Attacking feminists has become the number one tactic of Islamists

The news-medias have been busy discussing Turkey’s Erdogan’s latest remark directed against the feminists. What he said was very trivial and boring, in my opinion, but apparently it was offensive enough to get many folks on cyber world riled up.

Not many women identify themselves with the feminist movement, not even when they want to be appreciated for their contribution or be treated as equal. If a girl/woman wants an opportunity to go to school/college/university or work for wealth then she is not a feminist. It just makes a good sense for everyone (male and female) to be educated as much as possible and have good jobs for the betterment of the whole family and the society in general.

He is also wrong about women and motherhood. Most women do not reject motherhood. In fact more women accept motherhood than most men, otherwise how do you explain deadbeat husbands/fathers and children who are being raised by single mothers?

Generalizing that all women are bad is just as bad as generalizing that all men are bad. You’ll find good and bad among both genders, religious and also non-religious. Religions do not have a monopoly on morality. Religious people can be motivated to do great things or they can also be driven to commit heinous barbaric acts.

I don’t believe for a single sec that Erdogan’s latest remark is sudden or was not pre-planned. It came at a very convenient time, when people were just starting to pay attention about his luxurious grand palace. You would think that someone like Erdogan who is so very much in love with Islam would prefer a modest accommodation (you know what Islam says about your house: “Your hut in dunya/world will be replaced by grand palaces in akhira (after life) if you were virtuous”).

Not long ago we had a buddy of Erdogan who was attacking ‘slutty’ women for abandoning their husband and going with their boyfriend.

Reference

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/turkish-president-equality-between-men-and-women-is-against-nature-9879993.html

Muslim women competing in beauty contest?

I’m reading this news about a beauty competition where most of the participants are Muslim and are dressed in Islamic appropriate dresses. The Annual Muslimah Award

I’m too lazy to find the exact articles and pictures. You should google if interested.

The 25-year-old computer scientist Fatma Ben Guefreche beat out 17 other finalists from around the world, who were required to wear traditional headscarves in the competition, which assessed not only the contestants' appearances but also their piety and religious knowledge.

The purpose?

The World Muslimah Award contest is held exclusively for Muslim women and has been presented as an alternative to Western beauty pageants.

Beauty contests, in my opinion, are silly and exploitive. They don’t serve any useful purpose nowadays …. unlike a few hundred years ago when inspecting physical appearances of someone/something was important especially when the world was very much in the business of selling and purchasing slaves (human) and livestock. Slaves and livestock like bulls/oxen/horses were evaluated on physical characteristics (teeth, legs, hooves, length, height etc) because these (attributes/appearances) were perceived to be indicative of good health/strength/capable to serve a purpose.

Beauty contest generally attract much attention, mainly positive, because the competition has been ‘repurposed’ for serving greater good/ causes (scholarship, community engagement, charities, ambassadors of something, etc).

I personally don’t believe that there’s no hidden motive or it’s merely coincidence when beautiful/attractive people gets this much attention. There’s much financial reward/wealth to be made by all (participants/organizers/industry).



Reference
http://www.jpost.com/International/Tunisian-beauty-queen-calls-for-free-Palestine-at-pageant-382520

A Libyan Youth

I’m reading about a Libyan youth who has been made famous in recent times due to the influence of Internet (especially twitter). #TawfikBensaud

Tawfik Bensaud was 15 when he started his pro-democracy activism online in Benghazi, in the early days of Libya's 2011 revolution. He was 18 when he was gunned down for his views.

Here’s an eulogy about him from someone who not only knew him but also his good work

Despite his very young age, I saw a very charismatic young man, full of joy and good humour. He was very different to boys his age. He was very energetic. He showed strong interest in making positive change within his society in Libya. He was an activist, a reporter, a blogger and a great debater. Tawfik was almost engaged in everything. He was a member of many Libyan NGOs. He was member of the Committee of Supporting Women in Decision Making, a member in Bokra youth organization, a member in Benghazi El kher (or Benghazi Good) project, he was a board member of Mercy Human Rights foundation, a member of the Libyan debates club and many more. I certainly saw a young man with a sharp vision equipped with leadership skills.

Three weeks ago, on 19th of September 2014, Tawfik and his friend Sami were both assassinated in Benghazi, a city in the East of Libya. Since the 2011 Uprising, Libya has been experiencing instability and continuous violence. Many activists, journalists and members of the legal community were threatened, abducted or assassinated.

She continues to describe the chaos and violence in Libya.

Almost everything in current Libya is enforced by violence. Many political decisions and laws were enforced by violence. While violence seemed to be the only language spoken and practiced in Libya, Tawfik was a firm believer in the language of peace. This is illustrated in his written work published online. He enjoyed taking part in debates. People who know him well would tell you that Tawfik was an eloquent speaker who constructed his arguments coherently.

He’s definitely someone the youth can look up too. Sadly, he died very young.

References

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-30096283

http://www.uk.upf.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=713:the-3-leadership-lessons-i-learned-from-tawfik-bensaud&catid=36:peace-and-development&Itemid=58

Issue of transgender living in Muslim majority countries

I’m reading this news

Three Malaysian Muslim transgender people have won a landmark ruling after challenging a religious law banning them from cross-dressing; a decision activists are calling a victory for human rights in the conservative Muslim-majority country. A three-judge panel ruled that the Shariah law in Negeri Sembilan state that criminalizes any man who dresses or poses as a woman is unconstitutional. The judges said the law deprives transgenders of "the right to live with dignity." A lower court had dismissed the case, saying the three plaintiffs must adhere to Islamic law because they are Muslim and born male. The state's Islamic Religious Department can still appeal the ruling to the top federal court.

Organized religion (like Christianity and Islam) generally takes a black and white position on everything. It’s either black or white, no gray areas.

Dressing as per your designated gender is very big in Islam. You are either born a female or male. Hence, you should be dressed appropriately, according to your gender and also some customs/traditional values.

When what you are wearing becomes everybody’s business, then naturally people will desire to have guardians/enforcers of morality who could also act as fashion police, e.g Iran and Saudi Arabia. If you give batons/canes/whips and enough discretionary power to a group of people who would otherwise be unemployed/sit around doing pointless thing then you can put them to use serving higher powers.

It’s correct that we are technically designed to have a gender at the moment of conception. The information about our gender comes from xxorxy-chromosome.

However, nothing in creation is ever perfect. Imagine how boring life would be if everything works according to the blue-print. Wikipedia has a section about the possibility of having a chromosome arrangement that is contrary to the expectation

Humans, as well as some other organisms, can have a chromosomal arrangement that is contrary to their phenotypic sex, that is, XX males or XY females. See, for example, XX male syndrome and androgen insensitivity syndrome. Additionally, an abnormal number of sex chromosomes (aneuploidy) may be present, such as Turner's syndrome, in which a single X chromosome is present, and Klinefelter's syndrome, in which two X chromosomes and a Y chromosome are present, XYY syndrome and XXYY syndrome.[1] Other less common chromosomal arrangements include: triple X syndrome, 48, XXXX, and 49, XXXXX.

Very interesting science stuff.

In the past (based on my reading about Islamic history), when you had a situation where the gender of men or women were disputed, then they had a very crude mechanism using very low technology to resolve such matter. Yep, people were as inquisitive, curious and bothered back then as now especially when question of someone's gender is undecided (up in the air).

Since Islam is all about precedence (following an example from the past to guide future decision), then the Muslim are dealing with this issue in the same manner someone would deal with it over a thousand years ago (sometimes with very little regard to how the times and expectation have changed since then).

Many interesting scenarios are seen based on documented cases of people in real life that were confused about their gender due to various factors namely genetic, anatomical, physiology, mental, emotional, hormonal, environmental, societal etc.

References
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2014/11/07/malaysia-muslims-win-right-to-cross-dress.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_sex-determination_system

End of the Islamic State?

Nowadays, the whole world is very much focused on the militant radical Islamic organization called the Islamic state; tracking the growth of the organization, the source of funding, their immediate and also long term goals, group movements, their supporters, the key players (internal and external to the organization) and the fights against them.

Many of the arm-chair supporters of the Islamic state on social media have gone quietly in recent times; perhaps some have lost interest after realizing that the much-hyped concept of a glorified worldwide ‘caliphate’ may not materialize in their lifetimes.

I’m reading this article about the demise of the Islamic State.

Suddenly, Islamic State just can’t fall fast enough. All summer, the press has been saying IS will soon be accepting the keys to every city on earth, an unstoppable jihadi juggernaut.

And now, after six weeks stalled out against a local militia in Kobane and going exactly nowhere in the over-hyped drive on Baghdad, even the mainstream press, represented by America’s paper of record, the New York Times, is saying what I said months ago: IS is just a Sunni Arab militia that will never take serious turf from the other powerful groups in the region, the Kurds of the north or the Shia of the south.

After being shown up in Kobane, IS has now been truly humiliated by US airstrikes that hit a meeting on the Syria/Iraq border and a big convoy near Mosu

Even without nonstop decimation via air attack, a universal caliphate is a doomed, dumb idea. Remember what Al Baghdadi said: “Syria does not belong to the Syrians, and Iraq does not belong to the Iraqis”? You know who would beg to differ? The Syrians. And the Iraqis. And it’s not even that simple, because the territories in which this war is being fought are fractal as sci-fi dream scenes, which means that “Syrians” devolves into dozens, maybe hundreds, of groups that hate each other and will fight to the death for their local turf. Kobane is a part of one turf, “Rojava” or Syrian Kurdistan; but it’s also a local turf on its own, and you can bet that the Kobane people have a few stereotypes of their Kurdish neighbors in the other evolving cantons like Afrin. You can bet that not all of Assad’s Alawites are fond of each other, either, even if they’re forced to stick together now against the Sunni who want to annihilate them. And those Sunni have never managed to make common cause for any length of time, even against a common enemy.

The rest of the article is also equally interesting, so please consider reading all.

Another related article is this" Study: Westerners join Islamic State because of peer pressure, not social media "

Today, the Guardian reports on an upcoming study from the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Science (ICSR) which finds that British Muslims who join Islamic State fighters in Syria do so more often because of peer pressure than social media propaganda.

“While online recruitment plays a role, people go because they know people who are in Syria,” ICSR director Peter Neumann told the Guardian. “It’s all about networks in the real world.”

References

http://pando.com/2014/11/10/the-war-nerd-farewell-islamic-state-we-hardly-knew-ye/
http://pando.com/2014/11/06/study-westerners-join-islamic-state-because-of-peer-pressure-not-social-media/

Turkish Islamist President Palace

Undeniably, most Islamist and politicians are crooks. The biggest crooks are always those who are able to effectively manipulate religion for political purpose.

Here’re nice pictures of Turkish President Erdogan palace. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29912398

How much will it cost?

The 1,000-room palace built for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will cost about USD 615 000 000. The palace is bigger than the White House in Washington, the Kremlin in Moscow and even the Palace of Versailles near Paris.

Bear in mind that this palace is built specifically for the current (sitting) Turkey’s Islamist President. The white house is over 200 years and the Palace of Versailles is about 400 years. Current residents are merely occupying a historical residential mansion (temporarily)…

perhaps they are not really as important as Erdogan to have palaces dedicated to them.

Reference
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29912398

Religious Cartoon

No ..not the kind that makes average Pakistani goes beserk..

Check these out. Nice thought-provoking cartoons with some interesting messages.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/religion
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/atheism

Is Bill Maher a Bigot?

Some students in Berkley have organized a campaign to prevent the comedian Bill Maher from giving a commencement speech in December. They’re upset because he insulted Islam.

In recent times, Bill Maher has been making a lot of anti-Muslim/anti-Islamic statements. I’ve been following some of his statements. Sometimes what he says is interesting and witty. But a lot of time, his opinions seem no different than other religious bigot despite him being areligious (he’s a staunched atheist).

So if you want smart and funny, with bit of smug and sexist for an added edge, Bill Maher is a perfect college speaker. His offense to a few sensitive Golden Bear souls is to note — in the sharp, exaggerated and blunt style that is the comedian’s stock in trade — that Islam is not all that tolerant.

Maher’s comments early this month drew on an exhaustive Pew Research Center survey last year of Muslim attitudes, based on 38,000 face-to-face interviews in 39 countries. The findings were fairly grim for fans of enlightenment. Most Muslims in at least six countries favored “executing those who leave Islam.” A majority also said homosexuality was morally wrong and that a wife should always obey her husband. Most troubling, the poll found high support in countries like Egypt and Iraq for “honor killings” — executing someone, usually a woman, for having sex out of wedlock.

Islam, said Maher on his HBO show, “is the only religion that acts like the Mafia” — killing heretics who say the wrong things or leave the faith. The forward-thinking social values that liberals favor are the very things that a majority of Muslims in some countries will not tolerate, he said.

Bill Maher said that based on some recent findings, Islam appears to be very intolerant, more so than any other faiths.

In my opinion, I think most of the religions of the world are intolerant in one way or the other. And this is simply because religions are not really designed to operate and work in the modern world with universal value system (equality without regards to faith, gender, age, sexual orientation etc). Islam is no more/less tolerant than Christianity or Hinduism or Judaism. Perhaps you’ll be able to find something good in any religion if you search for goodness hard enough.

Unfortunately, a lot of Muslim believes that Islam has already designed a perfect infallible system whereby if you follow all the stupid and silly rules documented in the supposedly historical literatures (that seems mostly doggy to me) then you are on path to a great life (here and hereafter).

I still think Bill Maher should be allowed to talk in the commencement. You can’t silence someone just because you disagree with what he/she has to say. All of us have opinions that are not always to the liking of everyone but we are still given a chance to express it.

Reference
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/opinion/berkeley-students-shouldnt-censor-bill-maher.html?_r=0