Socio-Political Rants..
New Video Shows Kidnapped Reporter Weeping
Freelance
writer Jill Carroll is shown in this Sept. 5, 2005, file photo provided
by the Christian Science Monitor. An Arab television channel aired a
silent 20-second videotape Tuesday Jan. 17, 2006 of Carroll, who has
been held hostage in Iraq since Jan. 7, and said an accompanying
message gave the United States 72 hours to free female prisoners in
Iraq or the journalist would be killed. (AP Photo/Christian Science
Monitor, Delphine Minoui)
Today is the third day of the new year, we’re supposed to feel good for the first so many days and I am not sure if I am allowed to be all sad yet, but this morning I woke up to see this photo of Jill Carroll and the story of a video of her "Weeping," and I started to. I want to cry not because she is kidnapped, or that she might be killed. Those things are really really sad but it’s also part of her job, it’s a risk she knew she had to take.
What makes me want to cry is those fundamentalist put her in that black burka, took away her rights, reverted an intelligent career woman, with guts and something to say who once had the freedom to travel and reduced her to their version of "womanhood." And in the most outrageous insult to her dignity part of her "crime," is not only she is a symbol of foreign power but in her life she has subverted what they feel she and all women should be reduced to.
If this photo doesn’t remind me why I am totally supportive of the war in Iraq, putting democracy all over the middle east, and curbing fundamentalist Muslim’s rise to power that’s been left to do so in the last 20 years, I do not know what would. We think something like Margret Atwood’s Hand Maid’s tale is a horrific dark fantasy of speculative fiction, but this photo shows that it’s actually possible for a woman to wake up one day and have all her rights stripped away from her, made to wear clothes that remove her sexuality, her identity and her freedom right this moment in history.
I hope Ms. Carroll gets to return home to the "free world," and I hope all those women oppressed in the middle east in some point of their lives gets a taste of the ability to think, to move and speak as well, and if it means a war, if it means deposing leaders that were not elected, whose main source of power do come from promising to keep down half the country’s population, I am not sure it is a bad thing.
Happy Chinese New Year…
—
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 
Yan,
Jill Caroll’s from Ann Arbor, about an hour away from where I live – her abduction gets frequent coverage here in Michigan. Her abduction and subjugation make me queasy with anger, mostly.
Fundamental muslim states are an abomination to civil rights, equality, and even civilization. Take for example Hamas-controlled Palestine. Here are a few articles from the Hamas Party Platform:
Hamas’ goal is Jihad and the death of Jews (Art. 7);
All Muslims are duty-bound to commit Jihad against Israel (Art. 12);
Peace is not an option (Art. 13);
Western culture is a Zionist plot to distance women from Islam (Art. 17);
Women must train their children to become Jihad fighters (Art. 18);
Enemies rule the world through intermediaries such as the United Nations (Art. 22);
Hamas cares about human rights and religious toleration, provided all other religions live in the shadow of Islam (Art. 31);
Peace accords are treacherous schemes of Zionists (Art. 32);
Palestine is the navel of the earth and Jihad is our answer to the Christian Crusades (Art. 34).
Women to islamic fundamentalists are cattle, to be controlled and denied expression of rights and civil freedoms.
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Unfortunately, in Iraq at least, the US intervention made things worse, not better, for women. Under Saddam, the state was repressive, but secular, and thus women were not particularly repressed more than anyone else. Now, after the invasion, Iraq has turned to fundamentalism, and women’s status has fallen quite a lot. On the other hand, in Afghanistan, deposing the Taliban did seem to make things better, at least to some extent.
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Wow, that’s really bad. Those guys have no shame – how would they like it if they were dressed in black clothes (i.e. hot in the sun) and made to work for the women?
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Who would have thought Glutter would ever turn into ‘Republicans Abroad’? Time to go …
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“republicans abroad” … blah blah blah
too dogmatic. world’s a bit more complicated than binary left/right, cons/lib, dem/repub.
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To be honest, lately I have been far more on the side of republicans to my own horror. I listenned to a whole hour interview of Newt Gringrich whom I listenned to for the express reason to find something to make fun of him off, and found i actually agreed with him with everything. It disturbed me, but then i thought, hey, if it wasn’t those scary Americans, then the whole of Korea would be North Korea starving under the communist regime and if you’ve been to Vietnam, you would know what a scary country it is. Compare that to South Korea…
Who knew one day I would realized the people who I blanketly dismissed as right wing nuts may have a point in terms of foreign policy…
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Anyway, if Tom could change his mind albeit long long time ago. I think I could too.
🙂
yan
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