Jenny’s Pennies

Happy midsummer everyone!

Here’s a little reading for the weekend (sorry not a lot of links today).
Well this does not require a lot of reading, but probably some tissue. Congrats California. May more follow.
(More heartwarming pictures here.)

Amber Rhea writes about feminist choices.

And even as feminists call out countless examples of male privilege, many of them continue to place a lot of importance on what men think and how men interpret things – even if their interpretations are dead wrong. Somehow those interpretations are granted more importance than what the actor (the woman) states as her intent.

Nothing new there.

And I get it, we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in a world which is, unfortunately, still very much controlled by sexism. So I can understand being concerned about how things may appear to and be interpreted by men. They are the ones making the rules more often then not, and therefore their interpretations are going to be given more credence by society at large. But do we, as feminists, have to replicate this structure?

I realized I haven’t done one of these in ages. So here’s a link roundup for the weekend - go read:

Tomorrow May 17th, Kuwait hold elections for its National Assembly. 28 women are now making a second attempt to win a seat in the 50 member all-male assembly - in the previous election in 2006, 27 women ran for parliament, but none managed to win. Women’s eNews reports here.

Marcella of Abyss2hope nails it:

At most convenience stores supervisors train new employees to cooperate with their robbers. An employee who tries to fight off a robber is likely to be fired. Losing cash or merchandise is considered more acceptable than the risk of losing a clerk’s life.

This isn’t a difficult concept for most people to understand unless the crime is kidnapping or rape. Then too many people seem to suffer from brain freeze and any cooperation becomes consent. Then fear of death or physical injury or pain suddenly becomes nothing more than excuses which allow that person to play the victim.

I believe this brain freeze comes in because it directly supports widely accepted strategies and rationalizations of those who are trying to have sex or sexual contact with someone who has not consented to that sex contact. Under this rationalization if they can get an unwilling person to cooperate then they will have gotten legal consent. Committing sex crimes in this way is in no way an accident or a misunderstanding as it gets called when the reality of rape from the victim’s perspective is undeniable.

Too often the criminal justice system seems to suffer from similar brain freeze. This can cause a real rape victim to be viewed as a false reporter when the same investigator would never think of applying this label to a convenience store clerk who was equally cooperative.

Awful. (from Washington Post. Steer clear of the comments!)

The U.S. government has injected hundreds of foreigners it has deported with dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will to keep them sedated during the trip back to their home country, according to medical records, internal documents and interviews with people who have been drugged.

The government’s forced use of antipsychotic drugs, in people who have no history of mental illness, includes dozens of cases in which the “pre-flight cocktail,” as a document calls it, had such a potent effect that federal guards needed a wheelchair to move the slumped deportee onto an airplane.

This week marked the five year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. So, this week the Friday Food for Thought is dedicated to that subject. As it is Good Friday (in Swedish called Långfredagen, the long Friday), a day which for many people means reflection and silence, it seems fitting to post this today, even though I am in no way religious.

What you should read:

A war of utter folly, by Hans Blix, head of the UN inspections in Iraq 2003 (the Guardian):

The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a tragedy - for Iraq, for the US, for the UN, for truth and human dignity. I can only see one gain: the end of Saddam Hussein, a murderous tyrant. Had the war not finished him he would, in all likelihood, have become another Gadafy or Castro; an oppressor of his own people but no longer a threat to the world. Iraq was on its knees after a decade of sanctions.

The elimination of weapons of mass destruction was the declared main aim of the war. It is improbable that the governments of the alliance could have sold the war to their parliaments on any other grounds. That they believed in the weapons’ existence in the autumn of 2002 is understandable. Why had the Iraqis stopped UN inspectors during the 90s if they had nothing to hide? Responsibility for the war must rest, though, on what those launching it knew by March 2003.

By then, Unmovic inspectors had carried out some 700 inspections at 500 sites without finding prohibited weapons. The contract that George Bush held up before Congress to show that Iraq was purchasing uranium oxide was proved to be a forgery. The allied powers were on thin ice, but they preferred to replace question marks with exclamation marks.

‘We live in a nightmare. Death and carnage is everywhere’ Ali, Baghdad resident (the Guardian):

“I stood there in the middle of it all. I saw people picking bodies up and carrying them. A police car arrived and the police started to fire bullets in the air. I ran away and hid at the entrance of a shop. When a woman saw me, she started screaming. There was blood on my arm and on my leg.” A friend of Ali’s stopped a passing ambulance and helped him into it. Inside, he found a man whose face was black from burns and whose shoulder was covered with blood. A younger man was bleeding from his legs. “When he tried to lift one of them it bent not at the knee but from the middle of his thigh,” Ali says. “He was screaming, ‘Fix my leg! Fix my leg!’ ”

At the hospital, Ali and the others sat in a corridor waiting to be treated by the overstretched medical team. “There were children there who were all red,” he remembers. “It looked as if they had no faces, they were so covered with blood.”

After waiting a while he was transferred to another hospital, where a doctor examined him. “The doctor told me I just had two bits of shrapnel in my arm and leg,” Ali says. “He asked me why I was crying. I told him it wasn’t for myself but for all the boys and girls around me.”

Am I a torturer? (Mother Jones)

When I first set off to interview the rank-and-file guards and interrogators tasked with implementing the administration’s torture guidelines, I thought they’d never talk openly. They would be embarrassed, wracked by guilt, living in silent shame in communities that would ostracize them if they knew of their histories. What I found instead were young men hiding their regrets from neighbors who wanted to celebrate them as war heroes. They seemed relieved to talk with me about things no one else wanted to hear—not just about the acts themselves, but also about the guilt, pain, and anger they felt along with pride and righteousness about their service. They struggled with these things, wanted to make sense of them—even as the nation seemed determined to dismiss the whole matter and move on.

This, perhaps, is the real scandal of Abu Ghraib: In survey after survey, as many as two-thirds of Americans say torture is justified when it’s used to get information from terrorists. In an abc/Washington Post poll in the wake of the 2004 scandal, 60 percent of respondents classified what happened at Abu Ghraib as mere abuse, not torture. And as recently as last year, 68 percent of Americans told Pew Research pollsters that they consider torture an acceptable option when dealing with terrorists.

Critics of the administration’s interrogation policies warn that the ramifications will be felt across the globe, including by Americans unlucky enough to be imprisoned abroad. Foreign-policy scholars fear the fallout from Abu Ghraib has already weakened the U.S. military’s anti-terrorism capabilities. Lawyers warn about war-crime tribunals. But hardly anyone is discussing the repercussions already being felt here at home. It’s the soldiers tying the sandbags around Iraqis’ necks and blaring the foghorns through the night who are experiencing the effects most acutely. And the communities they’re returning to are reeling as a result.

Posting will resume on Tuesday - I’m going to my parents for Easter, no internet access.
Have a good Easter. Peace.

I forgot to do this last week. Today I’m cat sitting and since I’m a crazy cat lady (without a cat of my own), I’d rather snuggle with the little fur ball than being in front of the computer. So, here’s what you should read when I’m not writing:

Killing an innocent man
An opinion piece in the Denver Post written by Ray Krone, an exonerated former death row prisoner. I should say I’m a hard line death penalty opponent. For the state to kill people to send the message that killing is wrong… it doesn’t add up for me (BTW, similarly, I’m also dead against corporal punishment for children: “no, you can’t smack your brother - now come here so I can smack you” - this kind of reasoning is boggles my mind. But what do I know, I’m just a bleeding heart liberal sissy born and raised in a country where corporal punishment against children has been illegal for almost 30 years. And yet our society has not fallen to pieces, no matter what the scaremongers will tell you. Anyway, this was off topic, but read mr. Krones piece!)

Freedom’s just another word. Contemporary slavery in Mauritania (from CBC News):

The night of Aug. 8, 2007, seemed like a night for celebration in Mauritania, a vast desert country on Africa’s northwest coast.

Radio, television and newspapers all proclaimed the end of slavery. Slave-owning was criminalized, and overnight, half a million people — a fifth of the country’s population — were officially freed from bondage.

But there was a problem. Those half-million newly free people didn’t own radios. They didn’t own televisions. They can’t read either. And the news — if they heard it — meant little anyway.

In Mauritania, despite good intentions and high-minded words, slavery is still thriving, as it has for 800 years. It is just taking new forms.

Dark-skinned men, women and children known as Haratine carry out orders under the threat of being beaten. They work as labourers and shepherds, as servants and cooks, as nursemaids and security guards. They are penniless and uneducated. Their masters are pale-skinned, Arab-speaking Moors.

The relationship is ancient, confusing and deeply entrenched, and it defines much of what goes on in this iron-rich, sandy country. Even the most modern and sophisticated of Mauritanians is caught in the tangled web.

Emotional? Probably. Praying? Sweet Whomever-the-Hell-is-Listening, Yes.
A guestpost at Shakesville by MouthyB, whose oldest daughter has just told her she is “at least bi”. This is a beautiful and powerful piece, and I wish this was the reaction of all parents who find out that their child is not a heterosexual. The comments are well worth reading too.

Raped and silenced in the barracks (AlterNet):
About how Pentagon and the US military fails to protect the troops from sexual abuse, an has created a system which:

puts victims on the defense, grants immunity to assailants and, in the end, puts rape survivors who have the courage to speak out, in even greater danger than if they had just accepted the abuse as collateral damage in their military careers.

Sorry to start off the weekend on such a depressing note, but this stuff is important.

First off, Holly of Feministe writes about a recent controversy in the US regarding transsexual children. This piece has to do with the US, yes, but there are things in there which are applicable at the universal level. Does the thought of transsexual children make you uncomfortable? Go read Holly’s piece!
A saner era? Myths about trans kids in schools, courtesy of FOX News.

Second, Ann Jones of TomDispatch writes about the war against women on the West African front. The wars of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Côte d’Ivoire are officially “over”, but for women and children, the war isn’t really over at all, not by a long shot. Because the difference between war and peace is not like flipping a coin. War isn’t over when it ends.
The War Against Women. A Dispatch from the West African Front

After that, we need some humour! So, I direct you to Senior Shakesville Teen Analyst and 18-year-old Man-Boy of Leisure Kenny Blogginz asking the question: Is Feminism Even Necessary Anymore? (This is apparently written by an actual 18 year old guy! Swoon!)

Some snippets for you:

PhylDil: Hello, Kenny. My name is Phylliam Diller, and I’m a feminist.

KenBlogz: Why!?!?

PhylDil: I just feel that women are treated very unfairly in our society.

KenBlogz: Our society!? Whose society would you prefer, sir—Mao Tse Dong’s Communist China!?

PhylDil: No, they’re pretty sexist, too.

KenBlogz: Hi Valerie, I’m Kenny Blogginz. I just got done interviewing your boyfriend about feminism. He seemed to have some pretty dangerous ideas. Are you a feminist?

ValSol: Yes, I am.

KenBlogz: I’m going to have to stop you right there. It looks to me like you’re wearing women’s makeup. And I can’t smell you.

ValSol: And…?

KenBlogz: Nothing. Please tell me what happened to you as a child that caused you to even consider being a feminist?

ValSol: Nothing happened to me as a child! I’m a feminist because I believe that women should have the same rights that men have.

KenBlogz: But…that’s not what feminism is about at all! It’s about killing off all men, save for a select few breeding studs…and overthrowing the government and “money system”… and abolishing “male medicine” so that women can live forever…

ValSol: What in the flying fuck are you talking about?

KenBlogz: I just don’t know anymore.

In the last Friday Food for Thought, I directed you to a post on Big Fat Deal where a 14 year old girl asked how to love what you see when you look in the mirror.

Now, the 14 year old has written back. And it put a smile on my face and tears in my eyes. Go read! Now!

What you should read this weekend:

“The Beautiful People Are The Skinny People”. Mo at Big Fat Deal got a question from a 14 year old girl about how to accept your body. It got some real thoughtful and beautiful responses. Found via Shapely Prose, where the question also got great comments.

Every where I look the beautiful people are the skinny people! Everyone just..accepts them!

I know I’m talented…but that doesn’t make the girl in the mirror look any better

and everytime my mom tells me I look pretty…I just can’t believe her!

Is this just a “fourteen year old phase”?
What’ll it take for me to love my reflection?
‘Cause everytime I say to myself “You’re beautiful” it feels like a lie…

How do you do it? How can you just totally accept yourself exactly the way you are! What your secret? Will you share it with me?

“They all had to be eliminated” (from The Independent, UK). About Kang Khek Ieu, know as “Duch”, a top Khmer Rouge official who oversaw the deaths of 17 000 people in Cambodia during the Pol Pot regime. He is now facing trial, and has been interviewed by Valerio Pellizzari:

I wanted to know if Duch had any moments of uncertainty, doubts, feelings of rebellion while he was wiping out his country’s entire intellectual class.

He admitted the idea had crossed his mind. “When the work started at Tuol Sleng, I asked my bosses now and then, ‘Do we really have to use all this violence?’ Son Sen never answered. Nuon Chea, the No 2 Brother in the power structure, who was above him, told me: ‘Don’t think about these things.’

“I personally had no answer. Then with the passing of time, I understood. It was Ta Mok who had ordered all the prisoners to be eliminated. We saw enemies, enemies, enemies everywhere.

“I was cornered, like everyone in that machine, I had no alternative. Pol Pot, the No 1 Brother, said you always had to be suspicious, to fear something. And thus the usual request came: interrogate them again, interrogate them better.”

“Reflections on indigenous issues by a non-indigenous person for the consideration of non-indigenous people.” Paradigm Oz about the apology issued to Australia’s Aboriginal population and about the reconciliation process:

The reconciliation process has been a white commentary on black Australia, perhaps easing some of White Australia’s anxieties but it has not connected in any meaningful way to Aboriginal Australia.

The reconciliation movement has achieved no positive change in Aboriginal Australia, except of course for the Apology, which while spiritually significant, does nothing to address issues of Aboriginal poverty, disadvantage and ill health.

“Rowan Williams has shown us one thing – why multiculturalism must be abandoned.” Johann Hari on the British Archibishop of Canterbury’s idea of allowing sharia law in Britain (found via Cruella):

Yet many people feel instinctively uncomfortable when we talk about ditching multiculturalism – for a good reason. The only alternative they are aware of is the old whiter-than-white monoculturalism. /…/ Multiculturalism was formed with good intentions as a counter-reaction. But it has become a mirror-image of this old racism, treating Muslim women – and others – as so different that they do not deserve the same rights as the rest of us. As the European-Iranian feminist Azar Majedi puts it: “By creating different laws and judicial systems for each ethnic group, we are not fighting racism. In fact, we are institutionalising it.”

Links for the weekend:

Sex doesn’t need to be sensationalized. (Rachel Kramer Bussel, aka Lusty Lady, Huffington Post):

Sex is a topic that people are always interested in, and always will be, yet instead of addressing it in a straightforward way, all too many media outlets choose to try to make sex “sexier” rather than giving readers enough credit to think logically and critically about the topic.

Victims, aren’t we all. Old, but good from Renegade Evolution:

But while some bemoan the thought that women are taught to be objects, I fear the thought that we are taught to be victims.

Who’s your mommy. (Echidne of the Snakes):

Our ideas of powerful women tend to be based on mythology (Echidne, ahem) or on the very few women who stick out in the history after most women have been carefully nailed down into its background. So we are told about Joan of Arc (who got burned to a crisp for her daring) or about the female saints (who got their breasts cut out for their daring) or about the great queens such as Elizabeth I (never got laid) or Catherine the Great (got laid by horses). Or we are expected to find the female role models for power among the sex goddesses of the silver screen era, even though their power was derived from male approval and looks.

This must be love.. Beautiful and heart wrenching from Uncensored Arab woman blues:

I just read this and having experienced it “All Iraqis will go to heaven, because we’ve all been to Hell.” - I know there is never a good time to give up.

I am not a politician, am not a poet, nor am I a writer…Am just a survivor.

And like every survivor, we seek little things…

Sentences here and there. Maybe a poetry line, a piece of music, a work of art, the eyes of a stranger that bring on a sense of familiarity, a memory, a song, an embrace or a heartbeat…

A heartbeat and the heart breaks open and says “finally”

And the heart breaks open and sighs…or sheds a few silent tears.

Have a good weekend.

So I’ve been feeling kind of off the last few days which has led to no blogging. Yesterday, I had two posts going, one on how a right wing columnist wrote how she has doubts about universal voting rights (you know, some people are too stupid to vote), and the other on how Christian Democrats in Alingsås, a small town in western Sweden, are protesting about the municipal art gallery showing American artist Andres Serrano’s “The history of sex” with the usual screams of “won’t somebody please think of the children!” (and “won’t somebody please think of the tax payers”).

But I couldn’t be bothered.

So instead, here are some links for you to read over the weekend:

NIMBY comes to China (Jeffrey N. Wassterstrom, the Nation):
On a new kind of protest in China, where the rapidly growing, and highly articulate, middle class is speaking out on local issues that they feel will impact their quality of life.

Beware the internet’s looming class divide (Johann Hari, the Independent):
Why we have to fight to keep the internet equally open for everyone.

The threat of population growth pales beside the greed of the rich (George Monbiot, AlterNet): To suggest that population growth is largely responsible for the ecological crisis is to blame the poor for the excesses of the rich.

Amnesty International: War crimes go unpunished in Guatemala
(For Swedish readers interested in learning more about Guatemala, you can read this (long) story that I wrote for Amnesty Press in December 2006, about the history of the conflict and about today’s “low-intensity peace” in Guatemala. (Yes, self-promotion.))

Somalia’s crisis continues in the shadow of Darfur (John Boonstra, UN Dispatch): according to a high-ranking UN official, Somalia has the world’s most pressing humanitarian crisis.

Two visions of democracy: a debate on liberalism and multiculturalism (Nadia Urbinati & Michael Walzer, Dissent Magazine): Who should the West support: moderate Islamists like Tariq Ramadan, or Islamic dissidents like Ayaan Hirsi Ali? Urbinati and Walzer weighs in on the debate.

(Btw, I’ve decided to make this link round-up a weekly exercise under the headline “Friday food for thought”, where I’ll collect some links to things that should be read and to events that are under-reported.)