To accept feminism as a Western concept is in the last analysis to concede the most visible discourses around women’s rights and gender justice as the property of the West and to marginalize the indigenous histories of protest and resistance to patriarchy by non-Western women. Therefore I use the term “feminist” as a description of Muslim women’s activities that are aimed at transforming masculinist social structures.

Muslim women and men with feminist commitments need to navigate the terrain between being critical of sexist interpretations of Islam and patriarchy in their religious communities while simultaneously criticizing neo-colonial feminist discourses on Islam. The fact that Muslim women resist both narratives while sometimes moving between their critiques is a consequence of the way in which they are situated within this larger minefield.

Sa’diyya Shaikh, “Transforming Feminisms: Islam, Women, and Gender Justice“  (via hkubra)

(via fala7idreams)

Source: hkubra

Obama waives sanctions for countries with child soldiers

For the third year since the law was enacted, President Obama’s administration offered a waiver to almost all countries that would have been sanctioned in accordance with the Child Soldiers Prevention Act. The administration offered full waivers to Yemen, Libya, and South Sudan, and a partial waiver to the DR Congo. This Foreign Policy blog offers a great take on it. 

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child criticized Obama this month for offering the waivers last October, and suggested the law be amended to remove the option of a presidential waiver. 

In his speech announcing an executive order to fight human trafficking, a week before granting these waivers, President Obama said: 



“When a little boy is kidnapped, turned into a child soldier, forced to kill or be killed — that’s slavery. It is barbaric, and it is evil, and it has no place in a civilized world. Now, as a nation, we’ve long rejected such cruelty.”

If only we really had. 

Vidal Vega, leader of a landless movement in Paraguay, was shot and killed outside his home Sunday. He was also the key witness in a conflict between landless activists and police that left 17 dead. More information here. I feel angry that he joins the ranks of so many activists killed for standing up to those in power. I feel grateful that so many activists, like Vega, choose to stand up anyway, knowing it puts their lives in danger. I dream of a world where no one has to make such a choice. 
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Vidal Vega, leader of a landless movement in Paraguay, was shot and killed outside his home Sunday. He was also the key witness in a conflict between landless activists and police that left 17 dead. More information here. 

I feel angry that he joins the ranks of so many activists killed for standing up to those in power. I feel grateful that so many activists, like Vega, choose to stand up anyway, knowing it puts their lives in danger. I dream of a world where no one has to make such a choice. 

Tim DeChristopher is not allowed to fight injustice

Do you remember Tim DeChristopher? When the government tried to auction off a ton of land just before a law protecting that land went into effect, he thwarted them by illegally placing a winning bid he had no way of paying. By the time they sorted it out, the law was in effect and they couldn’t re-do the auction; the land was saved. He was fined $10,000 and sentenced to two years in prison, of which he’s now served  a year and a half. 

Well, he’s recently been transferred to a halfway house, where he has to hold down a job. A local Unitarian church offered him a position in its social justice ministry, working to make the world a better place, basically. Here’s the “but”: according to his lawyer, Patrick Shea, “The Bureau of Prisons official who interviewed Tim indicated he would not be allowed to work at the Unitarian church because it involved social justice and that was what part of what his crime was.” 

Yep, that’s right. The government said he’s forbidden from working against racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry. Instead, he’ll work in a bookstore. Don’t get me wrong; I love books… but somehow that just doesn’t seem right. 

Weibo had a very big impact on my situation because our local government tried to cover up this case and not let the public know. But this time, people around China and even around the world found out they put me in labor camp. And the local government couldn’t resist so many people’s power.
Tang Hui, as quoted in this NPR piece about the role of Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, in spreading news and fighting for justice—and why and to what extent the national government tolerates it. Tang Hui was sentenced to 18 months in a prison camp, but after her lawyer posted her story on Weibo, an overwhelming public response earned her freedom. 

“Fuck Hamas. Fuck Israel. Fuck Fatah. Fuck UN. Fuck UNWRA. Fuck USA! We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community!

“We want to scream and break this wall of silence, injustice and indifference like the Israeli F16s breaking the wall of sound; scream with all the power in our souls in order to release this immense frustration that consumes us because of this fucking situation we live in…

“We are sick of being caught in this political struggle; sick of coal-dark nights with airplanes circling above our homes; sick of innocent farmers getting shot in the buffer zone because they are taking care of their lands; sick of bearded guys walking around with their guns abusing their power, beating up or incarcerating young people demonstrating for what they believe in; sick of the wall of shame that separates us from the rest of our country and keeps us imprisoned in a stamp-sized piece of land; sick of being portrayed as terrorists, home-made fanatics with explosives in our pockets and evil in our eyes; sick of the indifference we meet from the international community, the so-called experts in expressing concerns and drafting resolutions but cowards in enforcing anything they agree on; we are sick and tired of living a shitty life, being kept in jail by Israel, beaten up by Hamas and completely ignored by the rest of the world.

“There is a revolution growing inside of us, an immense dissatisfaction and frustration that will destroy us unless we find a way of canalising this energy into something that can challenge the status quo and give us some kind of hope.

“We barely survived the Operation Cast Lead, where Israel very effectively bombed the shit out of us, destroying thousands of homes and even more lives and dreams. During the war we got the unmistakable feeling that Israel wanted to erase us from the face of the Earth. During the last years, Hamas has been doing all they can to control our thoughts, behaviour and aspirations. Here in Gaza we are scared of being incarcerated, interrogated, hit, tortured, bombed, killed. We cannot move as we want, say what we want, do what we want.

“ENOUGH! Enough pain, enough tears, enough suffering, enough control, limitations, unjust justifications, terror, torture, excuses, bombings, sleepless nights, dead civilians, black memories, bleak future, heart-aching present, disturbed politics, fanatic politicians, religious bullshit, enough incarceration! WE SAY STOP! This is not the future we want! We want to be free. We want to be able to live a normal life. We want peace. Is that too much to ask?”

Gaza Youth’s Manifesto for Change, written over two years ago, as quoted in the Guardian on January 1, 2011

Christians, we seem to forget in all the clucking over the extent to which fried chicken sandwiches do or do not represent ideological preferences, are meant to use words, and to use them in particular for peace. This peace—the “Peace of Christ” in Christian tradition—is the heart of Christian teaching and practice, upon which rests everything from faithful stewardship of creation, to economic justice, to the rejection of violence as a solution for personal, familial, social, or political disagreements.

So why am I not hearing about this much in Sunday sermons?

“Where are the blessed peacemakers?”, Elizabeth Drescher, Religion Dispatches

Source: religiondispatches.org

Has nonviolence become hip, fashionable, or (god forbid) profitable? And if not, what is it doing in a magazine thick with ads for watches and suits and furs so pricey they could keep the nonprofit industrial complex humming for years?

“Who’s that sharp looking Gene?”, Frida Berrigan, Waging Nonviolence


An article examining the possible implications of profiling nonviolent theorist Gene Sharp alongside rapper Jay-Z in New York Times Style magazine.

Source: wagingnonviolence.org