Officially Sanctioned Extortion

Canadians feel complacent that our security is assured, that illicit attempts to force any of us to part with our hard-earned cash will bring the law to our side, protectively. We live in a free and fair society, one where each of us is protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that guarantees us equal treatment under the law. Providing us the choice of religion, ideology, gender orientation.

Our right to free speech and free association is guaranteed under the Charter. To a certain point.

Unless any of us utter hurtful slander geared to cause pain and suffering and danger to others. And then the law steps in, for there are anti-hate laws that protect society. Of course if someone is not being utterly hateful and dangerous to your well-being, but being provocative and causes you distress you can get your own back by claiming hurt feelings. Take those hurt feelings to a human rights tribunal and you're away to the races.

If there is a criticism that impacts on you personally, if someone who offers specialized services to the public, but declines to provide those services to you, become affronted; it is your due. For the human rights tribunals are there to look to your peace of mind. You can trample on someone else's peace and security and values by imposing your own on them, and that's a lesson learned, isn't it?

And psst! it won't cost you a red dime. Designed and paid for on taxpayer funding. And through the process of impressing on the tribunal just how hurt your feelings are and how unfair it is that a religious group refuses to honour your orientation because it offends their value system, take the opportunity to give them a come-uppance, courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer.

In the process you can bleed them of their assets as compensation for hurt feelings.

Cry racism, or homophobia or any other manner of phobia to impress the human rights tribunals and presto! Your case is made for you. Because that's what their raison d'etre is, after all; to defend those who are bleating and to offend those who claim innocence. There is no neutrality, no balancing of opposite and apposite standards and opinions, there is your tragic story that must be pursued to your satisfaction.

Make your story compelling enough, describe your grief over the insult, the assault on your human dignity and watch the tribunal excoriate the offender, and see them empty their pockets to satisfy the fine that will go directly into yours. These are shakedown tribunals under a human rights guise. The complaint whatever the issue is the issue.

The outcome is a settlement agreed upon by a harassed and discombobulated individual or group who never in their wildest nightmares imagined themselves as human rights defilers.

The Civility of Islam, Religion of Peace

It is a religion based on a collection of writing. Held to be sacred. As the direct word of God, given to a human interlocutor.

Perhaps some of the utterances and proclamations of that virtuous and perfect spirit were misinterpreted when they were transcribed. Perhaps it was the inclination of a man steeped in the Bedouin way of life where tribal animosities and constant warfare and assassinations being the order of the culture and the heritage of the desert, to tinge the words of ineffable wisdom with the stirring battle cries of a warring people.

The out
cry to defend Islam from humiliation and insult and the spurning of its primacy as the pinnacle of religious righteousness and paramount positioning in a world where other communities of peoples have their own spiritual head-of-mission reigning in the wide blue heavens, remains of primary and paramount importance. Jihad is urged on the faithful, and martyrdom to the cause represents the highest order of human endeavour in the honouring of Islam.

It is a militant creed within a religion based on utter and total surrender of the inner and outer self. The sacred writings betray an unequivocal belligerence toward those who would oppose the first-place status of Islam. As for those who would be foolish enough to question the rights, priorities and values held within Islam, and the pedigree and purpose of its founder, the Prophet, woe betide them for they are destined to perish.

The final words they will hear in their fearful ears informing them they are doomed to death is Allahu Akbar! This frequent and deadly attention is purveyed not only toward infidels but also toward Muslims considered to be insufficiently dedicated to their religion's fundamentalist principles. It can be said of a certainty that the countries of the Middle East where Islam surfaced in the wake of Judaism and Christianity, remain broadly dysfunctional.

As the religion is one of a tyrannical spiritual ruler, so too are the theocratic and titular and totalitarian heads of state and governance of Muslim countries. As long as these remained somewhat closed societies with scant interaction with other, non-Muslim countries of the world on a population-to-population basis, the Muslim ummah seemed content to eke out their lives as their rulers saw fit for them.

With the advent of instant technological communication things appear to have gone awry; the people have become alert to the fact that other countries, particularly those of the West, given to democratic governance, do not subjugate their people. There is law and order and there is respect for peoples' rights and there are values that are fundamental to decent human behaviour and there are opportunities to be had elsewhere.

Why not where they live? So young, unemployed and educated Egyptians protested. As did Tunisians. Bahrainians. Yemenites. Syrians, Libyans, Iranians. In Egypt there is a transition government toward civil rule, and Egyptian Muslims mount attacks against Egyptian Copts. In Iran, the people no longer dare protest and remain simmeringly quiescent. In Yemen military forces fire at protesters.

In Libya, the dictator sends out his military forces to bomb and strafe residents of cities that have been taken by rebels, some of whom are Islamists, looking to profit through their fanatical al-Qaeda connections. In Pakistan, as in Afghanistan, Islamist fundamentalists calling themselves the scholars, are Talib who make a common pact with other Islamists and slaughter those Muslims who are insufficiently pious.

Afghan police and the Afghan national military practise sexual abuse and exploitation of young boys, because this is an age-old accepted practise, little spoken of but endemic in society, somewhat like the overwhelming incidence of base corruption and rapacious tribal war-lordism.
While in Syria its president is intent on putting down a popular insurrection much as his father before him did.

The uprising having begun with fifteen young Syrian boys writing graffiti on their school walls demanding the end of police rule - causing their arrest and incarceration, the first in a long line of some eight thousand arrested protesters some of whom have undergone torture and rape. And in Syria as well the military has been charged to fire with live ammunition upon the people.

Who is prepared to stand forward and make sense of this conundrum of a professed religion of peace inspiring so much 'misunderstanding' of what peace represents?

UN's High Commission for Human Rights Coming to a Country Near You

What concerning news. Canada is set - again - to be investigated by the UN High Commission for Human Rights. Navi Pillay is dispatching a committee upon Canada again to look carefully at our human rights' record. For it is entirely possible that in some obscure manner Canadian society - even government agencies - may be guilty of making light of someone's human rights.

The United Nations Human Rights Council is not fond, we are informed, of Canada's cavalier attitude toward people of colour. Naming them "visible minorities" as a way of readily distinguishing the most obvious characteristics setting some ethnic groups aside from the bland majority to expedite documentation is considered to be horribly insulting.

But that's the thing about Canadians; we are so out of tune with the real world of careful dignity allocated to all those who declare themselves to have been ill done by because of perceived physical differences. An alienating process, recognizing that people look different from one another, in a way that identifies which part of the world they come from.

That's another thing about most people; they're curious about one another, about various ethnic and cultural experiences and differences. We are curious animals; we like to look around us, make sense of what we see. And when we identify differences we assimilate the fact that they exist, while clarifying at the same time our awareness of how much more we share as human beings.

The UN's Working Group on People of African Descent will have none of this. They know racism when they see it, sniff it, feel it. The group plans to visit Canada in May. They will be busily engaged in rooting out any and all instances of persecution suffered by black African-Canadians.

Our neighbour, the United States, has been visited by them; no word whether they interviewed Barack Obama.

This working group sees no need nor merit in visiting countries like Sudan or Libya. UN Watch, unaffiliated with the UN, but keeping a close eye on what the UN does on behalf of the great, wide world, has noted the acute persecution black Africans suffer in Libya and Sudan, but this appears of little interest to the working group.

It would be a fitting welcome if black Canadians courteously entertained the group, and speedily ushered them on their way, pointing in the direction of Sudan and elsewhere in the world where black Africans are exploited and suffer, usually by their own; Zimbabwe, Congo, Somalia come readily to mind.

Syria's Uncontested UNHRC Seat

Bashar al-Assad does not seem to mind the well-earned obloquy with which he is regarded. After all, it is not Muslim states, and his neighbours in the Middle East who are looking at him askance, naming him now for what he has always represented; a repressive, murderous tyrant. It is only Europe and North America, perhaps the United Nations marginally. But he has his friends and supporters.

Turkey, as intermediary, merely requests that Syria not be so embarrassingly blatant about sending in those Alawite-majority militias so capable of brutally dispatching protesters. Political repression is being condemned by European countries, but Middle Eastern governments know what is involved here; a pathology of unrest spread like a virus among ingrates.

It will only be when civil war can no longer be averted that Syria will demonstrate exactly what it is capable of. Behind the scenes people are being abducted, towns emptied of males older than 15 and spirited away; women raped, children and the elderly used as target practise for army marksmen; instilling fear is practical and useful in stifling dissent.

Libya's situation, where government installations are being bombed by NATO, is not quite so feasible for transference to Syria. That kind of scenario would simply represent as too volatile, a slow-spreading fire of animosity toward the interference of the West in Arab affairs. The Arab League would certainly look upon any such move as insufferably arrogant and divisive.

Libya is seen as a pariah state. Syria, practising now what Libya pioneered so recently, remains in high regard. The 53 Asian group choice among India, Indonesia and the Philippines includes Syria to sit on the UN's Human Rights Council. After all, if Libya could be represented on the Council, and Iran be considered for placement on the UN's Rights of Women's group, why not Syria on the UNHRC?

Yes, the United States led a censure proposal at the UNHRC, mildly condemning Syria, which Arab states abstained from while Russia and China campaigned against the resolution, but that embarrassing bit in the proposal making mention of Syria's candidacy for the Council while making use of lethal force against its people, was cut.

So Syria has been "unequivocally condemned" for killings and arrests of protesters. Isn't that a relief? Now that's out of the way, matters can move forward and Syria, along with the three other nominated Asian countries can sit in comfort on the Human Rights Council. Sit in judgement on others whom they may accuse of violations of human rights.

Israel comes quickly to mind. For no other country in the world is recognized as so manifestly involved in human rights abuses as the one country in the Middle East where all religions and ethnic groups are granted citizenship and given the guarantee of free access to justice under the law of the land.

Sadistic Cynicism

Britain has formally withdrawn the wedding invitation extended to the Embassy of Syria, in London. And the Syrian Ambassador, surprised and somewhat crestfallen at the dis-invitation, does not in fact think it advisable that he attend. Will they courteously usher him out of Westminster Abbey should he defy them, waving his invitation as proof that he was invited - or put him in the stocks on public display for further humiliation?

Not that there is any really good reason to feel compassion for the man. He does, after all, represent the government and the leader of his country while abroad. And the government and President Bashar al-Assad deserve little respect from the international community, much less Britain and the Royal Family. Both of which, truth be told, saw nothing amiss in sending out the original invitation until the embarrassment of public criticism had them take a second look.

After all, if Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and Sara Ferguson are persona non grata, it does look rather peculiar if Syria's representative appears as an honoured guest. But that's Britain, after all, the country that personifies eccentricity and the class-culture structure, and entitlements. If we think that Britain's sordid and dilatory attention to class-corrective actions and cultural niceties leave something to be desired, look to the United Nations.

Ah, the United Nations, where there are no class distinctions and where all countries are considered to be equally endowed and equally entitled. Belying reality, but making for political correctness, which is the standard-bearer of conduct within that august body. The UN's Human Rights Council presents as one of those creatures of the UN that stands above and apart; perhaps that should be descends below standards.

Canada, among another 36 co-sponsors requesting the scheduling of an emergency session on exploring what can be done about Syria's brutal crackdown on its own citizens clamouring for freedom from classic repression, would like some accountability. It was largely responsible for introducing into the UN the "responsibility to protect" doctrine, which the UN is now grappling with, pleading with Bashar al-Assad to stop killing Syrian protesters.

But the Human Rights Council, having received from Syria a key membership prerequisite in the form of a written pledge to respect the human rights of its own population, and to promote human rights internationally - a standard document required of all potential members elected to the HRC - is prepared to proceed to induct Syria into its 47-member council for a 3-year term.

Like Britain's invitation, away back in January the UN Asian group submitted the names of Syria and three other countries to fill four vacant "Asian" seats. With that submission, the admission of the four are rubber-stamped for acceptance, requiring only a simple majority of the 192-member UN General Assembly in a month's time. The international community, let alone the Arab League, is making no fuss about the Syrian situation, unlike the attention given to Libya.

Neither Russia nor China are prepared to issue a condemnation of the Syrian government, unlike Europe and the U.S. and Canada. Russian Deputy Ambassador Alexander Pankin claims that the situation in Syria "does not present a threat to international peace and security", therefore it is clearly not needful that the Security Council get involved in anything distastefully interfering like sanctions against Syria.

Syria, a clear threat in the Middle East and beyond, with its support for and links to terrorist Islamists militias, Hezbollah and Hamas; with its active encouragement and support of Islamist jihadists entering Iraq to confront and attack both Iraqis and U.S. and British troops there; with its closely supportive friendship with Iran; with its own attempts to build nuclear installations; with its Lebanese occupation; with its involvement in political assassinations; with its violation of its citizens' human rights, was still seen as deserving of an invitation to the royal wedding.

And it stands now, as of May 20, to join the UN's Human Rights Council. This blatant parody of concern for human rights represents the ultimate in paradoxically sadistic cynicism.

The Message is the Medium

Spiritual leader of well over a billion faithful of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI sought to appeal to humanitarian compassion in his Easter "Urbi et Orbi" blessing and speech. The time for lamentation and rejoicing as good a time as any to remind the faithful and the world at large that human beings have a practical and moral obligation to one another.

Pope Benedict must think in terms of human goodness as he gives his benediction to the waiting crowds. He must not submit to the reality that human goodness and compassion eludes too many in this world of warped entitlements and values. He remains for the faithful the embodiment of God's promise to humankind; that the faithful will be redeemed.

In his elevated station as the interceder between the Almighty and the people, it remains his obligation to instill hope and the need for kindness and consideration; to elevate the souls of his followers. He speaks of diplomacy and dialogue triumphing over conflict, that kind words are a worthy replacement for violence and arms.

This is the world that he lives within, but not the one that humanity struggles to endure. "In the countries of northern Africa and the Middle East, may all citizens, especially young people, work to promote the common good." A noble sentiment, without one shred of doubt. But the countries of northern Africa and the Middle East, particularly the young people, are extremely busy slaughtering one another.

Tribal antipathies, regional disputes; territorial boundaries; acquisition of natural resources; religious and sectarian, ethnic and clan hatreds thrive, helped by the greed of their totalitarian rulers, and the endemic poverty left as the lot of the people whose human rights have been violated. But the crucible of hatred and violence does not need the impetus of poverty to set it alight; hatred of the other will do very well.

Pope Benedict has little option, as the spokesperson for good in the world, relaying God's wishes for humankind, but to call for peace: "That the light of peace and of human dignity may overcome the darkness of division, hate and violence" in the Middle East. The 'inviolable right' to dignity and basic human rights is violated because it cannot be guaranteed.

Visceral distrust, hatred and violence sadly express humankind's ultimate degradation, one all too quickly resorted to with particular fervour in the Middle East, a brimming cauldron of resentment and paranoia.

Solve that and God will indeed have descended to Earth.

Malicious Credibility

The Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress have led a sanctimonious protest in public, airing their grievance that the Holdomor is not receiving equal, if not superior place of pride front-and-centre at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. They claim that the Holocaust, a historical and precisely-documented event representing the atrocity of institutionalized genocide should be treated as just one of many such events.

They take great umbrage that the museum was originally planned, and continues to be planned, to primarily showcase the Holocaust as representative of the unspeakable tragedy that can befall a specifically-focused-upon ethnic/religious group through systematically de-humanizing them with an organized agenda of slander to justify all human rights denied them, isolating them from the rest of humanity and embarking on a mission of total annihilation.

It does not assuage their grievance to be informed that the Holdomor, and indeed all events of man's inhumanity to man will be present, documented and clearly mourned in the museum. Their resentment and anger is directed at the plans to 'elevate' one nation's tragedy over that of another. Reasoning with them that the Holocaust represents a singular event in the scope and detail of its prosecution makes no inroads with them.

They have taken to inflating the dreadful and deliberate starvation of millions of Ukrainians (1932-33) by the Soviet Union in an effort to 'prove' that it represented a horror whose effect far transcended that of the Holocaust. Their loss was greater than that of European Jewry. Their numbers of dead far outstripped that of the Jews. The assault and trauma left them was more awful and must be acknowledged.

Academics and scholars representing studies in history, sociology, social anthropology, languages, literature, linguistics, communications, education, remembrance and research, history and classics, legal and political philosophy, holocaust studies, comparative politics, contemporary theory, humanities, sociology and social research, study of contemporary antisemitism, European studies, culture studies and academies of sciences, Slavic languages and literatures, from the United States, Britain, Spain, Canada, Israel, France, Ukraine, Germany, Austria, Ireland, Poland, and Russia have become involved to admonish this movement to de-legitimize the purpose of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

They correct the figures related to the Ukrainian famine to represent the true numbers, not the inflated numbers put forward by the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. They point out that some of the hallowed nationalist groups that these two associations defend were Fascists, allied with the Nazis and were themselves responsible for many civilian deaths.

And they conclude their statement of support for the function, purpose and focus of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights by this summation:

"We therefore assert that since the UCCLA and UCC have not understood that confronting the historical record openly and honestly is preferable to manipulative falsehood, have engaged in a competition of suffering, and have failed to acknowledge both the vices and the virtues of the nationalist movement, they ought to stay out of a debate about the Canadian Museum of Human Rights."

Influence, Respect, Humility

There is something endearing about even a programmed, obviously staged event where the most prestigious, respected religious authority figure in the world appears to be humbly presenting himself in a modest setting, to respond to the confusion in the hearts of his adoring public.

As the single most impressive and important representative of God on Earth Pope Benedict XVI made his august presence available for enquiry. At the televised question-and-answer session that took place on Good Friday, Pope Benedict responded to a question by a Japanese child by his admission that he does not have "the answers" to human suffering.

No one is too grand or too important to hold themselves above and apart from ordinary people. Particularly those people whose lives have been touched by God and who acknowledge their need to worship their Saviour during this time of his resurrection celebrated in a yearly ritual of mourning and joyfulness.

And Pope Benedict holds himself responsible for his vast flock, as must a pope do.

It is to his great credit that he has not shied away from the need to speak forcibly and without diplomatic guile to the modern-day forces of brutal violence expressed through the resentment of another, competing religion, against the followers of the Roman Catholic Church. He has pleaded repeatedly for Muslim countries to respect the human rights of Christians.

He has responded to the outrage of his own parishioners - for all those who worship at the altar of the Roman Catholic Church are his parishioners - against the depredations of parish priests and their superiors in violating the trust and the faith of children by sexually abusing them for decades. His response has been one of anguish - and of guilt.

"I am saddened", he said "that I can do so little". Referring without doubt, to the proclivities of human beings whose spirit and courage has not been equal to the demands placed upon them in the service of God. He is saddened, that though he reproves and protests against humankind's continual surrender to tribal, clan and religious destruction, passions are unabated.

He often enough - because, as the major representative as he would have it, of God upon this planet, he is infallible, and his decision is to be respected - infuriates both the faithful and those for whom his faith is not theirs. He seeks to be a unifying force for goodness yet he is often seen as a divisive force through his decisions.

Given his due, his is an impossible task. And even when tasks are possible there is the reality that no one can possibly ever satisfy all people all the time. He likely comes as close to that impossible goal as anyone may.

But then ... on the other hand ...

UN Effectiveness

"There is rarely a vision beyond fundraising, and rarely an organizing narrative that draws together disparate capacities. What is needed is a complete overhaul of strategic and operational leadership in the UN. Regrettably, the leadership, management and co-ordination of the international community's efforts have not risen even to the challenges we currently face. Unless we radically improve the quality of the leadership of the international effort in humanitarian crises, we will not succeed in dealing with what is ahead. In all but one of the case studies for this review, UN leadership was poor. This was especially true in the larger disasters." Paddy Ashdown, Humanitarian Emergency Response Review

So much for the salvation of the world at the dedicated and faithful hands of the experts assembled by that great world body, the United Nations. Acquiring the required operating funds to launch humanitarian missions all around the Globe on behalf of global citizenry, those who live in countries who are advantaged by good governance and wealth, transferring funding to the world body on behalf of the disadvantaged has not resulted in needed resource delivery.

Raising funding is evidently no problem; those member countries who can afford the tariff cough it up, leaving it to the expert panels working on behalf of humanity under the auspices of the United Nations, to spend it wisely. Spending the funding raised by UN appeals to its membership to ameliorate natural disasters, bringing medical and food aid and shelter where it is required; operating refugee camps; diplomatically intervening in calamitous conflicts.

The world depends on the work of the United Nations. That august body was organized, established and is trusted to launch missions to rescue humanity from nature's disasters, and more tellingly from humanity's own folly. The study just concluded on the effectiveness of the UN's various humanitarian missions studied responses to recent humanitarian disasters; famine in Niger, flooding in Pakistan, earthquake in Haiti.

The conclusion reached is dispiriting and most definitely unflattering to the purported professionalism of the world body. While governments regard the United Nations as the "only legitimate authority" in grave and desperate situations where a specific government of a country affected by some kind of disaster proves incapable of mounting its own humanitarian response, the result of the study indicates the authority's effectiveness is sadly lacking.

Only the UN's World Food Program is exonerated for the extent and value of its effectiveness in its ability to "rapidly deliver[ing] food to seven million people in flood-hit Pakistan". And UNICEF is pointed out as another success story, supplying infant food throughout Niger. But the failure of the UN seen in its "inability to treat and contain" Haiti's cholera outbreak does not reflect well on its capabilities and dedication.

The report points out the communication dysfunctionality of the various UN agencies, commenting on their need to work together "more collegially". Critics of the United Nations - and there are many, mostly those drawing their conclusions from the political sphere of diplomatic influence and ingrained corruption - will not be surprised that this aspect of the world body's vital work is also horribly impaired by incompetence.

The United Nations has become a lobby emporium for some of the world's most human-rights-abusing nations; its effectiveness is stifled by bureaucratic ennui and moral corruption. Its submission to the ideological dictates of member-countries outnumbering democratic, forward-looking countries of the world merely reflect its unforgivable inadequacies.

Egyptian Gender Equality

At women's march in Egypt, men prove women's point by scolding, shoving, beating, groping them, and telling them to "go home where they belong"

"Men scolded protesters and said their concerns were not urgent in the aftermath of the uprising."

Women and non-Muslims have heard that before. Just be patient. Now is not a good time to rock the boat -- not when "reforms" are coming, however slowly. And we've heard that sort of claim answered before:

"Frankly I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was "well timed," according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation ... This 'wait" has almost always meant 'never.' We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that 'justice too long delayed is justice denied'." -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail

Of course, that's exactly the idea here. "Wait" means "never," for the rights of women and unbelievers in a society suffused with the attitudes of Islamic supremacism. "Egyptian women's rights protest marred by hecklers," from the Associated Press, March 8:

CAIRO (AP) — A protest by hundreds of Egyptian women demanding equal rights and an end to sexual harassment turned violent Tuesday when crowds of men heckled and shoved the demonstrators, telling them to go home where they belong.

The women — some in headscarves and flowing robes, others in jeans — had marched to Cairo's central Tahrir Square to celebrate International Women's Day. But crowds of men soon outnumbered them and chased them out.

"They said that our role was to stay home and raise presidents, not to run for president," said Farida Helmy, a 24-year old journalist.

Sexual harassment remains widespread in Egypt, where women often are afraid to report sexual assault or harassment for fear they and their families will be stigmatized. A 2008 survey by the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights found that 83 percent of Egyptian women and 98 percent of foreign women in Cairo said they had been harassed — while 62 percent of men admitted to harassing.

Groping may be a front-runner for a national pastime.

Tahrir Square was the epicenter of the protests that toppled President Hosni Mubarak last month after nearly 30 years in power. Women in Egypt had reported that Tahrir had been free of the groping and leering endemic in the country, but on Feb. 11, CBS correspondent Lara Logan was sexually assaulted and beaten on the final night of the 18-day revolt. The Associated Press does not name victims of sexual assault unless they agree to be identified.

At Tuesday's march, men scolded protesters and said their concerns were not urgent in the aftermath of the uprising. When the women argued back, some were verbally abused or groped. Others were beaten and had to be ripped away from the groups of men.

Mostafa Hussein, 30, said many protesters had to flee the area and hide in a park nearby.

"They were running for their lives and the army had to fire a shot in the air to break up the mob chasing them," Hussein said.

Passant Rabie, 23, said she was surprised that the women were abused after the role they played in the uprising. Women were central to the protests, leading chants, spending cold nights in the square and even fighting during the battle of Black Wednesday, when pro-government henchmen attacked the protesters.

"I thought we were going to be celebrated as women of the revolution because we were present during the days of Tahrir," Rabie said. "Unless women are included now, we are going to be oppressed."

For many of your former co-revolutionaries, that's the idea. Only, they will call it "liberating," "elevating," and "respecting" women by affording them their proper place according to Islamic law.

On the occasion of the International Women's Day, U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, said on Tuesday that the transitions from autocracy in Egypt and Tunisia would be incomplete as long as half of society remained blocked from participating in governance.

"The United States will stand firmly for the proposition that women must be included in whatever process goes forward," she said.

Posted by Marisol on March 8, 2011 3:10 PM | Published online at Jihad Watch

Will They Or Won't They?

It cannot always be up to the United States to talk tough and act tougher. Other countries must, on occasion, take the responsibility. Particularly when the U.S. is already embroiled in action in Iraq and Afghanistan that it finds itself unable to extract completely from. Involving massive treasury outlays and troop, munitions, strategic technological strikes and diplomatic investments.

Along with the simmering resentment and targeting that emanates from such mired-in situations. It has become famously unpopular in the Arab street.

Since Italy, France, Germany and Spain are the economic beneficiaries through importation of 90% of Libya's oil exports, and Britain enjoys a well-entrenched trade relationship with the country, it should logically be they who are front and centre of the situation to seize the moment and create a protective protocol in aid of the country's insurgents against their bloody dictator.

And, in point of fact, it appears that England and France are spear-heading just such a military protocol. Putting it together theoretically, mapping it out on paper. Just in case, the situation continues to escalate into something far more sinister and far-reaching than appears at the present time. Of course, formulating a plan to enact a no-fly zone is one thing, executing it is another, since neither of those two countries is prepared to act unless UN Security Council approval results.

Russia and China have already indicated they feel intervention is inappropriate. The Arab League has issued a warning not to intervene. And they most certainly have no interest in doing so themselves, since many of those same countries are facing their own inconvenient and vexing anti-regime protests. The Gulf States have indicated they would welcome the imposition of a no-fly zone in protection of Libya's civilian population. Turkey would not.

"There should be a demonstrable need that the whole world can see, there must be a clear legal basis for such a no-fly zone and there must be clear support from the region, from the Middle East region, from the North African region as well as from the people of Libya themselves." British Foreign Secretary William Hague

NATO might conceivably be persuaded to step in to promote what the UN Security Council has not. It is conducting air surveillance to determine the extent of Libya's air flights and their targets. The "gross and systematic" violations of human rights, the bombing of civilians, the employment of foreign mercenaries all present as more than adequate reason to invoke the UN's "responsibility to protect" intervention.

The Libyan rebel fighters have no wish for any foreign ground forces to come to their rescue and in the process take their thunder. They shudder at the very prospect of a foreign invasion of their country, viewing the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan with great revulsion. They would appreciate, and have invited, a no-fly zone. Commitment to which would require foreign warplanes to target Libya's arsenal of warplanes and helicopters as well as air strips to neutralize their ability to bomb rebel-held towns.

And meanwhile, even while they are not committing themselves to any action, let alone support of the initiatives already taken by members of the European Union countries, the Obama administration, after its initial stern pronouncements of its expectations, have become suddenly mute and seemingly disinterested. They may become yet, however, involved in a more distant manner; jamming radio signals, airdropping supplies and weapons to the rebels.

NATO's future plans, meanwhile may also yet include "potential military options".

Women, You Say?

They talk about a woman's sphere,
As though it had a limit.
There's not a place in earth or heaven,
There's not a task to mankind given ...
Without a woman in it. Kate Field

In Democratic Republic of Congo, in Sudan and Somalia women and girls are gang-raped as an act of war.

Women wish to be loved without a why or a wherefore; not because they are pretty, or good, or well-bred, or graceful,or intelligent but because they are themselves. Amiel

The Islamic Republic of Iran has been named to the UN Commission on the Status of women.

A compliment for a woman in love is like a sudden warmth falling around her - it is intoxication - it is like strong wine, one grows drunk with it. Henry Bernstein

In Iran women can be charged with threatening "national security", "propaganda against the state", and "membership" in human rights organizations and that is a seriously punishable offence. Those women can be incarcerated for a very long time. In prison they can be tortured and raped. They will be denied access to a lawyer. They will be unable to talk with family members even on a telephone. Their voices will be silenced.

Never will you find a woman who spares the man who loves her; for though she be herself aflame, she delights to torment him. Juvenal

In Iran women can be beaten for not wearing a hijab.

Women hate revolutions and revolutionists. They like men who are docile, and well-regarded at the bank, and never late at meals. H.L. Mencken

Iranian women like Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani are sentenced to death by stoning for allegedly committing adultery.

Whether they give or refuse, it delights women to have been asked. Ovid

A Dutch-Iranian woman, Zahra Bahrami, was arrested for taking part in post-election demonstrations in 2009. Authorities hanged Zahra without warning, despite appeals from Dutch authorities and the European Union.

Think you a little din can daunt mine ears?
Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard the sun puff'd up with winds
Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in a pitched battle heard
Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets' clang?
And do you tell me of a woman's tongue,
That gives not half so great a blow to hear
As will a chestnut in a farmer's fire? William Shakespeare

Women now outnumber men on university campuses, they have lower high-school dropout rates. Last year women with similar degrees were earning 68.3% of what their male counterparts earned: Statistics Canada.

When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy?
What art can wash her guilt away?
The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her love,
And wring his bosom, is - to die. Goldsmith

In China, with its one-child policy, and in India, with its traditional customary dowry system, girls babies are not as highly regarded as boy babies. Abortion and infanticide are commonly used to balance the equation in favour of boys.

The history of women is the history of the worst form of tyranny the world has ever known. The tyranny of the weak over the strong. It is the only tyranny that lasts. Oscar Wilde

In many Islamic societies women and girls are murdered in family "honour killing" if they are suspected of having brought shame to the family or the clan or the tribe by consorting with an unrelated male in public, or become the victim of a rape.

I hate a woman who is forever poring over the Grammar of Palaemon, who observes all the rules and laws of language, who quotes from ancient poets that I never heard of, and corrects her unlettered friends for slips of speech that no man need trouble about: let husbands at least be permitted to make slips in grammar! Juvenal

If a Muslim girl or woman is raped she must find male witnesses to the event, to testify on her behalf, otherwise she is considered to have been at fault in tempting the man beyond his capacity to resist.

For a woman glory can only be a splendid mourning for lost happiness. Madame de Stael

Today, in 67 of 120 nations around the world, women earn more degrees than men. Women still earn less money than men; unmarried women without children out-earn their male counterparts in 147 of the largest 150 American cities.

Love and grief and motherhood,
Fame and mirth and scorn -
These are all shall befall
Any woman born. Margaret Widdemer

Women in Western societies who work outside the home still perform far more hours of unpaid domestic work than do their husbands and partners.

I was, being human, born alone;
I am, being woman, hard beset;
I live by squeezing from a stone
The only nourishment I get. Elinor Wylie

In a recent rape case in Canada the presiding judge claimed that "sex was in the air", because the woman who was raped was wearing brief and revealing clothing, thus inviting her own rape.

In the beginning, said a Persian poet - Allah took a rose, a lily, a dove, a serpent, a little honey, a Dead Sea apple, and a handful of clay. When he looked at the amalgam - it was a woman. William Sharp

In most societies a large segment of the poor are comprised of single mothers and their children.

The life of woman is full of woe,
Toiling on and on and on,
With breaking heart, and tearful eyes,
And silent lips, and in the soul
The secret longings that arise,
Which this world never satisfies!
Some more, some less, but of the whole
Not one quite happy, no, not one! Longfellow

Young women on college and university campuses report inappropriate touching, suggestion, physical violence and rape at an alarming rate.

In every marriage two things are allowed,
A wife in wedding-sheets and in a shroud;
How can a marriage state then be accurst,
Since the last day's as happy as the first? Unknown

In North-East Africa, the Near East and Southeast Asia girls are routinely subjected to female genital mutilation (female circumcision; female genital mutilation; clitoridectomy, labiaplasty, vaginoplasty).

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful - a faery child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild...
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept, and sigh'd full sore,
And there I shut her wild, wild eyes
With kisses four ....
I saw pale kings, and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all:
They cried - "La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!" Keats

The glass ceiling has long been shattered; women are now represented as CEOs, as heads of state, an active and valuable part of many countries' legislative bodies.

The sweetest woman ever Fate
Perverse denied a household mate,
Who, lonely, homeless, not the less
Found peace in love's unselfishness...
Through years of toil and soil and care,
From glossy tress to thin gray hair,
All unprofaned she held apart
The virgin fancies of the heart. Whittier

Women physicians and surgeons are now increasingly offering their professional services, and do so charging less on average than their male counterparts.

Women may be whole oceans deeper than we are, but they are also a whole paradise better.
She may have got us out of Eden, but as a compensation she makes the earth very pleasant. John Oliver Hobbes

If it was woman who put man out of Paradise, it is still woman, and woman only, who can lead him back. Elbert Hubbard

Asylum of Lunatic Dictators

The United Nations seems well on its way to becoming a truly perversely evil institution. One that began life with such promise as the League of Nations, determined to lead the world away from institutionalized and systemic racism, tribalism, tyrannies and global poverty, has allowed itself to become infected with the bacterium that gives rise to all those failures of humanity's propensity to social decay.

It is now, unquestionably, the greater preponderance of world leaders and governments that are classified by civil society as representative of traditional monarchies, theocracies, tyrannies, autocracies, dictatorships and their totalitarian fascist ideologies that deny their citizens human rights opportunities, freedoms and justice that are in the ascendancy of power in the UN.

It is they, the vast bloc of like-minded nations and governments who hold sway, who order the agendas, who inhabit the seats of authority in UN-sponsored and -linked councils and groups like the Human Rights Council and others of its ilk. Invariably, those most ill-suited by their established record and reputation who invest themselves with authority, backed by their like-minded cliques.

China, Cuba, Iran, Libya, Russia, are enabled to pronounce judgement, or withhold it, as the case may be, on matters relating to human rights and entitlements, justice and peace-keeping even while they present as some of the worst offenders whose activities imperil those very attributes of good governance in their own countries. They can persecute their own people relentlessly, but pass judgement on the governance of countries dedicated to human rights.

So Libya, which is busily exterminating opposition to its dictator Moammar Gadhafi, is removed from membership of the UN's human rights body, but it may continue to serve on the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice as well as the UN Committee on Information and the executive board of UN Women. Libya under Col. Gadhafi, the King of Kings, is right now exercising its mandate to prevent the crime of overthrowing its tyranny and meting out justice to the criminals who are protesting.

And Iran, which mocks all UN and IAEA efforts to bring its nuclear program into line with international standards, intent on its state program led by the Ayatollahs and the Republican Guard to achieve nuclear advantage in atomic weaponry, remains a respected member of the world body. In a world body whose purpose is dedicated to harmony and respect among nations, Iran remains an influential member, while threatening to exterminate a fellow member nation.

In a perversion of absolute verities of good and evil, evil appears to be triumphing, calling itself good, while good is gradually becoming submerged by evil. In a grand celebration of totalitarian rule of the United Nations, the aggressor nations, the human-rights defilers, the existential national threats to their own people, are in the ascendancy.

In a country like Iran where women are oppressed and their rights repressed, where prison rapes prior to executions take place routinely to ensure that upon death the women are not given the status of virgins and taken up into heaven, the UN has welcomed the country into the Commission on the Status of Women.

Women accused of adultery are stoned to death under a fundamentalist interpretation of Sharia law in Iran. Morality police are sent out into the streets to harass, intimidate and sometimes arrest and beat women whose mode of dress does not reflect sufficient Islamist modesty. Iran is being welcomed - named by acclamation to serve for four years on the UN's Commission on the Status of Women body.

Franz Kafka would have appreciated this hugely, he would have been inspired to write a tome on the insanity of a lunatic bureaucracy invented out of some inscrutably menacing brain gone berserk.