A complex network of ideological and cultural norms

The actor Frieda Pinto gave a speech at the New York premiere of India’s Daughter. The Huffington Post reports:

“Today in 2015 despite the vast improvements in the lives and rights of women across the world in the last century, there still seems to exist this very complex network of ideological and cultural norms that still plague our society and that make global misogyny, in my opinion, a great scourge and most pressing issue of our age,” Pinto said.

That’s why we’re still battling – because of that network of ideological and cultural norms. The ones that put women in various inadequate pigeonholes that all function to diminish and constrain them. [Read more…]

Invoking the history

Shaun King at Daily Kos has more about Sigma Alpha Epsilon at the University of Oklahoma and elsewhere.

27 days ago, people on Reddit were talking about this exact same chant, and stating that it was a required chant to enter the SAE fraternity at the University of Texas. Before this controversy at the University of Oklahoma ever existed, here is how it was recounted in Texas,

For SAE context a few buddies of mine told me their favorite song to sing went-
“There will never be a n*gg*r SAE, there will never be a n*gg*r SAE, Abe set ’em free but they’ll never pledge with me, there will never be a n*gg*r SAE.”

But even before this, SAE had demonstrated a history of racism across the country.

So let’s read that Think Progress piece by Ian Millhiser. [Read more…]

Guest post on Amnesty International and international standards

Michael De Dora wrote this as a comment on a public Facebook post I did of the 2006 statement by Amnesty International. He gave me permission to publish it here, which is good, since this is his subject.

In particular, any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence cannot be considered legitimate exercise of freedom of expression. Under international standards, such “hate speech” should be prohibited by law.

This is, for me, the most interesting part of the statement. It is actually true that international standards state “Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.” See Article 20 of the ICCPR.

However, that has long been problematic language for many human rights organizations, and even some states. For instance, the U.S. signed onto the ICCPR, but issued a reservation on Article 20 due to concerns that it would conflict with the right to free speech.

Indeed, the language in Article 20 has been abused by many states to restrict free speech. For instance, Indonesian atheist Alexander Aan was convicted for inciting religious hatred. So it is strange Amnesty would support it — especially in reference to the Danish cartoons, which would not meet the standard. [Read more…]

Give them victory over ‘Qawm -el Kafiroon’

Tarek Fatah wrote a column in the Toronto Sun in January that tells me something I didn’t know.

One of the reasons I avoid attending Friday congregations at mosques is a specific ritual supplication uttered by Imams at many mosques in Canada and around the world, just prior to our formal Friday community prayer, the Juma’a.

In the supplication, the cleric prays to Allah for, among other things, to grant “Muslims victory over the ‘Qawm al-Kafiroon,’” the Arabic phrase that lumps all non-Muslims — Jews, Hindus, Christians, Atheists, Buddhists and Sikhs — into one derogatory category, the “Kuffar”, or non-Muslims.

[Read more…]

From the archive: Of Course You Can, Except When You Can’t

And one more, because it’s just so unchanged and so infuriating – the bait and switch. Yes you can have free speech, no you can’t say harsh things about religion. What’s the problem?

Of Course You Can, Except When You Can’t

February 4, 2006

Back to the real world, where cartoons ‘are’ representations of Mohammed – some depressing oxymoronism from Jack Straw. Of course we respect free speech, but you can’t say that; of course everyone has a right to free speech, but no one can insult religion. Well which is it, bub? It ain’t both! I’m not a free speech absolutist, as I’ve said many times, but this idea that free speech is okay as long as it doesn’t offend anyone is sheer jam tomorrow. If we can’t say anything that might offend someone, our speech is pretty damn restricted, isn’t it!

Speaking after talks with the Sudanese foreign minister, Mr Straw said: “There is freedom of speech, we all respect that. But there is not any obligation to insult or to be gratuitously inflammatory. I believe that the republication of these cartoons has been insulting, it has been insensitive, it has been disrespectful and it has been wrong. There are taboos in every religion. It is not the case that there is open season in respect of all aspects of Christian rites and rituals in the name of free speech.

[Read more…]

From the archive: Tinkerbell

Then there’s one on February 4 2006 wondering what anyone even means by “images of Mohammed” anyway.

Tinkerbell

Wait, hold on – something has just crossed my tiny mind. These cartoons – that are so ‘offensive’ because they are cartoons of Mohammed – how do the people who are so offended know they are cartoons of Mohammed? There aren’t, like, photographs of him, right? Not to mention the fact that it’s a no-no to make pictures of him anyway, so that if there were photos of him, they’d all have been thrown away by now. But surely it’s much more likely that they weren’t taken in the first place, and that drawings, paintings, watercolours, engravings, etchings, and silhouettes were not made either. And even if they had been they’d probably be pretty dilapidated by now. Pretty crumbly and curly at the edges and faded – at best. And then who knows how accurate the artists would have been, if they had taken any likenesses, which they probably didn’t, on account of how it was taboo (as we keep being reminded, because we’re so likely to forget, with all this shouting going on)? So – let’s face it – nobody knows what the guy looked like. It was fourteen hundred years ago after all. It’s like Jesus. People think they know what he looked like, but they don’t really – they know what Raphael and Rembrandt and people like that thought he looked like. But they didn’t know, see, so that doesn’t help. [Read more…]

From the archive: Nothing sacred

A B&W post from February 2, 2006, to show how little has changed in 9 years.

Paul Goggins went on the Today programme on the day the religious hatred bill was passed in the Lords version not the government’s version, to explain why the bill (particularly, in the government’s version, with the language about ‘recklessness’, instead of the Lords’) was necessary and a good idea. After some pressing he articulated the basic (I take it) point.

Well I accept, Jim, and we always have accepted that there are fine balances to be drawn here, but religious belief is an important part of identity, and the expression of that religious belief is important to many people, and that others should set out intentionally to stir up hatred about those people because of those religious beliefs has no part in our society, so for all the difficulty in getting the balance right we think it’s right to press ahead with this legislation.

That’s it. Religious belief is an important part of identity, and expression of that belief is important to many people (no! really?!?). Therefore stirring up hatred about those people because of those religious beliefs should be made a crime – but stirring up hatred about people because of any other beliefs should not. Because…? [Read more…]

Amnesty International sold out the Danish cartoonists in 2006

Rosie Bell alerted me (and us) to the fact that Amnesty International issued a statement in February 2006 basically (albeit periphrastically) saying that the Danish Motoons should be illegal under international law. I can’t find the statement on the AI site, not nohow, but I did find what appears to be the full statement on a Yahoo group.

Here it is:

Public Statement | 8 February 2006

Freedom of speech carries responsibilities for all

Events of recent weeks have highlighted the difficult question of what should be the legitimate scope of freedom of expression in culturally diverse societies. [Read more…]