Posts by anjum rahman
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i'll probably kick myself for getting involved in this, but had to share this, which i recieved today (take from it what you will):
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
U.S. MUSLIM GROUP SAYS EGYPT 'BACKSLIDING' ON REFORMS
CAIR: No 'business as usual' in dealing with undemocratic regimes
(WASHINGTON, D.C., 3/28/07) - A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group today criticized the Egyptian government for "backsliding" on democratic reforms.The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) also rebuked the Bush administration for seeming to return to a policy of appeasing autocratic rulers in the Muslim world.
On Monday, Egyptian voters were asked to cast their ballots in favor of constitutional amendments that will, along with other measures, end independent judicial oversight of elections, restrict the formation of political parties and give the government powers to arrest and spy on citizens without a court order.
The Egyptian government claimed 27 percent of voters turned out to cast their ballots, but human rights groups said the real turnout figure was 3 to 5 percent. There are also allegations of vote rigging and ballot stuffing. Opposition parties boycotted the vote.
SEE: Egypt's Democrats Feeling Betrayed (Chicago Tribune)
SEE ALSO: Egypt Judges Reject Referendum Results (AFP)
In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, CAIR Board Chairman Parvez Ahmed wrote in part:
"We wish to express our deep concern about the Egyptian government's backsliding on promised democratic reforms and about our government's tepid response to Egypt's heavy-handed actions to further curtail human rights and political participation. Such actions are counterproductive to peace and stability in the region and are contrary to our stated policy objective of democratization in the Muslim world.
"The constitutional amendments offered in Monday's apparently fraudulent referendum would freeze Egypt's political system in an authoritarian and anti-democratic time warp. It would essentially lock out any meaningful political opposition and solidify one-party rule. The constitutional changes would also lock in so-called 'emergency laws' that have been used to violate the human rights of that nation's citizens.
"Despite these dire developments, your response has been to term this tremendous setback to world democratization as merely 'disappointing.'
"Because Egypt is one of the world's top recipients of American taxpayer dollars and the most populous nation in the Arab-speaking world, the implementation of true democratic reforms in that nation could set a positive example for the entire region. Unfortunately, the example set by Monday's 'referendum' is one of despotism and lack of respect for the will of the people.
"Blocking any parties from taking part in the political process is counterproductive and only serves to push people to the margins of society. We ask that you urge the Egyptian government to be open in dealing with political opposition groups. Inclusiveness in any democratic political system is a strength, not a weakness.
"I respectfully request that you communicate to the Egyptian government in no uncertain terms that the United States has not returned to 'business as usual' in dealing with undemocratic regimes. I also urge you to make U.S. aid to Egypt conditional on progress made toward meaningful democratization."
CAIR, America's largest Islamic civil liberties group, has 32 offices and chapters nationwide and in Canada. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.
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re the education thing, there is already the SKIP programme (strategies with kids, information for parents), see more at http://www.familyservices.govt.nz/info-for-families/skip/
i'm pretty sure these pamphlets (or a summary of them) came home with my daughter from primary school last year, and are being distributed by various agencies. i know plenty were being handed out free on children's day, as well as at various other events (eg women's expo in hamilton).
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katherine ryan did a really good discussion on this last week on radio nz national (gross new name! sack the marketing people...) still on line at http://www.radionz.co.nz/nr/programmes/ninetonoon/20070221
the most telling comments came at the end, when the interviewees were talking about how the skimpy clothing was restrincting the ability of girls to play in the playground and participate in sports. so let's not pretend that this whole thing doesn't have a practical and everyday consequence.
also remember seeing in the news last year about someone who is taking "body image" sessions at the request of parents of teenage girls, so that these girls become comfortable with the bodies they have. tie this up with the level of eating disorders, and the increase in people subjecting themselves to sometimes risky plastic surgery, and i would say there is definitely a problem here.
there was an excellent interview on radio nz's "ideas" programme on 8 october 2006 which covered some of these issues, especially the effects of porn on women. unfortunately, it won't be on their website anymore.
the other major problem i have with this is the difficulty of talking about the whole issue. i remember a principal of a girls high school complaining about a billboard near her school that she objected to (in 2005 i think?), and she got universally panned for speaking against it. to me, it seems that the "feminist" wing of our society has been very effectively silenced in recent years, either by the "freedom of expression" lobby or the "political correctness gone mad" lobby, or a couple of others i can think of. the fact that any dissent of the status quo is automatically labelled as "feminist" in a derogratory sense, not a complementary one, and any debate is quickly shut down.
tze ming, i so agree with your points around power and control. i recall (and can't remember the name of) an editor of an australian women's magazine who was fired for a single "big is beautiful" type issues. she wrote a book about it, and i may be simplifying grossly, but it seems that the advertisers of weight loss products etc basically pressured her out of a job.
so, i think that it is very difficult for women to dissent from the current restrictions around their physical appearance and i'm really pleased that the APA have come out with their report (and the SST i guess for picking it up), cos the result is the freeing up of public space for many women to express how they feel...
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"I'm already cross that the census data ignored my atheism, and classed me as having 'no religion'. I don't want this statement on diversity to classify atheism as 'other belief'. Atheism is not a belief. It's 'no belief'."
well, i guess us religionists would say that you do have a belief. your belief is that there is no God, no valid religion etc. you may say that it's not belief, it's fact.
even if we accept that, you still would have some beliefs. eg the sanctity of life might be one. or that it's wrong to lie might be another. even anarchists have a belief: that there should be no rule of law. that's why the human rights act talks about "ethical belief". the original draft of the diversity statement used the words "ethical belief" too, but no-one got it so it was changed to "other belief".
but as we saw with the "pakeha/european new zealander" debate, and as proved on this thread, it doesn't matter what you call a group of people, someone in the group is not going to like it...
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"Of course, we have no recourse to the 1st in NZ..."
but we do have s21 of the human rights act, which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of:
(d) Ethical belief, which means the lack of a religious belief, whether in respect of a particular religion or religions or all religions:
the draft statement on religious diversity says:
1. The State and Religion
The State seeks to treat all faith communities and those who profess no religion equally before the law. New Zealand has no state religion.2. The Right to Religion
New Zealand upholds the right to freedom of religion and belief and the right to freedom from discrimination on the grounds of religious or other belief.paul morris clarified that "other belief" included those who have no religion.
so i think the intent is there in the law and in the diversity statement to protect non-religionists (is that the word we're using now?).
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"One athiest does not represent any others, and their views are theirs alone, they cannot present "what athiests believe" to other groups with any authority. There are no shared views or beliefs amoungst them, except that they dissagree with your belief."
hah! but that is the same for most people present. what makes you think that my being there represents muslims? muslims are not one homogenous group that share exactly the same beliefs, even though there are similar themes. ditto for christians, buddhists etc etc. i can't think of any other muslim in this country who would adequately "represent" me.sure there were some ministers and a bishop at one point, but these people were not there to represent anyone but themselves. glyn carpenter saw himself as a representative, as did the destiny delegation, and that's their choice. i don't think anyone else much saw themselves in that light.
my point though, is that i don't want involvement by atheist "representatives". i'm more interested in involvement of individuals with their various points of view, to enrich the debate and to find a better consensus - if we can.
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"That's not a little snippiness is it Anjum?"
snippiness?? i hope you didn't think i was implying that the other things you were busy with were less important, cos i wasn't. was just trying to point out that we did want to be inclusive of everyone, even if we weren't successful this time around...
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having been at the interfaith forum in question, i have to disagree with the fundy post's belief that there was a great falling out between religious groups. in fact, there was a great agreement, and i have to commend both joris and paul morris for running the diversity statement session and getting a braod sense of agreement. destiny church were there, as were vision & the exclusive brethren but they only added up to about 10 participants out of 100. everyone had the opportunity to have their say, there was no nastiness, no antagonism, and no great falling out. instead there was general consensus with a minority having a dissenting view.
during breaks, the exclusive brethren & vision certainly spent a lot of time talking to everyone else from a variety of faiths - which is the whole purpose of interfaith ie to get people with deep differences talking to each other. unfortunately the destiny delegation weren't so much in the spirit of things, but they were never anything but polite.
i would have like atheists to be much more involved in the discussions - i did invite russell to come along, but he was obviously busy with other things. i hope that we get more of an input from the rationalists/atheists etc in future forums, because they have an important contribution to make.
another point of clarification: the diversity statement does not request religious instruction. what it requests is teaching people about the various religions in the world - which is already done successfully in all schools in uk and some schools in nz. the purpose being that people don't talk to each other from positions of ignorance/misinformation. whether or not that's a good thing is a matter to be debated, but let's at least debate the right thing. it certainly isn't about proselytising, but is similar to how kids currently learn about a variety of cultures in social studies.
this is better than the current situation where schools officially close for an hour (during the school day) and have someone come in and speak to the whole school on religious matters. if we start to investigate what sorts of people are having access to our kids during this official closure and what exactly they are teaching, we might prefer something different. kids don't have to sit through these sessions of course. they can have the privilege of feeling like social outcasts by sitting in a separate classroom and doing not much at all.
anyway, we do need to be having these debates and not just over the internet. and when we do have them, it's also important that all points of view are present and have the opportunity to express themselves. in that sense, this forum was definitely a success.
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hmmm, dreams for 2007... winston visits every mosque in the country, as well as every sikh, hindu & buddhist temple. finally cottoning on to the asian crime stats, his new law & order policy for reducing crime is to flood the country with asian immigrants. his major platform for the 2008 campaign is to have open immigration from asean countries & to prove he really means it, he gets himself a wife from singapore...
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i also have to say that this was a brilliant post.
there are several aspects that strike me as interesting:
1. how very little we get to hear maori perspectives like this in the MSM. i know it's to be expected, but it's pretty damn sad. one of the problems is that maori media is so strong in this country (both tv & radio), that maori journalists don't want to work with MSM. i guess it's much easier to work in a mono-cultural environment when the multi-cultural one is sometimes less than friendly. but the result is that the general populace does not get to hear enough about the maori perspective on these and other issues. the few notable exceptions are willie jackson on tv & derek fox on national radio, both of whom i enjoy.2. absolutely agree with you re building political alliances between maori and ethnic communities. i know there have been various efforts to try to make this happen - went to something by the human rights network last year, and i know there was something on at the museum the year before. i've been to discussions in hamilton about this as well. but nothing has really taken off, and i wonder if you have any ideas of how we can actually make it happen...
3. ... because i have met and heard from many ethnic people who have terrible attitudes/opinions when it comes to maori. and i've been told by a maori person to go back to iraq (even tho i'm an indian kiwi). so racism definitely has no boundaries! some of the problems stem from the ignorance of nz history - in fact, i'm still amazed that 19th century nz history is not a compulsory part of the social studies curriculum (or is it, and i'm just behind the times?).
4. one of the problems with empowerment is that while one group gains power, the other group thinks it will lose power. so the incumbents hang on with all their might, stupidly not realising that there's plenty to go around. the way i see it, a stronger maori community makes a stronger nz, as does a stronger ethnic communtiy as does a strong pakeha community. it seems that all our conversations seem to have an "either/or" mentality, which seems quite hard to break.