomy, another execution will soon follow, that of his sexual partner.

With schools segregated by gender, some believe that the rate of homosexual relationships has increased in the past 27 years since the Islamic revolution, though, due to the illegality of such relationships and the stigma that is associated with them, no statistical data have been collected, and therefore there is only subjective speculation as to the verity of this matter.

It is against this dire and bleak backdrop that Shirin Ebadi became the first Iranian woman – the first Iranian for that matter and the first woman in the Middle East - to be awarded the Nobel Prize for peace 10, 2003. And when she appeared at a press conference in Paris not wearing a headscarf, she deliberately pushed against the conformity walls of the Islamic Republic setting an example for all the Iranian women and girls who long to be able to withstand the chains of restraints that the regime has fettered them with (Esfandiari 57).

Over the past century, patriarchy has had to give up many of its long-held strongholds throughout the world, and though it has been very unyielding in the Islamic world, it has lost a lot of ground even among the Muslim populations of these countries. Fundamentalism appears to have been the desperate response of Muslim patriarchy to the ever-tightening noose of egalitarianism around its convulsive neck, one last effort to hold on to its domination.

Fundamentalism is misogynous in nature. “A parliamentarian in Iran is on the record as saying, ‘Women must accept the reality of men dominating them, and the world must recognize that men are superior’” (Chitsaz and Samsami). Ironically the Iranian fundamentalists, who so belligerently oppose any notion of equality with women and do not fall short of making every effort to pass laws that will further subjugate them, greatly owe their success in the revolution of 1978 to the vast participation of women (Moghadam 458). Women activists like Shirin Ebadi, who had been in and out of prison for her support of democracy during the Shah, actively took part in the efforts that culminated in the toppling of the Pahlavi Dynasty only to find out that their efforts were being used to their detriment.

Shirin Ebadi, however, did not despair. She knew well that the very women that made the defeat the Shah’s tyranny possible by their participation in all the million-person demonstrations can someday win a victory against the male domination of the Islamic republic too.

Born in 1947, Shirin Ebadi became the first Iranian female to preside over a court as a judge paving the way for many women that followed. Later when the Islamic Republic declared that women could not hold the position of a judge – an attempt to perpetuate male domination – she worked as a university professor, a writer, and a defense attorney. Her publications became torchlight in the hands of the activists who sought to use the very laws of the Islamic Republic, however antiquated, to fight for the rights of women and children across the country.

Shirin Ebadi chose to undermine the Islamic patriarchy by exploiting the very laws of the patriarchal system. She educated herself in the Sharia taking advantage of the more progressive aspect of Islam to fight its reactionary side. After all Islam is the same religion whose preaching terminated the practice of infanticide among Arab Muslims; it is the religion that taught people to free their slaves and treat them with respect; it is the religion that held that all men – yes men – are equal in the eyes of Allah regardless of the color of their skin; the very same religion that cultivated the grounds for the flourishing of literature and science in the Islamic lands when Europe was burning in the ignorance of the dark ages and any voice of ration was shut down by the inquisition courts of the Catholic Christianity. Yes, however patriarchal, Islam does have a more moderate reading too, which accounts for the vast differences in the state of human rights and women in the Islamic countries.Ebadi’s books and writing shed light on the ongoing spousal abuse in Iran and set clear ways for women to fight their abusive spouses in Islamic courts that do not hesitate to interpret everything in favor of the husband. She found ways around the patrilineal inheritance laws of Islam that assign the share of a girl from the deceased parent’s wealth at half that of a male child.

Her international recognition and her affiliation with human rights organizations put her in a position where she could act as defense attorney for many a political prisoner when no one else dared walk into a so-called revolutionary court to defend a detainee whose charges had been trumped up to include “conspiracy to overthrow the Islamic Republic,” a charge that can be punished with the death penalty if proven.

Interestingly, just as the Second World War provided the American women with an opportunity to acquire paid employment on a vast basis, the eight-year war with Iraq and the engagement of the male population in the war through mandatory draft cleared the way for many Iranian women to get absorbed in the job market. According to Valentine M. Moghadam this was a factor that “undermined the [Islamic Republic’s] policies on women” and “created some employment opportunities for educated women in the public sector and particularly in health, education, and (t0 a lesser extent) public administration.”

Despite the Islamic revolution and the enforcement of Islamic laws, which drastically reduce women’s chances and their upward mobility, the long period of modernization during the Shah’s regime resulted in the education of girls and women on a large scale. This made their involvement in paid employment possible. And although the Islamic Republic has been hard at work to throw women out of labor force, Iranian women, under the guidance of female activists like Shirin Ebadi, have been able to guarantee their continued presence in the job market by steadfastly adhering to opportunities of furthering their education. For the first time, in recent years, the number of female students in institutes of higher education has topped that of male students.

Recent family planning policies in the face of the rising population, increasing poverty, and towering foreign debt have made it possible for Iranian women to have easier access to contraception thereby empowering them to remain more reliably in their employments. By defining labor laws that directly and indirectly affect women and their families, Shirin Ebadi has been able to educate women regarding their rights in the labor market.

When Shirin Ebadi was declared by the Nobel Foundation as the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Iranians in Iran and around the world welcomed the decision with extreme joy and pride. Iranian women in particular embraced Ebadi’s Nobel Prize as a victory for the feminist movement in Iran and the Middle East. Shirin Ebadi’s contributions to women’s and children’s welfare in Iran and around the world have inspired many a woman who might have otherwise found it rather daring to engage in any sort of empowering activity in the face of the fundamentalist misogyny.

“In all her roles, she seeks to interpret Islam in a way that is harmonious and co-exists with the so-called notions of Western thought, such as human rights, democracy, freedom of speech and religious freedom” (Manish Verma). Despite all her deeds, this reading of Islam by Shirin Ebadi has put her at odds with those activists that think of the Islamic Republic as an incorrigible political system that should be replaced with a secular and democratic regime. many of Ebadi’s critics, including the writer of this paper, are of the opinion that Dr. Ebadi is too accepting of the Islamic Republic, and in effect contributing to the lengthening of its power.

Regardless of whether one agrees with Shirin Ebadi’s political stance, there is no doubt that her publications and actions have greatly helped to ease the pain and suffering of many women and children in Iran. Every Iranian, men and women alike, will always be proud to be associated with Dr. Ebadi as an Iranian.


Works cited:

Amuzegar, Jahangir. “Iran’s Unemployment Crisis.” Middle East Economic Survey 41. 2004.

Esphandiari, Helen. “the Woman Question.” The Wilson Quarterly 28.2 2004: 56-63. Spokane Falls Community College Library, Spokane, WA. 25 Feb. 2006


Chitsaz, Sarvnaz and Soosan Samsami. “Iranian Women and Girls: Victims of Exploitation and Violence.” Coalition Against Trafficking Women. 1999:

Moghadam, Valentine M. “A Tale of Two Countries: State, Society, and Gender Politics in Iran and Afghanistan.” The Muslim World. 2004. Spokane Falls Community College Library, Spokane, WA. 25 Feb. 2006

Verma, Manisha. “What Is the Significance of Shirin Ebadi Winning the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2003?” Association for Women’s Rights in Development. 2005:

Robert Bly

A while back Robert Bly was here in Spokane. I had the opportunity of attending one of his poetry reading sessions at Spokane Falls Community College. I wrote the following after that session:

Art is a form of non-conformism, defiance against accepted norms and rules, a violation of what is commonly considered normal. Repetition of what already exists cannot be considered as art. At best it is copying. An artist should be able to deliberately infringe upon the rules and norms of his art, and establish new rules and norms that can be repeated by others. Only then can a person call him/herself an artist.

Art is the creation of beauty; it is the expression of feelings and emotions; it is the kind of communication that addresses the most subtle aspects of human desire for perfection and elation.

Poetry, among other forms of art, is the use of language in a way that can affect the feelings and emotions of the reader or listener. It is the most emotional way of using the language. It arises from the emotions of the poet and targets the emotions of the person that is exposed to it. It can make you feel sad, happy, angry, agitated, relaxed, proud, humble. In a nutshell, poetry is all about the expression of emotions.

How is it then that despite their socialization, there have historically been more poets among men than among women? How come most poets are men? One may argue that in the past men had access to education and literacy, and women did not, and therefore men wrote poetry and women did not. But most poetry of the olden times was memorized. People memorized a poem and it went from one person to another like a current of emotions and feelings. Poetry does not necessarily have to be written language. Why then do we not have more women poets that men? Aren’t women the ones that are socialized to be able to express their emotions? Aren’t men supposed to have been reared to suppress their emotions? How come then Robert Bly can express and stir so much emotion? Why is it that he can make me laugh, cry, get angry, move, stop moving, get disappointed, or become filled with hope?

In my culture, men who choose to read or write poetry are thought of as being effeminate, womanish, yet almost all poets are men. Even in this day and age when men and women have equal access to education, still most poets are men.

True, men are historically socialized to suppress their emotions. Men cannot cry. Men find it difficult to express their love towards their mates. It is not manly to express ones emotions openly. Men should not let others find out that they feel sad. It is a sign of weakness and is not masculine. But men can make use of a legitimate means of expressing their emotions. Are there more poets than poetesses because men find in poetry a legitimate outlet of emotions and feelings without being found guilty of unmanly behavior?
Smart men like Robert Bly beat the system by expressing their emotions in the form of poetry and at the same time retaining their masculine image. Isn’t that smart?

A Sociological Review of the movie "Osama"

Osama
Director: Sadigh Barmak

The background is all indicative of death and destruction. People walk out of half destroyed houses. Everything is squalid and neglected. You can see an expression of fear and desperation in the faces of the passers-by. A young boy is burning “espand” – an herb whose smoke is believed to keep the evil eye away when burned. He seems to be burning the espand for a photographer who has dared to come out and film what is going on. Soon a group of burqa-clad female demonstrators appear, who are demanding jobs and food. Their placards read, “We are not political; we are hungry; we want jobs.”

Before long, shots echo in the sordid streets followed by the bearded Taliban, who disperse the crowd of women by opening water on them. In the midst of all this, a young girl of about eleven and her mother, who used to be a nurse, are returning from the mother’s last day on the job. The hospital has been shut down due to lack of funding. Besides women are no longer allowed to work as nurses. The girl’s father has been killed in the fighting against the soviet occupation.

Afghanistan is a horticultural/pastoral country north of Pakistan and East of Iran with no access to the ocean. Maybe it is this lack of access to free waters that has historically isolated this nation and has limited its exposure to modernization. When India and Pakistan were still colonies of Great Britain, Afghanistan had a strategic role for Britain who did not want the Russians and later the Soviets to gain access to the south. With its rugged and unfriendly mountains and hostile terrain, Afghanistan was a natural impediment keeping the Russians away from India and Pakistan.

The Soviets, who had never given up their desire to control Afghanistan, staged a coup in 1978, which resulted in the ousting and murder of the entire royal family. The communist takeover of Afghanistan lasted for 10 years during which an Islamic resistance, secretly armed and aided by the United States and its allies, specifically Saudi Arabia, engaged in fierce fighting against the USSR, eventually forcing the communists to withdraw.

Though the western media would give you a dark picture of the communist years of Afghanistan, the fact is that during the reign of the communists, education was declared free and mandatory for both boys and girls. Women and girls were literally emancipated and encouraged to attend schools. Poverty was brought under control. Farming and agriculture was improved; existing roads were repaired and many new ones were constructed; warlords and tribal heads were contained and their power was limited. Opium plantations were burned down and farmers were encouraged to switch to alternative crops that were just as profitable due to the subsidy policies. The age-old patriarchy was curbed.

So when the United States decided to turn Afghanistan into the Vietnam of the USSR, it found quite willing allies in the warlords and tribal patriarchs whose powers had been curbed by the communist regime. The plan was simple. For years, communism had been introduced as the fiercest enemy of God and religion. Therefore the most effective way of containing communism seemed to be the rise of fundamentalism in the Islamic countries. Some people still talk about a CIA plan called the Green Belt, which aimed at creating fundamentalist Islamic Regimes South of the Soviet Union to bar the communist access to the warm waters of the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean. This Islamic Belt was supposed to include Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey. Sure enough they succeeded in two out of three – Iran and Afghanistan – and by the time they had to start working on the Third, the USSR had already collapsed. Mission accomplished!

Aided by the United States, the patriarchy in Afghanistan set out to undo every achievement that women had made during the Soviet occupation. They tied the noose so tight that this time women had to depend on men for their mere existence. Polygamy became the most prevalent form of marriage in the face of the high sex ratio caused by the many years of fighting. Those women that resisted the polygamous marriage were left to die of hunger.

It was in this setting that the mother in the movie “Osama,” who had lost her job and her breadwinning husband, decided to dress her 11-year-old daughter as a boy and send her out to work and make money.

The young girl who was dressed as a boy was then forced along with the rest of the boys in the city to attend the madrassa – the Islamic school – and learn the Quran to become Taliban later. This is where she came to be called “Osama.” When her secret was finally revealed, she awaited the most savage punishment in jail along with many other women and girls. She had violated the strictly defined gender roles of the most fiercely patriarchal society on earth.

The Islamic court convened in a city square. A crowd of men stood in the square waiting for the judge, who was half lying on a bed on a platform, to decree the punishments. After a short indictment spoken by a bearded prosecutor, the old judge ordained that the female correspondent – a foreigner – who had been arrested filming the demonstrations was an infidel and had to be stoned. The woman was then put in a hole that had been dug in the middle of the square with only her head out of the ground and was stoned by the Taliban. When Osama’s turn came, the prosecutor told the judge how blasphemously she had violated gender roles and how she deserved to die. But the judge decided to have mercy on Osama and wed her to an old man that already had a few wives.
The sad story of girls and women in Islamic societies such as Afghanistan was best portrayed when Osama’s husband directed her into the room which was to be hers, and presented a few padlocks telling her that she could choose her own padlock, giving her a choice as to which one she wanted to be locked up by.