what if islam, christianity, & other faiths had to compete in the marketplace?

^ Excerpt from Ali's talk at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco.

Though I've read - and very highly recommend - Infidel, I have yet to read Nomad, Ayaan Hirsi Ali's latest offering of enlightenment on the experience and truth of being born in a society where the practice of total, unquestioned submission to a draconian god whose demands, often steeped in violence, is not only expected but uncompromisingly enforced.

Her writing touches on her own personal experiences, including being subjected to female genital mutilation when she was a young girl. In her recent article for The Daily Beast titled "Why Are American Doctors Mutilating Girls?", she attacks The American Academy of Pediatrics for proposing a "humane" version of female circumcision, called "nicking" (pin pricking the clitoris as a symbolic ceremony in lieu of actual circumcision), thereby helping to perpetuate this cruel practice in the name of cultural relativism. Soon after she and others publicly criticized them the AAP withdrew the proposal.

One of the ideas that Ayaan brought up during her talk at the Commonwealth Club proposes that the world's religions, particularly Christianity and Islam, compete in a marketplace. The idea came to her from an dinner conversation she had with a Catholic priest acquaintance while in Rome.

Watching this hour long talk, I thought this was definitely the funniest of them all so far. With a sense of humour Ayaan exhibits an intellectual brilliance amalgamated - and fiercely fortified - by her own personal experiences of agony and triumph. She understands what many of us in the world go through because she herself has gone through it, and survived.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is someone we should all strive to be like, and certainly what I personally try to be like. She is an anomaly in the world of cold detached intellectualism, ivory tower politicizing, and insensitive Philistine opining. Many of those highly intelligent people in such a world too often exist and proselytize in insularity. Ayaan does not.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali experiences, therefore she thinks.

^ Got an hour and ten minutes and a sandwich? Then this is very much
worth your time - the full length talk at the Commonwealth Club.

Related topics:
politically illiterate, i

audio blog: city of garbage

^ Imagine living and playing here as an 8-year-old with little possibility of a better future. More in-depth videos (in 5 parts) about the "city of garbage", reported by a young Scandinavian man visiting Manila. Countries in Scandinavia, particularly Sweden, boast some of the world's very best health care systems (arguably better than the U.S.) and generally excellent quality of life for all its citizens.

Uploaded by www.cellspin.net

Postscript:

The video above was presented by United Methodist Communications. I understand that there are many Christian organizations helping impoverished people in third world countries around the globe and I salute their noble efforts. However, I vehemently oppose some of them in their influencing governments (including the U.S. government under the Bush administration) to stop planned parenthood programs. This is because such programs advocate abortion, contraception, condom use, and education on safe sex practices, which many Christians oppose, especially the Vatican.

This is moronic, I say, and is completely at odds with the ugly reality these poor people deal with day to day. As a result of such Christian influences families keep growing under festering circumstances, thus more children are born into poverty and disease. People who are well educated about safe sex, contraception, and the burden of familial responsibilities while in poverty are more likely to think twice before having another child.

the deadly risks of just being you

^ Sajida Bibi tells her story.

From Victim To Heroine | The New York Times (video, 5:26)

From rape to slavery to honor killings, extreme oppression can be the norm for Pakistani women. But, Times Op-Ed columnist Nicholas D. Kristof reports from Pakistan that one courageous woman has built an oasis of hope in her village.

Chances are some of you reading this blog post are female, American, and enjoying the freedoms of being a woman in a democratic first world country in the 21st century while still advocating for even more rights, from preserving Roe v. Wade to a law for equal pay. You can easily and effortlessly bare your face and head in public, wear pants or leg exposing skirt and heels, go on dates, even fall in love and couple with someone without necessarily marrying them first. You know, all the things we take for granted. You embrace personal responsibility for your own decisions, you're respected and admired for your accomplishments, and you breeze through life on your own terms.

But in a country like Pakistan, staggeringly huge amounts of money are being invested by the government in nuclear arms (with some help from the U.S., not surprisingly). In fact we Americans continue to give our tax money to the Pakistan government, who in turn continue to funnel it into their military. And yet little effort is spent on building their human infrastructure - education, schools in remote villages, domestic industries and jobs, and human rights assessment and legislation, especially for women.

In Pakistan if you even dated a man without the approval of your family, you could easily be scorned by them. And your own family could, by tradition, allow you to be gang raped, or even murder you for it. Your own family. Your own brothers and father would be more than willing to sell you off as a slave, if not kill you instead. This is happening today, right now, as it has happened again and again for hundreds of years. Be glad you don't live there as a woman.

^ This is what could easily happen to you as a woman if you simply wanted to marry for love in Pakistan. ABC News, September 2008. I had tears in my eyes watching this story.

Sajida Bibi is a beautiful young woman who is simply trying to live her life. In The New York Times video above she tells her story. Because she had "shamed" them, her own brothers couldn't even decide whether to kill her or sell her off into slavery. There are many other women like her, surviving and eventually getting on while still existing in the shadow of a vicious and cruel patriarchal society and culture. But there are also other women who aren't as strong and must live in mortal fear, they continue to be subjugated to a tradition that treats women as the property of men.

And isn't it hard for you to enjoy your life and your accomplishments when you live under the threat of abuse, torture, and even death for simply trying to be you?

Related:

when fierce, wear pink! | a space alien

when fierce, wear pink!

^ Meet the pink ladies of India. You DO NOT want to fuck with them, they are at least a hundred strong and getting even stronger with new recruits. Fierceness never looked so chic, don't you agree? | Part 2 of this program.

I first found out about this incredible gang of women from a BBC News story last year. My initial reaction was the typical "You go girl!", but the more I ruminated on it the more I felt both inspiration and sadness. Inspired, naturally because of the extreme courage of Sampat Pal Devi, founder of the Gulabi Gang. She had the balls (so to speak) to finally stand up to the physical, psychological, and social abuses she and other women of her region had endured for years from the very family they relied on and from the community they lived in.

The very thought of being perfectly conditioned from birth to accept your lowly status not only as a woman, but as one of the worst treated groups in India's traditional caste system seems like an entire world away from what American women in the 21st century just about take for granted. Yes, there are still parts of the world today where it feels like you exist in the Bronze Age. It's also mind bogglingly ironic how India, one of the upcoming leaders of the world in terms of technology, industry, and commerce still treats many of its citizens like animals. Many of the 'dalit' class are subjected to what we would consider supremely humiliating and dehumanizing work.

Like you and me, these are good people, and given the chance they can do incredible work to contribute to the progress of their community, their country, and of the world. They are no different from us, yet they have been intently thrown into the garbage by their own people, by their culture, their government.

And of course I felt sad about this gang because of why they had to form themselves. To have your very own husband beat you day to day, your own in-laws physically abuse you. And you can't fight back because it is all you've ever known. And even worse, the local police do nothing because they're so corrupt and, frankly, don't give a shit. It simply makes Sampat's story, and the stories of her female allies, all the more extraordinary. Yes, in this case it needed extreme measures to counter and eventually champion equally (if not more so) extreme, horrible situations.

^ The legendary Vogue editor and fashion icon Diana Vreeland once declared that "Pink is the navy blue of India". I wonder what she would have thought of Sampa and her girls. I bet she would have then declared, "Navy blue never looked so fierce and chic, my dear!"

Think about it, we're talking about hundreds of years of brutal physical abuses of women living within their culture, which is all they've ever known. Sampat and her sisters-in-arm have never been properly educated if at all, most of them are illiterate, but all they want is to live with some respect and dignity and to work and to provide for their children.

Sampat and her gang are trying to undo centuries of cruelty and mistreatment in perhaps a radical way. But if this must be the way for them to do it, so be it. It is her ultimate way of saying "Fuck you! You mess with me and you'll never live to see tomorrow! And I will look so fucking chic wasting your sorry ass, too!"

politically illiterate, I

^ Kara Walker, My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love. Installation, the Whitney Museum of Art (2007). "When Kara Walker cut out paper silhouettes of fantasy slave narratives, with characters — black and white alike — inflicting mutual violence, she attracted censure from some black artists. At least some of those objecting had personal roots in the civil rights years and an investment in art as a vehicle for racial pride and spiritual solace."

- On Race And Art, ARTADOX.com

I don't know how to politic (yeah, I use this word as a verb, never mind how erroneous that is). I never really grew up being aware of, much less acting on, the political world and how it affects - i.e. controls - my world.

> Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author, feminist, former politician, public speaker, and champion and advocate of human rights, is one of my personal heroes. Her book, Infidel, which serves double purpose as both autobiography and political testament, ignited a white hot worldwide controversy and, for me, was a very emotionally and politically difficult read. Because of her political beliefs and outspoken views on the negative effects of dogma - particularly Islamic dogma - she has become a target of death threats and lives her life in hiding, under close 24/7 security watch.

Some of my siblings have always been politically passionate or at least have some understanding of what goes on and how it works, but not I. My oldest sister was a hardcore activist when she was college age, she's a card carrying atheist, and today she still considers herself a socialist. The youngest sister is very much against illegal immigration. "Mom and Dad came to this country and brought all of us here with them legally! Why the hell don't those illegal immigrants do the same?!" she says. My fourth oldest brother has a lot of nasty - and truthful - things to say about loudmouthed fundamentalist Christians who lobby for various legislation in order to force all Americans to live according to the demands of the Bible.

^ "Calling things by their name" | Ayaan Hirsi Ali has the balls to confront and shed an unforgiving light on what most politicians - and for that matter most of us Americans - too often stupidly and cowardly try to avoid in our liberal and 'politically correct' conversations and action. As Americans are we really that scared and uninformed that we run away from this?

I did have some exposure to politics when I was in art school in the late 80s. Or perhaps it was more like exposure to politicizing. I discovered some really good contemporary (and often controversial) artists like Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Jonathan Borofsky, Andres Serrano, and Adrian Piper. Through these artists I discovered that creative individuals are very capable of inspiring, galvanizing, and solidarizing other individuals to think, decide, and act, often times through profoundly creative works.

< Andres Serrano, Piss Christ. 1987. Cibachrome print mounted on Plexiglass.


I remember one year in school when, as part of a group exhibit, an undergrad student set up an installation using a wall-mounted lectern on which was a log asking people to write in their opinions on the proper use and display of the American flag. However, in order to access the log to write, they had to either step on, or around, an actual flag placed on the floor directly under the lectern. This ignited a seriously hot controversy at the time and ended up being on the news locally, nationally, and internationally. Patriotism or blind idolatry? Conditional respect or unchecked worship? Freedom of free speech or act of treachery (or worse, treason)?



> Untitled (rape series), 1992; various all white fabrics, red embroidered text. Visionaries AIDS Benefit Fashion Show, Cairo Nightclub, Chicago. This series of women's clothing represents the extent of my interest in the political at the time, exploring issues of cross historical treatment of women, sexual violence, chastity, purity, repression, attraction and repulsion, and conflict.

I experimented with politically and socially charged art myself, particularly after receiving my undergrad degree. But I never really pursued it with great determination and intense curiosity like those artists whose work I admired did, and I think it was because I was too self-absorbed to do so, much like so many - too many - other Americans. Today I realize that was a mistake, I should have followed my gut instincts and forged such a path to its natural directions, wherever they may lead. That would've been the true direction for me as an artist.

Today I'm very closely watching the goings on in these weeks leading up to the election on November 4. I've never been so political before in my life, never been so involved in, so passionate about, and so scared for, the direction my country is going and what it means globally.

But I still can't really articulate the fundamentals of what defines liberalism and republicanism, and all the other isms and whatnots that make up this stupefyingly complicated world of politics. I have a bit of liberalism in me, but I also passionately believe in the kind of elemental conservatism that Ayaan Hirsi Ali believes in.

I have a lot of homework and a lot of catching up to do in order to further define where I stand in the world. Thank god for Wikipedia and 'the Google'.