Senator Kennedy's legacy should remind activists about reality.

Thursday, 08. 27. 2009  –  By Janice  –  5 Comments

Champion of moral courage: Ted Kennedy

The death of Senator Ted Kennedy and the touching memorials I have seen on television remind me of the moral courage that America has seen from of the Kennedy family. Following in the footsteps of his older brothers, Sen. Kennedy was always willing to express unique and unpopular opinions, including healthcare reform. In the past 24 hours we have been reminded over and over that healthcare reform was something that Sen. Kennedy believed in and promoted for a large portion of his career yet did not live to see realized.

Sen. Kennedy fought tirelessly for decades to reform healthcare and refused to give up his vision. However, Obama is a mere month and a half into campaigning for his healthcare plan, and many progressives have pre-maturely thrown their hands in the air and stopped supporting him.

On Monday, British journalist Michael Tomasky published a poignant article titled “Change is tough. So liberals can’t just leave it to Obama.” Tomasky, seemingly exasperated by the disillusionment of so-called American liberals, reminds those who supported Obama’s election that it is far too early to be throwing in the towel on someone who has been in office only a few months.

Although I am sure many people subconsciously realize it, Tomasky points out that, assuming Obama spends eight years in office (and I assume he will), we are only eight percent into his tenure.

Tomasky reminds young American liberals about the reality of the social movements that we love to idealize. The Civil Rights Movement did not begin with Rosa Parks and end with the first civil rights bill. In fact it was a struggle that took over a decade and began long before Rosa Parks and lasted long after LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

I shudder to think what would have happened if civil rights activists had had the same level of endurance I am seeing out of young American liberals today.

I think that Obama’s election should have instilled in this generation greater self-confidence. If we can get this unconventional candidate elected, why can’t we do many other things, including reform healthcare, end the war, bring about drug reform, and many others?

After all, those of us who campaigned for him shouted the phrase “yes We can!” not, “yes HE can.”

Moral Courage Project defines moral courage as the ability to speak truth to power, especially to your own community and always for the sake of a greater good. Senator Kennedy fought for the greater good, so did his brothers. Sen. Kennedy envisioned an America without a working poor. He saw an America where healthcare is seen as a right. Obama shares many of the same goals, with civil liberties as his guiding principal.

I think our President is on to something, even an entire eight months after the Inauguration. I think it is a vision worth signing on to for the long fun.

Many of Obama’s supporters are so young that they don’t really understand the political process. I hope that instead of giving up and being indifferent for the next seven and a half years that young people will get involved, for it is an exciting, but highly participatory process.

Tomasky's final message to American progressives: “This is what movements do – they do the hard, slow work of winning political battles and changing public opinion over time. It isn't fun. It isn't something Will.i.am is going to make a clever and moving video about, and it offers precious few moments for YouTube. It takes years, which is a bummer, in a political culture that measures success and failure by the hour. The end of euphoria should lead not to disillusionment, but to seriousness of purpose.”

A sexist society’s subtle spell on teens.

Monday, 08. 24. 2009  –  By Julie  –  1 Comment

He slams her against a locker and calls her a stupid slut. He demands to see her cell-phone and read through her text messages, to make sure she’s being faithful. He harasses other girls, calling out sexual innuendos while they’re walking together down the hall.

Is he just a boy being a boy, or a boy being an abuser? The truth is, domestic violence isn’t only an adult problem anymore.

About 1/3 of high school students have been involved in an abusive dating relationship. The even bigger problem-only 4 in 10 dating relationships end after the onset of violence and abuse, and only 1 out of 25 victims seeks help from a trained adult. This is the reality in a country that claims to be in a post-feminist mindset and claims equality.

Teen violence being ignored.

Where does it start? Does a teenage boy see his father put-down his mother, push her around, and understand these actions as the way to treat women? Are some boys just inherently violent? Maybe. But abusive tendencies are also deeply ingrained in our society, creating abusers out of men who probably wouldn’t reach a violent end on their own.

As a teenager myself, I can’t help but notice the messages sent to my generation – messages so many people overlook as harmless. The stringent gender stereotypes that force girls to be submissive and boys to be in power augments the problem immensely. The idea that a woman must have done something wrong to encourage a man to hurt her is more common than one might think – after singer Chris Brown abused his girlfriend, Rihanna, many girls surveyed assumed Rihanna was the one in the wrong, that she must have upset him and deserved what she got.

I look at my peers, and think back to elementary school. There was a time when we were content sharing toys with each other, when we were innocent and untouched by society’s cruel insistence that we’re not equal, that boys and girls must fit certain roles. It’s not until we grow that we slowly become under the impression that we have to be different and we have to act a certain way. The transformation is so subtle, we often don’t even know it’s happening.

We have to wake up from a sexist society’s subtle spell. We have to realize that domestic violence is a huge issue, and instead of my generation being wrapped up in these messages, just like generations upon generations before us, we have to be the ones who end it.

Watching The Stoning of Soraya M. gives me hope. This movie is an excellent place to start combating violence – especially for teens. Movies are generally a place where teens pick up negative ideas. Finally being able to watch a movie that exposes the global truth of domestic violence and its grave consequences is an excellent way for my generation to become aware.

It will take a lot of courage on the part of my generation – to fight violence that has run through the veins of global society for hundreds of years. But if anybody can do it, I think we can.

16-year-old Julie Zeilinger is a feminist blogger from Cleveland. She has recently created waves in the blogosphere with the creation of the F Bomb, a blog for teenage feminists.

Illegal compassion

Friday, 08. 21. 2009  –  By Terkel  –  Comments Off

2009 © all photos by my talented and courageous friend Andreas Bro

Eight days ago, Denmark – my once dearly beloved motherland – lost its last sense of decency and humanity. In the cover of night, riot police entered the Brorsons Church in central Copenhagen and arrested 17 Iraqi men who had been denied asylum in order to forcibly repatriate them to their war-torn homeland. The 17 men, who were against their will separated from wives and children in the process, had sought refuge with their families in the church since May in order to stop their own deportation to Iraq – a expatriation the UN has publicly advised against since they might face torture and prosecution. In the course of the eviction, the Danish police clubbed and bludgeoned scores of Danish protesters who had come to voice their disapproval with the anticipated expulsion. Last night, news surfaced that the expelled Iraqis had been denied legal representation when they are to meet with the Iraqi delegation that will escort them back to the Middle East – a place they have not been for the past 6-13 years where they have been living in various Danish asylum centers. The degradation of their already shattered dignity is complete.

How did it come this far, you might ask? Since 2001, the Liberal government in Denmark has been courting the xenophobic and nationalistic Danish People’s Party (DPP) in order to execute party bloc politics in a country once famous for its parliamentary diversity. Amongst the accolades of this opportunistic political pact is the design of one the world’s toughest immigration laws – the implementation of which greatly helped foster the toxic and anxious political climate that helped spark the notorious Muhammad cartoons crisis in 2006. The DPP provides blind parliamentary support for the government in return for their malevolent immigration policies that are basically designed to “protect” Denmark against the wicked outsiders that will destroy our Little Mermaid fairytale country, whether they are Poles, Romanians, Latvians, Iraqis, Afghanis, or Iranians. All these appalling technicalities that make up these laws were the very legal spider web that caught the 17 Iraqis – and the 200-some of the countrymen with the same awaiting destiny – the human prey that the DPP and their ignorant followers feasts upon.

408 years after William Shakespeare wrote the famous proverb “there’s something rotten in the State of Denmark” – a line that has, frankly, always annoyed me – I concur. The inhumane immigration directives that gave birth to the undignified scenes at Brorsons Church are our own creation. The social democrats and the rest of us humanists should have fought tooth and nail to stop this from happening. But we did not. We just stood by and watched as our values of social justice decay to a point beyond return. Now it is the law.

In his remarkable Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. – citing St. Augustine – gracefully penned: “an unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.” and continued to conclude that “an unjust law is no law at all”. Dr. King’s struggle was in an entirely different context and time, but the problem is the same: can we as civilized human beings stomach that disenfranchised minorities in our society gets stomped upon in the name of the unjust laws our institutions have created? And where do we draw the line and say that we have had enough?

I surely have had enough. Sure, the police was enforcing the law when they forcibly pulled the Iraqis out of Brorsons Church but they were complying with an unjust and inhumane law that is a disgrace on Denmark. To only think in legal terms about this problem is to subscribe to the kind of xenophobic deadpan reasoning that breeds the alarming power structures, which allows DPP to exercise its anti-social spell on Denmark.

Something inside the Danish soul was lost on August 13. The humanitarian pride of my home country, which I once cherished and marveled, perished in the night as the police wielded their batons to enforce an unjust law. Eight nights ago, I became ashamed to call myself a Dane. It is about time to assert that, in a democracy, compassion should never be illegal.

A closer look at The Stoning of Soraya M.

Tuesday, 08. 18. 2009  –  By Janice  –  Comments Off

"If you see this movie in a vacuum you think, boy, that is pretty extreme behavior. But the fact that this movie has come out within days of people around the world seeing a woman get shot on the streets of Iran, seeing women battered and beaten by security forces, people realize this movie is hardly a stretch. This is going on, this is current, this is important." –Cyrus Nowrasteh, Director

The struggle for gay rights in a country with no gays.

Monday, 08. 17. 2009  –  By Dana Gallagher  –  2 Comments

Strong Voices Emerging in the Struggle for Gay Rights in Iran

Gay rights in Iran were thrust into the attention of the Western world back in July 2005, when two teenagers named Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni where publicly hanged in Edalat (Justice) Square in Mashad. The circumstances surrounding this horrific execution are still under debate, but many human rights groups have come to the conclusion that these boys were sentenced to death for consensual gay sex.

Then in September of 2007, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated that "we don't have homosexuals, like in your country" while addressing Columbia University. His claim was not only ridiculous, it was also chilling. If the very existence of homosexuals in Iran is denied, how can they ever be afforded the rights of a human being?

The level of harassment and surveillance to which Iranian homosexuals are subjected has made advocacy exceedingly difficult. Fearing for their lives, many people within the movement prefer to remain anonymous. One exception is Mani Zaniar, is an Iranian gay activist who was featured in “Out in Iran,” a documentary produced by CBC, Canada's national public broadcaster. Although the film can be viewed online, we have been asked not to show Mani’s picture due to accelerated security threats.

After the documentary broadcast in March 2007, Mani Zaniar was confronted by the authorities and had no choice but to leave Iran.  He is now the Executive Director of the Iranian Homosexual Human Rights Council, http://iranhomounion.net/.

Also featured in “Out in Iran,” and the current Communications Coordinator of the Iranian Homosexual Human Rights Council, is Arsham Parsi. A prominent Iranian gay activist, Arshad is the founder of the Iranian Queer Railroad (IRQR), an organization dedicated to providing aid to LGBT Iranians who are forced to leave their country, just as he was.

Arsham Parsi

His website, www.arshamparsi.net, recounts a story in which he was recognized in the street and slapped by a man who took offense to his views. They talked for two hours, and now the two men are friends. With patience and the willingness to educate, even if that meant getting slapped in the face, he was able to change the perspective of a homophobic man. We should all show such nerve, levelheadedness, and compassion in our own day-to-day battles for human rights.

Dana Gallagher is a New York-based activist with a passion for gender equality and reproductive rights. Much of her work has been based at Planned Parenthood of New York City as a member of the Activist Council, and has included event planning, organizing clinic escort programs, and community outreach.

Moderator's note: a couple of days before this piece was posted Arsham contacted his supporters to ask for their support for an Iranian asylum seeker who has recently fled to Switzerland. The man is broke and has fled Qom, the cleric center of Iran and one of the most rigid places in the world. He was forced to flee after a neighbor of his spied on him having sex in his own home. Please click here to find out more about the story and to offer some financial support.

How I felt when I saw The Stoning of Soraya M.

Wednesday, 08. 12. 2009  –  By Nezha  –  Comments Off

“The Stoning of Soraya M.”

As long as we know, many cultures of the world have been driven by male dominance while the women of those cultures are forced to take on a role of submission and domesticity in the supposed word of God and religion.  One culture that has enforced such behavior towards women, is the Islamic culture.  In film “The Stoning of Soraya M.” women are depicted as hopeless second-class citizens of Iran who are in complete isolation from anything that is just and good.  They are surrounded by utter male corruption and deviousness, which keep them hindered and immobile.

As the movie proceeds, I began to feel anger, and hate, and revenge towards the men; but yet, I felt sadness, and compassion, and love for Soraya and Zahra and for all women of eastern cultures especially those belonging to Islam.  At one point we see Soraya trying to fight back for her rights as she defends herself against her cunning husband and the men of her village; however, justifying their evil ways through God and their religion makes the men that much more powerful.

Once the stoning scene began, I was sitting in my seat forcefully trying not to sucker punch a man and vulnerably embracing a fellow female while feeling my heart being pulled apart; I too felt hopelessness and immobility like Soraya.  I wanted to reach out through the screen and pull her out but I knew I couldn’t.  As the blood trickles down Soraya’s face, the audience feels the pain, the terror, the anger, and the lack of strength of Zahra who stands weak watching her niece die in vain, of Soraya who innocently dies slowly so that her evil husband can marry a 14-year-old girl, and of all women who suffer at the hands of human manipulation of the supposed holy word of God.

Although Soraya had both hands tied behind her back, her aunt Zahra, was her voice and strength.  Zahra represents every woman in that movie theater because she tried to do that we couldn’t do……. protect Soraya.  Soraya is a symbol of strength, and innocents that possesses in all victims of religious violence and Zahra is the icon of all women.  She is presented to the audience as the sole voice for awareness and defense so that violence again women in the name of God and religion can cease to exist.

Nezha is a 27-year-old, Moroccan Arab Muslim. She came to the U.S. when she was ten-years-old. She has a degree in Comparative Literature from Western Connecticut State and has been in New York City for four years. Nezha loves to read and loves strong cappuccinos. She lives with her fiance in Brooklyn.

Femiphobia plagues country, some men have the cure.

Tuesday, 08. 11. 2009  –  By Janice  –  5 Comments

Michael Eric Dyson

While enjoying my gourmet coffee this morning and reading my RSS feeds from my dim Brooklyn apartment I came accidentally across an article by one of my most favorite academics and free thinkers: Michael Eric Dyson. Although I had not even meant to click on the link to his article, I read anything I find of his and immediately stopped “surfing” to take notice. When I saw the headline read, “Why men need to get over their Femiphobia” of course I inhaled the piece.

I have been a fan of Michael Eric Dyson since the 2004 Presidential election. Dyson took a controversial stand in favor of gay marriage and went as far as to insist that all African Americans should take up the cause of gay rights due to the civil liberty issues similar to both groups. His statements caused a delightfully controversial stir and I, impressed and inspired, have followed him ever since. He is a champion of moral courage.

The article is an excerpt from the forward of Dyson’s newest book, Can You Hear Me Now? Dyson not only pleads with men, particularly black men, to rethink the way they view and interact with women, he chastises the black church for their failure to empower women:

But at the same time, we permit some destructive ideas to flourish in the church. These ideas are harmful because they influence how we act, not only in church, but also in our homes and schools. We’ve got to find a new way to behave so that our children inherit a more positive future.

I made a quick mental link between Dyson’s bold statement about his church and Jimmy Carter’s recent condemnation of his own church, and decided I had to inform our readers about the piece.

Holly blogged on Monday about male family members and their role in protecting females in their family. Monday afternoon I met with a new friend over lunch and we discussed the post, along with the question of how as boys men are taught to respect or degrade women. The obvious answer is that male family members teach boys; partially by the example they set by how they treat female family members.

The first time a boy sees a degrading image of a woman and sees their father or older brother either ignore or condone such treatment, a boy is taught that degrading women is okay, normal, and even fun. These lessons are reinforced when boys see teachers or men from their church treating women in the same manner, regardless of what their words may suggest.

But adult men also need examples of men who are willing to treat women as equals in their thoughts, words and actions; men such as Michael Eric Dyson, Jimmy Carter, and Pedro Elias from Planned Parenthood Mar Monte who I blogged about last month. Is a new trend emerging where men are going to finally take a hard and high profile stand against the mistreatment of women in this country and world wide?

Men with resources and power are taking on the cause of violence against women. Cyrus Nowrasteh was determined to tell Soraya’s story. Michael Eric Dyson is determined to make change in the way men from his community treat women. They are priming the pump for a real, tangible movement of men to stop gender violence. As a woman I see this, and I know that my female friends see it, and rejoice.

When will more men see it and join the effort?

Families should block stones, not throw them.

Monday, 08. 10. 2009  –  By Holly  –  Comments Off

Soraya's husband, father, and friend prepare to throw stones at her.

Zahra had a lot on her shoulders.

Of course, this observation about Soraya's aunt (portrayed so brilliantly by Shohreh Aghdashloo in “The Stoning of Soraya M”) is the understatement of the year.  But the dimensions of the burden she heroically attempted to carry hit me in a new way this week, when a coffee shop conversation left me asking, “Where were the good guys?  The male members of Soraya’s family who should have helped to support and protect her?”

Zahra carried the weight of a responsibility that others had abandoned.  It’s just part of the human contract, this responsibility we all have to our loved ones to create a safe space for them to grow into the best person they can be.  But because of the way religious and social dogma in Soraya’s community darkly defined what it means to be female, the contract was broken.  Had even one man valued her and defended Soraya, she would have had a fighting chance.

I didn’t go to the coffee shop with these thoughts in mind. But while focusing on the day’s appointments and whether I should have gotten the bran muffin instead of a croissant, I sat down next to a leggy teenager and a man I assumed was her father.  They were engaged in what seemed an uncomfortable discussion for her, a crucial “teachable moment” for him.  What the young woman was hearing from her dad was not appetizing; she pushed her half-eaten food to the middle of the small table and looked away from him.  Still, I could see that she was absorbing every fatherly, if a bit overbearing, word.  (The tables were really close – I wasn’t craning…I don’t think.)

After a while, I felt an odd sense of affection for these two – a girl who appeared strong and capable, who trusted herself to be and do the right thing.  And the dad – the provider, protector, holder of more life experience, experience that drove him to lay down the law for his daughter’s own good.  (He was setting strict limits on when she could walk about the neighborhood by herself.  Evidently, theirs was a section of town the father worried about, one in which nefarious people hang around in the same places day after day, watching and waiting for opportunities, perhaps in the form of a young, leggy, innocent-looking teenage girl. They would notice her pattern, he worried, see the regularity with which she would walk by after school.  Maybe they’d know the hours when she was alone; maybe they’d follow her home.

Even though I felt for her, could see that she was chafing at the restrictions being placed on her freedom, she didn’t get my pity.  And notably, she didn’t put up a fight beyond registering a surprised and slightly sullen expression. I wondered if this was because she felt safe and protected by this man and his limits; she recognized his lecture was a sign of being a treasured, beloved person to him.

As I watched them walk toward their car, I thought about the countless number of girls without such fathers (or brothers or uncles) and pictured a day when, as a grown woman, this teen would remember today’s conversation and smile with gratitude.

It was only later the same day when Soraya and Zahra came to mind, and the father-daughter duo I’d overheard took on a different meaning.

I bring up the absence of loving, protective men in Soraya’s story cautiously. But to talk about the failure of male elders in her community to exercise the moral courage to tell the truth about distortions of justice is not a criticism of Iranian men, or gender bashing, or any equally unhelpful swipe with a broad-brush stroke.  I bring it up only because the grief and outrage this movie generates makes me ask questions.  It also makes me wishful.  Specifically, I wish the film were based on fiction, and we could choose another ending in our mind’s eye, one in which Zahra is joined by a few brave men, and together, they save Soraya’s life.

The Stoning of Soraya M. challenges people's comfort zones

Thursday, 08. 6. 2009  –  By Janice  –  8 Comments

But what makes people like Cyrus Nowrasteh and Freidoune Sahebjam courageous figures? What actions have they taken that demonstrate courage?

When you look at the actions of these great men, one sees a remarkable sense of confidence and comfort zones that appear non-existent.

Studies show that many social movements fail to take off due to the reluctance of most people to step outside of their comfort zones and take actions that bring impact. Such devotion to the feeling of safety unfortunately prevents people from affecting true change.

The effectiveness of pushing personal boundaries and stepping outside of a comfort zone is evident in the life of Freidoune Sahebjam, and an example for all who claim to fight for human rights.

Feridoune Sahebjam was born in France in 1933 to Iranian parents. After moving to Iran as a young man for military service, and a stint as a diplomat, he broke into journalism, writing pieces for French and Iranian newspapers. Concerned about human rights, he wrote many pieces that were critical of the current Iranian leadership, the Shah in particular.

The approval of family members is often something that prevents people from expanding their comfort zones, but not Freidoune. As the son of a member of the Iranian delegation to the League of Nations, Freidoune was risking the approval of this family and community, not to mention their safety, by publishing such articles.

In the summer of 1979 Freidoune was kidnapped and knocked unconscious while on a walk in France. When he woke up he found himself in a strange basement, bound and surrounded by dozens of men. Freidoune was the first to undergo violent “Islamic trials” that plagued Europe in the 1970s, accused of attacking Islam in his articles about Iran. Many future “suspects” were executed following their trials. Luckily the police caught wind of the incident and Freidoune was saved, although he had many stitches and missing teeth from the continuous beatings he endured.

After the incident Freidoune was banned from traveling to Iran (those involved with the making of the film have met the same fate). He was condemned to death by the Shah, yet continued to write. Personal ego was no match for Freidoune's comfort zone. As an undercover reporter often using fake identification to travel safely he was forced to use false names for his articles.

Freidoune was so determined to continue reporting about Iran that he returned under false identity in 1984. It was on this trip that he met Soraya’s aunt, Zahra.

After their initial 1984 meeting in the village Freidoune returned and stayed with Zahra, pretending to be her nephew from abroad. During the visit he learned everything about the heinous crime that the villagers had committed just months before.

One of the reasons the film is so beautiful is because it is based so closely on the true story. Freidoune not only established an intimate relationship with Zahra, he was able to meet most of the characters from the story including the Mayor and Soraya’s father.

I wonder if meeting the people who had collectively committed such an act was a challenge to Freidoune's comfort zone, I know it would have been a challenge for mine.

The courage of Freidoune Sahebjam, the determination of its director Cyrus Nowrasteh, and the selfless work of Irshad Manji and grass roots activists who promote the film show us that one must not only step outside a comfort zone to make a difference, but rather run as far away from it as possible.

Where does your comfort zone end? Is your comfort zone keeping you from making an impact?

Take Action!

Thursday, 08. 6. 2009  –  By Janice  –  2 Comments

Take Action!

Take Action: A resource for activists

Tell friends about The Stoning of Soraya M:

1. Download letter/email template here.
2. Send an e-card from the Moral Courage Project

Use your name. Sign these online petitions:

1. One Million Signatures campaign: Started by women in Iran to stop stoning, the campaign seeks signatures from people around the world and will be presented to the United Nations.
2. Stop child executions in Iran: There are currently at least 134 minors on death row in Iran. Sign this petition, to be sent to Secretary General of the UN Ban Ki-moon, Ayatollah Khamenei and Head of the Judiciary of Iran, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi. Movement started by a friend of the MCP, Nazanin Afshin-Jam.
3. United Against a Nuclear Iran: A bi-partisan, broad based effort to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran, founded by Obama advisors. Sign the petition to show your support in addressing this pressing issue.
   

Contact your representatives:

1. Stop Child Marriage: ask your representatives to co-sponsor the International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act of 2009.
2. The Afghan Women Empowerment Act: If passed, this Act will provide critical resources for Afghan women for literacy education, technical and vocational training and health care services that would reduce maternal and infant mortality. The bill will also fund programs to protect women and girls against sexual and physical abuse. Ask your representatives to co-sponsor this bill today!

Use your pen. Tell local papers about the film:

1. Write your local paper to tell them about the film: Download template here
2. Use a published article to introduce the film: Download sample letter here, written in response to "Violence against women a world wide crisis" by Emily Ngo

Donate

1. Women for Afghan Women
2. Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan

Educate.

1. See our "Issue Fact Sheet" for statistics and facts to help you educate yourself to talk about violence against women.
2. Visit the new United Nations Violence Against Women Database to learn about "the extent, nature and consequences of all forms of violence against women, and on the impact and effectiveness of policies and programmes for, including best practices in, combating such violence."
3. Visit the honor killings database at the Global Campaign to Stop Killing and Stoning Women to read up to date information about honor killings that happen around the globe.

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