Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?

Abu-Lughod, Lila. Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others.?American Anthropologist September, 2002 Vol.104(3): 783-790.

The main concern of the article is to determine if Muslim women do actually need saving. The focus is on the mandatory wearing of the veil, or burqa. The author discusses many groups that maintain that the Muslim women do need saving from the oppression that binds them to wear the burqa. The author also maintains that anthropologists, among others, should not be overly culturally relativistic but that they should recognize and respect cultural differences. Do those same petitioners that try and save the Muslim women also try and save the African women from genital mutilation or the Indian women from dowry deaths? No, they do not because they have been taught not to judge cultures based upon their own.

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By Amy Goodman

Award-winning journalist and Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman records a podcast in conjunction with her weekly column, which you can read here: www.democracynow.org/blog
July 31, 2014
By Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan
The Israeli assault on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip has entered its fourth week. This military attack, waged by land, sea and air, has been going on longer than the devastating assault in 2008/2009, which killed more than 1,400 Palestinians. The death toll in this current attack is at least 1,300, overwhelmingly civilians. As this column was being written, the United Nations confirmed that a U.N. school in Gaza, where thousands of civilians were seeking shelter, was bombed by the Israeli Defense Forces, killing at least 20 people. The United Nations said it reported the exact coordinates of the shelter to the Israeli military 17 times. Continue reading

Not Just Another Brick In The Geopolitical Wall

By leveraging its ties with non-western powers, BRICS can check US hegemony

RAMESH THAKUR?Tehelka.com

2014-08-02 , Issue 31 Volume 11

A different worldview?BRICS leaders profess a shared vision of inclusive global growth and the rapid socio-economic transformation of their own nations. Photo: Roberto Stuckert Filho/PR

Building blocks?The BRICS bank will give priority to loans for developing countries to finance infrastructure projects and environmentally sustainable development. Photo: Media Club South Africa

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Battle of the Ceasefires:? Israel, Hamas Struggle for Moral High Ground

By James M. Dorsey

Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream

Synopsis

If Israel came close to destroying Hamas in two earlier confrontations in 2008/9 and 2012, it has succeeded in the latest round of fighting to rescue the group from potential demise. Hamas is emerging as the key player capable of cornering Israel politically and diplomatically despite its military superiority.

Commentary

THE EFFORT to achieve a ceasefire in the Israeli-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip resembles a see-saw with at times Israel and at other times Hamas rejecting a halt to hostilities or violating a brief silencing of the guns in a bid to ensure its collapse. The back and forth reflects in the first instance a battle between Israel and Hamas to occupy the moral high ground.

But more importantly it highlights a growing realisation that Hamas is emerging politically strengthened from the death and destruction in Gaza while Israel is fighting a rear guard battle to turn military success into political victory. Continue reading “Battle of the Ceasefires:? Israel, Hamas Struggle for Moral High Ground”

On being human

Humans?by Arjun Janah
It’s not about Arab or Jew, my friend,
It’s more about humans and whether we’ll end.
It’s not about Hindu or Muslim or Serb,
It’s more about children and what they deserve.
2014 July 23rd, Wed.
Brooklyn

The Last Kiss?(photograph)

The Last Kiss?– photograph by Ali Jadallah
source:?http://www.pinterest.com/pin/361695413796613744/

UN independent expert calls for boycott of businesses profiting from Israeli settlements

From
Avaaz.org?<avaaz@avaaz.org>?to
Shahidul

Thank you for taking action to end the violence in Israel and Palestine. Please share the email below with your friends and family and post this link on Facebook and Twitter:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/israel_palestine_this_is_how_it_ends_loc/?ttaZvfb
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The Avaaz team Continue reading

1134 "lives not numbers" The exhibition

Invitation - 1134 Taslima Akhter Continue reading “1134 "lives not numbers" The exhibition”

1134 – lives not numbers

A group exhibition dedicated to the lost garment workers of Bangladesh.

Still haunted by the memories. When I close my eyes I see the procession of corpses, following me behind, taunting my sense of responsibility. 24^th April, 2013, Rana Plaza collapses, 1134 lost to senseless greed, lives lost due to collective negligence. A dark day in the history of garments workers lives, a nightmare which will terrorize us for the rest of our lives.? Amongst the rubble, hidden beneath the stones, beams and bricks, thousands of workers lie enveloped in darkness, their dreams crushed under the weight of our negligence.

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Silver threads, frayed seams

Until

Off to work, Mirpur, Dhaka. September 12, 2012. Photo ? AM Ahad

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Hollywood Without the Happy Ending

How the CIA Bungled the War on Terror?
By?Pratap Chatterjee
Call it the Jason Bourne strategy.
Think of it as the CIA?s plunge into Hollywood — or into the absurd.? As recent revelations have made clear, that Agency?s moves couldn?t be have been more far-fetched or more real.? In its post-9/11 global shadow war, it has employed both private contractors and some of the world?s most notorious prisoners in ways that leave the latest episode of the Bourne films in the dust: hired gunmen trained to kill as well as former inmates who cashed in on the notoriety of having worn an orange jumpsuit in the world’s most infamous jail. Continue reading “Hollywood Without the Happy Ending”