#2
..because it's always been about POWER. It's never been about equality because they always resist the attending responsibility and consequences of real equality. It's also hard to keep the party line going in the perspective of the situation of women in the world. Sympathy and shaming are hard to use in that light.
#3
I would like to see someone map out the hierarchy of the left. It is clear that multiculturalism beats feminism and that African americans tend to be top of the multi-cultural pile most of the time but where do the greens and unions fit? on top?
Earlier this summer a video showed Umarov calling on his supporters to "show those who live in the Kremlin" that the insurgents are capable of disrupting the Olympics in Sochi. "They plan to hold the Olympics on the bones of our ancestors; on the bones of many, many dead Muslims buried on our land by the Black Sea. We as mujahedin are required to stop that, using any methods that Allah allows us."
A local taxi driver said, "We had hoped all the terrorists had gone to fight in Syria, but the violence doesn't stop."
[Dawn] THE display of anger and outrage at the brutal rape of a small girl in Lahore will acquire meaning only if the public discourse is extended beyond demands for punishing the culprit(s) and practical steps can be taken to eliminate the causes of the Pak woman's increased vulnerability to assault and abuse.
That the indescribably horrible assault on the five-year-old girl in Lahore must not go unpunished is a perfectly valid call, though subject to respect for the moratorium on the death penalty. But nobody whose conscience has only now been aroused should stop short of looking at sexual assaults on girls in a proper context.
To begin with, the rape of little girls in Pakistain is not so infrequent as some people might think. A day after the Lahore girl was ravaged, incidents of rape and gang rape on minor girls were reported from Faisalabad ...formerly known as Lyallpur, the third largest metropolis in Pakistain, the second largest in Punjab after Lahore. It is named after some Arab because the Paks didn't have anybody notable of their own to name it after... , Tandliawala, Kasur, Toba Tek Singh, Hafizabad and Dera Ismail Khan ... the Pearl of Pashtunistan ...
The Lahore police chief disclosed that his city force alone had registered 113 cases of rape and 32 incidents of gang rape during the first eight months of the current year. A senior police officer was quoted as saying that most of the rape victims were teenaged girls and that the number of victims could be higher as many cases were not reported to the police. Both the state and civil society should realise that the sexual abuse of girls is a large-scale and widespread phenomenon and it needs to be tackled as such.
The second fact to be borne in mind is that such devastation of girls is not a simple matter of crime and punishment and that the evil has flourished in spite of tightening of the relevant laws over the past 34 years or so. For instance, Gen Zia added Section 354-A to the Penal Code which prescribes death penalty for "assault or use of criminal force to women and stripping her of her clothes".
The Offence of Zina (enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance of 1979 laid down the death penalty for several forms of rape. In 1990, Section 164-A of the Penal Code was amended to raise the age of children from 10 to 14 whose abduction "in order that a person may be murdered or subjected to grievous hurt, or slavery, or to the lust of any person...." was punishable by death.
Has making the laws more stringent caused a decline in sexual crimes against women, particularly girls? If common experience is any guide the answer is in the negative. In fact, the dangerous consequences of making and amending laws in haste, often to satisfy the demands from a brutalised society, have become apparent.
For example, the prescription of death penalty for gang rape, the same punishment that is awarded for murder, operates as an inducement to the culprits to kill their victim after violating her, thus eliminating the key witness of their crime.
It is common knowledge that the rape of women in Pakistain is not merely one of the offences committed by individual criminals, it is also a weapon to be used to subjugate weaker people and to humiliate adversaries in tribal/feudal conflicts.
Sociologists and psychologists could tell us about the factors that are keeping alive in our society the feudal attitudes towards women, the tendency to treat them as chattel.
From a layman's point of view some of the worst feudal practices involving the degradation of women that were confined to the tribal areas have lately spread to settled, supposedly civilised, parts of the country. Reports of killing of women for men's honour from cities like Lahore and Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... are enough to confirm this.
Worse, some of the feudal practices, such as denial of girls' right to education, are now being promoted as religious injunctions, eg the destruction of girls' schools in areas infested with krazed killers. Quite clearly, the more retrogressive that society becomes the greater will be the exploitation of women in various forms, including sexual abuse.
Law and order authorities and defenders of public morality in religious parties are quick to attribute attacks on girls to the declining moral standards of a society under the influence of Western culture, the internet and social media. But there seems to be greater force in the argument that women's vulnerability has increased as a result of campaigns to restrict their mobility, greater emphasis on gender segregation and a variety of attempts to reduce women's role in public life.
Is there any connection between attacks on minor girls and the religious authorities' insistence on considering a girl fit for marriage as soon as she reaches the age of puberty and their reluctance to denounce marriage of men (of any age) to teenage girls?
Again, to answer this, we need to be guided not only by the research of subject specialists but also by the Learned Elders of Islam. To the mind of sex-starved and depraved young men, especially in a suburban environment, if a girl in her teens is fit to be given away in marriage she is fair game for forced sex. A study should be undertaken to find out whether increasing emphasis on gender segregation in educational institutions, offices and public places is making women safer or their lives more hazardous.
To sum up, devising workable plans to deal with the increase in women's vulnerability due to conservation of feudal cultural practices, reinforcement of patriarchy and the abuse of belief to deny women their rights is as important, if not more, as punishing criminals.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/20/2013 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] THE issuance of a specific set of guidelines concerning 'jihad' by Al Qaeda chief Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri ... Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as the real brains of the outfit. Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area. That is not a horn growing from the middle of his forehead, but a prayer bump, attesting to how devout he is... for the first time appears to be a relative softening of the Islamist Death Eater movement's otherwise hard-line agenda. The Egyptian Death Eater has urged his followers to practise restraint whilst targeting Moslems of different sects as well as non-Moslems and limiting violent responses to combatants only. The need for propagation -- as opposed to combat alone -- has also been highlighted. The guidelines appear to have been issued as the Al Qaeda chief has realised that the Death Eaters' increased ferocity and widespread practice of takfir ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed... (declaring other Moslems infidels) is not winning over the Moslem world; in fact, the tactics have backfired. Previously Al Qaeda remained largely silent on sectarian killings in Iraq and Syria. However, a person who gets all wrapped up in himself makes a mighty small package... more chilling are Zawahiri's comments on what he hopes to achieve in Pakistain.
Zawahiri has urged fighters to "create a safe haven for Mujahideen in Pakistain" so that it can become a base for "establishing an Islamic system". If what the TTP, which is rumoured to be sheltering him, and other forces of Evil have done in Swat ...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat... and Fata, as well as the campaign of terror that has shaken Pakistain, are anything to go by, we have a fair idea what sort of 'Islamic system' Zawahiri has in mind for Pakistain. This is not the first time the Al Qaeda head has focused on this country; last year Zawahiri urged the people of Pakistain to rise against the government and the army. So while Al Qaeda may be regrouping in Yemen, clearly the transnational Death Eater network has not lost interest in Pakistain. In fact, the state's recent peace overtures to the TTP must have emboldened the Al Qaeda high command. The government must weigh its options. Zawahiri and his band have effectively declared war on Pakistain. And not taking action against foreign forces of Evil in this country and their local backers would clear the way for Al Qaeda to carry forward its Pakistain-specific agenda.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/20/2013 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
By Julie Bindel
Earlier this summer a video showed Umarov calling on his supporters to "show those who live in the Kremlin" that the insurgents are capable of disrupting the Olympics in Sochi. "They plan to hold the Olympics on the bones of our ancestors; on the bones of many, many dead Muslims buried on our land by the Black Sea. We as mujahedin are required to stop that, using any methods that Allah allows us." 
[Dawn] THE display of anger and outrage at the brutal rape of a small girl in Lahore will acquire meaning only if the public discourse is extended beyond demands for punishing the culprit(s) and practical steps can be taken to eliminate the causes of the Pak woman's increased vulnerability to assault and abuse.
...the creepy-looking former dictator of Pakistain. Zia was an Islamic nutball who imposed his nutballery on the rest of the country with the enthusiastic assistance of the nation's religious parties, which are populated by other nutballs. He was appointed Chief of Army Staff in 1976 by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whom he hanged when he seized power. His time in office was a period of repression, with hundreds of thousands of political rivals, minorities, and journalists executed or tortured, including senior general officers convicted in coup-d'état plots, who would normally be above the law. As part of his alliance with the religious parties, his government helped run the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, providing safe havens, American equipiment, Saudi money, and Pak handlers to selected mujaheddin. Zia died along with several of his top generals and admirals and the then United States Ambassador to Pakistain Arnold Lewis Raphel when he was assassinated in a suspicious air crash near Bahawalpur in 1988...
Zawahiri
