no more shame and injustice

Online social networking sites, like Facebook, and online video sites, like Youtube, have changed the way we interact. You are no longer confined to your immediate circle of peers at work, school, or in your community, but now you can connect to the entire world. This has had an interesting impact on how we relate to each other on a variety of levels.

Recently, I read an article about rape survivors going online to tell their stories. This isn’t exactly new - when blogging first took off, a number of people used their blogs as online journals. However, one thing is new - in blogdom, you can be relatively anonymous. On Facebook and Youtube, you put details of yourself out there for the whole world to see.

Rape is a horrible experience that many victims bear by themselves and in silence. Prosecutions for rape, particularly by someone familiar to the victim, are notoriously low. Most rape survivors are forced to continue interacting with their perpetrators. This is akin to forcing a POW to work alongside his captor.

But maybe the new generations who have embraced the internet community no longer want to be alone and silent. I optimistically think that young women these days refuse to allow shame and injustice to muzzle them. Sexual assault is no longer a hidden epidemic, it is something we can shed light on and root out.

I am not sure what changed. Maybe it was the shift in paradigm that Facebook and Youtube wrought. Maybe it was our revulsion to the recent use of rape as a tool of genocide. Maybe we are finally tired of the failure of our justice system.

I do not necessarily advocate going online and telling all. There is some danger in this, but at the same time, I think I can understand the need for rape survivors to do so. I hope, also, that these young women seek professional help, either through a counselor or a rape crisis center. And I also hope that the rest of us who are lucky to never experience this horror can offer our support and assistance.

never again

I was searching through old emails when I came across this plea I sent to my address book. I wrote this in November of 2006. At the time, I was convinced that we would resolve the issue in Darfur imminently. More than a year later, it boggles the mind that the issues raised in this email are still of major humanitarian concern today.

Dear Friends,

As we head into the holiday season, we take this time to look back at the past year, or the past several years, to count our blessings and be thankful for all that we have. This year, I hope that we can extend that reflection beyond our immediate lives, and think also of our brothers and sisters around the world who aren’t quite so lucky as we are.

As you know, there is a crisis currently engulfing the African continent, in the western region of Darfur, Sudan. Unfortunately, as is often the case, the victims of crisis tend to be innocent civilians - mothers, wives, children, grandparents. In Darfur, mortality rates are estimated at 5 times above the emergency benchmark, the majority of which are directly related to the fighting.
Even more alarming, surviving victims have been forced to uproot their lives and flee, resulting in massive amounts of displacement. It is estimated that approximately 3 million people have been forced to migrate since the start of hostilities in 2003. Some of these people have managed to find their way to neighboring Chad, where they currently live in refugee camps which offer some measure of protection. But many are still in Sudan as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and are still vulnerable to attack. And now the violence has begun to spill into the rest of the Sahel, threatening to destabilize the region.

While not an official declaration, the Government of Sudan’s focus on the non-Arab African population of Darfur has elements of genocide. There is a pattern of attacks on this specific population; men are disproportionately targeted for murder, and women and girls are systematically targeted for massive, widespread rape. In 1948, the world promised that never again would we allow genocide; we have failed in that promise twice (in Bosnia and Rwanda) since then, and we are failing again now.

The African Union has deployed a woefully inadequate peace-keeping force with limited powers. More than that needs to be done. The UN Security Council has declared that a scaled-up UN Peacekeeping Force is necessary, but they have been slow to act due to threats from the President of Sudan to meet these troops in force.
And here is where we can help. I have attached a letter (based on one created by Physicians for Human Rights) that you can send to President Bush requesting that we act now to save the lives of those at risk in this conflict.

There are 4 ways to send this letter:
by email: comments@whitehouse.gov
by fax: 202-456-2461
by phone: 202-456-1111
by snail mail: address is on the letter
The last is by far the most effective, but any one will do. In addition, if you could forward this email to others you know, that would be helpful as well.

To paraphrase one of the most-respected voices in humans rights, we are all we have. If we don’t act as a global community to ensure the safety, security, freedom and livelihood of all people, no one else will. The responsibility is ours alone.

Thank you for your help.

All the best,
Deepali

For more information, please visit: http://www.phrusa.org/research/sudan/ . I strongly recommend watching the brief video entitled “Darfur: Lives Destroyed.”

democracy took a blow today

Ironic that yesterday I talked about why I watch the news and specifically mentioned rioting in Pakistan (which was sparked by the mention in the post that I linked). With the assassination of Benazir Bhutto this morning, world news has once again hit the front page and breaking news sections of our news outlets.

For all her faults (specifically, corruption), Bhutto was Pakistan’s best hope for a stable democracy. And more importantly for those of us on the other side of the world, Bhutto would have been a key ally in our war on terror. It’s not a secret that the mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is a paradise for terrorism training. And while Musharraf paid lip service to rooting out these training groups, he did little (other than killing innocent civilians) to do so.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that Bhutto would have been better (her first stint at PM didn’t do much to improve the situation of women). But she would have had the spotlight, and intense pressure to do something to address the situation. Her promises to alleviate poverty in the rural parts of Pakistan would have gone a long way to address the fundamental causes of terrorism.

More importantly, a woman in power in Pakistan now would have been an amazing opportunity to create wide-spread reforms. She’s served as PM before, but cold war ideology was never as misogynist as fundamental Islam. For her to have been able to do so this time around would have struck a blow to fundamentalism.

And finally, Bhutto was the only viable candidate in the upcoming elections. Musharraf will declare emergency again, and the elections will likely be canceled. And that bodes ill for us.

can’t buy me love

So we already know you only need 40k to be happy. We also know that monogamy is another big factor in happiness. But how do you get from 40K to monogamy? Most men I know have to spend a bit upfront in order to see some longer-term investment. And while you can get by on $50 into your savings account a month, you can’t necessarily get by on $50 to take a girl out to dinner once a month.

Of course, you can find someone who doesn’t need pricey (or even mid-priced, these days) dinners, but let’s be honest - the initial period of a relationship requires a little extravagant spending. Women like to be taken care of, even if it’s just for a little while. Courtship is really important. And I’m not talking about golddiggers. I’m talking about normal women who can (generally) take care of themselves but like to know that a man can occasionally step up to the plate too. She will reciprocate down the line, hopefully, but until you settle into some sort of a rhythm, men are at a disadvantage financially when it comes to love. So, what do you do?

all things truly wicked start from an innocence

If only I weren’t broke:

 (a closer look at that embroidery)

a glitch in the system

Are you a woman experiencing a decrease in sexual desire? Did you know that hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) is the most common form of female sexual dysfunction?  Do they really expect me to believe this crap? And what glitch in the system is sending this to me?

Look, you can fool men with that viagra/ED business, but I’m not an idiot.  If a woman’s got “HSDD”, she doesn’t need a pill to fix it.  She needs to stop dating pansy boys who aren’t giving her what she needs.  In short, she needs a real man…. wait, she may have better luck with that pill.

Anyway, I gave the questionnaire a shot to see if I might qualify.  I had to stop at the question asking if I’d be willing to engage in sexual activity at least once a month.  This study is definitely not for me.